What Happened to Hannah (35 page)

“What?”

“She needs to be kissed. I hope Cal kisses Anna. It’s important to girls their age to be kissed by someone special.”

“You’re speaking from experience?”

Her smile was small and reminiscent as she nodded. “You know I am.”

“But wasn’t that what got you into trouble that night? Kissing me? Spending time with me? Seeing me behind his back?”

“God, no. Well, yes, technically. But you were just the match that lit that particular fuse. I hope you haven’t been feeling guilty all these years because kissing me . . . loving me back then . . . you saved my life. You
gave
me life.” She started to speak, closed her mouth, and then started over. “Growing up in a house like that you think, at first, that everyone lives like you and that the fear and the pain are normal so you try to accept it; you push it to the back of your mind and try to ignore it. But then you go to school or to church and you quickly see that you’re very different from everyone else. You see in their eyes that they haven’t been to the places you have. The other kids don’t respond to subtle changes in the teacher’s voice or automatically flinch when someone nearby swings their arms in the air. They speak with loud voices, talk back, and scrape their chairs across the floor. They laugh . . . with their mouths open. You wait for someone to twist their arm or pull their hair or lock them in a closet, but no one ever does.

“So then you realize you’ve been living in hell, that it’s not normal, it’s not the way all the other kids live, and then you begin to wonder, well, why me? And you begin to hope that maybe if someone knew they’d change things at your house. So you let the teacher see your bruises and she’s shocked and sends you to the nurse, who is also appalled and calls your parents—who tell the nurse you fell off the bike you don’t own or down the cellar steps or out of a tree and you’re sent back to class. And guess what happens when you get home? Your daddy twists your arm so hard it breaks and they take you to the emergency room, and two days later when you still can’t hold a pencil because your arm is so swollen, and you think, you hope, the doctor will scold them and tell them not to hurt you anymore, but the doctor gets a different lie and . . .”

She sighed. “Eventually, you learn to accept that your life is the way it is. You don’t understand why or what you’ve done to deserve it but you can’t change it because the harder you try the worse it gets. You begin to think that you are as stupid as he says you are because you just can’t figure out why the women in your family are so unlovable. Sure we were ugly and worthless but . . . But don’t you see that you changed all that for me?”

He shook his head. “I was so self-absorbed. All I thought about was how you made me feel, how I loved being around you, how amazing you were and I was the only one who knew, the only one you
let
know
. I
was the special one. I look back now and see it all so clearly. I hear the things people used to whisper, the things I ignored because I thought they were just gossiping and being mean—things I didn’t want to know, I think, because of how it would have changed things between us. I knew you were afraid of him. I knew he was strict. I thought the worst of it would be him grounding you and maybe he’d call and yell at my parents or something. I never would have put you in that kind of danger if I’d taken the time to see the truth.”

“I know.” She pulled the shawl tight, a defensive maneuver because what she had to say next crossed some mine-infested terrain. “I thought you were another mean trick at first—someone like you wanting to spend time with someone like me. But you were so persistent and gentle and patient . . . I fell in love with you like that.” She snapped her fingers.

“Like that?” He snapped his fingers, too. “I seem to recall it taking months and months.”

She grinned. “It took that long to learn to let myself trust you; to decide that maybe I
was
someone you could love; that I was someone worth loving.” She bowed her head. “And that’s what he tried to beat back out of me that night. He could see I was different, that you’d changed me. Every time I picked myself up off the floor, he’d look into my eyes and knock me down again. He saw it and I did nothing to hide it.”

“What happened that night, Hannah? Tell me all of it.” His voice came from a distance. She scrambled to bring her mind back to the present.

She shook her head. She wasn’t going to discuss those details again. “The point I’m trying to make is that if you hadn’t made me believe I was someone . . . well,
someone,
I never would have run away that night, or any other night for that matter. Mama, Ruth, and I would have stayed in that house with him for as long as we lived.”
Careful! Careful!
“I mean, who knows how much more Mama would have taken? So, um . . . what was my point? Oh. Right. So you see how important kisses can be?” His fingers grazed the back of her neck. “For young people.”

“For all people,” he murmured, his hand coming to rest on her nape. “Hannah—”

“Grady.” It didn’t sound like don’t-touch-me. “Grady, please. We’re different people now. We’ve changed.”

He didn’t speak at first but she could feel him studying her face by the light of the James’s TV. He swallowed and caressed the side of her neck with his thumb; slid his hand below her ear and did the same to her cheek . . . and then her lower lip. “I admit we’ve changed. People do. And I like, very much, all the changes you’ve made.” He leaned forward and gave her a brief, soft kiss. “But, you’re wrong about one thing. We’re not so very different than we were before.” He released a sad sigh. His voice was weary. “You’re still full of secrets and I’m still waiting for you to trust me.”

His disappointment in her was like a piece of wicker furniture she could pick up and drag around the porch—were she so inclined. Instead, she left it sitting, prominent and out of place, as she watched him walk away, blinking back tears and trying to ignore the tight, painful, twisting sensation in her chest and abdomen.

Chapter Nineteen

T
he frequent April showers brought the May flowers the old adage promised. Clearfield rotated into its green season. Daffodils and tulips gave way to lilacs, dogwoods, and bleeding hearts—and then evening primrose, iris, and poppies. Time, like a giant steamroller, was unstoppable. Days disappeared, week after week, until the end of Anna’s school year was only days away.

Grady was either busy or avoiding her; she hadn’t seen him since the night of the prom.

Hannah continued to straddle the line between the life she was building for Anna and herself in Baltimore and the life she was trying to bury, finally and forever, in Clearfield.

She hired an excavation crew to dig out and fill in the hole left by the fire and to tumble down two of the three outbuildings. She’d planned to send the barn the same way, but let the realtor talk her out of it—he thought it picturesque.

When back in Baltimore, she’d spend as much time as she could at the office. Going home meant standing in the doorway of the room newly decorated for Anna and wondering if the girl would ever see it. Too much time to think and worry.

She read—
Moby-Dick,
and a mind-blistering book on U.S. government and economics, hoping she wouldn’t appear too stupid next year when she and Anna talked about school. Grady would give in and she wanted to be prepared.

He
would
give in.

She never missed a track meet on Thursdays, but Fridays—when Anna ran for practice and her own enjoyment—were more fun. She’d gotten proficient at hearing the tiny little noises she made early in the morning before her weekend runs—the faint beep of her alarm, the light brush of wood on wood as she opened and closed her drawers, barefooted tiptoeing outside her room, and a few minutes later the front door closing softly as she left. More than a few times Hannah would leap from bed to watch her warm up and stretch her muscles in the front yard, always dazzled by her innate elegance . . . amazed by the way she looked so relaxed and comfortable in her skin.

Anna did well at the regional track meet. She came in second in both the 1600- and 3200-meter events, but broke her personal best, in both, by several seconds once again. She was delighted.

And still, with all Hannah had done, all she was doing and all she had yet to do, Grady’s ultimatum loomed about her like a tight-fitting coffin—confining her, suffocating her . . . terrifying her. Because no matter how often she told herself that he was bluffing, that it was too unlike him to be so callous, that he would never keep her and Anna apart—there was always the chance that he might. Add to that a distant, niggling hint of a notion that perhaps he should, that she’d never deserved to be so happy in the first place, and the coffin grew tighter.

The Bensons were invited to sit with the Steadmans to watch Cal and Biscuit graduate the last Saturday before school let out for the summer. Hannah and Grady maintained a strained, casual air that didn’t dampen the festivities. Likely, it would have taken a great deal more than his feelings for her to subdue his happiness. He appeared so proud of Cal that the only change in his expression throughout was the size of his smile—big and bigger. And after the ceremony while the graduates milled among the spectators, Hannah watched with envy as father and son hugged without hesitation.

Glancing around, she saw that most of the parents and grandparents hugged their children the same way—with abandon. No way could she picture Karl or Ellen hugging her with anything resembling affection but she recalled—vividly—not wanting either of them or anyone else to touch her at all . . .

“Aack!” Her short gasp for air echoed in the night beyond the gazebo. Her heart went wild. She struggled for her freedom.

“Shhhh.” She recognized the whispering voice against her neck. “Jeeze. You are the jumpiest girl I ever met.”

“Then don’t sneak up on me.”

“I like the way it makes your heart race.” Grady slid his hand the short distance from her upper arm to her breast above her heart. They were both comfortable with and excited by the move. “It’s the only way I can feel it since you won’t let me touch you under your clothes.”

“That’s not true. You said you could feel it when you kiss me.”

“Oh. Yeah.” She laughed. He was teasing her. He often teased her about having sex but he never pushed her.

They talked about it sometimes. He’d done it. And when she’d asked with whom, he wouldn’t say and, for some reason, that had pleased her. It had taken months of gentle patience before she stopped cringing every time he touched her, months almost forgotten now that she was so comfortable in his embrace. He said he loved kissing her. Kissing her made him feel invincible.
Invincible!
And sex would happen when they were both ready. No need to hurry, he said. Though . . . well, sometimes they got so worked up kissing that she wanted to climb all over him, consume him, bore into him like a giant Body Snatcher and even then she wasn’t sure it would be enough to satisfy the hunger in her. Her skin craved his touch. At times like that, with his arousal pressed hard and tight against her—the mystery of it something that she both feared and delighted in—she knew no greater sense of loss than when he pulled away from her and kept his distance.

Lost and yearning to be touched, by him alone . . .

“Will I see you later, then?”

“What?” Grady stood in front of her, knees bent to be eye-to-eye with her.

“Will I see you at the house later? I have to stop by the office for a few minutes, but I shouldn’t be long.”

“Yes. I’ll be there. Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, of course. I forgot my sunglasses. The light’s giving me a little headache.”

“Take something for it.” He turned to walk away.

“I will.” She watched him grab Biscuit by the back of the neck and shake him fondly; he also got a pleased clap on the upper arm as the Sheriff said something to the Walkers and all four of them laughed. She followed his wake through the crowd. By the time she made it to the young man’s side, though, Grady was long gone and the Walkers had been claimed by another set of parents.

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks. How lame was it?”

“Not at all. It was . . . way awesome.” She grinned at Biscuit.

“At least you didn’t say
bitchin
’.”

She scoffed. “I wouldn’t have said that when it
was
cool.”

He nodded and tipped his head to one side. “So, I see you and the sheriff are putting on a civil front.”

“A . . . why wouldn’t we?”

“Rumor has it that since the last day of school is Tuesday, that on Wednesday when you try to take Anna to Baltimore, the sheriff is going to put up roadblocks and arrest you for kidnapping.”

“Rumor or Lucy?”

Biscuit shrugged. “Same thing.”

“Roadblocks, huh?”

“Well, the other scenario is a high-speed chase halfway to Baltimore, but I don’t think you or the sheriff would put Anna through that.”

“Thank you for that.” She sighed. “I thought Lucy was starting to like me a little.”

“She does. You haven’t heard the rest of it.”

“Do I want to?”

“At the roadblock you break down and cry and tell the sheriff whatever it is he needs to hear; you guys make out; you get married and live happily ever after so she and Anna can be like real sisters then.”

“What. Here in Clearfield? Yeah, that’s going to happen. And you shouldn’t encourage her fantasies.” She bumped her shoulder to his upper arm. “They just make reality harder to live with.” His parents called to him. Hannah waved and smiled at them. “Will I see you before Wednesday?”

“Sure.” He started walking away and spoke over his shoulder. “If not, I’ll see you at the roadblock.”

“Very funny.”

The postgraduation get-together at the Steadmans’ was very nice, but she was indeed working on a headache. When the sheriff arrived and continued to treat her with polite indifference—with a sad, disenchanted expression in his eyes—it escalated to an all-out-throbber and she decided to excuse herself.