On Blue Falls Pond (13 page)

It had to be a manifestation of that old feeling of being brought to account for her behavior in front of Ovella. Glory really shouldn’t have let Ovella discover she was back in town like this. Actually, her mother-in-law had been surprisingly gracious about the whole thing.

As they walked out, Ovella was just finishing filling her car with gas. Glory and Eric climbed on the motorcycle and settled the bag of dog food securely between them. Eric waved to Ovella as he pulled away from the pump.

Glory saw the stunned expression on Ovella’s face and quickly looked away, feeling like she’d been caught cheating on her dead husband.

“Mother, is that you?” Walter called from upstairs as Ovella walked through the foyer. His words were followed by coughing.

“Yes, dear. I’ll bring the medicine right up. I’m getting you some orange juice.”

She took her time arranging the orange juice, the Sunday paper, a napkin, and the cold medicine on a tray. Should she tell Walter about seeing Glory? He’d been doing so well lately. Ovella didn’t want him to be upset on top of his cold. He should be retired now, sitting on a sunny beach or deep-sea fishing, not grinding away every day at the paper company. He’d earned his rest.

Luckily, she’d stayed home from church today because of Walter’s cold; she would have been mortified to learn through the grapevine that Glory was back. How would that look? That thought made up her mind; she couldn’t let Walter find out that way.

Once at the top of the stairs, she put a bright smile on her face and entered the bedroom. “Here we are. Just what the doctor ordered.”

“Honestly, Mother, you’re making too much fuss. It’s just a little summer cold.”

“At your age, you can’t be too careful.”

He sputtered. “You make it sound like I’ve got one foot in the grave! I’m only sixty-nine.”

She set down the tray and opened the cold medicine. “Plenty of sixty-nine-year-olds get pneumonia. If something happened to you . . .” Walter was the twine that held her together. Without him she’d be in a thousand fragmented pieces.

He pinched her on the butt. “Come over here and I’ll show you how healthy I am.”

She jumped and swatted his hand away. “Enough of that!”

He swallowed his pills with the orange juice, and she opened the paper for him. She took a deep breath and said, “Glory’s back in town.”

Walter lifted himself off his propping of pillows. “Our girl’s back! When? Where is she?”

Ovella eased him back onto his pillows. “Settle down. She’s staying out there . . . with her grandmother. I saw her at Tucker’s.” She wasn’t about to tell him that their daughter-in-law had been on the back of Eric Wilson’s motorcycle.

“Well, get her on the phone and get her over here!”

“You’re sick. She said she’d call.”

“She should be staying here, with us.”

Ovella couldn’t think of a worse idea. It was difficult enough seeing her today. To have her underfoot day in and day out, a constant reminder . . . “Her grandmother is having some health problems. She needs Glory with her.”

Walter sighed in concession. “Well, she needs to come see us soon.”

“I’m sure she will. Now you lie back and let that cold medicine do its work. You have meetings in New York next week.”

Thank God Walter didn’t know what poor Andrew had confided to her. That ugliness had died with her son and would never touch her husband.

As she closed the door to the bedroom, she almost resented the happiness on her husband’s face as he closed his eyes.

As Glory lay in bed that night, thinking of puppies and Eric, her mind shifted to the question he’d asked her beside the pond:
Didn’t Andrew want to have a baby?

Her answer had been quick, a knee-jerk reaction. But it had sparked an odd feeling inside her.

Just as she was slipping into sleep, a scene played in her mind, not quite dream, but not quite memory.

Andrew had turned his back on her. He was upset. But she couldn’t grasp what had upset him. She moved to him and put her hand on his back. He jerked away as if she’d delivered an electric shock with her touch.

Then he spun around and faced her, his face red with tightly reined fury. He bit out angry words, “How did this happen?”

Glory stumbled backward, coming awake before she hit the floor in her dream.

She sat straight up in bed, gasping. For a moment she was disoriented. As the room came into focus, she swallowed hard and put a hand over her hammering heart.

She remembered. They’d argued over her pregnancy.

She closed her eyes and tried to let the full memory come. It had been raining all day, she recalled. She’d made a nice dinner, laid a fire in the fireplace. She had been so certain that Andrew’s reservations about parenthood would disappear once he knew there was a baby on the way.

She’d broken the news with dessert, anticipating surprise, but tenderness.

Andrew had exploded. His words rang loudly in her memory:

“I asked you how this happened. You’re on the pill. It’s worked for six years. You expect me to believe it just stopped working?” He was shaking with anger.

“The doctor said it was probably because of the antibiotic I was taking,” Glory said, waiting for the shock to subside and Andrew to realize how wonderful this news really was. The decision had been taken out of their hands. They were having a baby.

Andrew looked sharply at her. “We’ll sue. He should have told you this could happen.”

Glory tried to reach out to him, but he stepped away. She stood quietly for a few seconds while Andrew paced.

“I told you I didn’t want kids. We agreed.”

When she found her voice, it was small and trembling. “I guess we’re going to have to adapt.” She didn’t argue the details; he had said it, of that there was no denying. But she’d never agreed. Time and again, she’d backed off, but she’d never agreed. And when the doctor had written the prescription and told her that on rare occasion there were problems with oral contraceptives, she’d ignored it. Rare. He’d said it was rare.

She’d rolled the dice, letting fate take its course.

“Andrew,” she’d said quietly, “let’s give this a while to sink in before we discuss it. This happens to couples all the time and turns out to be the best thing in their lives.”

He looked at her and seemed to be calming down. He touched her face. “I love you, Glory. You can tell me, did you know? Did you know this could happen?”

“No.”

Tears ran down her face as she sat in the dark in Granny’s lavender floral bedroom. She had deceived her husband. How could she not have remembered that?

Chapter Eleven

I
F GLORY LOOKED
herself right square in the eye, she’d have to admit her sense of guilt had a big role in her avoiding Eric over the next two weeks. She wasn’t sure if that guilt had been spurred by the look on Ovella’s face in the parking lot of Tucker’s—the one that made her feel she was cheating on Andrew. Or if it was Eric’s keen insight, insight that had made him ask his question at Blue Falls Pond—the question that sliced through her blocked memory to the truth she’d been hiding from herself for eighteen months. What else might he see inside her, what other things might his questions shake loose?

She was a coward. Now that she’d had a glimpse of the past, she had to face the fact that there were things she
liked
about not remembering everything that happened prior to and during the fire. Coming home was painful enough without discovering unpleasant things about her own behavior.

And there were other things bothering her that made her stay away from Eric, things that had to do with Scott. She’d caught herself watching him from as much distance as she could manage without Granny coming right out and asking her what in the heck was wrong with her. In odd moments she tried to decipher two things: what exactly set Scott apart and made her agree with Eric that something was wrong with him, and why she felt so resistant to an innocent child.

She’d started making a mental list of things that were strange about Scott, tiny things that just didn’t seem right, when taken as a whole signaled trouble. As for deciphering her own “strangeness,” she hadn’t made much headway.

So, on Thursday mornings and Friday afternoons she hid—there were a thousand ways she could phrase it in her mind that sounded less cowardly, but that was the bald truth. She was hiding. This was the second Thursday she’d stayed in her bedroom waiting for Eric to drop Scott off before she went downstairs.

At the usual time, she heard Eric’s car pull up to the house. She stood back from the window so she wouldn’t be easily seen from outside and watched him take Scott out of his car seat. An ache settled in the center of her chest; Eric deserved better than an unfaithful wife and a child with developmental problems. But he accepted both in his own quiet and pragmatic way. When he’d spoken of Jill, it was with none of the bitterness that most men felt toward cheating ex-wives. Briefly, Glory wondered if perhaps he still had feelings for her. But she quickly dismissed the thought, mostly because she didn’t want to think it might be true.

After Eric entered the kitchen below her bedroom, she strained like the eavesdropper she’d recently become to hear what he said.

“’Morning, Tula.” As always, his deep voice carried through the heating duct. Glory leaned against the window frame and let the inner warmth that his voice stirred engulf her.

Granny’s response to his greeting wasn’t as clear and came through only as a pleasant vibration. For one moment, the sound reminded Glory of Charlie Brown cartoons where all of the adult voices were nothing more than muted trumpets that mimicked the cadence of conversation.

“How’s Glory?” This was the same question she’d heard him ask every morning. And each time, it made her heart beat just a bit faster. She realized she was in danger of falling for her rescuer. And that was a psychological cliché if she’d ever heard one. He was in the business of rescuing. It was in his nature to ask such questions.

But he came to the hospital . . . he held my hand.

God, she sounded like a teenager. He’d held her hand because he sensed she needed emotional support, no need to read more into it than that.

Granny responded to Eric’s query. It was a short answer—Granny was becoming increasingly short with what she called Glory’s “contrary” behavior, which included her refusal to go to church, her increasing avoidance of everyone except Granny, and her refusal to try to find a course for her own life.

“I thought maybe she’d want me to take her back into town and pick up her car. I ran into Mr. Franklin yesterday, and he said the parts finally came in from Volvo and it was ready.”

Glory tensed. She’d been avoiding two-minute conversations with Eric; the last thing she wanted was a twenty-minute drive alone with him. She quickly slipped back into bed, even though she was fully dressed, turned on her side away from the door, and drew the sheet up over her shoulder. As she expected, Granny was soon knocking at her door.

Coward, coward, coward.

Granny stuck her head in when Glory didn’t respond. “Glory?”

Glory rolled over, trying to appear sleepy.

“Eric wants to know if you want a ride back into town to pick up your car. It’s ready.”

“Oh.” She yawned—which was probably overkill that Granny would see right through, she thought belatedly. “I overslept. I don’t want to hold him up. I’ll figure something out later. We don’t really need the car right away, anyhow.”

“He won’t mind waiting while you throw on some clothes.”

“I’ll get it later.” Glory’s voice was more biting than she’d intended.

Granny looked at her with tight lips. “All right.”

As Granny was closing the door, Glory called, “Tell him I said thanks for the offer.”

She heard Granny mumble, “Oughta tell him y’rself. ’Bout time you started talking to someone other’n me.”

Glory lay still and heard Granny’s muffled voice in the kitchen again. Then there was a long pause. Then she heard Eric say hello to Lady—whom Granny had named and had moved, along with all six puppies, into the house. No one had come forward to claim her, even after they’d posted lost-dog posters everywhere.

“How are those pups of yours?” Eric asked. Glory could picture him, bending over, scratching Lady behind the ears. Just one more female he’d had a hand in rescuing.

Granny chuckled and said something.

Eric said, “Better go.” The kitchen door opened and closed.

His car door slammed, and the engine started.

Glory didn’t move until several minutes after she heard him pull away. Her own cowardice made her sick.

She forced herself to go downstairs and do at least one of the things she’d been avoiding, just to regain a bit of her self-worth. She still hadn’t spoken to her in-laws. Twice she’d left messages on their answering machine, saying she was going to be in and out and would call them back. It had been easy to let days slip by between attempted calls. She dreaded the first awkward silences and missteps as they all danced around the deaths of Andrew and the baby.

These issues should have been worked out months and months ago. She was angry with herself for letting things ride; her avoidance only made it more difficult. She’d justified to herself that they didn’t want to speak to her any more than she wanted to speak to them; what did they have to talk about but death and loss? Now she had to ask herself if her abandonment had hurt them. Had she deserted them when they wanted her near so they could feel close to their son and grandchild?

As Glory entered the kitchen, Granny said a cool “Good morning.” Then she asked Glory to keep an eye on Scott, who was on his blanket in the corner of the kitchen, while she went out to get the newspaper from the box. As the lane to Granny’s house was quite long, this usually was at least a ten-minute task.

“Sure,” Glory said brightly. Her effort to lighten Granny’s mood failed. She could feel a “talk” coming.

Granny put on her sunglasses and went out the door, looking like she’d eaten a sour pickle.

Well, one unpleasant task at a time, Glory thought. Granny would have to wait her turn. And, when Granny began her “talk,” Glory would be able to tell her that she wasn’t avoiding
everyone
—she’d just spoken to her in-laws.

She could use the wall phone in the kitchen and still watch Scott.

She paused with her hand on the phone as Lady’s prancing entrance into the kitchen caught her eye. The dog’s name was fitting; she had a regal bearing, as if she held some smug secret. Granny said it came from motherhood.

Now Lady entered the kitchen as if she had something particular in mind, moving with focused purpose.

Scott had been turning his boat in the usual circles. When Lady walked in the kitchen however, he stopped. His gaze followed her as she walked to the stove and sniffed high in the air, as she moved on to the trash can and sniffed, then as she paused passing the kitchen table for one last sniff before she pranced back out of the kitchen, her mission apparently complete.

Once she was out of sight, Scott began turning the boat again, his focus concentrated as always.

For a moment, Glory almost doubted what she’d seen. Scott didn’t notice when people moved around him, even when they were attempting to get his attention. She decided to keep an eye out and see if this interest in Lady was an anomaly. Eric would need to know.

She picked up the phone and dialed her in-laws, secretly hoping she’d get the answering machine again.

“Hello, Harrison residence,” Ovella answered in her sophisticated Southern smoothness.

“Hi, Ovella, it’s Glory.” She realized her mouth was suddenly dry.

“Oh, hello, Glory,” Ovella said, with a hint of expectation in her voice. But then she let the line lie silent.

Glory waited a couple of heartbeats before she said, “Sorry I’ve missed you. I tried to call before.” It had been bad enough that her mother-in-law had discovered she was back home in the way she did. Glory didn’t want to heap on more negligence.

“I know.” There it was again, as if she was cautiously waiting for Glory to say something.

Racking her brain, Glory could not begin to know what Ovella could want from her, so she pressed on. “Well, how is Walt? Is his cold any better?”

“He’s fine.”

Glory wondered why the woman had extracted her promise to call if this was all the effort she was going to put into their exchange. But, she assured herself, although Ovella had made peace with the fact that Glory was in the family, she’d never made the road to conversation between them a particularly easy one.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Glory said. “May I speak to him?” She always said “may I” with Ovella; after years of raised eyebrows over “can I,” it had finally become habit.

Ovella sighed a ladylike sigh. “I’m sorry, he’s not here.” After a short pause she said, “He’s had to come out of retirement, you know—without Andrew there to run the paper company.” There seemed to be a hint of accusation in her tone, as if it were Glory’s fault Walt had gone back to work.

“Oh, I didn’t know.” The company had been started by Walt’s grandfather. Andrew had taken over the presidency three years ago. Ownership was to pass to him completely upon Walt’s death.

“Of course you didn’t, dear. How could you? You left so soon after Andrew’s funeral . . .”

Glory swallowed. “I guess that’s one of the things I need to talk to you two about, to explain why—”

“Really, Glory, there’s no need to upset Walter with that kind of conversation. He’s come to terms. It’s best we not dredge up old pain.”

“I didn’t want to upset him. I just thought I should explain—”

“I know you mean well, but trust me, nothing you can say will make it any easier on Walter. You know, with Andrew an only child, Walter had counted on him to take over the business. But he’s gotten past that now. We should just let things be.”

“I’d like to come and see him . . . both of you.” She did want to see Walt. Suddenly she needed to look into his kind brown eyes and feel the fatherly embrace of shared loss.

“He’s working long hours.”

“All right. Please tell him I called,” Glory said, the coolness in her voice matching Ovella degree for frosty degree.

Ovella gave another sigh. “I’m sorry, I’m being rude. Things have been so hectic. Of course Walter will want to see you. Can you come by Sunday afternoon, say, three o’clock?”

“I’d like that.”

As Glory hung up the phone, she glanced back at Scott. His blanket was empty except for the little plastic boat.

Panic shot through her chest.

Scott never left that blanket.

She dashed into the living room, calling his name. She glanced around and didn’t see him.

She checked the front door and found it still securely latched.

She hurried into the downstairs bathroom, even pulling back the shower curtain.

No Scott.

He couldn’t be far, she’d only looked away for a few seconds.

“Scott!”

She stopped in the hallway and listened for movement.

The puppies were yipping in their box in the room Granny used for a den. Glory looked toward that door and saw Scott toddle past, right behind Lady.

She sprinted into the room and, in her relief, scooped him up.

Immediately he began to scream. “Sorry. Sorry. I know you don’t like to be held.” She carefully set him back on his feet, but he continued to scream. “Sorry! But you scared the bejeezus out of me. Don’t cry.” She pointed. “Look at Lady. You don’t want to scare her puppies.”

Scott’s eyes were squeezed shut. He rocked from side to side.

Glory took his hand and set it on Lady’s back. “There’s Lady. Sssshhhh. There’s Lady.”

His screams reduced to a thin whine, and he stopped rocking.

She whispered. “That’s it. Just pet Lady. You’re all right.” She waited while he calmed. Lady stood patiently, as if she understood what was needed of her.

To get him back into the kitchen, Glory lured Lady with a dog treat. Scott followed right along behind. There was another oddity to put in Scott’s behavior basket. Most children would be fixated on the puppies, not the quiet mother dog.

Granny came back in with the newspaper, and asked, “What happened?”

Glory tried to gloss over her previous panic. “Scott followed Lady to the back room. He didn’t want to come back.”

Granny looked like she’d been hit with cold water. “Really? He followed her?”

“Yes.”

“Well, now, don’t that beat all. He’s never wandered.”

“Maybe it’s a new phase.” Glory paused, thinking of the way Scott’s gaze had followed Lady around the kitchen. “Or maybe he just likes the dog.”

Lady was now lying next to Scott on his blanket. His little fist was burrowed in her fur.