Pretend You're Mine: A Small Town Love Story (29 page)

“No, but all is forgiven if you tell me what you find!”

“You got it. I’m going to go dig through places Luke doesn’t go in the house.”

“It’s going to be really disappointing if it’s just a bunch of old office paperwork.”

“No kidding.”

They hung up and Harper drummed her fingers on the counter. Where would it be? Someplace close, but not visible.

She perked up. On a hunch, she hustled up the stairs to the second floor. A walk-through of the three empty bedrooms revealed nothing new. There wasn’t a stitch of furniture in them.

Harper stood in the doorway of the master bedroom and let her eyes roam the room. The dresser was used nearly every day, as was the closet. The table under the window housed Luke’s electronics when they weren’t in use, and its narrow drawers were practically empty.

She turned and faced the bed. The drawer of her nightstand had slowly filled with books and magazines and a box of tissues. But his? She couldn’t remember Luke ever opening his.

Harper slid the drawer open. It appeared to be empty at first, but at the very back something caught her eye. A single silver key.

She snatched it out of the drawer and held it up. Could this be it?

Harper ran down two flights to the basement and slid the key into the lock. The knob turned easily in her hand and she pushed it open.

The room was long and skinny with two shelving systems pushed up against the wall. The boxes and totes were all unlabeled and looked as if they had been untouched for years. Her fingers itched to dig in, but where to start? She decided to be methodical and go from left to right, starting with the far shelf.

She pulled the first box off the top shelf and sat down on the floor with it. It held a few photo albums. The first one was labeled “Karen” in a scrawling cursive. Harper flipped through, watching a cherub-faced toddler turn into a gangly softball player who morphed into a pretty teenager. Class pictures from kindergarten through senior year were interspersed.

Was this the girl Luke had lost?

Harper dug out the next one, a skinny worn leather album. This was labeled in a girlish script “Luke & Karen.” Harper felt her heart stutter. She took a deep breath and opened it to the first page.

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L
uke,

This is the story of us. I wanted to give this to you before we head off in different directions so you’d always have a reminder of how much I love you. Someday maybe our grandchildren will page through this album to see where it all began.

Love, Karen

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H
arper turned the page. It was a photo of a very boyish Luke in a tux. His hair was longer, and the grin on his face made her smile. He had an arm around a tall, slim brunette in an emerald green formal dress. Karen. They were wearing crowns.

Homecoming king and queen.

They were a picture perfect couple, grinning like there wasn’t a care in the world. On the next page was a picture of Luke in his football uniform, his helmet under his arm. A careless grin on his face as he shared a laugh with high school football Aldo.

Harper smiled. The friendship and loyalty there ran deep.

There was a newspaper clipping with a picture of Luke throwing the game-winning touchdown and then a picture of Karen in full cheerleader gear cheering from the sidelines. Her blue eyes were focused on the field.

Another picture of Karen and Luke sharing an embrace after a game. Karen had Luke’s jacket draped over her shoulders.

Captain of the football team and head cheerleader.

They must have been like high school royalty. Harper sighed. Luke looked so young and so free. There was a lightness about him in the pictures that was so rarely present in him now. She loved seeing him like this. Energetic. Happy. Ready to take on the world.

There were more pictures. Prom, camping trips, cookouts, senior pictures. Karen with the Garrisons. Luke with Karen and her mother. They all looked so happy.

In the last picture, Luke and Karen stood front and center in their caps and gowns at graduation. They had eyes only for each other. Bright smiles at the future ahead of them.

Harper closed the album and held it to her chest. What she would have given to grow up like that. To be young and in love and excited about the future.

What happened to them? Where did it go wrong?

The next album was a heavy ivory book with gold lettering.

The Garrisons

H
arper opened the heavy ivory album to a breathtaking picture of Karen in a confection of a gown. Off the shoulder sleeves in lace reached her forearms with sheer material covering the gown’s modest scoop neck. Her dark russet hair was pinned back in a classic twist with a long veil tucked under it. She carried lilies.

Harper brought a hand to her mouth.

Luke grinned at Claire as she pinned his boutonniere in place.

Another of Karen with Sophie and three other women in deep purple gowns, laughing as a flower girl twirled.

Luke at the altar, with Aldo by his side, his eyes focused calm and steadfast at the back of the church. Karen walking down the aisle, escorted by her mother. The ceremony. The kiss. The happy exit.

Harper put the album down gently. They were married. He had never mentioned it.

She wanted to rest. To process. But there was so much more. Another album. A honeymoon, a first home. Luke in his Guard uniform. His first deployment. His homecoming. Job sites, parties, holidays. Luke’s second deployment. And then nothing.

At the very bottom of the box were two wedding rings and a small diamond engagement ring. She gently ran her fingers over the gold before tucking them back in the box. Harper carefully replaced the albums and returned the box to its spot on the shelf.

She continued on. The totes were full of women’s clothing. An entire wardrobe, neatly boxed away.

One box was entirely filled with papers. A marriage certificate. Newspaper clippings of their engagement and wedding announcements. Clips of articles written about Luke’s unit. Letters. Cards. An entire relationship fit neatly in a box.

Harper looked up from the floor and rolled her shoulders. It was dark now. Hours had passed since Harper opened this world of boxes.

She should stop. But she still didn’t have answers. What had happened to Karen? There was only one box left.

At the very top of the box was an opened letter from Karen to Luke while he was stationed in Germany.

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W
ell, my dear,

You’re going to be coming home to a very different life next month. Thanks to your leave two months ago it looks like we’ll be a family of three! I wanted to call and tell you, to hear your reaction. But this is how my mother told my father she was expecting me so I thought it was a worthy family tradition to continue. You, my dear Lucas Garrison, will be a daddy in October. I guess we’d better start working on emptying out the guest-storage-catch-all room to make room for our little boy or girl. I haven’t told anyone yet. It’ll be our little secret until you’re home and we can tell the families together. You’re going to be an amazing father.

Love,

Karen

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H
arper clutched the letter to her chest. Luke was a father? How could that be? There were no pictures, he never mentioned a son or a daughter.

She slipped the letter back into the envelope and continued digging.

She found two tiny onesies neatly tucked away in flattened gift bags. One proudly proclaimed, “The Spoiling Begins.” The other, “I Have the World’s Best Grandma.” It must have been how Karen planned to tell the families.

They were new, the tags still on them. Never gifted, never worn.

Harper’s heart started to thud. At the bottom of the box, she found a series of newspaper clippings from a few years ago.

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L
ocal woman killed in accident on way to meet soldier husband

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H
er hands shook as she read.

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B
ENEVOLENCE, MD — Local resident Karen Garrison was killed when her vehicle crossed the centerline and was struck head-on. Garrison was on her way to meet her soldier husband, Lucas Garrison, whose Guard unit was returning from a yearlong deployment to Germany.

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H
arper felt sick to her stomach. No wonder.

No wonder.

She scanned the rest of the article. Karen was killed on impact on her way to meet the rest of the Garrisons to welcome Luke home.

Hot tears streaked their way down her cheeks.

Luke felt responsible, she was sure of it. Karen was going to meet him.

The police weren’t sure why her car crossed the centerline. There was a picture taken by the newspaper of the crash site. A welcome home banner lay crumpled just beyond the wreckage.

She pulled the rest of the articles and read them all, including Karen’s obituary.

But through it all, there was no mention of the baby.

Had Luke kept that from everyone? To protect them from further loss? Had he held it close, holding the guilt, the agonizing loss to his heart? Locked up?

Gently, Harper replaced all the items in the box and put it back on the shelf.

She stood, aching from hours of sitting on the concrete floor. She stepped out and closed the door, but didn’t lock it.

She was sharing her home, her life, with another woman. One who didn’t deserve to be locked away anymore.

Harper climbed the stairs to the first floor, mechanically turning on lights as she made her way back to the kitchen. The dogs, who had been napping in the dining room, thundered after her. Hungry and restless. She let them out first and then fed them their dinner. While they ate, Harper stared out into the darkness.

She reached for her cellphone and, ignoring the handful of texts and voicemails, dialed Sophie’s number.

“Hey, can you come over? I want to talk about Karen.”

***

S
ophie wrapped her hands around the glass of iced tea that Harper set in front of her. The condensation worked its way down to form a ring on the picnic table’s surface.

Harper stirred the fire in the fire pit before sitting down on the opposite bench. She watched the dogs take turns chasing each other in the dark with a stick.

“So,” she said.

“So,” Sophie echoed.

Lola gave up the game of chase and rolled onto her back in the grass next to the patio.

“He told you?”

“Nope.”

Sophie swore. “My brother the idiot. He should have told you.”

“Agreed. So why didn’t he?” Harper pulled a leg up on the bench and rested her chin on her knee.

“You’ve met Luke. He doesn’t talk. He’s always been that way — private, quiet — to some extent. But after the accident, he shut down. I’ve never heard him say her name since then. It’s almost like he wants to pretend she never existed, but maybe he just wants to be alone with his pain.”

“Were you and Karen close?”

Sophie nodded. “We weren’t best friends or anything, more like family. Our personalities were different. She was very pragmatic and calm. Kind of stoic. But she was warm and solid. We got along well. She and Luke were together for so long, she was family before she was officially family.”

Harper nodded.

“I saw the wedding pictures.”

“He kept them?” Sophie straightened. “I wondered. After the funeral, I left Luke alone for a few days. When I went to see him the whole place was packed up. He moved in here shortly after. But I never saw a hint of Karen or their life together.”

“It’s all in the basement. He boxed it up, built walls around it, and locked the door.”

Sophie put her chin in her hands and peered down at her tea. “Have anything stronger?”

Harper went inside and returned with a bottle of Jack Daniels and two cans of Coke. “How’s this?”

“Perfect.” Leaving the ice, Sophie drained the tea out of her glass onto the ground. She repeated the process with Harper’s glass before cracking open the bottle.

“So how do you feel about all this?”

“I think I’m feeling every feeling in the world right now. I don’t even know what makes sense to feel at this point. I’m devastated for him. I can’t imagine a loss of that magnitude, especially in that situation.”

She sighed heavily. “But I’m also mad or disappointed or maybe scared that he tried to keep this all to himself. I mean, it wasn’t just him who lost her. It was all of you. And then to top off everything else with some self-centeredness, I feel selfishly sad that Luke is the love of my life, but he’s already had that with someone else. Someone who is so sacred to him he can’t talk about her.”

Harper took a deep gulp of her drink and choked. “Did you forget to add the Coke?”

Sophie laughed. “This is a Jack and Jack with a teeny layer of Coke.”

“So I know what
happened
,” she said, using air quotes. “But could you tell me what happened? Is that okay?”

Sophie nodded. “I think you need to know. It’s well past time that Luke should be allowed to carry around secrets and hide from us all. I’m sorry you’re hearing it from me and not him.”

She stared off into the night sky. “The plan was Karen was going to meet me, my parents, and Joni — her mom — at the drop-off about half an hour before Luke’s bus came in. Ty was working, and at the time, we were broken up. Karen was bringing the welcome home sign. I had a bunch of helium balloons in the back seat of my car. She was a stickler for being early, so when she didn’t show I got nervous. I heard the sirens and knew something was wrong. Just this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“The bus was pulling into the lot and my phone starts ringing. It’s Ty. He was on the scene. He told me she was dead. I just kind of collapsed onto the pavement. Ty is talking in my ear, but all I hear is blood rushing to my head. Mom is trying to pull me up. Thinks I’m having some kind of seizure or something.

“And then Luke gets off the bus. He’s got a mile-wide grin on his face until he locks eyes with me.” Sophie took a steadying breath as tears welled up.