Purling Road - the Complete Second Season: Episodes 1-10 (13 page)

“I appreciate you sharing that with me, Ruth. I understand what you’re saying. But—”

“Women have been huddling together like this since the dawn of time, seeking each other’s advice and wisdom.” Ruth interrupted. “After all, when it comes to things like this, who else is there to help?”

“So you’ll tell me where to go?”

After much hesitation, she nodded. “I went to a skilled surgeon. It was done in a hospital. They put me in the medical ward for two days after.”

Claire’s heart sank at the word surgeon. Surgeons were expensive. She dropped her hand in her lap and looked away.

“I know what you’re thinking, Claire, but I can’t suggest you go to anyone who’ll charge less. As it was, he made it very clear I was taking a terrible risk and that I might not be able to have children after.”

“Then I’m stuck,” she said, looking up with tear-filled eyes. “I can’t afford anyone good, and the ones I can afford will most likely cost me my life.”

She looked around the library, hundreds of dollars’ worth of books, a row of Tiffany lamps by the wall waiting to be placed. Ruth could afford to help her. She debated asking. How would she explain to Aryl the need to pay on a loan? How would she manage to get away for three days to have it done? She sniffled and wiped away a tear with a trembling hand.

“Claire. Go home and talk to Aryl. Tell him exactly how you feel… what you want to do and why.”

“What good will that do?” Claire asked in an ugly voice.

“You know, when I ran with you all, I wasn’t always a drunk, shallow, miserable person. I do remember things, and there is something about each of you I admire very much. Aryl is always able to see the opportunity in the crisis. He’s good like that. I don’t think you should make this decision without him. He may be able to see a glimmer of hope that you and I can’t see right now.”

Claire couldn’t disagree with her assessment of Aryl but failed to find any opportunity in this situation.

“You have something that I never did. A husband who is willing to listen, who cares about your wellbeing and your happiness. You don’t know how he feels about it until you tell him how much this is affecting you. If you talk to him, and this is what you both want, I’ll give you the name of the surgeon as well as funds to have it done.”

Claire’s head jerked up. “You will?”

“Yes. But you have to promise to think about it. How far along are you?”

Claire sniffled again. “I’m only two weeks late.”

Ruth relaxed. “Then you have time to decide. Together.”

***

Claire settled Jac in bed, tucked the sheet under his chin and stroked his cheek with her finger. He smacked his lips in his sleep and a curly lock of brown hair fell into his eyes. She smiled and brushed it away. Knowing she needed to talk to Aryl tonight, she’d planned as best she could. Before dinner, she’d fed Jac six cookies, and then took him to the beach and let him run and run and run.

He barely kept his eyes open through dinner. Aryl helped move him. She tried not to watch how gently he carried him, how carefully he took his shoes and socks off and touched his little toes, or how he wiped away the mass of unruly hair so much like his own and kissed his forehead.

She tried not to watch, but she did. And it made what she was about to tell him so much harder.

When she was finished, she found Aryl in the kitchen clearing the dishes from the table.

“What are you doing?”

“You look tired.” He winked at her.

She pulled out a chair and sat down. He had no idea.

“I went to the doctor,” she said, eyes down, fingers twisted, dread welling up in her stomach.

Aryl stopped working. “What did he say?”

Claire rose, limp as a ragdoll, and dragged her feet into the living room. She’d imagined and rehearsed telling him in the living room. He followed quickly, frowning with concern.

“Claire, what did he say?” He sat close, swiping up her hand.

“Well. He thinks… what I suspected… I might be pregnant.”

After a brief stint of frozen shock, he smiled. “You are?”

She looked at him, her eyes full of tears. 

“You don’t look happy.”

She gave a small shake of her head. “Because I’m not,” she whispered.

He took a moment to think and wrapped an arm around her.

“It’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.”

“No, we won’t. It’s not that simple, Aryl.” She wiggled away from his arm.

“Of course, it will. I’ll… work harder. I’ll work evenings. You can get the diapers back from Tarin, and Maura can help you when it’s time like she did with Jac.”

“I don’t want Maura to help me.”

“Then we’ll find another midwife,” he said, dipping his head to look at her. “Anyone you want.” She was shaking, mustering courage.

“I don’t want anyone to help me because I don’t want to have it.”

He fully froze now, staring at her. Then he laughed nervously.

“Well, it’s too late for that,” he said through a frightened smile. When she said nothing, he asked, “Right?”

She let go of his hand and stood. She needed some distance. “No, there is something we can do about it.”

Again, he laughed nervously. “Claire, you can’t mean…” He searched her face and found that she did. “I think you’re just scared. A bit overemotional. You’re not thinking clearly.”

“I’ve never thought more clearly in my life,” she said, turning to him.

There was a long pause, him looking at her open-mouthed.

“I went to Ruth. She knows of a doctor and is willing to pay for it, but only if we both—”

“What?” He rocketed off the sofa. “You’re serious? You’re considering an abortion?”

“What else am I supposed to do?” she cried.

“Have the baby!” he said, throwing his arms out. “It will be tough, but we can make it.”

“It’s already tough, Aryl.” Her face cracked, and she prayed he’d take pity on her and see things from her point of view. “I can’t take anymore. I can’t handle anymore. Jac is a… terror. You know it and won’t say it, but I will. He is. He’s more than a half-dozen parents could handle. And we are barely making it,” she pleaded. “One problem, one boat failure, one more broken arm, and we go from hard to destitute.”

Aryl shook his head, refusing to answer her.

“Please, you know what I’m saying is the truth. We can’t handle anything else. It will break us.”

“It won’t break us. A baby won’t break us.”

“Well, it will break me,” she said and wiped her eyes. “If you love me, you won’t stop me from doing this.”

“That is not fair,” he said. She could see the anger rising in his eyes. “If I love you, I won’t stop you from getting rid of our child?”

“If you love me, you won’t force me to take on more than I can handle!”

This was going horribly wrong, and she scrambled for a way to get him to see… to
understand
.

“It seems like you can’t handle it, but you can. We can. I promise. You’re just nervous and scared. I am, too. I’ll show you. I’ll do all the things that husbands aren’t supposed to do like change diapers and mop floors.”

“You’re going to do that? Because I thought you said you’d have to work more—which leaves me alone more.” She glared at him, furious at his stubbornness. “I’m telling you that I can’t do this, and you’re not listening! Look how far Caleb pushed Arianna! Look at how much she had to deal with, and she told everyone time and time again that she couldn’t handle it, and now she’s gone crazy, snorting everything she can get her hands on and having an affair!”

Claire bit her tongue, but it was too late. Aryl’s head came up slowly.

“She’s what?”

“Aryl… you can’t say anything,” she pleaded, taking a step.

“How do you know this?”

“Ava told me. Please, swear you won’t say anything!”

“How can I not say anything?” he roared. “This is a lot more than a drunken girl’s night. Caleb is my friend. I’m supposed to just go over there to butcher a rabbit and make small talk when I know his wife is having an affair?”

She cringed. “They’ll work it out, Aryl. We have our own problems to deal with. We need to deal with this right now.”

His eyes narrowed on her, cold and hard.

“I can’t believe you knew about this, and it’s perfectly okay with you to keep it a secret!”

“It’s not okay! What are we supposed to do about it? When Arianna wants something, she can’t be stopped. You know that.”

“You could have said something. You conveniently left that out when you recounted that night, didn’t you?” He turned and began pacing. “I suppose they’d cover up for you if you were having an affair just the same.”

“No, they wouldn’t and I’m not.”

“Oh, that’s right. You’re not having an affair—you just want an abortion. As if that’s any better.” He walked out of the room into the kitchen.

“You don’t know what it’s like!” she screamed after him.

“Yes, I do!” He whirled around. Never in her life had she seen him this angry. “I live here, too, remember! I know exactly what it’s like! It’s hard. It’s ridiculously hard. And it’s not fair. But you don’t see me asking you to get rid of our child!”

Claire dropped down onto the sofa and cried into her hands. Aryl continued pacing the kitchen floor, his hands alternating between his hips and his head.

For the first time ever, he was deaf to her sobs. After a few moments, she appeared in the doorway and said his name softly, pitifully. He rushed past her and went to their bedroom. She waited with her arms folded tightly, staring up at the ceiling, tears rolling down her cheeks.

He dropped a sheet and pillow on the sofa.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He turned and pointed. “I don’t want to be anywhere near you right now.”

She turned away and silently cursed Ruth.

A husband who will listen? Cares about my wellbeing?
She never should have let Ruth talk her into telling him.

Weary to the bone, she longed for her bed and hoped she’d sleep forever.

“I’m telling Caleb,” Aryl said as he passed, “the very next time I see him.”

She closed her eyes. There was no point in begging him not to. There was no point talking to him at all. The damage was done. All she could do now was to wait for the repercussions. 

Episode Five

Out in the Open

The sun was just coming up. The children were still asleep. Caleb watched Arianna’s every move from his chair. She hustled around the kitchen with the skill he never would have thought she possessed. Rather than admiring her domestic abilities, he scrutinized her. He wondered if what Aryl told him last week could possibly be true. He had no proof.

It was he said, she said. In this case, Aryl said Claire said that Ava said… By the time the story got through that many people, it had likely been changed, altered, and sensationalized.

And Caleb found it strange Aryl was so angry about it. As if it was his own wife he suspected. He seemed to seethe under his skin, his jaw tight, his posture taut.

Then again, they were all under a lot of stress. Maybe it wasn’t just Aryl. It had been the tensest, most frustrating summer in recent memory, after all.

She turned and asked him a question, her words garbled and distant. He snapped back to the present.

“Do you want milk in your oatmeal?” she asked again.

“I always do,” he said.
She knows that. Is she trying to find a reason to make conversation with trivial things hoping it will lead to more meaningful talk?

She’d been dolling up a lot more lately, he noticed, narrowing his eyes. Was that for him or someone else?

He scoffed. He was here all the time. If not here in the house, he was in the barn or the fields, and the times he went to town, he was never gone long. For some affair to happen right under his nose, in his own house, would be impossible.

Wouldn’t it?

She placed the bowl of oatmeal in front of him like a harried waitress and turned away without a smile.

“I thought, um…” He cleared his throat. “I thought after the kids were in bed, we could go outside and look at the stars. Maybe get a lantern and a blanket…” He moved his spoon around the puddles of milk and didn’t see her pinch her nose.

“Mosquitoes.” He took that as a no.

“Or maybe we could listen to that new mystery show?”

“I’ll probably turn in early,” she said casually.

“We could listen to it in bed.”

She shrugged, indifferent.

***

Claire showed up at Ava’s door, clothes wrinkled and no hat over her windblown hair, Jac writhing in her arms.

“Come in and what’s wrong?” Ava asked quickly, taking Jac from her arms. She deposited him on the floor next to Amy. He reached out and touched her with a shy smile.

“I’ve been in hiding,” Claire said, dropping onto the couch. “I thought you’d have shown up on my doorstep by now with a string of obscenities long enough to make Arianna proud.”

“Why on earth would I do that?” Ava asked with a laugh.

“Because I told Aryl about Arianna.” She didn’t bother to cringe or shrink back. She flipped her hand in the air. “Bring on the firing squad.”

Ava jumped up. “Claire! You swore you wouldn’t!”

“I know I did. It just popped out before I knew what I was saying.”

Ava turned, pacing. “Claire, I’m glad you and Aryl are getting back to a place where you can tell him anything. I know that’s part of the healing process for you. But couldn’t you have just left this one thing alone?”

“I’m so sick of crying!” Claire said as she broke down. Jac twisted and watched his mother. “That’s the only time he’s quiet. When he’s next to Amy or when I’m crying my head off.”

Ava sat down beside her and draped an arm around her shoulders. “It’s all right, Claire.” She sighed heavily. “I guess it was only a matter of time before she did something to get herself caught.” She held her head in her hand. “And it’s only a matter of time before Jonathan finds out I knew all along and then it will go all the way back to the girl’s night. That’s not going to be a fun conversation.”

Ava’s words were of no comfort. Claire cried harder.

“Claire, I said—”

“I heard you,” she barked, swatting Ava’s arm away. “I don’t care one bit about Arianna and the trouble she’s gotten herself into.”

“Then what has you so upset?”

She unloaded it all then, from discovering she was late, to visiting Ruth, and Aryl’s last angry words at her.

“Oh, Claire,” she whispered. Suddenly, dealing with Jonathan wasn’t any big deal at all.

“Are you going to do it?”

“I can’t.” Claire looked up with red eyes, pinched with emotion. “Unless Aryl agrees, Ruth won’t loan me the money.”

“Maybe there’s a chance you’re not.”

“I’m three weeks late, Ava.”

Ava slumped back on the couch. Aryl and Claire weren’t on speaking terms, Caleb knew Arianna was having an affair, and God only knew what was happening over at the farm. So far, Jonathan had been nothing but his normal self. Which meant he didn’t know about any of it. Yet.

***

Eddie, Jean, and Scottie had become fast friends. Sitting in a sun-withered patch of grass behind Maura’s house, they guzzled lemon water and ate bread and jam.

“That was fun. We should make it bigger next time,” Eddie said.

Jean wiped his brow and collapsed onto one arm. “It was fun because you beat us both,” he teased. “It’s too hot to make it bigger.”

Scottie looked over their improvised obstacle course. “We could make it bigger, but do it in two parts.”

“Yeah! I saw an old tire in a ditch the other day. We could add that and we’d have three. And if we could find some rope, we could hang it from that tree and swing over a crocodile pit.”

Jean frowned. “There’s no crocodiles in Massachusetts.”

Eddie pushed his leg. “Pretend ones.”

While Scottie and Jean complained about the heat, Eddie was still all smiles. Just happy to be here, a part of a real family, with real friends. When he dreamed of this in the orphanage, he always thought it would be strange. Thought he’d always feel like an outsider. And at first, he did. But when Jean shared with him that Ava wasn’t his real mother, his real mother had died, suddenly Eddie didn’t feel so out of place. Jean was a half orphan. And that made it easier.

“Tell me about your mom,” Eddie said while inhaling the last of his sandwich.

Jean shrugged and dropped his eyes. “I have a picture of her. I don’t remember a lot. She was pretty. And she loved me. I remember that. She was always nice to me.”

“That’s good,” Eddie said. “Some parents aren’t.”

Scottie’s eyes flashed up. “Yours weren’t?”

Eddie’s smile faded for the first time. “My mom was, I suppose. My dad wasn’t.”

“Where are they?” Scottie asked.

“Both dead.”

“How?” Jean asked. He was curious about death since he never could get it out of Jonathan exactly how his mother died.

“I was only two so I don’t remember, but heard Mr. Everly and Anne talking about it one day. I guess my mother was real young. My father got really angry all the time and would hurt us. Mr. Everly said one day he came home angry and my mother hid me in a cabinet. He killed her and before he went to jail, her brother found him.”

Jean stared with a slack jaw. He’d never heard anything so shocking in all his short life.

Scottie frowned. “My da’s dead, too. Died in some riots before I was born.”

Eddie thumbed over his shoulder. “I thought…”

“Ian? He’s not my da. I didn’t know until this year.”

“Is he nice to you?” Eddie asked.

Scottie tried to think of a time Ian had been anything but kind and loving. “Yes.”

“That’s what matters,” Eddie said. “I was adopted before. They weren’t nice either.”

“When?”

“Last year. This old couple came to the orphanage one day.” He wrinkled his nose. “They smelled. They told Mr. Everly they wanted three boys. They walked around and just pointed us out. Me, Dave, and Horace. We went with them that afternoon. They lived on a place, I don’t remember where. But it was broken down and the animals were broken down and the whole place smelled like there was no mom to clean it for years.”

“How long did you live there?” Jean asked.

Eddie squinted against the afternoon sun. “Couple months, I think. Until we ran away.”

“You all ran away? Why?” Scottie asked.

“Because we had to work. Wouldn’t let us go to school when we wanted to and we all wanted to. We wanted to be normal kids and have friends and homework.”

Scottie scoffed, shook his head. “Must’ve been bad if you wanted to go to school.”

“Some of us like school, Scottie,” Jean said, grinning. “If you’d try harder, you might like it, too.” Jean turned his attention back to Eddie.

“We had to sleep in the barn and we’d only get the leftovers. Horace got so hungry he ate the horses feed. When the old man found out, he beat him with a strap. We all got beat, but the old man really didn’t like Horace. So we left.”

“Where’d you go after you ran away?”

“We didn’t know where we were, so we didn’t know how to get back to the orphanage. Horace didn’t want to go back anyway. Figured the old couple would look for us there. So he went to join the circus. Dave stayed with me for a few days. We stopped at a house and asked to do chores for supper. She was nice to us, worked us hardly at all, and fed us so much food. She was a widow and she asked us if we’d stay the night before moving on. Stay in her house, not even in the barn. I didn’t want to, but Dave did. The next morning, he told me he was going to stay on with the widow until it went sour.”

“Is he still there?”

Eddie flopped back in the grass. “Must be. He never showed up at the orphanage.”

“How did you get back?” Scottie asked.

“I walked until I found a policeman. He took me back.”

“Were they mad?”

“No. Mr. Everly was mad that Horace and Dave didn’t come with me. He was fired up mad when he saw the marks on me from the old man. He fed me broth and all the bread I could eat. It was the only time an adult ever told me they were sorry. He sent Anne to find Dave, but I didn’t know my directions real good.”

“You sure are brave to risk getting adopted again,” Scottie said.

“That’s why I didn’t wait to be chosen. I figured if it was going to work, then I’d have to pick my own parents. I chose Mr. Garrett because he was nice to the other kids when they came up to him and he dressed nicely.”

“And he didn’t stink,” Jean added and they giggled.

“Are you glad?” Scottie asked. Eddie stretched out in the grass.

“Yes. And I got a brother out of the deal,” he said and tossed a stick at Jean.

***

Creeping up the drive had been pointless. She could see lights on inside the house. She closed her eyes.

Damn.

She paced the porch in bare feet, trying to think through the drink. Tried to figure out what she’d say. There was no way to avoid it.

She turned the knob with one hand, holding her shoes in the other. The creak of the door echoed through the house and as she closed it, Caleb appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, Felicity on his shoulder.

His face was hard, his eyes accusing. “Where were you?” he asked.

“I went…” She dropped her eyes. “I went to a club.”

“At least look at me when you lie.”

Her head jerked up. “I’m not lying. I danced. I had a few drinks. That’s all.”

“Who were you with?”

She lifted a shoulder and this time cast her eyes off to the side. “Just people I met there.”

Felicity began to whimper in pain and drew her knees up against Caleb’s chest.

Samuel called weakly from the darkened living room.

“Sam and Savrene started throwing up a few hours ago,” he said, raising his voice over Felicity’s wails. He tried to make her more comfortable.

After a sharp cry, she vomited on Caleb’s shoulder. He moved her to the crook of his arm, took a cloth from the counter, and wiped her mouth and cheek. Unbuttoning his nightshirt with one hand, he managed to wiggle out of it without disturbing Felicity too much.

Arianna held her hand out for it and he walked past her, depositing it in the straw laundry basket.

“While you were out having a good time, your kids were sick. Feverish and throwing up. They needed their mother.” He stared at her.

She closed her eyes and grimaced. “Of course, I didn’t know or I wouldn’t have—”

“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” he asked, glancing at the heels as she set them on the floor. Felicity was quiet, her face pinched in discomfort, her red cheek smushed against Caleb’s chest.

“Let me see her,” she said holding her hands out.

“I’ve got her just fine.” He glared. It was on his lips. Right on the edge and he choked back the question. The point blank question,
are you having an affair?
At the very least, she was partying behind his back. At worst, Aryl was right and she was seeing someone.