Rachel Lee (26 page)

Hannah knew such a wave of relief then that she couldn't help smiling.

"Why not? Are you allergic?"

"Lately I seem to be."

"Hmm. Laughter's the best medicine, you know. If you weren't so bruised, I'd tickle you."

"Jeez, Mom!" But the frown wasn't quite convincing. And Joni had called her Mom.

"I suppose you don't want me to sit where you can actually see me, so how about I hang from the ceiling like the old bat I am?"

"Oh, cut it out." Grumpy, but not so much. Joni pointed to a chair beneath the window. "Sit there, okay? This is the only position I can get comfortable in."

Good, Hannah thought. She hadn't been thrown out, and Joni had told her to sit where she could be seen without effort. A marked improvement. The sting of tears bit at her eyes again, this time from welcome relief. She held them in, though. It was far too soon to be claiming a victory.

Slipping her jacket off, she hung it on the back of the chair. Her purse she dropped to the floor beside it. Then she sat, facing her daughter.

Joni didn't say anything, just continued to stare out the window.

Finally Hannah asked, "Can you see something out there?"

"UFOs."

Shocked, Hannah started to vault from her seat to go look for help, but Joni's voice stopped her before she fully stood.

"Take a chill pill, Mom. I'm just joking."

Not a very good joke, under the circumstances, but Hannah was willing to accept it as an olive branch. "Oh. I got scared."

"Sorry. Where's Witt?"

"I sent him home."

Joni's eyes widened. "You sent him home?"

"Yes. Why not? He was only upsetting you."

"But, Mom..." Her voice trailed off.

"But what?"

"You and Witt have been joined at the hip ever since we moved up here.

We hardly ever did anything without him. He might as well have been living with us."

Hannah took a moment to look out the window and gather her thoughts.

She hadn't seen it that way before. "I suppose you're right," she said finally.

"Of course I'm right. He spent almost as much time with us as Dad did.

Maybe more, because Dad was always working."

Or screwing around, Hannah thought with the old resignation. She'd never told Joni about that, although Joni had figured out some of it.

Not knowing quite what to say, she asked, "Did that bother you?"

It was Joni's turn to look thoughtful. "I don't think so. Well, maybe that's not true."

When she didn't speak again, Hannah prompted her. "Why isn't it true?"

Joni bit her lip, then sighed. "I don't know. I guess there were times when I resented him, especially right after Dad died. I wanted you all to myself."

"Oh, honey, I'm sorry!"

Joni shrugged. "I was just being selfish, and I knew it. I mean, I figured Dad had died, and you needed someone, too. It was just every now and then that I got angry. I think Karen resented it a little, too. She'd had Witt all to herself for a few years before we moved up here. But then we became really close friends and it didn't seem so bad anymore."

Hannah "compressed her lips, holding in a whole bunch of emotions, not wanting to inflict her feelings on her daughter. " I feel bad about that. Witt and I thought we were replacing missing parts in your lives. Building a family for you two. "

"I guess you were," Joni agreed. "But sometimes it didn't feel that way. But we were just kids. You know how cockeyed kids can get."

"Sometimes they aren't cockeyed, Joni. They're just seeing truth from a different perspective."

"Well, it doesn't matter anymore."

"Yes, I think it does," Hannah said firmly. "Especially since you were surprised that I could send Witt away. Do you think he's running my life? Our lives?"

Joni didn't even hesitate. "In some ways he is. Like this thing with Hardy. It's fine if he wants to hate and blame Hardy for the rest of his days. But there's no reason why I should be expected to."

"You're right."

"So why did we put up with it for so long?"

"I guess because we didn't want to hurt him." Which was true. Witt had always been good to them. Always. It seemed so ungrateful to fly in the face of his wishes or do something that might hurt him.

Joni stirred restlessly, then winced as something hurt. "I think I got a few more braises than I thought."

Hannah wanted to go to her and comfort her, but she didn't feel Joni was ready for that yet. "Bruises can be so painful, can't they?

Especially deep ones."

"More painful than I would have thought. Man, the seat belt must have made me black-and-blue."

"Probably."

"Hardy saved us, Mom."

Hannah nodded encouragingly.

"I'm not kidding. That car skidded, and it was going so fast, and it started to fishtail right toward us.... We'd have been dead if it had hit us. Or if Hardy had hit that snowbank at the wrong angle and we'd flipped."

"I know."

"Are you going to tell Witt that?"

Hannah tilted her head a little to one side. "If I don't, I suspect Hardy will. Tonight he had the look of a man who is determined to finish something. But yes, I suppose I will tell Witt. I've been trying to tell him for years that Hardy didn't kill Karen, so I don't suppose he's going to listen to me, but I'll try."

"Witt feels guilty."

Hannah acknowledged that with a nod. "We all feel guilty when someone we love dies. We think about what we could have done differently that might have changed the way things worked out. We wish we'd died in their place."

lord surprised her with the tack she took. Instead of continuing to discuss Witt, she moved to Hannah. "Did you feel that way when Dad died?"

Hannah had to draw a long breath and take a moment to compose herself before she could speak. She had anticipated that the conversation would move in this general direction, but she hadn't realized just how difficult and frightening it was going to be.

She was grateful when Martina came in to take Joni's vital signs and check her pupil reactions. "Looks good," Martina said, giving them each a smile. "You getting hungry, Joni? I could bring you some Jell-O."

"Jell-O? Hah."

"I know it's not much, but at least it tastes good."

"You wouldn't happen to have ginger ale or a cola, would you?"

"Sure. I'll get you some from the lounge."

"Jell-O," Joni said, wrinkling her nose after Martina had left. "Every time someone mentions that, I remember you feeding it to me when I was sick."

"You loved it!"

"That was back then."

Hannah shook her head, smiling, glad of the reprieve. Apparently Joni had forgotten the question she had asked. But the reprieve wouldn't be forever, she reminded herself. Sooner or later Joni would ask again.

So maybe she should just go ahead and answer the question. It was.

"Mom? Did you feel guilty when Dad died?"

Not much of a reprieve after all. "Yes, I suppose I did. But you have to remember, honey, that was a long time ago. I'm not very clear on exactly what I felt then."

"Hedging?"

"No, I'm not hedging. I'm just not clear. I was upset. So upset that well, I don't remember everything that went through my head. I remember the shock when the police told me. I'll never forget that feeling. It was as if my body went numb, and my shoulders started to melt...."

She shook her head, trying to dismiss that part of the memory, because it was still so vivid. Her body was responding to it even now. "Then well, I stayed numb for a while, at least until after the funeral. It was like a fog settled over my brain. Or maybe as if my brain had gone somewhere else and was watching from a distance while my body went through the motions. None of it seemed real."

Joni gave a very slight nod. Apparently she could remember how she had felt. The younger woman's face shadowed, and she said softly, "I couldn't believe it."

"I couldn't either," Hannah agreed. "I really couldn't. And it must have been so much harder for you."

"Why?"

"Because I hadn't really loved Lewis in years."

The words dropped into the stillness of the room, and Hannah could feel the ripples spreading. She wondered where they would carry her and Joni, but she was past lying anymore. Those words, which she had never said out loud before, needed saying. For the good of her own soul, if no one else's.

"Why not, Mom?"

"Because he'd been cheating on me since before we were married."

Joni pushed herself up against her pillow, her eyes widening.

"Before?"

"Before," Hannah repeated flatly. "It started while we were engaged.

Of course, I didn't know it until after we were married." "Why in the world did he marry you, then?"

Hannah shrugged. The shrug was more to conceal her pain at the question than because she was really indifferent. "I've often wondered. I suspect it had to do with the fact that I was a nurse and held a decent job so he could live a whole lot better. The other woman didn't work at all. She came from a wealthy family and didn't need to."

Joni's expression saddened even more. "When did you find out?"

And just like that it came around to the situation surrounding Joni's conception. Hannah hesitated. "Are you sure you want to hear this?

Do you feel well enough?"

"I'm supposed to stay awake all night, Mom. This discussion is more likely to accomplish that than TV is."

One corner of Hannah's mouth lifted. "Fair enough. But it's not pretty. I'm still ashamed."

Joni didn't say anything, which, Hannah supposed, meant she was keeping her judgments in reserve until she heard the whole story. It was the best she could hope for.

"We'd been married a couple of years," she began, hoping she could hang on to her calm until she finished the whole sordid thing. "Your father was in his third year of medical school. We were at a New Year's party on campus, a really big one. Most of the med students were there, plus all their dates. Witt was in town because he was having some marital problems and wanted time to think about things before he went home, so we took him with us."

"What kind of marital problems?"

"I don't really know. He never told me. He said it was private, and he just needed some time away."

"Okay." Joni sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. "Oops. I'm not allowed to do that."

"Not for a while, honey."

"So go on. You went to the party." "Yes. I had a couple of drinks.

Witt had more than a couple, I think. He pretty much kept to himself, brooding in a corner. At some point I realized I hadn't seen Lewis in a while. So I went looking for him. And I found him."

Joni sat up. "That was when...?" "That was when. I walked in on him in the middle of making love to this woman. I stood there, shocked and angry and confused and hurt, while they scrambled to cover themselves.

I didn't say a word.

"Then the woman said to me, " Get used to it, honey. He loved me before he even met you. ""

"Oh my God," Joni breathed.

"I looked at Lewis and..." Hannah's voice broke, then steadied. "And he didn't deny it. I ran. I had a couple of drinks, trying to drown the pain. I don't exactly remember the rest too clearly, except that I told Witt all about it, and he got upset, and somehow we wound up in another building. He held me while I cried, swearing he was going to teach Lewis a lesson and... There's no excuse, Joni. No excuse. I don't know if I was too drank, if Witt was too drank, if we were just angry and hurt and wanting to get even or what. But we made love. And conceived you. And afterward ... afterward we swore we'd never tell anyone what we'd done because we both felt... ashamed of ourselves."

Joni nodded, wincing as her headache reminded her of the concussion.

"I've got to stop doing that. So what happened then?"

"We went back to the party. Witt rounded up Lewis and insisted we go home. Nobody said a word, not that night or the next day. It was as if we were all robots. Then, a couple of days later, Lewis told me he'd made a huge mistake, that he was getting rid of the bimbo, and it would never happen again."

"But it did."

"Well, I didn't find out about it immediately. I spent the next month trying to believe what he said, partly, I guess, because of what I'd done with Witt. I mean, who was I to criticize?"

"Come off it, Mom. It wasn't exactly the same thing as a long-term affair."

"I was still unfaithful. I had to deal with that. Anyway, things with Lewis seemed to be improving. We even started having sex again. And I was pregnant. I knew that. I knew it within a week. And I knew it wasn't Lewis's baby."

Hannah sighed and looked away, casting her mind back as best she could to that discovery. "I agonized for days about whether to tell Lewis.

Then, finally, I realized that if I told him, I'd do something worse than destroy our marriage. I'd destroy his and Witt's relationship. I couldn't bring myself to do that. Witt doted on Lewis, and Lewis worshiped Witt. I couldn't do anything to mess that up. So I never told either of them. It was better just to let everyone believe you were Lewis's."

Joni didn't say anything for a while. She lay back on her pillow and stared out the window. Presently she said, "How long before Dad cheated again?"

"I don't really know. I didn't find out about it until a few years later. I think you were four at the time."

"Why didn't you leave?" "Because I felt so guilty. Because you loved your daddy. Because, frankly, I'd gotten to the point where Lewis couldn't hurt me anymore. I just plain didn't care. Something...

something inside me was dead, Joni. That's the only way I can explain it."

"You have no idea," Joni said, "how often I wondered why you put up with his cheating like that."

Hannah drew a sharp breath. "You knew?"

"Sure. I didn't say anything, because I had the feeling you didn't want me to know. But I knew. From the time I was eleven, I knew. It was obvious. And I just couldn't figure out why you didn't tell him to get lost. On the other hand, I lived in terror that you would. Because I did love him."