Tracie Peterson (35 page)

Now Deirdre had time to herself. Time to think and time to make some very hard choices. She thought of the gift she’d received the day before. Grammy had sent her a wall hanging, only Deirdre knew instinctively that it wasn’t just any hanging. Grammy had divided up her prized Piece Work and no doubt had sent each of her temperamental granddaughters a portion. Deirdre had wept when she saw the piece. She knew Grammy was telling them in her own way that the Mitchell girls had divided themselves in the same manner.

And then there was Rachelle’s letter. Deirdre had practically memorized it.

To my daughter Deirdre
,

You were the hope for a new start in my life. You were going to be the one responsibility I didn’t shirk. I remember how happy I was when you were born, certainly more happy than I’d been when the others had come. Not because they weren’t perfect and lovely and deserving of my happiness, but because my heart was different when you were conceived. You were going to help me make my life over. You were going to show Gary and me how to be parents, and maybe, just maybe, we would have found a way to bring the others back in our lives after we learned how to care for you
.

I know none of this means much now. It doesn’t matter that I loved you—that I loved your sisters. It only matters that I tell you the truth. By the time you read this, I’ll be gone. I can’t live anymore with the guilt and pain in my soul.
I long for peace, but there is none. I long for your forgiveness, but I suppose that is too much to ask for. I can only hope in time, you’ll find a way to forgive me the past. You have your family, so you must understand how it feels to want them to forgive you when you hurt them. Think of this when you think of me
.

Rachelle

Even now Deirdre felt tears come to her eyes. It was all so confusing. Her mother’s words—Dave’s anger—her own struggle with gambling. Not to mention the separation and bickering among her and her sisters. She knew she had been a disappointment to Mattie. She had always been the one to smooth things out, and Mattie often counted on her for that. But this time Deirdre had failed because she was too caught up in her own problems.

Picking up the gardening trowel, Deirdre knelt down and began attacking the soil around the flowers that bordered their backyard privacy fence. She had artfully arranged a pattern of latticework and a successful garden of clematis. Grammy had told her that this was an extremely temperamental plant, but with Deirdre’s patience, she could have a beautiful go of it. Deirdre had taken great pride in Grammy’s confidence in her. Clematis had become a symbol of that confidence.

Orange, white, and purple blossoms with long, velvety petals that opened in a starlike pattern greeted Deirdre in a comforting way. She liked to work with her flowers. They reminded her of peaceful summer days in Kansas. Days when she’d been too young to be in any real trouble and life had a less serious slant to it.

“Oh, Grammy,” she whispered, churning the dirt and pulling out the weeds wherever they dared to show themselves. “I wish I could tell you what I’ve done. You would think me so silly. Worse yet, I fear you would be disappointed in me.”

She stretched to reach behind the lattice. One particularly stubborn weed refused to give in to her attempts to dislodge it. Finally working her fingers around it in a better hold, Deirdre pulled with all of her might and ended up falling backward when the dirt finally
gave way. She sat on the grass for a moment, almost amused with herself.

What an effort I put into something so temporary as these flowers, and yet I avoid working out the details in my marriage and relationship with my sisters. I have a great deal of weeding to do
, she thought solemnly.

Looking up at the back of the house, Deirdre thought of how Morgan slept soundly in the upstairs bedroom. She thought of the room across the hall from Morgan’s and how it was to become a nursery for the next baby. A baby they might never have now that her relationship with Dave was so unsettled.

“You have no one to blame but yourself,” Deirdre said aloud and got to her feet, dusting off her backside. “You won’t tell him the truth.”

She looked at her dirty hands and sighed. She, like Grammy, enjoyed the feel of the soil on her fingers. No dainty gardening gloves for this lady of the house. But still, after the gardening was done, Deirdre always longed to clean herself up. She loved the feel of coming clean. How she would love to come clean about her gambling.

How can I tell Dave I’m addicted to gambling? How can I explain to him that I’ve lost literally hundreds, even thousands of dollars—not to mention his mother’s necklace—and all because of gambling?

“There’s no way I can tell him.” She shook her head to reinforce her words.

Yet if I don’t
, she reasoned with herself,
it’ll just go on and on and on
.

“I have to come clean,” she whispered.

She remembered when she’d first asked Jesus into her heart. She had been a young girl of eight, and Grammy had come to pray with her just before bedtime.

“I want Jesus in my heart, Grammy,” she had said in her best grown-up, serious tone.

Grammy had beamed a smile of approval, and Deirdre had relished that smile every bit as much as the thought of saving her soul from the pits of everlasting fire.

“Do you understand what it means to ask Jesus into your heart, Deirdre?”

She had nodded. “My Sunday school teacher said it’s like taking a bath.”

“Taking a bath?”

“Yup, she said you ask Jesus to wash your sins away and it’s like He comes and gives your heart a bath. You get all cleaned up so you can be with the King.”

Grammy had nodded, assuring Deirdre that she had it right. “It feels good to get clean before God.”

Raindrops now began to fall lightly upon Deirdre’s cheeks, and she realized she had lifted her face upward. The memory was a sweet one. The tenderness of her grandmother leading her in prayer, the warmth of knowing she was doing something that met with not only her grandmother’s approval but God’s as well. It was important to Deirdre to have the approval of those she loved.

Maybe that was why it hurt so much to know that Dave was angry and hurting just now. She had shut him out and refused to be honest with him. And why? Because she was embarrassed and humiliated . . . and something inside of her still refused to admit the error of her actions.

Just then Deirdre heard the unmistakable sound of Dave’s sports car pull into the drive. She imagined the garage door opening and Dave driving in to take his regular place. She pictured him getting out of the car and coming to find her. He would march across the yard and sweep her into his arms and assure her that nothing mattered more than that they work out their problems together. She could hear him telling her that no matter what she had done, he would forgive her and put the past behind them.

She smiled to herself and picked up her gardening tools. Maybe it wouldn’t happen exactly like that, but she knew that she needed to be honest with him. No doubt he would be hurt—he’d never wanted her to go gambling with her girlfriends in the first place. They had argued about whether the wives of deacons in the church should be
seen at places such as casinos. She knew he disapproved, but she had ignored his warning and had stepped out on her own. And now they would both pay the price for her mistake.

Deirdre washed off her tools at the outside faucet, then let the water wash away the dirt on her hands.
Come clean
. The message seemed instilled in everything she did. She lingered at the spigot, wishing that somehow she could go back in time and redo the last few weeks, even months.

Rain started to fall in earnest, and Deirdre knew she couldn’t put off going into the house. She’d given Dave plenty of time to calm down and think about what he wanted to say to her. She would just go to him, and before he could issue a single word, she would confess her problem.

Deirdre knew that she would never know any greater peace than letting go of the past and of her addictive behavior. It wouldn’t be easy. Even now she knew she could go to Dave with great resolve about her gambling, but come Monday, when Dave went back to work and she was left alone to contemplate their problems, what then? Would she have the strength to refuse?

She had just reached the back door when a blast sounded from somewhere above her and glass shattered and fell to the ground not ten feet from where she stood. Deirdre stared at the ground for a moment. What was it? What had happened? Had Dave thrown something through their window?

She backed up a step and looked up at their bedroom window. It didn’t make sense. Then a feeling of dread—almost horror—overcame her. Deirdre felt her throat constrict and her pulse quicken. Without understanding why, she nearly tore the back screen door off its hinges, yanking it open and hurrying into the house.

“Dave!” she cried out in the silence.

She raced for the stairs and hurried to the second floor. Their bedroom door was closed, but down the hall, Morgan’s was open. There was no sound coming from either room.

“Dave! Where are you?” Deirdre questioned in a voice that
sounded foreign in her own ears. She halted at their bedroom. Her hand shook violently as she reached for the doorknob.

“Dave?” The word was barely a whisper.

She knew she had to open the door, but fear gripped her heart like an iron band. Instinctively she knew what had happened, but to see it—to have it confirmed—Deirdre didn’t know if she could stand it. Turning the handle, she took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Blood splatters marred her beautiful white curtains and fell in awkward, unwelcome patterns against her pale rose wallpaper. These were the first things she allowed herself to see. The broken window, the blood on the curtains. But almost as if she had no choice in the matter, Deirdre found herself staring at the bleeding body of her husband.

The handgun he’d used was the one Deirdre had allowed him to purchase several years earlier when a rash of burglaries had made Dave apprehensive. It lay on the blood-soaked carpet not far from its owner.

When the initial shock froze her in place, Deirdre felt it also freeze time. This isn’t happening, she told herself.
This is just a very, very bad dream
. She closed her eyes and opened them again.

It wasn’t a dream.

Mechanically she backed out of the room and closed the door. Morgan could not be allowed to see what Deirdre had just witnessed. She went to her daughter’s bedroom and looked inside. Morgan slept in blissful peace. How could she have not heard the gunshot that took her father’s life? How could she have slept through Deirdre calling out for Dave? She shook her head and quickly closed the door. It didn’t matter. Nothing else made sense. Why should this?

Uncertain what she should do, Deirdre finally collected her senses enough to realize she had to call for help. Maybe Dave wasn’t dead! Maybe he needed a doctor!

This thought put sheer terror into her heart. Maybe she needed
to be giving him CPR or mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. She hurried back to her bedroom and reentered with the sole purpose of trying to save her husband.

But what if I can’t?
she asked herself.

She moved closer to where Dave’s body lay and only as she neared him could she see that there was no hope of him being alive. The back top of his head was completely blown away. She stepped backward and felt her whole body begin to tremble. Reaching for the telephone on her side of the bed, she quickly dialed 9-1-1.

The events that unfolded in the hours that followed Dave’s suicide were like something out of a strange foreign film. Deirdre knew that there were people in her house. Knew that they were supposed to be there, but nothing made any sense. She remembered a hysterical call to Mattie, even remembered Mattie’s promise to come and be with her, but beyond that she failed to understand the questions being forced upon her.

“Mrs. Woodward,” the detective in charge said in a soft-spoken tone, “we’re going to have to ask you and your daughter to come with us to the station for some questioning.”

“Questioning?” Deirdre looked up at the broad-shouldered man and shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

Morgan, who by this time had come to fully realize that her father was dead, had refused to be moved from her mother’s lap and tightly wrapped her arms around Deirdre’s neck, even as the detective spoke again.

“It’s a simple matter of procedure. You have to come with us. While you’re with us, my team will be taking care of things here.”

“Taking care of things? Taking care of Dave?” she questioned. Her mind refused to think in a clear manner. “I should have taken care of him. I should have been honest with him.”

“Honest with him about what?” the man asked, his tone a bit more demanding.

Deirdre shook her head. What was he talking about, anyway? What did he want to know now?

She held on to Morgan, feeling the child’s trembling body and heart-wrenching sobs. She had to protect her child. She couldn’t let Morgan see what she had seen.

“Daddy’s gone away,” she had told her daughter. “He’s gone away and he can’t come back to us.”

Mattie felt nothing but overwhelming sorrow for her granddaughter. The call on that beautiful Saturday afternoon had been one of hysteria and utter terror. Mattie could still hear Deirdre’s broken sentences.

“Grammy . . . please come. Dave’s . . . Dave’s dead. Gunshot . . . killed . . . himself.”

Even now as Harry sped them ever faithfully toward Topeka, where they would pick up Connie before going to Kansas City, Mattie could hear those painful, horrible words.

“I don’t know what to say to her, Harry,” Mattie mumbled and stared out the window at the passing scenery.

“God will help you through this, Mattie.”

“It’s just so awful.”

“Yeah, it is.”

Mattie felt a horrible tightness in her chest. How could she comfort her granddaughter in such a time of need? And what of poor little Morgan? It was just too much to think about.