by E V Lind
Her voice was soft, vulnerable. God, she’d withstood so much, borne so much on her own.
“Beth, you made a decision not to let him hurt you anymore when you came to Riverbend. You have to trust yourself now, trust that you did the right thing. What he did to you...” Ryan couldn’t find the words to express his frustration without potentially upsetting Beth further. “Look, that’s in the past. We deal with what we are and where we are now. It’s all we can do. One day at a time.”
She looked up at him. “Is that what you do? How you cope?”
Was it? Fuck. He didn’t know. “You do what you gotta do, right?”
“I guess so.” She put her hands on the table in front of her and knotted her fingers together. “So, what now?”
“Now? I guess we make dinner, watch a little TV and then go to bed. C’mon,” he said, when he could catch his breath. “I’ll show you your room.”
“Could you show me that photo you have of Lizzie, first?”
“Yeah, sure. It’s hanging in the hallway.”
The kitten followed as Ryan led her to the hall and stopped in front of one of the large framed photos.
“This was taken just before my grandfather went to war. All the family are there. My great-grandmother, the farm workers back then. Even Mrs. MacDonald and Aggie.”
“That’s her, Lizzie, isn’t it?”
Beth pointed to a slender, dark-haired woman standing to the side. Ryan nodded, interested that she picked Lizzie out so easily when there were several women in the photo.
“Yeah. Does she mention the photo in her diaries?”
Beth shook her head. “No, many of her entries are just about normal everyday life but here and there she talks about Jonathon and her mom. And the beatings.”
“They were bad, weren’t they?”
“Yeah. Awful to think that a mother could treat her child that way.”
Beth’s gaze shifted from the photo and to him. She looked as if she was weighing up whether to say something or not.
“Spit it out,” he said. “Whatever it is that you’re thinking.”
“You’ll think I’m weird,” she protested.
“A lot of weird shit goes down. Talking about it doesn’t make it any less so.”
“You know how you accused me of deliberately hurting myself?”
Ryan felt ashamed. Given what she’d told him about her ex, he was pretty sure there was no way she was into self-harm. She’d borne enough pain at the other guy’s hands as it was.
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.”
She made a gesture with her hand, waving off his apology. “It was all in the diaries.”
She was right. That was weird. Her disjointed explanation made no sense and some of his confusion must have shown on his face because she did that thing with her hands again.
“I know, it sounds stupid. I’m sorry I brought it up.”
Ryan caught her hands in his and stopped her from turning away. “No, tell me. Please?”
She swallowed and looked away. “I bore her scars. It sounds absolutely crazy, and maybe it is just some hysterical kind of reaction because of my own situation, but I woke up in genuine pain. I even saw the marks on my body of injuries she’d described in her diaries. Now, when I wake up, I don’t know where she ends and I begin anymore.”
Her fingers trembled and Ryan fought the urge to pull her against him to comfort her. He had no doubt that close male physical contact was the last thing she needed right now. Where the hell was his mother when he needed her? This kind of shit had her written all over it. Oh, yeah, that’s right. He’d all but sent her away not so long ago. Which meant figuring this out was up to him.
“Beth, yeah, it does sound kind of strange but maybe you’re right. Maybe it is some kind of subconscious thing. Hell, you’ve been through a lot and you’ve got crazy hormones racing around your body. No wonder you identify with Lizzie.”
“Then how do you explain these bruises on my knuckles. I don’t want to believe in ghosts, I’m well aware that it’s the living that are far more dangerous, but something tried to stop me opening the drawers on that chest in Mrs. MacDonald’s room. Something hit me—almost like a ruler over my knuckles or a cane like the one Lizzie talks about in the diaries,” Beth said defensively.
Ryan ran his thumbs gently over Beth’s bruised and tender-looking knuckles. He couldn’t explain it. Had the past crossed over into the present? It seemed so farfetched as to be impossible but he knew better than most that what often seemed impossible, was absolutely possible. How else did he explain his own ability to sense menace or the dreams he had that foretold danger? How did he explain his mother’s innate ability to just know certain things? Sure, maybe they were more observant than most people—more attuned into their surroundings—but things like what Beth had just described? They fell way out of the realm of simple explanations.
“I feel her sometimes, you know. Mrs. MacDonald, I mean. There’s a cold anger.” She looked down at her feet where the kitten weaved in and out between them. “Snowball feels it too. She won’t go near that bedroom and hisses and spits if the door is open.”
Ryan knew what she was talking about. “I know. I’ve felt it too. Maybe now we’ve discovered her secret she’ll move on. After all, she has nothing to hide anymore, does she?”
“Do you think so? I hope you’re right.”
Beth tugged her hands loose and he felt strangely empty when he was no longer holding them. She looked again at the photo on the wall. Touched her finger to Lizzie’s likeness.
“I think she already knew she was pregnant then. She looks sad in the photo, don’t you think?” Beth’s attention was back on Lizzie.
“Now you mention it, yeah, she does. But her man was about to head into war. No one knew what the outcome would be of that. You can see by the look on my great-grandmother’s face that she was terrified. And she had good reason to be. Her husband had come back from the First World War a broken man—imagine how she must have felt with her only son going to fight.”
“Was your mom frightened for you when you joined up?”
“I guess, although she accepted it. Our family has a long tradition of military service—she met my dad when he was serving. Kind of makes you wonder how the farm has been able to keep running through four generations the way it has. Mind you, Jones men have made a habit of marrying strong women who’ve had to hold the fort while they’ve been away.”
“Strong women like your mom,” Beth said quietly. “You’re lucky, you know, to have that background.”
“I know. It’s something I don’t take for granted. Not anymore.” Ryan started to walk a little way down the hall. “C’mon, I’ll show you your room. It was my great-grandmother’s. I think you’ll like it. At least you won’t have to worry about angry ghosts in there.”
*
Beth woke the next morning surprised she had slept right through. Snowball stretched beside her before blinking awake and giving the usual soft prrrrp in greeting. Ryan had retrieved Beth’s bag with her things from her car last night while she’d made them a light meal. Neither of them had had much appetite. She did now, though. She looked quickly at the clock and realized she needed to get going or she’d be late for work.
After showering and dressing, Beth went to the kitchen. A note waited for her on the table, written in black with strong, confident strokes across the page.
Help yourself to breakfast. Don’t go back to the house. Come back here after work. –R
“And please and thank you to you, too,” she muttered to the empty room.
She quickly fed Snowball and decided it would be simpler for her to get something to eat at the café. The Stop A While was doing a brisk trade already when she arrived and she was glad to immerse herself in the relative normality of the day. During a brief lull after the initial breakfast rush, Mary-Ann pulled her aside.
“Are you all right?” the older woman asked.
“I’m fine. A bit tired i
s all.”
“Have you been to a doctor yet?”
Beth shook her head. Visiting a doctor had been the last thing on her mind. She knew she needed to see one at some stage, if only to confirm that everything was progressing normally with her pregnancy, but she had neither insurance nor the money to spare.
“I’ll get around to it,” she said, attempting to brush Mary-Ann off.
Clearly Mary-Ann was not about to be put off quite so easily. “There’s a free clinic at the hospital at two o’clock this afternoon. You should go.”
“But I won’t be finished here—” Beth started to protest.
“You’re going even if I have to take you myself,” Mary-Ann said. “You need to be checked over, for the baby’s sake if not for your own. Be reasonable about this, Beth. You want this baby, don’t you?”
Beth caught her breath. Of course, she wanted the baby. She didn’t believe in visiting the sins of the father against a child. Whatever it was that made Dan as twisted and controlling as he was, the child that nestled inside her body would have none of his influences and had every right to a normal and safe upbringing. As she had every right to a normal and safe life, too.
“Okay, I’ll go,” Beth said on a rush of air. “As long as my boss lets me get away early, that is.”
Mary-Ann laughed and patted Beth on the arm. “Look at you. That’s the first time I’ve heard you crack a joke. Things are looking up, right?”
They were, if you discounted ghosts and mummified remains of infants. Beth smiled at Mary-Ann. “Yeah, I guess they are.”
The check up at the clinic went smoothly and the nurse provided her with pre-natal vitamins and a fistful of brochures to read for advice on what to do before and when the baby came. Beth’s head was spinning. She’d been so focused on living from day-to-day for so long now, it was difficult to switch her mindset into actually planning for the future. Scary, too, but on a level quite different from the terror that had ruled her life with Dan in it.
She’d come such a long way since then. From the battered girlfriend who could do no right, to the woman who fought to be free of him. She’d taken charge of herself and her baby by leaving Portland and anything that attached her to her old life. She was actually, finally, beginning to believe she might be free of him.
And maybe one day he’d stop looking for her. Here in Riverbend she could create the kind of life for her baby that she’d had growing up. One with love and freedom and without judgment. Feeling lighter in spirit than she had in a very long time, Beth turned her steps toward the dementia care unit. She needed to tell Aggie they’d found the last diary.
Aggie was obviously having a good day. She sat in her chair by the window, staring out at the garden and describing what she saw to the doll that never was far from her hands. As Beth entered the room, she looked up and a bright smile briefly wreathed her lined face.
“Lizzie!” she cried.
“I’m Beth, Aggie. I came to see you the other day. I’m looking after your house.”
“You’re not Lizzie?” The older woman’s eyes clouded briefly and her expression was wistful. “She’s still at the house, then. She’ll come and see me soon.”
Beth sat down opposite, at a loss for what to say. Aggie sounded brighter and more certain than she had during Beth’s previous visits but it was clear that while the old woman might sound lucid, her thoughts were obviously on another plane entirely.
“Mamma locked her up, you know. She locked both of us up until...” Her voice quavered, then faded away.
“I read about that, Aggie. In Lizzie’s last diary. You asked me to find it, and we did.” Beth reached into the bag she’d brought with her for the battered notebook and held it out to Aggie. “Here, don’t you want it?”
To Beth’s horror, Aggie’s eyes filled with tears which began to course down her crepe-like cheeks. “Mamma had it. She found it. She hurt Lizzie.”
“Yes,” Beth said softly and, putting the notebook to one side, she reached for Aggie’s frail hands and took them in her own. “Lizzie wrote about that, too. She spoke of the darkness. Do you remember the darkness, Aggie? Lizzie said you used to bring her food and light.”
“Smelled bad,” Aggie muttered, wrinkling her nose. “Smelled real bad. Cold. Mamma won’t ever let Lizzie out.”
Surely Mrs. MacDonald had let Lizzie out at some stage, Beth thought, but her attention was taken by Aggie whispering something else under her breath. She leaned forward to hear her better.
“She took it away, Mamma did. She took it and hid it in her room. It’s a secret. She made me swear never to tell.”
“The diary, Aggie? Yes, I know about that. I have it here—see?”
But Aggie grew agitated and shook her head fiercely. “She wrapped it up. She put it away. Mamma said we weren’t to speak of it—ever. Shhhhh,” she said, tugging her hands free from Beth’s and putting her finger to pursed lips. “We can’t say. We must never say.”
Was Aggie talking about Lizzie’s baby? Beth tried to ask her but Aggie just grew more agitated—so much so a passing nurse came into the room to check on her. Eventually they agreed it would be better if Beth left. For whatever reason, her visit had clearly done more harm than good for the old woman who now tightly clutched her doll to her and rocked and muttered in her chair.
As Beth reached the door, though, Aggie looked up. Her expression was stricken but her voice suddenly lucid again as she spoke.
“Don’t let Mamma take your baby!”
THIRTY-FOUR
Ryan couldn’t shake the unsettled feeling that hung around his shoulders like an added responsibility. Sure, he could put it down to having Beth under his roof but, to be honest, she was like a ghost herself as she drifted in and out. He shuddered at the thought. Given what she’d been through already it was a wonder her ex hadn’t destroyed her completely.
Still, in the three weeks she’d been here in Riverbend she’d come into her own. Begun to assert her independence. Sure, she was still as skittish as an Afghani goat-herd in a mine field, but she was better than she’d been.
He mulled over the story she’d told him and wondered anew at how and why some people needed to hurt and control others. He’d heard about it but he’d never seen it firsthand. Or maybe he had and the perpetrator had simply been too adept at hiding it. It was enough to do a man’s head in. Ryan got off the four-wheeler he’d used to run a few fences on the property today. He missed using horses for this kind of work but with his leg still too weak he couldn’t risk it. It reminded him he needed to work on his PT some more. Certainly, more than he had been. Maybe then he’d shake some of that feeling, that unease that prickled through his consciousness and kept him on high alert all the damn time. He’d thought those days would be behind him now that he was home, but it seemed they were ever present.
The sound of a car approaching up the driveway made him slow his steps and he turned to see Beth pull up in his mom’s old Toyota. He walked toward her as she got out. She didn’t see him at first and he noted the creases in her brow and the worry that shadowed her hazel eyes.
“Is everything okay?” he asked as he neared.
“Oh, hi, I didn’t see you there.”
“Can I help you with that?” he asked, reaching for the bundle of papers she clutched in one hand while she stretched for her bag with her free hand.
“Thanks, I can manage.”
He stepped back and held her car door for her. As she got out, a flyer slipped from her hands and fluttered to the ground. He bent to pick it up, his eyebrows raising as he saw the content.
“Pre-natal classes?”
“Your mom made me go to the free clinic at the hospital today,” she said with an exasperated sigh.
“Ah,” he said, understanding perfectly the expression on her face now. “And is everything all right?”
“Everything is fine.”
“But you weren’t ready to go yet, were you?”
She shook her head. “She w
as just looking after me, I guess.”
“She does that.” Ryan handed her the flyer and they started to walk toward the house. “How was your day?”
“The usual at the café, crazy busy then even more crazy busy.”
“Ma will be happy with that, I guess.”
She shrugged. Clearly something was still bothering her. Normally, he’d leave her to come out with it in her own good time but the disquiet that vibrated through him urged him to press her for what it was. As soon as they were in the kitchen he put the jug on and turned to face her.
“So, what upset you today then?”
Beth flung him a look of surprise. “What makes you think I’m upset?”
“Call it a feeling.”
“You have those?” she sniped back then covered her mouth with her hand and immediately stepped out of range.
“Don’t. Don’t ever be afraid of me, Beth. I’m not going to hurt you for speaking your mind. I’m never going to hurt you, period.”
He hated that she still couldn’t trust him, but then again, given the way he’d treated her so far, was it any wonder?
“Hey,” he said, deliberately gentling his tone. “You know that you can trust me, right?”
She merely stared at him.
“Well, you can. I might be gruff and I might be big and sometimes I’m too bossy for my own good but I have never and will never hurt a woman.”
He paused, waiting for her to fill the empty space between them with her conversation, but still nothing.
“You know my mom would kill me, right? Or at the very least tan my hide, if I so much as lifted a finger to you?”
A faint trace of a smile pulled at Beth’s mouth and suddenly he found himself fixated on her lips. Damn, but when she smiled she was a different person. He could see who she should have been, instead of the person she’d literally been beaten into.
“I guess you’re right about that. Although the thought of Mary-Ann giving you a spanking is just a bit ridiculous.”
“Yeah, well, don’t think she wouldn’t do it if she thought I needed it. So, tell me. What’s troubling you?”
