Suddenly

by Barbara Delinsky

  “You’re making us feel like the bad guys.”

  “I’m sorry if that’s what I’ve done, but the situation is urgent. You’ll all be leaving for two weeks of vacation soon, and those two weeks are critical. This should be settled before the holidays.”

  “Do you want us to lie just to get Dr. Grace off the hook?”

  “No. I want the truth. If you don’t know the truth, don’t say anything at all.”

  “That’s what we’ve been doing, and you won’t let it go.”

  “Because I think some of you know more than you’re letting on.” He pushed at his glasses. “I’ve said this before, but I really do see myself as a teacher of values. That’s what so much of this fall has been about, and it’s why I’m so disappointed now. Those of you who did the Katahdin climb experienced a raw, gut-deep honesty when we crossed Knife Edge. Those of you who’ve done community service have seen the less fortunate firsthand and known the decency of helping. Those of you who’ve worked on the house with me have built something from nothing. There’s no deceit when you’re hammering nails or laying shingles, only hard work and the satisfaction of a job well done.” He paused. “So what’s happening here?” He looked bewilderedly at the faces before him. “Where’s the raw honesty? Where’s the decency? Where’s the satisfaction?”

  There was silence.

  “You’ve all come so far. Why not come even farther?”

  “You’re trying to get someone in trouble.”

  “He’s trying to get someone out of trouble,” Sara put in.

  “By getting one of us in trouble.”

  “But if Dr. Grace didn’t do it,” she pleaded.

  The group dissolved into murmurs. Noah caught fragments, things like “on their side” and “not one of us,” and he burned.

  “She very definitely is one of you,” he said. “If she wasn’t, she would have already told me everything you all are hiding.”

  “I’m going to tell you anyway,” Sara declared, looking more furious than he’d ever seen her. Her eyes were flooded, but the rest of her features were hard as steel. “If they want to say I’m not one of them, that’s fine, because if this is what they think is right, I don’t want to be one of them.” She turned to Noah. “It was Ron Jordan.”

  There was a rustle of voices, then a random, “How do you know?”

  Sara turned on the boy who had asked. “I know because I saw. I saw them in the woods one night.”

  “Then you broke the rules,” he charged. “You’re not supposed to go into the woods at night.”

  “Right,” she said, crinkling up her nose in a taunting way, “but we all do it. It was right after fall break. Julie and Ron were out there, and they weren’t being quiet. And even if I hadn’t seen them, I’d have known it was Ron the same way you do. All of you know. Everyone’s been talking about it for days.” Still angry, she turned to Noah. “I’m saying it was Ron. Do you believe me?”

  “I do,” he said. Ron Jordan was the one boy on his short list of three who wasn’t there. He was also the one several of the faculty had suspected.

  Noah went to her at the same time Paige did, but Sara wasn’t interested in either of them. She was looking at the others, her body trembling with anger. Tears slipped down her cheeks, but still she said, “It was hard for me coming here in September. I didn’t know anyone. Every time I turned around, someone was calling my father names, and I was terrified you’d find out who I was. Then I made friends. And you found out he wasn’t so bad. And you found out who I was and liked me anyway. And then this happened.” She wiped her nose with her hand. “Well, I don’t care if you don’t like me anymore. That’s your loss. My father’s coming here was the best thing that’s ever happened to this school. If you’re all too selfish to see that, fine. I don’t want to be friends with you.”

  A voice emerged from the crowd, then a face. It was Meredith. “I’m not too selfish,” she said, and threw her arms around Sara. “It was Ron,” she conceded softly.

  Behind her there was a momentary silence. Then Annie Miller and another girl came forward to join them. Timidly Annie said to Noah, “Julie was upset. I don’t think she knew what would happen when she accused Dr. Grace. She wasn’t thinking about that.”

  Three more students gathered around Sara, boys this time. One was Derek Wiggins. “At first, people thought it was me. But when I was with Julie, I always used something. Always. I didn’t know who else she’d been with.”

  Another twosome came forward. “She couldn’t believe she was pregnant. She didn’t know what to do.”

  “I know that,” Noah said kindly. “And I don’t want us standing here criticizing her. She’s gone through a lot. As long as I have the truth, I’ll leave her alone to recover.”

  “It was Ron.”

  “He wanted to come forward, but she swore him to silence.”

  “He’s in big trouble.”

  Noah shook his head. His anger had gone the way of false accusations overturned. “Ron made a mistake. He owes Julie a call. He owes apologies to her father and, more important, to Dr. Grace. You can be sure I’ll be talking with him, but the past is done. The baby is gone. The important thing now is to move on.” He felt a hand slip into his, Paige’s hand, warm, confident, and committed. He was stunned by the incredible peace he found on her face.

  “Tucker?” she asked softly.

  He sought out Sara, who was surrounded by friends and smiling now through her tears. Her eyes met his.

  “Tucker?” he mouthed.

  She nodded.

  He looked at Paige and felt a wash of the very same peace that made her face a joy to behold. “Tucker it is.”

  “Dear Mara,” Paige wrote:

  Spring has finally come. The sun is appearing earlier, rising higher, staying longer. I saw the first of the snowdrops today, vividly green against the last of the melting snow, topped by little white bells just aching to open. They are sweet things, hopeful things, things of promise, as life is now.

  In the six months since you left us, much has changed. The least of that is the practice, which continues to thrive and will do so as long as babies are born, toddlers catch colds, and children shove impossibly small foreign objects into their ears. Cynthia Wales is wonderful—young, full of energy, and dedicated to kids. She isn’t the crusader that you were. Hell, she isn’t you. But then, we knew she wouldn’t be. And it’s all right. Because we’re carrying the ball more now. The three of us. Who survived.

  For Angie and Ben, the past few months have been ones of soul-searching and healing. You’d have hated Ben for what he did, but I do believe he hates himself for it, too. Hurtful as it was, his telling Angie about Nora Eaton shocked them both out of complacency. They think about things now that they had taken for granted. They talk more. They do more. Ben has signed on to teach a seminar at Dartmouth next fall, which will give him the intellectual stimulation he needs, and with Doug boarding at Mount Court, he and Angie have more time to devote to themselves. They go off for weekends sometimes, or just for the day—though there are times when I suspect that they are holed up at home not answering the phone. If so, that’s good. Angie needs it. And Ben. Men are needy creatures. You knew that long before we did.

  Needy. But neither hopeless nor helpless, as Peter has proven. He was devastated when you died, though it took him a while to admit it. He loved you deeply and profoundly. When he came to realize it, he hit rock bottom. Then the old movie house collapsed, and it was like he rose from the debris, a phoenix from the ashes. He is more at peace with himself now and, in that sense, more self-confident, which isn’t to say that he’ll ever be totally free of the little boy who was the playground pariah, just that he accepts himself more now. He feels better about himself. He takes pride in doing things that are right, things that once upon a time you would have done. He has picked up the banner you left behind and carries it well.

  Kate Ann Murther lives with him. You knew she was special, didn’t you? Not me. I wa
s as guilty as the rest of the town in overlooking her. Having come to know her now, I find her loyal and determined. She is probably more active in a wheelchair than she ever was before, though that is in part because of Peter. He takes her out—to dinner, a movie, even on a sled in the snow when he’s in a photographing mood. He has forced the town to take notice of her, and while he doesn’t exactly take her to the Tavern, nor does he go there nightly himself anymore. A few times a week—enough to keep dibs on his booth—that’s all. The rest of the nights he’s with Kate Ann. Trite as it sounds, she has made his house a home.

  As for justice, Jamie Cox is cooked. Ben gave Peter the name of an aggressive lawyer from Montpelier, who is in the process of filing a class action suit against him. By the time the courts are done, Jamie will be persona non grata in Tucker. He’ll be powerless. He’ll also be stone broke.

  And for me, the only way my life could be richer would be if you were here to share it. I have formally adopted Sami, who is such a joy that I shudder to think of her not being mine. You did that, Mara, forced me to be a mother, and if it had never happened, I would have missed out on a kind of fulfillment that being a pediatrician just can’t match. Now I have Sara, too. And with a little luck, given the way Noah and I spend our nights, I’m bound to have another.

  Nonny says I should have six. Don’t ask me why six. But she keeps saying it.

  We’ll settle for one or two, Noah and I. I’m not sharing him with six. He’s too special.

  We had a Christmas wedding. It was beautiful. You should have been there, damn it.

  She paused to wipe her eyes, then looked up at a wavering image of Sara at the bedroom door. It was Noah’s bedroom, in the beautiful brick Tudor at Mount Court that was old but being renovated room by room, and too small but being enlarged that summer. Sara spent as much time here as she did in the dorm. Paige suspected that she would live with them full-time come fall. She was starved for the kind of family life she had never really had.

  “What are you writing?” she asked.

  Embarrassed, Paige looked at the paper. She thought of fibbing, then thought again. Sara needed the truth. So she sighed and said, “It’s a letter to Mara. I want her to know what’s happened. And thank her.”

  When Sara might have said that she was crazy, that Mara was dead and couldn’t read any letter, she didn’t. Rather, she came to Paige’s side, close, and said softly, “You still miss her.”

  “Yes. I always will.” Her eyes filled again. She wiped them and sniffed, then took the tissue Sara whipped from the box on the nightstand.

  “Want me to send Dad in?”

  Paige smiled through her tears. “No. I’m almost done. I’ll be out soon.”

  Sara nodded. She started for the door but turned back. “Can I get you anything?”

  “No, sweetheart. Just be out there when I finish.” She watched Sara leave, thinking how much of a friend the girl had become. Paige loved talking with her, shopping with her, teasing Noah with her. She was as sensitive—and warm—and communicative—as her father when the chip on her shoulder slipped, which it was doing more and more often. Pretty soon it would be a thing of the past.

  Like Mara. But no. Not like Mara. Mara would never be a thing of the past. Not in the deepest, most meaningful sense.

  “You left us too soon,” Paige wrote,

  but your leaving taught us much, which is some consolation for missing you. You etched your initials on our lives. We are changed forever, for having known you and, yes, for having lived through your death.

  I think of you often.

  Dear friend and healer. Once loved. Never forgotten.

  Acknowledgments

  For the accuracy of many of the thoughts and facts included herein, I owe thanks to Judy Brice, pediatric nurse-practitioner, without whom I would never have survived motherhood; to Mary Lou Eschelman of Wide Horizons for Children, which specializes in international adoptions; to Jonathan Epstein, who led me patiently through the morass of the mass casualty incident; and to Marilyn Brier, mental health consultant, fan, and friend.

  For encouragement and guidance through both the writing of this book and the shaping of my career, I thank Karen Solem, my editor, and Amy Berkower, my literary agent.

  And always, for the deep connect, I thank my lucky stars for my husband, Steve, and my sons Eric, Andrew, and Jeremy.

  About the Author

  Barbara Delinsky was a sociologist and photographer before she began to write. A lifelong New Englander, she and her husband have three sons, two daughters-in-law, and a cat.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Critical Acclaim for Barbara Delinsky’s Previous Titles

  More Than Friends

  “Intriguing women’s fiction.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “With brilliant precision and compassionate insight, Ms. Delinsky explores the innermost depths of her beautifully realized characters, creating a powerful, ultimately uplifting novel of love and redemption…. Don’t miss this knockout tale.”

  —Rave Reviews

  A Woman Betrayed

  “A strong, compelling story…I recommend it.”

  —Eileen Goudge, bestselling author of Garden of Lies and Such Devoted Sisters

  “A diverting pageturner.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “When you care enough to read the very best, the name of Barbara Delinsky should come immediately to mind.”

  —Rave Reviews

  The Passions of Chelsea Kane

  “In this small-town romance, Delinsky refreshingly takes the opportunity to poke fun at social snobbery and moral hypocrisy.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Delinsky sets the stage for a compelling story about love, loyalty, and family ties.”

  —Doris Mortman

  “Entertaining, erotic, and emotional.”

  —Sandra Brown, bestselling author of Breath of Scandal

  “Definitely one of today’s quintessential writers of women’s fiction, Barbara Delinsky pulls out all the stops in this perceptive novel of one woman’s search for the truth about herself…vivid and unforgettable.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Ms. Delinsky is a master storyteller! Her talent to create living characters is remarkable. Her writing and plotting are first-rate.”

  —Rendezvous

  Books by Barbara Delinsky

  Rekindled

  A Woman’s Place

  Shades of Grace

  Together Alone

  For My Daughters

  Suddenly

  More Than Friends

  A Woman Betrayed

  Finger Prints

  Within Reach

  The Passions of Chelsea Kane

  The Carpenter’s Lady

  Gemstone

  Variation on a Theme

  Passion and Illusion

  An Irresistible Impulse

  Search for a New Dawn

  Fast Courting

  Sensuous Burgundy

  A Time to Love

  Credits

  Cover photograph by Herman Estevez

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SUDDENLY. Copyright © 1993 by Barbara Delinsky. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written
permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition © NOVEMBER 2002 ISBN: 9780061803062

  First HarperTorch paperback printing: February 2002

  First HarperPaperbacks printing: February 1994

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