Gabriel took a sip, wincing as the liquor burned his throat. He stared in front of him, his gaze unfocused, absently aware his uncle had sat beside him this time rather than on the trunk.
“I never understood what Clarissa felt, all those years ago,” Gabriel whispered. “When she thought she was unworthy of me. Uncertain of our love. I remember feeling a righteous anger that she would doubt me. Doubt us.” He paused, taking another sip from the flask. “I’ve always known Rissa was strong. It’s an essential part of who she is. I never doubted she’d survive whatever life threw at her.”
“She’s barely surviving, Gabriel. The woman I saw a few nights ago at dinner is turning into a brittle, bitter woman. If she were to leave you or to decide she was no longer concerned about her marriage, I believe she would improve. However, as long as she remains with you, daring to hope for a future with you, she will deteriorate until she is a shell of the woman you fell in love with.”
“The problem, Uncle, is that, although her belief that she wasn’t worthy of me was utter nonsense, the belief that I am, isn’t.”
“Gabriel, what happened with Rory?”
Gabriel shuddered at his son’s name. “He’d be alive today if I weren’t his father.”
“No one could love his children more than you did, Gabriel,” Aidan said. He leaned forward, perching the silver flask on his thigh, the fingers of one hand strumming the side of the flask. “More than you do.” The quiet reproach in his voice forced Gabriel to meet his uncle’s gaze.
“I never want them to doubt I love them.” Gabriel took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment.
“Disappearing the way you have only leads to doubts and confusion. They will begin to wonder as to their own worth.”
“Damn you for implying I don’t love my children,” Gabriel growled. “They are everything to me.”
“They’d never know it by how you’ve acted in recent months.” Aidan met his nephew’s glower, his calm diffusing Gabriel’s ire.
Gabriel sighed in resignation. “I know you are eager to impart your advice, Uncle. Please tell me what you recommend.”
“Speak with Clarissa. Tell her why you believe you are no longer worthy of being a member of your own family. For that is what it appears to be at the root of it all.” Aidan pinned him with a severe stare, and Gabriel nodded his agreement, resigned to his uncle’s insight of the situation.
“You accepted and loved her through her worst fears. There’s no reason she won’t do the same for you.”
Gabriel shook his head. He reached out and took one last sip from the flask, hissing as he swallowed, before standing.
“You say I don’t understand, even though I lost a wife and a child. Yet you’re right. I don’t understand, not fully, because you won’t tell me what’s truly bothering you. That’s your right, Gabriel. However, you need to speak with Clarissa. If she rejects you or cannot forgive you for what you think you did, it’s no worse than what you’re already living through.”
Gabriel entered his two-story house, hanging his coat on a peg near the kitchen door. He rubbed his boots on a small rug by the door and tiptoed so his boot heels wouldn’t sound on the wooden floors as he crept to the kitchen door, peering into the dining room. He paused, watching the scene between Clarissa and their children unfold. His breath caught at the simple daily ritual of saying grace and at how much joy he felt watching them interact. At the regret for the number of such events he’d missed in the past months. “My family,” he whispered in wonder, rather than despair.
“Amen,” Clarissa said with a nod of her head and a wink to their youngest. She took their children’s plates, adding a small piece of chicken, a serving of potatoes, green beans and beets to each.
“Not beets, Mama,” their youngest, Billy, protested.
“You’ll grow to love them,” Clarissa soothed. “Tell me about your day. Did you have fun playing in the creek with Araminta?” She held up her plate to fill as she watched her children with an eager, excited expression.
Gabriel moaned at her question, with Clarissa and the children jerking their heads in his direction. He pushed away from leaning against the door jam and half smiled. “Do you mind if I join you?” Gabriel asked.
Clarissa’s plate clattered to the table, spattering the pristine white cloth with beet juice. “Of course not.” She nodded to his empty seat at the head of the table, a place set for him. “Please hand me your plate.”
He sat, watching her movements become increasingly agitated as she served him dinner. “I’m sorry I missed the blessing,” Gabriel murmured.
“Why are you home, Papa?” Geraldine, their eldest daughter, asked.
“I wanted to spend time with my family.” He took a bite of his food as he heard a grunt of disbelief from Clarissa’s end of the table. “I’ve missed hearing about how your days are.”
Geraldine looked from her father fiddling with his fork to her mother studiously playing with her food on her plate. She mimicked her mother and looked at her plate, refraining from speaking with her father.
“Myrtle, how are you enjoying the summer?” Gabriel asked his youngest daughter. “Have you had any adventures?”
She watched him with large blue eyes and picked at her food. His son, Billy, wolfed down his food as though he were at the county pie-eating contest, refusing to pause for conversation. After fifteen minutes of tense silence, the children were excused to go upstairs to play in their rooms or to read, and Clarissa rose to clear the dining room table.
“Let me help you, Rissa.” Gabriel reached for the children’s plates.
“I wish you wouldn’t, Gabriel,” Clarissa said, her back to him as she approached the kitchen. “I’d rather do this myself.”
He set the dishes on the table with a clatter and sat again at the chair at the head of the table. He watched Clarissa make three more trips to and from the kitchen before she had cleared the table. He had hoped to watch her in the kitchen, but she closed the door firmly behind her.
Gabriel sighed, uncertainty and frustration roiling through him as he felt a need for action after months of passivity. He rose, with the goal of forcing Clarissa to speak with him in their bedroom when he heard a quiet sob. He approached the kitchen door, opening it a fraction to behold Clarissa leaning over the sink, her shoulders shaking as she cried. “Clarissa,” Gabriel murmured as he approached her, gripping her shoulders to turn her to enfold her in his arms.
“No! How dare you?” she gasped, beating on his chest with her hands and pushing him away with all her force. He stepped aside, and she fell to her knees, keening her sorrow.
Gabriel knelt in front of her, reaching out a hand to stroke her head and shoulder before lowering it to his side. “Rissa, forgive me.”
“I’ve tried, Gabriel.” She sobbed, hiccupping and smearing her wet face with her palms to clear her tears. “I’ve tried to understand why you’d refuse to comfort me. To refuse me to comfort you.” She raised deadened eyes to him, and he reached out a hand, gripping one of hers tightly. “But I never will understand. When I most needed you, you abandoned me.” She pushed away his hand and rose, swaying as she gained her feet, reaching out to the counter to regain her equilibrium.
“Clarissa, let me explain,” Gabriel said, still in a kneeling position.
“Now you want to explain? Our son died eight months ago, and now you decide you want to reappear? Now you remember you have other children who need a father?” Her cheeks flushed with her indignation.
Gabriel rose and leaned against the counter.
She stabbed a finger in his chest as she spoke in an indignant whisper. “Where were you when I needed comforting? Where were you when our children woke in the middle of the night, crying, missing their brother and not understanding that death is forever? Where were you when I had to clean out Rory’s things?” She clenched her jaw as she watched him with resentful agony. “Nowhere to be found. Nowhere useful.”
“Rissa,” Gabriel rasped.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’ve learned not to depend on you. I don’t know why you’d want that to change now.” She turned toward the kitchen sink again but was halted when Gabriel grasped her, pushing her against the counter, gripping her face fiercely, almost to the point of pain.
“Dammit, I’m sorry. I’m so goddamn sorry, Rissa.” He leaned forward, resting his forehead on hers for a moment, before breaking that contact. “I always knew you were strong, and I’m sorry I wasn’t what you needed through this. I couldn’t bear to see our children who look so much like Rory.” His voice cracked as he said his son’s name for the first time since his death. “I couldn’t look myself in the mirror, much less meet your gaze.”
“I don’t have it in me to sympathize with you for all you suffered.”
“Dammit, don’t become bitter,” he pleaded. “I can’t bear that I’ve caused you such pain.”
Clarissa tried to move, to free herself from Gabriel’s firm clasp, but he refused to release her. “Why do you think I want to listen to your empty words now?” she asked. “Nothing you say will ever bring him back. Will ever restore the months I lost when I needed you—” Her voice wavered as her lips quivered.
“I tried, that day. I tried.” Gabriel rested his forehead against hers once more as tears leaked out and dripped off his chin. “As I held our boy in my arms, and you screamed and wailed, I tried to tell you.”
Clarissa arched her back, at first to escape his implacable hold, then so as to meet his gaze.
“Dammit, I came in that day and begged you to listen to me. I begged you,” Gabriel said, his brilliant blue eyes tear-brightened.
“How would you expect me to react? Calmly? Rationally? My son left with you for an adventure on his birthday and never came home.” She raised a clenched fist, slamming it against his chest as she hiccupped through her sobs.
“Our son,” Gabriel hissed, backing away, but grabbing her hand and holding it to his chest over his heart. “Dammit, he was ours.” He bent forward, meeting her gaze.
“I know,” she whispered after a moment. “It helped me cope with your disappearance by believing he’d been more mine than yours. That I’d loved him more.”
“Rissa,” he choked out, his body stiffening as though she’d stabbed him.
“But he worshipped you, Gabe. He was never happier than when he was with you.”
He closed his eyes. “When I came home that day, covered in Rory’s blood, to the decorations and cake and everyone shouting ‘Happy Birthday,’ I wished it had been me.” He opened his eyes and stared into Clarissa’s. “And then, when you attacked me, screaming over and over ‘Why did it have to be Rory?’ refusing me to comfort you …” Gabriel cleared his throat, although he was unable to take the raspiness from his voice. “If Rory’s death broke my heart, your screams tore it from my chest.”
“Gabriel …”
“You threw yourself at me. Called me a disgrace of a father. Said he’d have been alive if he’d been with anyone but me.”
“No. I couldn’t have,” Clarissa whispered, her cheeks paling. “You have to know I didn’t really mean it.”
“And you were right,” he whispered, leaning forward to kiss her forehead. “Rissa, forgive me.” She shuddered, and he felt a nearly imperceptible softening of her shoulders and body. She leaned back, staring into his eyes for a long moment. He saw her gaze slowly alter from an irate disappointment to a reluctant concern.
Her hand held rigidly at her side now loosened and rose to brush his ebony hair off his forehead. “What else have you done that needs forgiveness, Gabriel?”
He grasped her hand, kissing her palm. She shook at his first show of tenderness since the morning their son died. “I’m so sorry, Rissa.”
“Tell me. We can’t continue like this.” A tear slowly tracked down her cheek.
He forced himself to meet her gaze and stiffened as he took a deep breath. “Our son is dead because of me. I killed Rory.”
Clarissa stared at him with unseeing eyes for a moment before collapsing to the ground.
He moved with her, kneeling in front of her.
She raised tormented eyes to his, her mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping when exposed to air, but no words emerged. When Gabriel rocked backward as though he were to rise and leave her, she grabbed his forearm and shook her head. “No, explain what you mean,” she demanded in a hoarse whisper. “Explain how you could believe this.”
“He was my responsibility. And I failed him. I—”
“Everyone, everyone including the doctor, said there was nothing we could have done to save him. How do you think you could have?” Clarissa asked, tears pouring from her eyes again. “It was a horrible accident.”
Gabriel shook as he whispered his confession. “I heard his cry. I thought it was a shriek of joy. Because of that I didn’t run to him as I should have. As you would have. I took my time. And in those moments, he drowned.” Gabriel paused, swiping away tears. “He’d fallen, hit his head on a sharp rock and then fell into the stream. The minute I found him, I tried to revive him. I swear. But it was too late.” At Clarissa’s horrified expression, he gripped her arms tighter than he intended.
She jolted, her gaze meeting his as tears formed a stream down her cheeks. “Oh, Gabriel.”
“I shouldn’t have let him run ahead of me in the woods. If we hadn’t been playing chase, if I hadn’t encouraged him to run faster, he never would have fallen. He never would have hit his head. He never would have drowned if I’d reacted as I should have.”
Clarissa raised a quivering hand, placing it over Gabriel’s mouth. She shook her head. “Our baby died, Gabriel. He died.” Her shoulders heaved as she held back a sob. “He tripped and fell and died. There’s no one to blame.”
“Dammit, I’m his father. Was his father,” he growled as he had to use past tense. “I should have protected him. I failed him.”
“Gabriel …” Clarissa stroked his cheek, focused on him and his torment. “Chase was his favorite game to play with you. How many times did we hear that little shriek of joy of his as he ran away from us to play hide-and-seek or chase? He always made that sound. Why should you have known instinctively that this one was different?”
Gabriel shuddered at her understanding, at her soft caress. “How you can bear to look at me, knowing the truth?”
“Our son loved you, and you loved him. That is the truth I will keep in my heart.” She traced away his tears. “Rory always dreamed of being as tall, as fast, as strong as you.” She smiled as his eyes flashed with immense pain and longing. “He loved having you catch him and swing him in the air, even if he was growing so big it made it nearly impossible. He loved his time away with just you, imagining he could outsmart you and outrun you. He would have hated you encouraging caution.”
“I failed you and my pledge to you on our wedding day.” He closed his eyes as tears cascaded onto her palm. “I promised to love, honor and protect you. I’ve failed on all accounts.”
“That’s not true.” She kissed him on his lips, causing him to shudder.
“It is.” He opened his eyes, full of self-loathing, to meet her gaze.
She ran a hand over his cheek, into his hair and gripped his nape. “Whether you believe me or not, I love you.” She stifled a sob. “I’d begun to fear I’d never say that again to you.”
“Will you ever forgive me?” He forced himself to meet her eyes.
“It will take time, Gabriel. You hurt me. Dreadfully. Losing Rory nearly destroyed me. Losing you …” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “It nearly killed me.” She let out a deep sigh.
“I always prided myself on being strong. On meeting whatever challenge life threw at me.” Gabriel’s voice broke.
“There can be a strength in tears. In needing to lean on others as our world falls apart.”
“I couldn’t understand why you’d still want me when I was unable to protect Rory. To protect you in Wash
ington. How could you have faith I’d be there for our children after I’d failed you and Rory?”
Clarissa took a deep breath. “You don’t need my forgiveness, Gabriel. You need to forgive yourself. Until you do, I don’t see us moving forward.”
“Rissa, please,” Gabriel begged.
She caressed his cheek, a forlorn smile moving over her face. She leaned forward and kissed his forehead before rising.
He gripped her hand, refusing to allow her to move away from him, coming to a crouched position now. “I’ve always tried to be strong for you. To protect you. To shield you as best I could.” His voice shattered. “Now I need your strength, Rissa. I need your courage. I need …”
“You need me.” Clarissa’s voice broke as fresh tears coursed down her cheeks, lowering to sit again next to him.
“Desperately.” Gabriel’s shoulders shook with sobs he could not stifle.
“Cry, my love. Cry,” Clarissa urged. She tugged Gabriel into her arms until he eventually laid his head against her lap and sobbed.
“I see him everywhere, Rissa. It’s as though he’s always with me, and I turn to answer a question or wink at him or ruffle his hair, and, only at that last instant, I realize he’s gone. That I’ll never see him again.” He sniffled, rubbing his face into the cloth of her dress.
“Do you think it’s not the same for me? For the children?” Her blue eyes haunted by the loss of their son met his. “At first we never discussed him, never spoke his name, because it only made me cry.”
“What changed?”
“When we returned from Washington, I heard the children talking. Geraldine was telling Billy and Myrtle that, now we were home again, they must only speak of Rory when we were absent.”
“Damn.” Gabriel’s voice was filled with regret and self-recrimination.
“I realized, in a way that neither Savannah nor Sophie had been able to show me, how my actions were harming those I loved most.”
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