by Holly Jacobs
“Hey, guys,” Louisa called as she entered the quiet apartment. No answer. Maybe they’d gone out somewhere. She tossed her bag in the entryway and kicked off her shoes.
What a day. Although she had help on Saturdays, she’d gone in for the morning to do some busy work and had been just that—busy.
“Louisa?”
She jumped.
Joe was sitting in a dark corner of the living room.
“I’m beat. How was your day? Where’s Aaron?”
The urge to walk over to him and throw herself on his lap, to be held and cuddled, was overwhelming. It had been a long, busy day and only the thought of coming home to Aaron and Joe had kept her going.
“Long day?” he asked.
There was something in his voice…a coldness she hadn’t heard since that first day in the candy shop.
“What’s wrong? Where’s Aaron?”
“Elmer took him out to McDonald’s for supper. We need to talk.” That flatness in his voice made her blood run cold.
“Sure,” she said, amazed that her voice sounded so normal.
She walked over to the couch and sat opposite Joe.
As she studied him, she could make out how haggard his face looked. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to soothe away whatever was troubling him. Daily the need to touch him, to connect with him, to simply be with him grew. How long could they go on like this?
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I talked to my mother today.”
“Yes?” Just thinking of Helena Delacamp was enough to make her blood run cold.
“What did you do with the money, Louisa?”
“She told you?” Louisa couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice.
She’d counted on Joe’s mother’s sense of self-preservation to keep her from saying anything.
“Yes. What did you do with it? She claims you were a gold digger, that you took the money she offered you and ran with it.”
“I did.”
“That’s it. That’s all you have to say for yourself?” he asked.
So cold. His voice was so cold. The distance between them wasn’t physical. He was pulling back from whatever bonds they’d managed to reestablish.
The loss of that connection hurt like a physical pain.
“What more do you want me to say?” she asked. “Your mother’s right, I took the money she offered. And if put in that situation again, I’d do the same.”
How could she defend herself against the accusation? She had taken the money. Every cent of it.
And she’d do it again in a heartbeat.
“I want the whole story,” he said. “I’ve known you were holding something back, but this? I want to know why you didn’t tell me my mother knew you were pregnant. I want—” He stopped short.
“Yes?”
“Just tell me.”
They’d been building something. Even if Louisa hadn’t wanted to talk about it, there had been something there, something in the way he looked at her. But it was gone now. His face was a blank mask.
She willed herself to be strong.
“I was going to tell you about the baby, just like I said. But then there was the engagement announcement, and I didn’t know what to say. I knew you never wanted children, I knew I wasn’t good enough for you, but still I was going to tell you. Then one afternoon your mother came by….”
Louisa’s heart clenched as she remembered that afternoon. She’d been scared before, but Mrs. Delacamp’s visit had crushed her.
“She told me that she wanted me to leave, to let you have the life—the wife—you were destined to have. She said all the things I felt in my heart,” she admitted. “Then I blurted out I was pregnant.”
“And?” His voice more gentle now, even though it remained distant.
She wasn’t sure she would ever be able to span that distance.
“She said everything I feared you’d think. It was as if she could read every one of my secret thoughts and fears. She said that I was trying to trap you. That I would ruin your life. That you’d end up hating me for everything you lost because of my mistake.”
“And you believed her?”
“Joe, it wasn’t her saying it, it was my thinking it. I believed all that before she opened her mouth. Despite my fears, I still would have told you, but then…”
“Then?” he asked.
“Then she told me if you married me they’d cut you off without a dime. There would be no medical school. If you were with me, she’d take away your dream. I’d be responsible for taking away your dream of becoming a doctor. You’d lose everything. How could I do that to you? I already worried that I wasn’t good enough, that you’d end up resenting me. But if you lost all you’d worked for? I—”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t strong enough then to stand up to her, to stand up for myself, for us. Now? Maybe I could take the chance that somehow we could make it work. I’ve changed a lot over the past eight years. But then? I couldn’t.”
He sat there, just looking at her.
She could see his pain. He practically vibrated with it.
More than ever she wanted to reach out across the space that separated them, not just the physical space between the couch and his chair, but across all the years she’d given away. Eight years without him. She wanted to span that time and make things right.
But she couldn’t.
Suddenly she remembered something. “Wait a minute, I have something for you. It won’t change anything, but maybe it will explain it better.”
She went into her room and searched through her desk until she found the small bankbook. She took the eight journals that lined her shelf, then went to her nightstand and took out the most recent one. She carried it all out into the living room and placed it on Joe’s lap. “Here.”
“What all this?” he asked, looking at the pile of books on his lap.
“This is the bankbook. All the money your mother gave me went into a trust fund for Aaron. I never touched a cent of it. Even when times were tight. It was a matter of honor. If nothing else, I need you to know it wasn’t for me.”
She nodded at the journals. “And these…I always meant for these to come to you. I started a journal when I discovered I was pregnant, and started a new one when Aaron was born. It became a tradition. Each year on his birthday I started a new one. They were always meant to come to you.”
He opened one and read aloud, “‘Dear Joe…”’ then snapped the book shut. “Why wait until now to give them to me?”
“They talk about that meeting with your mother. I didn’t want to tell you that part of it. You’ve always had such a rocky relationship with your parents and I wanted to spare you that. In the end, telling you about your mother’s visit wouldn’t have changed anything. I was the one who made the decision. I was the one who left.”
“You didn’t want me to know that my mother sent you away?”
Louisa shook her head. “She didn’t send me away. I ran away.”
He stood. “I’ve got to think.”
He was going to leave and there was nothing she could do.
“I understand,” she whispered.
“I don’t see how you understand, since I don’t have a clue.”
She reached out and laid her hand on his arm. He pulled away and her heart twisted.
“Think what you will of me,” she said, “but don’t let this taint the relationship you’re building with Aaron.”
“Even now you still don’t trust me?”
She’d heard pain before, but now there was anger. “What?”
“You still think I’ll walk away from him or hurt him. If you can think that, then you don’t know me at all. Maybe you never did.”
He turned and left the apartment.
Louisa sank back into the couch. She couldn’t think. She just stared at the door and waited.
He’d taken the journals.
She hoped they’d give him some measure of comfort.
Joe didn’t know where to go…didn’t know what to think.
He couldn’t stay in the house, couldn’t go to Elmer’s. So, he drove, the notebooks piled on the passenger seat. He drove around Erie, around the town they’d always dreamed of moving to.
Aimlessly he drove down State Street, past Perry Square, to the bayfront. The Bicentennial Tower stood at the end of the dock, a huge reminder of what he thought he’d been rebuilding with Louisa.
He didn’t stop. He looped around the dock and headed back up State Street, then turned west on the Bayfront Highway.
Finally he knew where he was heading.
He drove to the peninsula, to the farthest beach, and parked. He took the top two notebooks and got out. The wind was raw and bitter as it blew from Canada across the lake, but Joe barely registered it as he sat on a weather-beaten picnic table and stared out at the water.
The waves were wild, crashing over the stone barriers that had been erected to stop erosion.
The sky had late-autumn clouds, puffy and white, hiding the sun, which would occasionally break free and shine as it dipped closer to the lake.
Joe reached for the oldest book, not sure he was ready to look at it, to see the girl from his past, a girl he thought he knew but maybe never had. A girl who’d walked away from him and from his love.
“Dear Joe,” it began. He traced the letters with his forefinger.
He remembered all their hopes and dreams. He would be a doctor, she wanted to work in advertising.
They’d move to Erie, Pennsylvania, where no one would know them. They’d marry and have children…white picket fences.
A dog.
He suddenly remembered, they’d planned on a dog. She planned on getting it from the pound and naming it Rufus. He’d asked why, and she’d said, “Rufus is a good name for a mutt.”
She’d laughed then. It was a joyous sound. That’s what he’d heard the day in the candy store, that laugh as the three of them had rolled around in the chocolate. He’d heard it that day when she’d beat him at putt-putt.
God, he loved that sound.
He started reading the journals. Every entry started with, “Dear Joe.” She wrote of wanting to tell him about the baby, about her fears, about reading about his engagement, about her talk with his mother.
She wrote about leaving Lyonsville and her trip to Erie.
She noted all the changes in her body. The day she’d met Elmer. Working for him in the store. The birth of their son. Her agony over what last name to give Aaron.
Her fears, her hopes, her joy.
Everything.
The past eight years were here.
He finished the two journals and went back to the car for more, but realized it was too dark outside to read them. So he went to the hospital and found an empty room and continued reading there.
He laughed out loud at some of Aaron’s antics. He felt his own blood run cold as Louisa described every illness, every bump or bruise.
He learned about Aaron’s favorite blue binky, and Elmer’s midnight run to find a replacement when it was lost one night. He realized more than ever that Elmer was the father Louisa had never had but had always deserved.
He envied that bond.
He owed the old man more than he would ever be able to repay.
He read of Aaron’s first day at school, of the opening of The Chocolate Bar.
He read all of the past eight years.
And though the journals focused on Aaron, there was so much of Louisa in them. The something he’d been feeling for her slowly unfurled, growing, blossoming. And as Joe finished the last book he realized just what the feeling was.
Love.
He’d wanted to say it for a while now but hadn’t been sure of it. Hadn’t been sure he could truly trust Louisa enough to love her again.
He thought the feeling had died all those years ago when she’d left. But now he found that it had simply gone into hibernation, waiting, biding its time.
Like the wart on Pearly’s Milton Hedges’s nose, it was so obvious that he couldn’t believe he’d missed it before.
He loved Louisa Clancy when they were kids, and he loved her now, though it was a different, more mature kind of love.
Since he’d found her in the chocolate store he hadn’t known what to think, what to feel, and suddenly he did.
And he knew why she hadn’t told him about his mother’s talk, because she loved him, too. She loved him eight years ago, and however misguided, that’s why she’d left. She didn’t want to hurt his dream of becoming a doctor.
And she still loved him now, which is why she didn’t want to hurt him by telling what his mother had threatened.
She loved him.
He loved her.
He left the hospital as the sun was rising, knowing just what he had to do.
“Now, Louisa,” Elmer said soothingly.
But Louisa didn’t want to be soothed. She was sick with worry. “He’s been gone all night, Elmer.”
“He’s fine. Sometimes a man just needs to go off by himself and work things out.”
“What if he’s not? What if he’s left?” That thought was too terrible to bear. She’d lost Joe once and wasn’t sure she would survive losing him again.
“That boy wouldn’t leave,” Elmer assured her. “Aaron’s here, after all.”
Yes. Joe wouldn’t leave Aaron.
But he’d leave her. He was furious all over again. And who could blame him? She’d lied to him.
Well, not exactly lied, but she hadn’t exactly told him the truth, at least not the whole of it.
“But what should I do?” she asked.
“Wait. Give the boy some time to work it out.”
“The boy doesn’t need time to work it out,” Joe said as he walked into Elmer’s kitchen. “I’ve worked it out just fine.”
Louisa couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His expression was blank. But still she was relieved to see him.
“Joe?” she said as she looked him over. He looked all right. Haggard. Tired. But all right.
She couldn’t quite read the expression on his face. It wasn’t anger.
“We have to talk.”
Louisa’s heart sank. His voice was flat. She couldn’t read what he was thinking, but then she didn’t need to.
“Fine,” she whispered.
“Alone.”
“I can go—” Elmer started to say.
Joe interrupted. “No, don’t go. As a matter of fact, will you stay and watch Aaron?”
Elmer studied Joe a moment and then said, “Yes.”
“Joe, I—” Louisa started.
“Stop,” he said. “Just hold that thought and come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“Wait. You’ll see.”
Louisa was silent. After all, she’d said everything she had to say. Joe knew it all.
Well, maybe not all.
She still hadn’t told him how she felt about him.
She gnawed on her lip. This obviously wasn’t the best time to blurt out the words, I love you. No matter what I’ve done in the past, that’s one thing that never changed. I love you.
She didn’t want to even think about what his reaction would be to such a declaration right now.
They pulled into the parking lot of the Humane Society.
The Humane Society?
“Joe, what’s going on?” She looked at the building, completely mystified. “I don’t understand.”
“We’re buying a dog.”
“It’s Sunday. I think they’re closed,” was all she could think to say.
Of all the things she’d been ready to hear, all his accusations, all his anger, this wasn’t even on the list. “Why are we buying a dog?”
“Because we need one. And next week we’ll start looking for houses. Something close to t
he water,” he said.
“We have a house, with Elmer.”
“We’ll get something with an in-law apartment. If we can’t find one, we’ll add on. That way if he finds the house lonely, or ever needs us, he’ll have a place to go. Because he’s family.”
She studied the man in the driver’s seat. Maybe he’d cracked. Maybe the pressure had finally gotten to him. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s all about family and what makes one. Don’t you see? Elmer’s family. He loves you unconditionally. He is the father you never had. He’s there for you no matter what. I never had that growing up, that kind of unconditional love, at least not until I had you.”
He took her hand in his. “You said you didn’t feel as if you were equal to my family. You weren’t. You were so much more. I wish we’d had these past eight years together, but I understand why you did what you did. You loved me enough to walk away.”
“But I was wrong,” she said. “I should have told you, should have trusted you…trusted our love.”
“Yes, you should have. You didn’t trust that I loved you enough to walk away with you. But you loved me then, and you love me now. When I asked you to marry me, you said you wouldn’t marry without love. What you didn’t say is that you loved me—you still do. You did then, you do now. Which is good because I love you, too.”
“But you can’t. I left. Too much has happened. I didn’t tell you about your mother.”
He pulled her closer, wishing he’d really thought this thing through. Sitting in front of a Humane Society wasn’t exactly the place to pour out your heart.
But the words wouldn’t stay locked up until they were at a more romantic setting, so he said, “Louisa, we’re meant to be together. What we have is special and rare, and it’s something that time or mistakes can’t erase. We love each other. And we have eight years to make up for. So, say you’ll marry me, then let’s go buy our dog. We’ll name him Rufus….”
He remembered, she realized. He remembered her insane chatter about a dog.
Tears were falling from her eyes, but only because she was so full of love it had to overflow somewhere.
She said, “We’ll name him Rufus because it’s a good name for a dog.”
“And we’ll buy a house—”
“On the lake. You’ll be a doctor, I’ll own a chocolate store, and we’ll have loads of kids.”
