I could visualize the open-mouthed stares and disapproving whispers. No, it’s better to live the lie. Play it safe. After all, I could re-invent my past. WITSEC had taught me well.
In the background the cook clanked pots in the kitchen. It was nearing time for lunch. She appeared with two tall glasses of iced tea and handed me one.
“Thanks.” The cold amber liquid coated my throat and hit an empty stomach. I took two more gulps.
Jake returned with a pet crate. From inside came a questioning mew. I recognized that meow. My eyes popped open so wide, I felt them strain at the edges.
“I’ve been caring for a friend of yours. But I am hardly a replacement.” He set the case down on the porch and opened the latch.
I knelt down on my heels, my hands extended. “Tom Cat? Here kitty, kitty.”
Two green eyes on a black and white face peered out. He made a cautious, slow step forward, then halted. After a moment, I believe recognition dawned in his expression. One more meow and he hopped in my lap. My eyes welled with joy as I stroked his fur. “Oh, thank you. Thank you.”
The wise pastor sipped his tea and stretched his mouth in an “ah.” “I figured you might want to see each other.”
I cuddled and cooed to the cat as its acceptance of me grew into jowl rubs. I rocked him in my arms while his whiskers tickled my ear. “At least somebody still loves me.”
Pastor Jake cocked his head, his expression stern. “Jen… he’ll come around. He’s given you time. Do him the same favor.”
I knew he didn’t mean the cat.
After a moment, Jake interrupted my feline to human reunion. “Jen. I brought something else for you, except at the time I didn’t realize it. God did, though.” The furrows in his forehead deepened as he set the glass down. “I don’t believe in coincidences. Two weeks ago, I attended an amazing weekend at a retreat center. I’d been asked to be one of the participating ministers. It’s for people like you, struggling with their decisions to abort. Not only women, but men too.”
I petted Tom Cat as he nuzzled into me with a purr imitating a lawnmower. “Really? Men?”
He leaned back and crossed his leg. “Oh, yes. It affects both parties. It takes the men a bit longer to put their finger on it. Many become angry inside. The pendulum swings in two directions. Either they become risk-takers or over-protective thugs. Some hate women and abuse them. Others hover over them and try to dominate their lives. Many refuse to get emotionally close to any children or women, but still want to manipulate every detail of their day.”
That sounded familiar. It fit Robert to a “T”, even early on in our marriage. “And the women?”
He took another long drink of iced tea. “You tell me. Avoidance of babies, sexually distant, often in abusive relationships with domineering men. Many become angry at God, then flip it around to think God is mad at them. They believe they’ve committed the unforgivable sin. So they abandon the faith. A form of self-inflicted punishment.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“They dream of how the child would have looked at three, five, ten, and eighteen. Even if they go on to have more children, the shadow of the one who never had a chance to be born is always there.”
I rubbed Tom Cat’s fur with my chin. Tears refilled my eyes. “But these retreats help?”
Jake turned my face towards him. “Yes. I witnessed amazing healing. God’s loving power oozed through the whole weekend.”
He fell silent. A warmth penetrated his face as he peered off to somewhere else. After a moment, he blinked. “There’s one in three weeks at a conference center outside of Austin, about an hour from here. Please go to it, Jen.”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure…”
“You’ll be with sufferers like yourself. Pastors who are sympathetic to your pain and professional counselors to guide you through it. But no one is there to judge you or push you. It is a time of healing and forgiveness.”
Forgiveness. A chill splashed over my scalp. The one thing I needed. I blinked away his stare. “I’ll think about it.”
“If you do, you’ll talk yourself out of it. Sign the registration form now. Let me pay for it.”
I started to object but he raised his hands in front of me. “My gift. Accept it. It’s time for the lies to end. Especially those you’ve been telling yourself.”
Movement caught both our attention. Tom lumbered up the path. His head swung low, eyes to the ground.
Jake leaned in. “I happen to have some brochures in my briefcase in the car. I’ll go get them.” He left out the backside of the screened porch leading to the graveled parking area, almost in sync with Tom entering from the riverside.
I forced myself to look at him. Tom stopped, squinted out over the water, and inhaled slowly. “I am so very sorry, Jen. If I had known, I’d never dropped off Marisol’s child.” His face crinkled together and reddened. He kicked a chair leg.
I jumped.
“Of all the manipulative, cruel…heartless…” He rubbed his neck. “And he had me doing his dirty bidding.” Tom scratched the back of his head. “I drove his knife in your back. Sheez. Can you ever forgive me, Jen?”
“Forgive you? I’m the one who should be asking you that question.” I let Tom Cat down and laced my hands around my waist.
Tom shot me a glance before his eyes returned to the river. “I got all giddy at the chance to see you again. And Robert knew that, Jen. What a calculating, unfeeling…”
“Tom. It’s all right. You didn’t know. I should have come clean with you in your duplex before I entered WITSEC.”
“Perhaps, Jen. It would have saved us both a lot of pain.”
“Then you aren’t mad at me?”
“Shocked, yeah. But...no, not mad. Robert coerced me into doing things I never thought I’d ever do…” He bit his lip and looked to the ground. His chest heaved. After a deep swallow, he spoke again, voice raspy. “How can I judge you for doing the same?”
I breathed again.
Then, in an instant, his face eased. “Hey. Is that?”
“Tom Cat. Yes. Jake’s been keeping him for me.”
He crouched down and clicked his fingers. “Hey, guy. Remember me, your name sake?”
I rose and placed my hand on Tom’s back. His muscles rippled in response. Tom turned to me. He rose, took me into his arms and held me tighter than he ever had. His voice muffled by my hair, spoke straight to my soul. “We’ll see you through this, Jen. Together. Demon number one will be defeated.”
I kissed the indentation in his shoulder. “I don’t deserve you.”
He pulled away and cupped my face. “Nor I you. Seems we are on common ground, eh?”
“Then you forgive me for…” My eyes darted past his stare.
“Being duped into doing something for a conniving man who had a heart of stone? For being under his spell, like me for all those years? Kinda like the pot calling the kettle black, huh?”
I shook my head. “But I killed my child.” His face blurred through my tears.
Tom laid his forehead on mine. “Jen, I killed for him, too. May God forgive us both.”
* * *
Tom Cat plopped in a sunbeam for an afternoon tongue-to-fur bath. Jake returned with the literature and a registration form after taking much longer than it should have. My guess he noticed Tom return and knew we needed privacy.
He re-explained the program for Tom’s benefit and allowed us both to ask questions. Tom went first. “May I go with her?”
“No. She needs to do this alone, Tom. Trudge through the process herself at her own pace. You can’t do it for her. Post-abortion victims have a special wound. This weekend is the beginning of healing for them. But, I have a book for you to read while she’s there. It will help you better understand the torments Jen has been living with”—he gave me a warm smile—“and trying not to live with.”
Tom flipped the brochure over. “Okay, whatever I can do.”
I snapped my fingers. All thr
ee males, Tom Cat included, trained their eyes on me. But only one of them rubbed my leg. “Hey, I am here on this porch. You two are talking as if I’m not.”
In unison the two men ducked their heads. “Sorry.”
I stood up and slapped the literature to the table. “I’ll decide when, and if, I want to do this.” I pointed my finger at Tom’s nose, then Jake’s. “Don’t push me. Either of you. I’m tired of being pushed by men.”
I hooked Tom Cat under my elbow, and grabbed my iced tea glass. With purposeful stomps through the cabin, I went to my bedroom and slammed the door. Through the open window, I heard Tom reply, “Well, we’ve been told.”
I sat on the edge of the bed fuming as I watched the shadow of the oak tree limbs bob on the ceiling and wall. A warm breeze, cooled by the river currents, floated up the bluff. Tom Cat let off a mew and cuddled next to my hip.
I bent to his ear and stroked his back. “Oh, Tom Cat. You’re the only man in my life who never tries to tell me what to do.”
The screen door hinges complained, then closed with a wham. Footsteps crunched the gravel over low, male voices. I couldn’t decipher their words. A car door opened and closed.
I went to the window in time to see Jake drive away. He’d never prayed over me. One of my major “wants.”
“Arrghhh.” I threw my back against the mattress and pounded my fists to my temples.
* * *
An uncomfortable silence fell between Tom and I. The cabin became way too small. We went through the next few days in “polite mode.” Talked to the cook and Broom Hilda instead of each other. Dutifully did our physical therapy sessions. Watched DVD movies without interrelating.
Finally one evening, Tom sat on the porch, cup of coffee in hand, watching the fireflies emerge from their underground sleep.
I wrapped my arms around my waist. “Don’t you wonder why they don’t get stepped on during the day?”
He raised the mug to his lips. “They burrow in the ground. Out of the sun. It’s cooler. Dark. Protected.”
I sat down next to him. “Just like what I’ve tried to do to my past. I am afraid to expose my sins to the sun.”
He turned his face to me. “You mean the S-o-n?”
I shot him a weak smile. “I’ll go to it. The retreat. But I need you to back off, okay? Don’t hover so close. I never want a man to manipulate me again.”
He set down his coffee and wove my fingers through his. “Jen, my father abused my mother. I feared for a long time I had his genes in me. So I avoided…well, any close relationships. I don’t believe I do, but I guess I tend to be over-protective of the women I care about.”
I kissed his hand. “You think?”
“Come here, you.” He enveloped me in his arms. “It’s good to be able to put both around you again.”
“Hmm. I agree.” I craned my head up to meet his eyes. “What’s in store for us, now that we’ve both almost healed?”
“That’s up to God, isn’t it? But if we follow His lead, and obey his laws, we’ll be okay.”
I stroked his temple and curled a lock of his Irish black hair in my finger. “We? As in together?”
“From your lips to God’s ears.” He sealed the prayer with a kiss.
Inside his arms, at last I found truth and trust. No more lies.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Two weeks later, I went through the retreat. I was one of ten ladies, ranging from seventeen to sixty-four. They taught us to see our babies, not as bloody fetuses in a specimen jar, or body parts sucked out of our wombs, but as giggly, skipping children hand in hand with Jesus in Heaven.
We were asked to name them. Somehow I knew mine had been a girl. The counselors explained many women innately sense the sex of the fetus after the abortion. I named mine Niamh. I learned the name meant bright and radiant. That’s the way I saw her, with the sun playing off her ruby-gold hair and glistening in her olive-colored eyes. She had my dad’s smile.
When I described her to Tom, he surprised me on my birthday with a commissioned water color of such a little girl holding hands with Jesus as they walked a Texas wildflower-laden field. Their backs to the viewer, her head twisted around with a serene smile etching her rosy cheeks. I hung it over my bed in the cabin.
The same night, he said, “I have one more present for you.” He got down on one knee, opened the black velvet box, and told me he wanted me, and her posthumously, to take his name.
My world lit up. Through a smile so wide it hurt my cheeks I accepted. “On one condition, though, my dearest Tom.”
He readjusted his balance on his knee. “And that would be…?”
“That Jake performs the ceremony.”
Tom rose, clasped my hand and sat next to me. “He said he’d clear his calendar for whenever we choose.”
My eyes danced back and forth. I could see it in his smile. “You asked him?”
He shrugged. “It seemed proper I ask someone for your hand in marriage.”
“Well, in that case…” I took the ring from the box and handed it to him.
He sucked in a shaky breath and exhaled. “Okay. Here we go.”
The diamond ring slid over my knuckles. A perfect fit. Just like our love.
Broom Hilda decided to go to bed early so we could snuggle on the couch and talk in private.
One subject had to be broached. I sucked in a deep breath, not knowing what his reaction would be. But total honesty was our pledge. “Tom, are you sure you want to marry me? You know I can’t give you children.”
He dropped his hand from mine and stared out onto the river. My heart crunched as I gazed at the solitaire on my finger. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so quick to take it.
He whipped around to me, a flash of anger in his eyes. “Jen, do you honestly think that makes a difference?” He ran his fingers through my hair. “My love for you isn’t that shallow, hon.”
He let that comment lie for a moment, then he continued. “I wouldn’t have asked you to marry me if it did, okay?”
I nodded, unable to speak for fear the waterworks would erupt.
“One thing the whole Marisol incident taught me is that there are innocent babies out there who need love. After only a few days with that sweet thing, it took all the gumption I could muster to lay her on that stoop. My arms felt so empty. It hurt when you told me you’d given her up.”
I snuggled into his chest. “Really?”
He kissed the crown of my head. “Not that I blame you. Maybe it was God’s plan.”
I wiped my eyes and nodded. His voice softened. “One day, you’ll make a great mom and I hope to be a good dad, so I think we should adopt. But let’s not rush it, okay? I want you all to myself for a while. I’ve waited too long as it is.”
I sat up and kissed the end of his nose. “Okay.”
He leaned back. “Besides, I have to figure out a way to support us. You just agreed to marry an unemployed man, you know.”
“I can always teach.”
“Only if you want to. But when we start filling up the house with pattering feet who need love, I think you may want to home school.”
I cocked my head. “Tom, how many do you want to adopt?”
He shrugged. “Three, maybe four?” Then he qualified with a raised finger. “Eventually.”
I plopped back into his arms. “Well, you better start looking for a really good job then, sweetheart. With a brood like that, I’m going to need hired help. And to learn how to change diapers.”
His chest shook with laughter as we cuddled.
* * *
A black SUV pulled up to the cabin the next morning. A woman and two men in business suits and sunglasses slid out and walked towards us. We stood on the porch and watched them approach. My fingers fumbled for Tom’s hand. He found them and squeezed them firmly.
The trio stopped at the screen door. “Good morning. I’m Agent Ted Adams, and these are agents Olivia Hernandez and Chuck Allen. We’re here to discuss your relocation.”<
br />
Tom held up my hand. The one with the diamond on it. “As long as we are together, and he comes, too.” Tom Cat laid curled up on one of the chairs taking his third nap of the day.
Olivia’s stern expression melted into a smile. “Yes. We were told you two had a pet. And”—she nodded to my left finger—“that you, sir, bought the engagement ring in Fredericksburg last week.” Her eyes lifted to our resident agent, Hilda. Of course she would have reported it. “All has been molded into our suggestions.”
My attention perked. “Suggestions?”
Ted Adams extended his hand for us to shake. “On behalf of the Bureau, we want to settle you two once and for all. You are causing everyone way too much paperwork.”
He pulled out a letter. The envelope had a blue rectangle in the left corner. Par Avion. Air Mail. He cleared his throat an opened it. “This is from the Dowager at Greenwell Hall.” He turned his attention to my fiancé. “Tom, you and a Pastor Jake have been in communication with her and her granddaughter, am I correct?”
“What?” I swung my eyes to Tom’s face. “You have?”
His mouth screwed into a contrite pout. “Jake mostly. He discovered several post-abortion centers are establishing themselves in England and Ireland. I told him about Niamh and vice versa. They began to Skype. Jake encouraged Niamh to go to one. She did and has become quite involved.”
Agent Hernandez spoke up. “It seems she has decided to go back to school and get a degree in grief counseling. She and Lady Greenwell have discussed turning Greenwell Manor into a safe haven for trafficked girls and a possible location for future retreats. They have asked if you two would assist in the effort. Paid positions, of course.”
Tom looked into my eyes. I gazed back at him. We knew our minds both held the same answer. He raised my hand to his lips before he broke eye contact with me to look sharply into Agent Adam’s face. “On one condition. We hold our wedding ceremony in the gazebo, with Jake as our celebrant, and Niamh our maid of honor.”
Agent Allen agreed. “I think the federal government could swing round-trip airfare for the pastor. If he signs a confidentiality agreement. I understand he’s been an asset in the past.”
Legitimate Lies Page 29
