by Merry Farmer
“She will,” Rachel said, then yawned.
She closed her eyes, confident in her statement. Thomas glanced one more time between Rachel and Lorraine, heart full. He was a lucky man indeed to have a chance to call himself a part of this. All he had to do, he thought as he left the room, was convince Rebecca to take him into her heart the way she had taken him into her bed.
Chapter Eight
Rebecca’s peaceful sleep only lasted for so long. She was shaken awake when Thomas came back to bed.
“Where did you go?” she asked, hazy in the heat.
“To check on the girls,” he told her. He took advantage of her half-wakefulness to tug the bedcovers down and reposition both of them under a light sheet. “They’re fine. Grover is home.”
Her heart sped up. “Did you talk to him? Is he all right?”
She could just make out the silhouette of Thomas shaking his head in the moonlight. “He went straight to bed, and so should you.”
His concern and the tenderness in his voice reassured her, but only barely.
He lay down beside her and pulled her against his side. Gradually his breathing slowed to a steady rhythm, but now sleep escaped her. The depth of her worry was too much to let her rest. Where had Grover gone and what would he have to say about himself in the morning? How could she handle him when she barely had control of herself?
She scooted far enough away from Thomas to cool off and focus, keeping her eyes closed. Grover must have gone to Sobel’s Pond. She wasn’t the only one for whom the pond had always been a place of refuge. Her mind wandered back to the miserable town council meeting, to the things Dr. Greene had said and the way he had looked when he left the meeting. She was missing something. Her whole soul was missing something. The answer was as slippery as sleep
By morning she had hardly slept a wink. As the unrelenting sun rose and peeked through the window, it brought the guilt of morning with it. The moment she opened her eyes to see Thomas lying beside her, reason returned. What had she done?
She got out of bed before Thomas woke up and dressed in clean clothes, avoiding looking at him. This was what happened with Bo, she reminded herself with an anxious frown as she brushed and pinned her hair. Endearments had turned into kisses and kisses had turned into much more. Then there was Grover. The endearments stopped and the belt came out.
She drew in a breath and turned to study Thomas. He was so different than Bo in every way. He sprawled on his back in sleep under the thin cotton sheet. His strong arms and half of his torso were bared to the morning sunlight. His skin was a smooth caramel brown. Below the sheet his hips and legs were outlined. The bulge of his masculinity was apparent.
“How did I let this happen?” she whispered as she stared.
Before she could answer herself, she turned and fled the room. She was a mother. She had responsibilities that were far more important than her own carnal wishes. Grover, Sobel’s Pond, Dr. Greene’s behavior, all of it still gnawed at her, pushing her to do something to make people see the truth. And Thomas….
Thomas was wonderful. He cared for her, supported her, encouraged her to speak her mind. He had filled her with bliss last night. Everything about him urged her to trust him. So why was she holding back?
She shook the thought away and focused on important things. When she entered the girls’ room, she found them peaceful and smiling as they woke. Relief and a joy filled her. Her children were well. She had Thomas to thank for it. Again her heart throbbed in her chest. A tiny voice in the back of her mind whispered “Jump. Jump into the water and swim!”
Rachel insisted on getting out of bed and going downstairs to help her with breakfast. Less than an hour later when Thomas came downstairs, the kitchen was humming with domesticity as Rebecca put together breakfast and fed Helen while Rachel sat at the table in her nightgown fixing a tray to take up to her sister.
“I was never as sick as she was,” she was in the middle of explaining when Thomas walked into the room. Her smile at the sight of him could have lit the darkest night.
“Good morning,” Thomas greeted them. He didn’t appear to be much of a morning person. He was dressed, but without his jacket, and his hair still hung loose down his back. A faint hint of hesitance hung over him and he met Rebecca’s eyes with a question.
“Dr. Smith!” Rachel exclaimed. She jumped out of her chair and dashed across the room to hug him.
Rebecca’s brow flew up and her heart tightened. “It looks like you have a friend.”
“Good morning, Rachel.” Thomas laughed. “I see you’re feeling better.”
“I’m hungry,” she told him.
“Then you’re definitely feeling better.”
“Can we go swimming today?” she asked both Thomas and Rebecca. “It’s hot.”
“We’ll see,” Rebecca answered, focused on breakfast.
“The pond might be shut down for a while,” Thomas explained. He walked Rachel back to the table and sat beside her. “They want to be sure that it won’t make anyone sick.”
“But the pond didn’t make me sick,” Rachel said. “Grandpa’s peppermints did. That’s what you told me.”
“You’re right.” Thomas nodded. “But the world is full of people who see things in a different light. The town council needs to be careful. And we need to eat our breakfasts.”
Rachel smiled at Thomas with adoration that matched what was growing in Rebecca’s heart. Her own adoration was far less innocent, no matter how much guilt pricked her. She stole a glimpse of the brown vee of skin at the neck of Thomas’s shirt, remembering the feel of his body surrounding hers, as she finished the eggs and toast. She filled two plates and set them on the table in front of her daughter and her…what was Thomas to her now?
Rachel and Thomas dove into their breakfasts as though neither had eaten for days, forgetting the business with the pond. Rebecca did her best to put it aside for the moment too. The sight of the pale girl and tall, broad man eating—and Rachel trying to talk at the same time as she recounted the days she had been sick—left a warm, pulsing ache in Rebecca’s chest.
It felt right. Everything about the scene felt right. Having Thomas in her bed last night, his powerful body above hers, inside of her, welling with desire, felt right. But too many things were still wrong. Far too many things. She returned to the kitchen sink and stared out the window as if the answer were waiting there for her.
Grover stomped into the room several minutes later, Thomas’s jacket clutched in one fist.
“This was in the girls’—”
He froze at the sight of Thomas at the table, his shirt untucked and his hair long and loose. Grover’s sleep-foggy expression hardened to adolescent fury.
“What is he doing here?” he demanded.
Rebecca’s heart pounded. “I—”
Thomas stood. “Grover.” He nodded. “I stayed the night.”
Grover flushed with protective anger. He stared from Thomas to Rebecca, fury followed by hurt, and threw the jacket on the floor. “Get out!” he demanded.
“Do not speak to Dr. Smith like that, young man,” Rebecca said. The conviction in her command was weak with guilt.
“I don’t want you here,” Grover went on as though she hadn’t said anything. “You’re nothing but trouble.”
“I understand your concern,” Thomas said, hands outstretched.
“No you don’t!” Grover marched to stand toe-to-toe with Thomas as if Thomas wasn’t eight inches taller. “You don’t know a thing!”
“Grover,” Rebecca tried to intervene, “now is not the time to—”
“I won’t let you hurt her.” Grover ignored her and growled at Thomas. “She’s none of your business! She’s my mother and I say get out!”
As much as she knew she should do something to take charge of the situation and explain things to Grover, Rebecca was at a loss. How could she explain how she felt to her fifteen-year-old son? What she really wanted to do was run away to the pond, to escape
.
“I’ll go,” Thomas said.
Rebecca blinked out of her confusion. “No! No, you don’t have to go.”
“I think I do.” Thomas met her eyes with a promise. He held them for a moment before stooping to pick up his jacket. “I have some business that needs attending to, but I’ll be back to check on the girls later, and to check on you.” He started for the door.
“But—”
“No, don’t come back!” Grover ordered.
Thomas stopped and turned to face Grover. The neutral expression he had worn the night before at the town council meeting was back. “I will come back later,” he said to Grover, “and you and I will talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” Grover shot back. Whether he realized it or not, he mirrored Thomas’s firm posture, his even tone of voice.
Thomas nodded to her then left.
Rachel huffed in disappointment. “I like him,” she sullenly told her eggs.
“He’s trouble,” Grover answered, eyeing Rebecca as his fight deflated to grumpiness.
Rebecca sighed and crossed her arms. The heat from the stove and from the muggy day seemed to sink into her bones, leaving her restless and listless at the same time.
“Grover.” She shook her head. “You need to stop looking for trouble and recognize goodness and kindness when you see it.” She blinked. It was the same advice she should give herself.
Before she could digest her words, Grover stepped closer to her. The space between them rippling with awkwardness.
“He slept in your bed last night, didn’t he?”
Rebecca swallowed, the worst sort of shame she could have imagined washing over her. She glanced past Grover to be sure Rachel wasn’t listening.
“And what would you know about that, young man?”
She didn’t want to know the answer to her question, not from the boy she had rocked and kissed to soothe the tears left by his father’s belt and shouts over countless years.
Grover kept his mouth shut. He took a plate from the stove and stomped to the table, slouching into a chair and proceeding to eat as though he were alone in the world. There was nothing for it but to go back to work.
As soon as breakfast was over, Grover stomped back up to his room. Rebecca could hear his door slam from the first floor. She sighed and shook her head, knowing full well that was the most she would be able to do for the time being. Perhaps Thomas could talk sense into him.
The rest of the morning was filled with endless chores and restless children. Lorraine decided she was well enough to get out of bed, but as soon as she did, the complaining started.
“It’s too hot,” Lorraine sighed from her spot near the door where she played with Helen. “Can we go to the pond?”
“I want to go swimming,” Rachel added.
“We can’t go to the pond,” Rebecca told them as she tucked the corners of fresh sheets around Rachel’s mattress. “You can go play outside in the shade though.”
“It’s still too hot,” Rachel whined.
“Yeah,” Lorraine agreed.
Rebecca pressed her eyes closed and clenched her jaw. “If you’re feeling well you could help me with the beds,” she suggested, attempting to keep her voice cheerful. If Thomas was with her, truly with her, perhaps he could have distracted the girls, taken them out. Her back itched with impatience as she struggled with the sheets and her emotions. “Well, young lady?”
Rachel slumped dramatically and plodded to the window. She was far closer to being a difficult adolescent, like her brother, than a sweet child, like Helen. Rebecca sighed. She didn’t have to do this alone. She didn’t have to raise children and fight injustice and hold her heart together alone. Let go, her mind whispered again. Thomas is not Bo.
“I’m hot,” Lorraine repeated for the hundredth time.
Rebecca huffed out a breath. Before she could scold Lorraine, Rachel said, “Look, Mama. It’s Dr. Greene and that man from the pond!”
Rebecca straightened, her frustration overcome by curiosity. She stepped to the window to see what Rachel was seeing. Sure enough, Dr. Greene marched down Second Street at a swift pace, the man with the moustache she had seen at the pond the day the girls fell ill with him.
“Who is he?” Rachel asked.
Rebecca’s skin prickled. “Who indeed?”
She turned away from the window, looking at Lorraine and Helen as they sat—hot and sagging and miserable—against the wall. Her restlessness snapped to action. She was through with pushing herself aside, through with indecision. She would find out what Dr. Greene was up to and who his friend was, and then she would speak to Thomas.
“Let’s go for a walk,” she said, stepping to scoop Helen into her arms. Lorraine jumped to her feet.
“Where are we going?” Rachel asked, hurrying away from the window to join them.
“Do you feel well enough to walk all the way to the pond?” she asked them.
The girls’ eyes flashed to excitement. “Yes!” they answered as one.
Rebecca nodded and marched into the hall. “Grover!” she called up to the third floor. “Do you want to go to the pond with us?”
“No!” Grover’s shout was muffled behind his door.
Fine. Let him steam for as long as he wanted to.
“Let’s go,” she said to the girls, heading down the stairs.
Dr. Greene and his friend were nowhere in sight as Rebecca and her girls marched down Second Street. Rachel and Lorraine bounced and giggled on their first walk since being sick, but Rebecca’s attention was focused. As she suspected, they caught sight of Dr. Greene again as they neared the line of trees that marked the beginning of Nathan Sobel’s property.
“Ssh,” she hushed the girls, reaching her free hand out to slow them. “You don’t want to wear yourselves out so quickly.” And she didn’t want Dr. Greene noticing them before she had a chance to see what he was up to.
The men turned off of the road and disappeared behind the shrubs that marked the entrance to the pond. Rebecca sped up, the girls laughing and jumping behind her as if it were a game. They all stopped short when they reached the opening between the shrubs.
A fence had been put up. She had expected some sort of barricade after the town council meeting, but not barbed wire. As far as she could see, it ran around the entire perimeter of the grove surrounding the pond. The wire had been wrapped around the trees themselves with a post here or there when the trees were too far apart. A crude gate had been built in the gap that had been the pond’s entrance.
“So soon?” she whispered.
“Mama, what is that?” Rachel echoed her.
The shock wore off and Rebecca’s anger billowed.
“It’s somebody up to no good,” she answered her daughter. She adjusted Helen in her arms, checked to be sure Rachel and Lorraine were still up to it, and charged forward.
The makeshift gate was open and easy to pass through. On the other side, the pond was little changed. The same gentle, grassy hills sloped down to the water, the same tall trees gave their shade, and the dock jutted out into the still waters.
Dr. Greene and his friend had made their way around the pond to the tree that held the rope swing. An old man hobbled down the slope from another gap in the trees to greet them. Rebecca gasped at the sight of Nathan Sobel. She hadn’t seen her old friend’s father for years. Even from a distance she could tell he was feeble and fading. Her heart caught in her throat. Mr. Sobel had been as much a part of the joy and safety of her childhood as the pond itself.
Dr. Greene strode to meet him, holding out his hand. Mr. Sobel shook it and the hand of the other man as Dr. Greene introduced him.
It was then that Dr. Greene noticed Rebecca and the girls.
“No swimming!” he shouted across the distance. “The pond is closed!”
Mr. Sobel and the stranger pivoted to look at her. Rebecca straightened, squaring her shoulders and hardening her resolve.
“Girls, wait here,” she said
, leading them up the hill to a soft spot of shade. “Watch Helen for me.”
Helen protested as Rebecca let her go, but Rachel was quick to comfort her. Rebecca could tell by the look in her oldest daughter’s eyes that she knew something was about to happen.
Something was indeed about to happen.
Gathering all of her pride, Rebecca marched across the uneven grass to where Dr. Greene and the others stood.
“I said there was no swimming!” Dr. Greene snapped at her as she grew near.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Sobel,” she greeted the stooped, blinking old man.
“Is that…is that little Rebecca McGee?” The old man squinted then brightened.
“Yes it is.” She took his hand. They were gnarled and dry even on this steamy day. “I used to play with Agnes here every summer,” she added, preparing her argument already.
“I remember, I remember.” Mr. Sobel smiled. “Two prettier girls I never did see.”
His kindness touched her heart and his age and weakness broke it. It also lit the spark of suspicion in her.
“Sir.” She nodded to the man with the moustache. “We haven’t been introduced.”
“Charles Summerall,” he answered with a quick smile, lifting his hat to her. “Miss McGee, is it?”
“It is not!” Dr. Greene snorted. “This is Mrs. Turner, a troublemaker who divorced her husband. Go away, Mrs. Turner!”
Mr. Summerall’s friendly smile dropped and he stared at Dr. Greene.
Rebecca ignored both men. She had a mission to fulfill.
“Mr. Sobel, why have you let your pond be closed to swimmers?” she asked point-blank.
“This is preposterous!” Dr. Greene bellowed. “Nathan, send this meddling woman away.”
“Now, now, hold on just one minute.” Mr. Sobel turned to Dr. Greene and gestured for him to calm down. He turned back to Rebecca with the smile he’d had when she was a girl. “The water’s gone bad, I’m afraid,” he said. “We need to fix it. That’s what Dr. Greene is here to do.”
“But the water hasn’t gone bad,” Rebecca told him.
Mr. Summerall writhed in discomfort, frowning at Dr. Greene.
