by Beth K. Vogt
“Sam was stationed in Colorado?”
“Yes. About two hours from Fort Collins.”
“Hard to believe . . .” His father’s voice trailed off. “So, what happened?”
“I survived an hour with a woman who didn’t want to look at me because I’m an exact replica of her husband. I wanted to apologize . . . or at least drape a napkin over my face.”
How could he confess the rest to his father? He’d spent so many years just being Stephen Ames that he’d forgotten what it was like to be Sam’s twin brother. The stares of his friends. The confusion.
But now it was worse. He wasn’t just Sam’s twin.
He was Sam’s ghost.
He knew his father was waiting for him to say more. “After dinner, we ran into a couple of Sam’s friends—one of his army buddies. The guy was stunned when he saw me.”
“I can imagine.”
Stephen stood, shutting the door and walking to the front of the car, leaning against the hood, cold seeping through the material of his pants. Cars moved along Powers Boulevard, headlight beams streaming past, the sounds an odd motorized acoustic background. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come.”
“Do you really believe that? You had to try, son. You may still end up with more questions than answers.”
“Haley agreed to one meeting. And I got nothing.” He did a quick review of Haley’s minimalist answers. “While Sam and Haley were married, it sounds as if he was gone more than he was home.”
Hesitancy tinged his father’s words. “You could always talk to your mother.”
“I don’t think so, Dad.” The leap from a single phrase written in a Hallmark card to an entire conversation seemed as wide as the Vermont lake he’d tried to swim across when he was eight—and almost drowned.
“I could try calling her.”
“This is my journey, Dad. I’ll figure out something.”
He had to . . . because, really, he still didn’t know who his brother was. And he wasn’t willing to walk away—or to let Haley walk away. But could he convince her to talk with him again? Was there any other option?
Chaz’s words echoed through his mind. “Your brother was a good guy. A great soldier.”
Maybe someone like Chaz, someone who had worked with Sam, could tell him more.
six
It had been good to get out of the house again. After last night’s dinner with Stephen Ames, Haley hoped the walk this morning would clear her head of the double images that haunted her sleep. At six months pregnant, she couldn’t outrun them, but she could walk fast.
Haley rounded the corner onto the cul-de-sac that harbored the home she’d moved into eight weeks ago. It sat just left of the house in the center. Would Sam have liked it? Today the gray, cloudless sky huddled over the rancher guarded by a tall, leafless tree on the left and a small porch that she’d have to paint come summer. How soon before Shelton notified her about that? Patches of leftover snow dotted the faded brown grass, and she had no idea what, if anything, would bloom in the flower bed beneath the front bay window.
She tucked her hands into the pockets of Sam’s coat as a breeze whipped past her. Exercise was good for her and the baby—or so her doctor said. But now she was ready for a nap. Resting was good, too. From what everyone said, she was going to get precious little sleep once her son was born. She appreciated the few hours each day when she slept soundly and didn’t have to think about her life—what she’d lost and what she had to face by herself.
Just as she reached her neighbor’s house, a red Mustang entered the cul-de-sac. Haley stood and watched as it looped past her and pulled into her driveway, the shadow of an achingly familiar face flashing past her in the driver’s window.
What is Stephen Ames doing here, God? Hadn’t she done the right thing—the sacrificial thing—by agreeing to have dinner with him last night? Couldn’t the man be grateful and leave her alone?
He hopped out of the car dressed in a dark jacket and black jeans, then walked to the back and popped the trunk. Haley held her ground on the sidewalk out in front of the house. The first words that came to her mind were Get off my property. She counted to ten. “Don’t you have a job?”
A slight improvement.
“Excuse me?” Stephen looked over his shoulder, the winter sun creating highlights in his dark hair.
“A job. Don’t you need to go to work?”
He leaned into the trunk and pulled out a medium-size brown box, closing the trunk with his elbow. “Not at the moment.”
“You need one.” Haley kept her voice low as she punched in the code to open the garage door.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.” Stephen stood behind her, waiting while the garage door slid up.
“Nothing.” Haley navigated the maze in her garage. Besides her car, boxes filled the space to overflowing. She wasn’t completely avoiding unpacking boxes—but she was avoiding going through Sam’s clothes and books. Anything that would cause her to face Sam again. One more huge, heartbreaking thing. There was always one more thing. Maybe by the time the baby was old enough to go to kindergarten she’d catch up with her life again.
Stephen muttered about taking his life in his hands as he squeezed between her car and the teetering pile of cardboard boxes. He didn’t answer her “don’t you need to go to work” inquiry until they passed through the laundry room, stepping over the pile of dirty towels, and stood in the kitchen.
“I’m job hunting.”
“Oh. Good luck.” Was she supposed to ask him why—as if she was interested in his life? Right now the only coherent message her brain was telegraphing was spelled N-A-P.
Stephen lifted the box that he held in his arms a few inches. “I brought a present. For the baby.”
“What? Why?” Was the man trying to bribe her into talking about Sam?
He kept talking, turning the box so she could see the brightly colored photograph on the front of the box. “It’s a toddler swing.”
Haley pointed at the photo of a smiling little boy sitting in a bright blue swing, seemingly suspended in midair. “A newborn can’t use that.”
“I know.” Stephen walked to the bay window in the living room. “But the other day when I was here I noticed that great old tree beside the garage. And I thought that it needed a swing, for when the baby’s older.”
“Oh.” Haley shook her head. Exhaustion had reduced her vocabulary to one word. What was pregnancy doing to her brain? Even if she was falling asleep standing up, she could still be polite. “Thank you.”
“I read about it online. It got great customer reviews and it’s good for kids from nine months to two years old, so you’ll get a lot of use out of it. Sam and I had this old tire we used to swing from. We thought it was the best thing ever.”
“He mentioned that. Said it hung right underneath a tree fort he built.”
“We built it.” Stephen deposited the box on the table beside her laptop.
“He never mentioned you.”
“I realize that.” His brown eyes dulled to the color of unpolished leather. “The summer we were nine, we scavenged all the old lumber we could and asked our dad for nails and hammers. We built the tree house in our backyard. Dad helped when he got home from work, and Mom even cooked a celebration dinner of homemade mac and cheese. We all ate dinner in the fort.”
Haley stood silent, listening as the statement “There are two sides to every story” came true right before her eyes. When Sam talked about building the tree house, he mentioned only how he built it. Not his father. Or his twin brother. Or his mother, even—and he had a relationship with her. Haley’s heart had ached for only-child Sam playing by himself. She’d pulled him close, kissed him until he stopped talking, in an attempt to erase the pain of the past. They’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms.
And the story hadn’t been true. She felt like the Grimm brothers’ Gretel, discovering bread crumbs that she hoped led back home—only to find she’d been deceived and ended up lost,
left wandering alone.
Stephen’s all-too-familiar voice pulled her back to the present problem. “Sam ever show you pictures of the tree house?”
“No.”
“I have some . . .”
What gave Stephen Ames the right to share memories with her that Sam hadn’t? “If Sam wanted me to see the tree house he would have shown me the pictures.”
Unspoken words stretched between them. But then you would have learned about me.
Time to call the man’s bluff. “Why are you here?”
Stephen’s hand rested on the box. “I told you, I wanted to put a swing up for the baby—”
“You didn’t even know I was pregnant before you showed up.” Haley fisted her hands on her hips. “Your being here has nothing to do with the baby.”
“Fine. I wanted to help you and the baby—and I want to know my brother. You’re my best chance for that.”
“Don’t you think this grand gesture—showing up here after Sam is dead—is too much, too late? If you wanted to get to know Sam, why didn’t you try sooner?”
“I did.” His admission came through gritted teeth as he approached her until mere inches separated them, but Haley refused to back down. “I don’t have to explain my relationship with my brother to you. We were more than brothers before our parents divorced. We were best friends.”
“Then what happened?”
Before he looked away, something shadowed his eyes—an ache she lived with every waking moment.
“I don’t know.”
“Why don’t I believe you?” They stared at one another, the all-too-familiar silence looming between them. After a few seconds, Haley shrugged her shoulders and moved away.
“Thanks for the swing. I’ll put it up later. But I just came back from a walk and I’m beat.” A yawn punctuated her declaration. “So I’m going to take a nap.”
“My offer still stands. I can hang the swing while you rest. I’ll be outside, so you won’t hear a thing. If you show me where Sam’s tools are, I’ll get out of your way and let you get your beauty sleep.”
She shook her head, long strands of hair whispering around her shoulders. “It’s more like my baby sleep. And Sam’s tools are still packed in one of those boxes in the garage.” She waved good-bye. “Be seeing you.”
Or not. Please.
Haley prayed she could dispel the image of Sam’s lookalike standing in the middle of her kitchen, watching her. Half the time she was with Stephen Ames, she battled to remember he wasn’t her husband—merely an unwanted reflection of the man she’d married.
Stephen stood on the top step leading into the garage and surveyed the mess. How did Haley fit the Subaru in there? Somewhere in the midst of all these boxes were Sam’s tools—which he intended to find. Because whether Haley liked it or not—and she didn’t—he was putting up the toddler swing. That was his plan and he was sticking to it.
He hit the garage door control, dodged boxes, deposited his box underneath the tree, and circled it. Yep. There was a perfect branch to suspend the swing from. Not too high up. He’d noticed a large tree in the backyard, but it didn’t have any low-hanging branches adequate for a swing. And some of the top branches looked . . . old. Brittle.
After opening the box, he read through the directions to figure out what he needed to complete the job—and realized tools were unnecessary. He wasn’t going to hang the swing today, not when the directions stated to store the swing indoors when temperatures dropped below freezing. It was only February—still plenty of opportunities for that to happen.
So much for surprising—and defying—his sister-in-law. He tucked the directions in the box and confronted the disarray in the garage. There was no method to this madness, as boxes were just pushed and piled on top of one another. Words were scrawled on several of them, and a closer inspection revealed them to be labeled LIVING ROOM or BATHROOM or BEDROOM CLOTHES. If he couldn’t hang the swing, maybe he could rearrange the boxes into some sort of order.
After forty-five minutes of shoving and repiling, Stephen stepped back to survey his progress. Sweat dampened his shirt, and the layer of dust coating his hands lodged in his throat and nose, prompting mild bouts of coughing. All of the boxes marked BEDROOM were in one area. Kitchen boxes were closest to the door leading into the house. His stepmother had taught him to unpack the kitchen first when they moved into a new house. Boxes labeled CLOTHES were stacked next to the bedroom boxes. And all of the boxes marked GARAGE were piled over by the workbench, with the ones labeled TOOLS on top of the stack. It was a start.
Would Sam have been glad his brother planned on putting a baby swing in the tree? Maybe not. His shoulders slumped. After their father remarried, Sam had made it clear that his life was with their mom—that it didn’t include their father. Sam’s decision to live with his mom when they’d started high school began the slow erosion of their relationship.
Stephen needed to man up and admit there was a part of him that had heaved a silent breath of release during his high school years. At last, he was just Stephen Rogers Ames. The only Ames brother—except for the few holidays he spent with Sam and his mom, and as those had gotten more and more tense, they became less frequent. The one letter Stephen sent him after college graduation . . . what happened to that? Probably gone missing in the midst of Sam’s moves with the army. Or tossed in the trash, unread.
He’d willingly lived a lie—and so had Sam. And now Stephen would pay for their choices for the rest of his life.
What time was it?
Haley opened her eyes, shoving her hair out of her face with a groan. Why oh why had pregnancy made her a drooler? She rolled from her side onto her back, wiping the warm moisture from her lips. Lovely. If Sam were here, he’d make some sort of crack about having to rethink why he’d married her.
If only she could dredge up a laugh.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed. No lying around and definitely no lying on her back, not when her bladder insisted she get up. Everything she’d ever heard about pregnant women making multiple trips a day—and all through the night—to the bathroom was coming true. At this rate, she’d spend the last month of this pregnancy in the bathroom.
A few minutes later, she smoothed Sam’s ARMY STRONG T-shirt over her tummy. “Try not to use Mommy’s bladder as a pillow, okay, buddy?” She stilled as movement fluttered beneath her hand. Most of the time, she could ignore what was happening—how her body was morphing into something she no longer recognized—until moments like this one. This was when she’d have called Sam and placed his hand beneath hers, both of them marveling that their baby, their son, was moving inside her.
And she’d deprived Sam of experiencing a single moment of the pregnancy with her.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
How many times did she have to repeat those words before she felt any relief ? Sometimes she whispered them aloud until she fell asleep at night, her arms wrapped around Sam’s pillow. But when she woke in the morning, forgiveness still eluded her.
Hunger pushed her thoughts toward food, prodding her toward the kitchen. Maybe grilled cheese again? A bowl of Cap’n Crunch cereal? But sounds from the garage brought her up short. She half-turned, determined to get one of her guns from the safe in her bedroom closet. It was the middle of the day. She took a slow breath and pushed aside the bay window curtain instead.
Why was Stephen Ames’s red Mustang still parked in her driveway? According to her iPhone on her bedside table, it was twelve thirty. She’d slept for two hours. Didn’t the man understand the words no and thank you? Stalking to the garage, she yanked open the door, causing Stephen to whirl around.
“What are you doing here?”
“You’re awake.”
She pushed the tangles of hair from her eyes. “Obviously. Why are you still here? I told you I’d hang the swing myself.” Her bare foot tapped against the cool linoleum floor.
“And I told you I’d do it.”
Was she going t
o stand here and argue? She’d learned, growing up with three older brothers, to pick her battles. “It shouldn’t take two hours to put up a swing.”
Stephen raised his arm, motioning to the garage. “Well, neither of us can hang the swing until the weather warms up. So I organized things for you. Wanted to help.”
Haley’s eyes tracked the arc of his arm. The towering wall of boxes had disappeared. In its place were the beginnings of space and order. She opened her mouth. Closed it. Tried again. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t unpack much—just some of the tools.” Stephen dusted off his hands on the front of his jeans. “Mostly I tried to rearrange the boxes into categories: living room, bedroom, bathroom, office, books, that kind of thing.”
Did the man have a superhero complex or something? Why was he so determined to help her? “Why?”
“Well, you have to admit it was a mess in here.”
Did he think she was lazy? She stood straighter, jabbing a thumb into her chest. “I was going to get to it.”
“When did you move in?”
“Two months ago. I’ve been busy.”
Stephen Ames could do the eyebrow arch, too. “And the baby’s due—”
“In April.” Haley held up her hand to ward off another appearance of Sam’s lookalike smile. “I can do this myself.”
“But I’m here.” Stephen had the nerve to move a box from one pile to another. Wasn’t he paying attention? “I want to help.”
“Why?”
“You’re Sam’s . . . wife. That makes you my sister-in-law—”
“We are not family.” She gestured between them. “I didn’t even know you existed until three days ago, and the fact that you and Sam were close for the first part of his life doesn’t require me to have a relationship with you. I answered your questions. I’m done. I don’t need your help. Now, if you don’t mind, I just woke up and I’m starving. I’m going inside and I would appreciate it if you’d leave like I asked you to do before I took a nap.”
