“That’s not fair.” It was fair. Everything she said was true. He had loved a ghost.
“What’s not fair is that you’re just tossing me aside like I meant nothing to you.” She held up her hand. The diamond sparkled. “You gave me a ring. You don’t get to change everything because your little friend came back to town.”
“It’s not unreasonable, when thrown this kind of curve ball, to need a little time to think.”
“I’ve always known Maggie was a threat to us. I just didn’t know she was this much of one. You know you’re not doing her or you any favors by trying to conjure the past into the present. You were children. God, you’re so transparent. I can’t pretend that I don’t see in your eyes that you’ve already decided. You’re a fool.”
“I’m sorry, but I need time to sort through my feelings.” Zane’s voice seemed to whisper in his ear. Liar. You already know.
“You need time. Isn’t that the mantra of our relationship. For six years I waited for you to figure out how good we were together. All that time, I waited. For what? This? To hear after we finally get engaged that the love of your life is suddenly alive. In what universe is that all right to do to the woman who loves you? You are mine. I earned you.”
His mouth went dry. I earned you. Like a piece of furniture or a car or a house? Sharon had her agenda and she wanted everyone to get into line. But they weren’t cells on a microscope that one tampered with to get the result she wanted.
“I’m sorry. I truly am,” he said. “But this is my life and I get to decide how to live it.”
Sharon twisted her ring around and around her finger. Tears fell from her eyes. Streaks of mascara ran down her cheeks. “I was willing to move here and become a boring housewife. For you. I was willing to do it for you and now you’re repaying me like this.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again. How stupid his words sounded, even to his own ears. But he was sorry. She had no idea of the doubts that had plagued him even before Maggie reappeared. He had to tell her the truth, as harsh as it was. “I hate hurting you. But I’ve had doubts long before this. I haven’t felt certain we were compatible. You deserve someone who loves you…” He trailed off, uncertain how to finish.
“The way you love Maggie?”
“Yes.” As much as it made him horrible, it was the truth.
“Then why did you propose? Why did you make me think I’d finally won?”
“Won?”
“The war with a ghost,” she said.
The war with a ghost? Perhaps Sharon didn’t love him as she imagined she did. Was he more attractive because he was essentially unavailable?
“You’re willing to just throw all that away in the hopes that the girl you had a crush on when you were a kid is the one you’re supposed to be with? It’s ridiculous. We have a life together. We have had a life together for six years.”
“It’s not like that. She wasn’t a crush. I loved her. We were in love. If her father hadn’t tampered with things, we would be married by now.”
“You’re an idiot. You’re delusional and insane. You should run, not walk, to your therapist and tell her how you’ve just sabotaged the best thing that ever happened to you.”
Sharon was not even close to the best thing that had ever happened to him. He could see that clearly now.
“I’m sorry.” How many times had he said that phrase in one day? He rubbed his temples and willed himself not to vomit.
“You’ll regret this. And when you realize what you’ve lost, don’t come running back to me.” She yanked the engagement ring from her finger and threw it across the kitchen. It landed in the sink with a clink. “You can take your minuscule diamond and stick it up your delusional behind.” Again, the Georgian accent reared to life.
“I’m truly sorry,” he said.
She was already at the door. “You will be. I’ll make sure of that.”
He dropped his face into his hands and cursed under his breath. She wasn’t going to make this easy.
Chapter Eleven
Maggie
* * *
MAGGIE SAT AT the table in Zane’s kitchen and opened a small box of photographs Zane had left for her. He was already downstairs at work. Doc was on his way over, but she had a few moments to herself.
The first of the bunch was of the three of them at high school graduation. She studied it carefully. Jackson’s face was drawn. Dark circles under his eyes hinted at grief. His mother had died just a month before. She looked at herself standing next to him. How thin she’d been, even for a dancer. Her cheeks hollow. Her eyes too big for her face. Her arms like a skeleton.
Oh, Lily. You left us too soon.
The next photograph was of her mother and Maggie at about age five. How had this one gotten in here? She traced the outline of her mother’s face with the tips of her fingers. I look so much like her now.
Strange to think that her mother was younger than Maggie was now when this photograph was taken. She was dead five years later. I’ve lived longer already than my mom did.
She set the photograph aside and went to the window. From here, she could see her father’s house. Her mother’s house. It belonged to them. For all these years, he’d lived in it. Since the day he killed her.
Don’t remember. Don’t think of it. You’ve already gone over it in your mind a thousand times. It was no use. The last few days of her mother’s life rushed back to her in painful clarity.
She was ten years old and it was bedtime, five days before Christmas. Mama sat on the side of the narrow twin bed and brushed Maggie’s bangs back from her forehead. “I have something important to tell you. I’m divorcing your dad. He won’t be able to hurt me any longer.” The pinched look had disappeared from Mama’s face. It was because her father was away—gone, hopefully for good. He’d been away for almost a year, working on an oil rig in Texas. They’d been at peace without him. Just the two of them. No shouting or pushing. No black eyes or bruises that her mother hid with long sleeves.
“I don’t want him to come home,” Maggie whispered. “Will he? Will he come and find us again?”
“I’ve filed papers and the lawyer sent them to him in Texas. He won’t be able to come back into this house ever again. This was my mama’s house and her mama’s house before that. Someday this will be your house. And honey, I have something else to tell you. It won’t make sense to you because you’re so young, but I love another man. It’s wrong because I’m married, but we love each other. I’m going to have a baby. His baby.”
“What about Dad? He won’t let you go. He’ll come back and hurt you.”
“Not this time. He won’t be back for another week, but when he comes, the locks will be changed. It’ll just be us.” She laid her hand on her stomach. Maggie had noticed it was rounder than it used to be. She didn’t know it was because of a baby.
“Doctor Waller says it will be a girl,” Mama said.
“A baby sister?”
“That’s right. And, we’re going to be so very happy. But you can’t tell anyone about the baby or the divorce. Not Jackson or Zane, you promise?”
She nodded. “But why?”
“Not until your father knows. Then, you can tell them all about it. But for now, it needs to be our secret.”
The next night, Maggie arrived home around seven after spending the day with the Wallers. They’d had cookies and hot cocoa and trimmed the tree. When she came into the house, all the lights were off, like her mother was gone. She was never gone at night. Then, she heard a strange sound. At first, she thought it was a hurt animal. But no, it was her mother’s scream. She ran up the stairs. Her mother was in the bathtub, her face as pale as the white tile. “Get Jackson’s daddy,” she whispered. “The baby’s coming, and fast. Too early. Hurry.”
Maggie ran all the way to the Waller’s, stopping only once at the steepest part of their driveway. When she reached the back patio, she ran inside. No one locked doors this early. She screamed for Lily. Only Jackson was
there. Doc was with a patient. Lily had gone to take cookies to Miss Rita.
She gripped Jackson’s arms. “You have to come with me. I’m scared. Mama’s having a baby.”
He looked at her like she spoke a foreign language, but he followed her out the door.
They ran down his long driveway and then the few blocks to her house. She gasped when they arrived in their driveway. “That’s my Dad’s truck.”
She looked up at the window of her mother’s bedroom. Shadows danced behind the curtain. A tall shadow and a shorter one. “Jackson, we have to save her.”
They rushed through the kitchen door as a scream pierced the dark. Mama.
Another scream, this time primal, like an animal trapped between steel claws. “Mama,” she shouted, running toward the stairs with Jackson behind her. Too late. Mama tumbled down the steps, rolling over and over until she reached the floor. Her head made a sickening sound as it smacked the last step. At the top of the stairs her father wobbled. Drunk. He held something in his arms. A bulge, like a piece of firewood, covered in a burlap sack.
“Get the doctor,” he shouted down to them with slurred words. “Your mother’s fallen.”
Maggie ran to her mother’s side, cradling her head. A gash leaked blood, sticky and hot on Maggie’s skin. Her mother didn’t move. “Mama, wake up. Jackson, run home and get Doc.”
But he was already gone. She heard the backdoor slam shut. He would find his dad. Doc would make everything all right. He would fix Mama. “Mama, wake up.”
Her father lunged past her, with the parcel in his hands, to the front of the house. The front door creaked open and a shadow ran past the front window. Where was he going? Outside, his truck roared to life. Tires squealed.
“Mama, please wake up.”
Time shrunk and wavered after that. Maggie stayed glued to Mama. Jackson was the fastest runner in class. He would get there soon. He would know what to do. He would find Doc and Lily.
Finally, they burst into the room. Lily screamed the moment she saw them on the floor.
“Where’s your father?” Lily asked.
“He ran away. Something was in his hands. Something in a sack.”
Lily knelt next to them. “Oh, Mae. No.” She cried as she picked up Mama’s hand and pushed her thumb into her wrist. “No, no. Mae. Not this. Not now.” She looked at Maggie. “Sweetie, did he push her?”
“When we came inside the house, I heard her scream. He was up at the top of the stairs, but I didn’t see exactly what happened. Just all of the sudden, Mama was falling. She hit her head.”
Lily pressed into her mother’s belly. It was still rounded like the night before, but softer. “Did she have the baby?”
“I don’t know.” Maggie sobbed. “She told me the baby was coming and to run for Doc. When Jackson and I came back, my dad was here.”
“Where’s the baby? Maggie, is the baby here?” Lily’s voice had risen several octaves. She pressed her bloody hands against her thighs.
It wasn’t until then that Maggie understood the bulge had been the baby. “He took her. She was in a bag. The kind potatoes come in, I think. He ran out the door.”
Lily stood, brushing her hair back from her face, leaving bloody streaks on her cheeks. “Jackson, take Maggie home and lock the door.”
“I can’t leave her. What if she wakes up?” Maggie sobbed harder. “Please don’t make me leave her.”
“You two run as fast as you can to our house and lock the door. Don’t answer it for anyone but your dad or me. Jackson, do you understand?”
Now, a knock on Zane’s door pulled her from the memory. Doc. Her heart settled in her throat as she crossed the room and yanked open the door. A sob escaped as she fell into Doc’s arms.
Maggie and Doc sat across from each other in Zane’s living room. They’d already talked for an hour. Doc asked most of the questions. Maggie did most of the talking. She’d filled him in on the past twelve years, concluding with the news about her knee. “So, no more dancing. Which leaves me at a crossroads.”
“Crossroads can be good,” Doc said. His brown hair had morphed to an attractive salt and pepper. Despite some wrinkles, his dark eyes were still sharp. Jackson has his mouth. I’d forgotten that. “Just don’t stay in the cross too long.”
She must have given him a quizzical look, because he continued. “Nothing good comes from indecision or a state of deep freeze. Your new path will become obvious if you’re open to finding one. Take it from me, openness is key. It took me about thirteen years to figure that one out.”
“Zane told me about Janet Mullen,” Maggie said.
The corners of Doc’s mouth lifted into a smile, taking years from his face. “Yes. Janet Mullen. She’s quite special. I didn’t think love would come twice in one lifetime.” His eyes twinkled. “Can you believe an old guy like me gets another shot at love?”
“She’s a lucky woman. You’re the best man I ever knew, other than your son.”
Doc sobered. “Zane told me what you thought all these years. It breaks my heart to think you thought we’d abandoned you. You were like my daughter.”
“It was the returned letters that did it,” Maggie said.
“Darla will pay, if it’s the last thing I do.”
“I have to go see him, but I don’t want to. He scares me. After all this time. Which both infuriates and motivates me.”
“He’s in bad shape. He can’t hurt you ever again,” Doc said. “But still, I can’t imagine what he wants with you.”
“Darla said he wants to make amends. Whatever that means. Apparently, he’s found God.”
“How convenient for him.”
“I want him to tell me the truth about the baby,” she said. “And then he can rot in hell where he belongs.”
“Sweetheart, no one wants that more than I, but this is Roger Keene we’re talking about. He’s stuck to his lie for twenty years. From the beginning, he told the police that your mother fell and that there was no baby when he arrived. I’m not sure impending death will prompt the truth.”
“I have to try,” Maggie said.
“Yes. You do.”
“I came here for that purpose. I wasn’t prepared for what I found. You know, all of you…wanting to see me and stuff.”
“We missed you. More than you can imagine.”
“I can imagine,” she said.
“Losing you almost killed Jackson,” he said. “All these years, he’s never let go of your memory. So don’t think for a moment he’s not going to fight to get you back. This is Jackson we’re talking about.”
She smiled. “He said as much.”
“He was never one to play games.”
“But what about Sharon?”
“He’s breaking the engagement.”
“Engagement?” A roar like waves in a storm buzzed between her ears. Jackson was engaged? He hadn’t told her. Why hadn’t he told her?
Doc’s eyes glinted in the light. “He finally proposed, Maggie, only last night. He’d hesitated for months and months. His heart wasn’t in it, but he wouldn’t admit to it. He kept seeing you everywhere. Not the real you, but women with red hair. He honestly thought he was going crazy. Asking Sharon was his last-ditch effort.”
“To finally move on,” Maggie said. “To prove he wasn’t insane.”
“That’s right.”
“Poor Jackson.” She could imagine exactly how he had come to the decision he did. Many times, she’d ached to do something, anything, to forget him. To finally move away from memories and into life. If she had been an impulsive person, she might have slept with every man in New York. She’d known, however, that nothing would help her get over Jackson but time. She could make every bad choice and wake up feeling worse, not better.
“It’s not right—not fair to Sharon that I just appear out of thin air,” she said. Last night? He proposed last night? A wave of nausea rolled through her as an awful thought occurred to her. He’d slept with Sharon last night. He�
��d made love to her on the night of her engagement because that’s what people do.
“Sweetheart, he’s suffered over the years and just this once—right now, as a matter of fact—he’s doing something for himself,” Doc said. “He’s giving you guys a chance. You can’t punish him for it.”
“But what if he’s making a mistake? We’ve changed. We’re no longer kids.”
“Is that what you really think?” Doc asked. “That everything you once felt is no longer there?”
She stared back at the man who raised her, who knew her like he’d been her real father. She could not lie to him or herself. “I’ve loved Jackson all my life. When I saw him today, it was as if no time had passed. But that’s not the case. A lot of time has passed and we’re adults now with complications we didn’t have when we were teenagers. He has a relationship with someone else. I’m broke and broken.” She gestured toward her knee. “I have no idea who I am anymore or what I’m supposed to do with the rest of my life. Who knows if we can work through all of those complications and become ‘us’ again?”
Doc crossed one leg over the other and hooked his hands over one knee. “I’ve lived on this earth a lot longer than you. I’ve loved two women. Amazing women. In both cases, there were a lot of complications, especially with Lily because we were young and poor. Lily was the daughter of a southern preacher, who did not approve of a wild California kid with years of medical school ahead of him. But we got married anyway, betting everything on each other. We got pregnant at the absolute worst time. I was still in medical school and Lily was supporting us on her teacher’s salary. But Jackson arrived and nothing, not money, or fear, or anything, would have changed how we felt about him. We were so grateful he was ours.
“I had debt up to my eyeballs from medical school, but we moved here and bought the practice anyway. When the practice started bringing in more money that I had to pay out, I thought we had it made. We wanted more children. Lily had three miscarriages right in a row. Those were hard times, even though we had the perfect boy. Then, there was your mom’s death and the rage and sorrow that came with it, but there was you—so small and fragile and broken. You needed us to be strong. We clung to each other for strength. And that was enough to get us through every bump and turn.
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