“I know. Oh, God, Mr. L, what am I going to do?”
“I guess that depends, at least in part, on what you want to do. There are options. You just have to find the right one.”
“My dad will throw me out of the house if he finds out.”
“Maybe you should give your parents a little more credit than that. I’m sure they love you very much and they’ll do whatever they can to help you.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“I think you should tell them. They might surprise you. Let them help you figure out what to do. That’s what parents are for, to help kids out when they get themselves into a mess like this.”
“You really think I should tell them?”
“I really think you should. Have you talked to Mrs. Stebbins?” Cheryl Stebbins was the school guidance counselor, and a real whiz at dealing with these life-altering issues.
Amanda sniffed. “No.”
“She’s a really nice lady. I bet she’d be willing to help you break the news to your parents. And then she’d have some ideas about what you should do next.”
“Okay.”
He maneuvered her down the hallway to the guidance office, praying that Cheryl Stebbins would still be there. The light was on in her office, and she was hunched over a student file on her desk. Cheryl looked up with a friendly smile, caught the somber expression in his eyes. “Hey, there,” she said cautiously.
Jesse introduced Amanda, briefly outlined the situation, then left her in Cheryl’s capable hands. He pulled on his coat as he was rushing down the corridor. The clock over the front door read 3:22. If he hurried, he’d be just a few minutes late for Rose’s ultrasound. He didn’t want to hold things up. Tonight, they were driving to Portland for the Romeo and Juliet performance. Rose had tried to get her appointment rescheduled so they’d have time to treat Jolene and Tessa to dinner before the play. But Dr. Levasseur was booked up weeks in advance, so he and Rose had decided to keep the appointment. As long as they could stick to a tight schedule, they’d still have time to take the girls out to dinner.
The afternoon was dismal, dark and blustery and starting to spit snow. Barely three-thirty, but already the street lights were on, snowflakes drifting lazily in the orangey glow of the sodium arc lights. He raced across town, pulled into the parking lot of Rose’s obstetrician a mere eight minutes late. As he flew into the reception area, Beverly Morneault glanced up from behind the desk and grinned. He’d known Bev since seventh grade. “Room 2,” she said. “First door on the right.”
Jesse paused in front of the closed door, realized his hands were shaking. All along, he’d known, intellectually at least, that the baby he and Rose had created was real. But at the prospect of seeing for himself, of watching those moving pictures of his unborn child, reality slammed him hard in the gut. For the first time he realized, not with his head, but with his heart, that he was thirty-six years old and about to become a father again. He would be fifty-four when this child graduated from high school. He and Rose were clearly, indubitably, insane.
He felt a little faint. Behind him, he heard footsteps. “Jesse?” Bev said. “Are you all right?”
He swallowed, ducked his head to hide his embarrassment. “I’m fine,” he lied.
Bev touched his arm. “Don’t feel so bad about it,” she said cheerfully. “We’ve only lost one or two fathers over the years.”
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, saw her wicked grin. “You’ll be fine, my friend,” she said, and patted his shoulder. “You think the ultrasound’s bad, just wait’ll you get to the delivery.”
***
She was already lying on the table with cold, slick gel spread on her distended belly and bitter disappointment welling up inside her when the door opened and Jesse came in. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, and her disappointment turned to relief as he stood beside her and gave her one of those incredible smiles.
“Just in time,” Dr. Levasseur said as she adjusted a couple of buttons on the ultrasound machinery.
“Where the hell have you been?” Rose whispered.
Jesse shook his head. “Student crisis. I’ll tell you later.”
“Pull up a stool, Dad,” the doctor said, “and let’s get this show on the road.”
He sat down beside her, and together they watched the monitor in fascination as the doctor moved the wand over Rose’s belly. “There,” she said, “there’s the baby’s head. See that?”
Rose lay silent, mesmerized by the sight of her unborn child, displayed in murky monochromatic colors on the screen.
“And there—” Deborah Levasseur moved the wand for a better view. “—is an arm. And there’s a leg. Can you see that?”
It all looked alike to her. How Deb could tell one limb from another was beyond her. She looked up at Jesse to see if he was as mystified by the procedure as she was, but he was beyond reach, leaning forward intently, lost somewhere in that shadowy world that was the interior of her womb.
“All right, folks.” Deb moved her hand and the wand slithered across Rose’s sticky belly. “Want to know what you’re having?”
Rose glanced at Jesse again. This time, his eyes met hers, and he nodded.
“Remember, this procedure isn’t one hundred percent accurate, so don’t go mortgaging the farm on my say-so. You could get a big surprise later on. Still, I’d say chances are pretty darn good that you’re having a girl.”
A girl, Rose thought. The daughter he’s never had. She didn’t care either way; boy or girl, she already had one of each. But she knew that Jesse secretly wanted a daughter, and her heart welled with tenderness.
For the first time, he spoke. “Does she look healthy?”
“Everything looks fine,” Deb assured him. “Rose is doing a great job. She’s eating right, not gaining too much weight, and by the look of things, she’s in a happy place right now. So there you have it, folks. I’d say in about four more months, you’ll be having yourselves a fine, healthy little girl.” She removed the wand, turned off the monitor, and mopped up the goop from Rose’s stomach. “Just keep on doing whatever it is you’re doing, and make an appointment to see me again in a month.”
Rose was in the outer office, waiting for the receptionist to get off the phone, when she glanced up and saw Torey Spaulding’s sister sitting in the waiting room. The woman met her eyes, then dropped the magazine she’d been reading and got up from her chair.
The receptionist handed Rose a reminder card for her next appointment. She took it absently, her attention focused on the approaching woman.
“Mrs. Lindstrom? I’m Torey’s sister. Patty Inman.”
“I know who you are,” Rose said. “I’ve seen you with Torey.”
“I need to talk to you.” She glanced at Jesse and bit her lower lip. “In private.”
“I’ll wait outside,” Jesse said.
Patty looked around the crowded waiting room. “Hang on,” Rose told her, and approached the receptionist again. “Do you have an empty room we could use for a minute or two?”
The receptionist glanced at Patty, then back at Rose. “Number three,” she said. “Down the hall on the left.”
Rose closed the door of the examination room and faced Patty Inman. “What’s happened?”
“Torey’s in the hospital.”
Grimly, Rose said, “What did that son of a bitch do to her?”
“He beat her something awful, as soon as he found out she came to see you again.”
The roof of her mouth went dry. “Oh, Jesus.”
“I’ve tried to tell her, time and time again, that she’s gotta leave him, Mrs. Lindstrom, but she wouldn’t ever listen. Buddy told her he’d kill her if she ever left him, and I believe he meant it. And I’m afraid—” The woman’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m afraid that one of these days, he’s really gonna do it.”
“Do you think she’s ready to leave him now?”
“I think she’ll go now. If you tell her it’s the right thing. She thin
ks you’re practically Mother Teresa. She’ll listen to you.”
Jesse was waiting outside, in his Jeep, with the engine running. He lowered the window to talk to her. “I have to go,” she said. “One of my clients. Her husband put her in the hospital.”
“Torey Spaulding,” he said flatly.
“I have to talk to her, Jesse. I have to help her get away from him. Next time, he’ll kill her. I can’t let that happen.”
“It’s not your responsibility.”
“Yes, it is. It’s my fault she’s here. He found out she’d been to see me again, after he’d ordered her to stay away.”
“And what if I ordered you to stay away?”
She touched his cheek. It felt warm against her cold fingers. “You know better than that.”
“If you put yourself , and our baby, in jeopardy—”
“Shush.” She stretched up on her toes and kissed him. His lips were warm. “You know I’d never do that.”
“Rose, you can’t save every battered woman on the planet. There’s not enough of you to go around.”
“Maybe not,” she said grimly. “But I can save this one.”
“What about tonight? The play?”
Damn. Her concern for Torey had driven thoughts of Romeo and Juliet right out of her head. “I hate to have to say this, but it looks as though you’re going to have to go without me. I’m sorry, Jesse. I’ll make it up to you later.”
“Maybe I should just cancel.”
“No. Don’t do that because of me. I know you want to see the play, and the girls will be so disappointed. Go ahead and have a good time.”
He caught her by the lapels of her coat and pulled her into a quick, hard kiss. “Be careful,” he said.
She tucked her hands into her coat pockets and watched as he backed out of the parking lot and turned in the direction of home. His tail lights shimmered in the swirling snow, then disappeared out of sight. With a sigh, Rose climbed into her car and headed toward the hospital.
She found Torey in a semi-private room on the third floor. Her swollen face was beginning to turn from purple to green, and for just an instant, Rose’s stomach lurched. “Mrs. Lindstrom,” the girl whispered. “Thanks for coming.”
“Patty told me you were here. I’m so sorry, hon. I feel like it’s my fault.”
“It’s nobody’s fault,” Torey said. “Shit happens.”
“Yeah. Shit happens, all right. Are you ready to leave him now?”
“I got no place to go.”
“We’ll find you a place.”
Torey closed her eyes. A single tear escaped. It hovered, caught in her lash, then plopped onto her swollen cheek and ran toward the corner of her mouth. “He’ll find me,” she said. “He’ll come get me.”
“No, he won’t. We won’t tell him where you are.”
“He’ll find me anyway.”
“No. We’ll find you a safe place to go. You won’t ever have to see him again.”
“What about my kids?”
“They’ll go with you,” Rose said. Then a frightening thought occurred to her. “Where are they? They’re not with Bud, are they?”
“They’re with Patty. After the cops arrested Bud, she come and got the kids.”
“He’s in jail?”
“He stayed in jail for about two hours. His folks bailed him out. You know how it goes.”
“Yeah.” She knew. And silently damned a system that coddled the perpetrators while refusing to protect their victims.
“What if he makes it hard for Patty? What if he goes over there and bothers her? What if he hurts her?”
“He won’t hurt her. It’s you he wants to hurt. And if he bothers her, she’ll have him arrested.” Rose took Torey’s hand and squeezed it. “Are you ready? Do you want me to find a place for you and the kids to go?”
“Yes,” Torey whispered.
“I’ll take care of it. You just concentrate on getting better.”
She drove back to the office and phoned home. “Hey, kemosabe,” she said when Luke answered. “What’s shaking?”
“Nothing much. Jesse headed out for Portland a while ago, and Devon’s making supper.”
“I have an emergency on my hands, but I’ll be home as soon as I can get there.”
She rummaged through the nuclear fallout on her desk until she found the list of emergency shelters. Starting at the top, she began calling. The list was hideously outdated. Several phone numbers were no longer in service. One administrator had moved on a year ago. And every shelter she was able to reach was filled to capacity. Darby Jones in Farmington said she might have an opening next week, but right now, she was already overbooked. By the time Rose reached the bottom of the list, she was convinced that if hunting were the number-one sport in rural Maine, domestic violence must be number two. There wasn’t a slot to be found anywhere.
She ran her fingers through her hair, rubbed her tired face, and lay her head down on her folded arms. She had talked to the charge nurse before she left the hospital, and although Torey looked a fright, she was being released tomorrow. She couldn’t go back to Bud Spaulding. It would be roughly equivalent to putting a revolver to her head and pulling the trigger. In desperation, Rose picked up the phone and called Lil in Boston.
“Might be I could fit her in,” Lil said, “if it’s just for a few days.”
“I swear to God, Lil, I don’t know what else to do. There’s nothing here, and if she goes back to that horrible man, he’ll kill her. He has the coldest eyes I’ve ever seen. I’ll have to help her find a permanent place, but in the meantime, she has no place to go when they release her from the hospital tomorrow.”
“Bring her on down, hon. We can squeeze for a few days, and nobody’ll be the wiser.”
“God love you, Lil. It’s people like you who make me believe in angels.”
***
The Hunters lived in a sprawling contemporary home that sat on a ridge overlooking Mount Washington. When he pulled into the driveway, Jolene was waiting for him. She slipped out the front door, stood beneath the porch overhang to pull up her hood, then ran through the falling snow to his Jeep. Jesse popped open the passenger door for her, and she climbed into the front seat. “Nasty weather,” she said.
“It sure is. Where’s Tessa?”
Jolene rolled her eyes. “She’s not coming. She had a massive blow-out with her mom, and she’s grounded for the next two weeks.” She dropped her hood, looked around the Jeep’s empty interior. “Where’s your wife?”
“She had an emergency at work. I’m afraid she’s not coming either.”
“Oh.” There was a moment of silence as they both contemplated the awkwardness of the situation. And then Jolene shrugged. “Well,” she said, “I guess we’ll just have to enjoy Shakespeare without them.”
The roads were snow-covered, the traveling sluggish, and he concentrated on his driving. It was foolish to feel awkward just because he was alone in the company of a seventeen-year-old girl. It wasn’t as though they were strangers; the girl sat in his classroom five afternoons a week. And Jolene was handling the situation graciously, making polite conversation. But he felt so uncomfortable that he was almost turned around and called the whole thing off. Rose’s words held him back. He didn’t want Jolene to be disappointed. And he’d really been looking forward to seeing the play.
By the time they reached Portland, it was getting late, so he skipped the restaurant and swung through McDonald’s for take-out instead. The weather had kept a number of people inside, and the theater was only sparsely populated. But the performance was everything it had been touted to be. The young woman who played Juliet had a soft vulnerability that made her brilliant in the role of the doomed fourteen-year-old. Romeo was dark and brooding, with a voice that carried to every corner of the old theater. Mercutio was clever and puckish as he pranced around the stage, brandishing a gleaming sword. Jesse glanced a couple of times at Jolene and saw that she was totally caught up in the drama as it
unfolded in front of her.
It was late by the time they headed back to Jackson Falls, and the snow had been accumulating for hours. Road maintenance crews were out, but they were having a hard time keeping up with the drifting snow. Jesse switched the Jeep to four-wheel drive and kept half his mind on the road as he and Jolene discussed the play they’d seen. Her observations were astute, and surprisingly mature for a girl of her age. “I thought that Lucinda Barnes was perfect for the role of Juliet,” she said. “She has to be in her twenties, but her interpretation of a teenage girl was right on the mark.”
“I felt the same way,” he said. “Juliet’s usually played by an older woman, and sometimes they cover up their inability to remember adolescence with overacting. But Barnes was nicely understated in her interpretation.”
“And Damian Reese’s Romeo was—well, I guess the only word I can think of is exuberant.”
“So how do you think this compared with other versions you’ve seen?”
“It was different. I can’t say better or worse. The Zeffirelli version was the first one I ever saw, and of course that was acted wonderfully. But this one comes a close second.”
They were both silent for a time as he maneuvered the Jeep through the velvety darkness. Outside, the soft mantle of snow muffled the swish of his tires. Inside, they were cocooned in a warm, dark space where muted classical music poured from the radio that Jolene had tuned to the local public broadcasting station. Bored and a little sleepy, he reached into his coat pocket for the pack of chewing gum he’d put there earlier.
When he glanced back at the road, the buck was standing thirty feet in front of him, eyes glowing, mesmerized by the gleam of his headlights. Jesse hit the brakes and swerved. His right front wheel caught the edge of a snowdrift, and he began to skid. He steered into the skid, but when his rear wheel hit the drifting snow, the Jeep spun around, crossed the road, and his headlights briefly illuminated the buck as it bounded off into the forest. They hit the soft shoulder, bounced two or three times, then with a hard, jarring thud, they landed at an awkward angle in the ditch.
They both rocketed forward, but their seatbelts kept them from slamming into the dashboard. “You okay?” he asked Jolene the moment the vehicle stopped moving.
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