He tossed the guitar down on the bed and stood. He marched angrily her way, then swung around and paced to the other end of the cabin. “God no. That isn’t what happened, but even that might be preferable.”
“Then what? What the hell is it?”
He rubbed his hands through his wild hair. “I was freaking asleep in the back seat is what. I was so damn hung up in being the best ER doctor at Chicago General that I worked every shift I could. That left Amy alone most of the time and she wasn’t happy. She decided to have kids, and suffered two miscarriages. When she got pregnant with the third, she didn’t want to tell our families about it until she made it through the second trimester. She was so afraid something would happen and she didn’t want everyone to know if it did. Then we were going to be coming home for Christmas, and she decided to surprise everybody. Amy wasn’t feeling great and didn’t want to go to the hospital’s Christmas social, but I insisted. Yeah, I had to be there to make a good impression. My career was everything. I had worked a double that day and she drove while I slept in the back seat. Amy died because I insisted we go and I asked her to drive. There’s nothing you can fix, Nan. Go home.” Jackson walked over and opened the door.
Nan sucked in air. Tears stung her eyes at the raw pain she heard and saw in Jackson. The tragedy tore at her heart; yet couldn’t he see that he couldn’t take the blame for everything? She shook her head. “How do you know that? How do you know she would have lived if you had been driving? Are you psychic? Did you know there was going to be an accident that night?”
Jackson folded his arms; his reddened eyes were brutal and hopeless. “No. She died because she was seven months pregnant and when the other car hit ours, her stomach slammed into the steering wheel and ruptured her uterus. I couldn’t save her and I couldn’t save our baby. She died screaming for me to help her and all of my medical training couldn’t. All it did was prolong her agony a few minutes more. If she had been a passenger, odds are that wouldn’t have happened. Go on back to your life, Nan.” Jackson left the door open and walked over to take a swig of the whiskey.
Nan wanted to scream. She wanted to cry; she wanted to shake him until it changed everything. “I’ll go back to my life, Jack. But Amy’s death was an accident. All of us can look back at things and see what we should have done differently.” She touched his shoulder and he shrugged her off.
“Damn it, Jack. You can’t waste your whole life like my father did just because hindsight is better than foresight. You’re only accountable for the future. Knowing what you know now, what decisions are you going to make in your life today? Tomorrow? That’s what you’re responsible for.” It was like she was talking to a brick wall. The dead expression on his face never changed. She had to reach him. “Would Amy have wanted you to turn your back on everything you aspired to and believed in?”
She picked up the broken doorknob still lying on the floor and tossed it on to the bed. “Is living this way some sort of testament to her and your unborn child?”
Jackson flinched, but Nan pursued. She wouldn’t be able to look herself in the mirror if she didn’t say what she had to say now. “Do you think shutting yourself up and never sharing anything about her does anything for her memory?”
Tears rolled down her cheeks and her breath caught in her throat. Still she forced the words in her heart out. “If I were to die, and if I had someone to remember me, I wouldn’t want them to shut me away in a closet. My father spent his life punishing himself. Are you being any different? I’m not comparing him to you. What happened to you and Amy is different. Maybe at the time, if you had made different choices, the accident wouldn’t have happened. You can’t know that. Only God does. Hell, for all you know the same thing could have happened that night because she could have decided to go to the grocery store while you were sleeping. Would you still be blaming yourself if that had happened? All you are doing is punishing yourself for being alive. You can’t forgive yourself for living and until you can do that, all you’re going to do is hurt the people around you.” She rushed to the door, knowing that at any minute she was going to break from the pain ripping through her.
At the last minute she turned back. “Being with you was different. I felt something special starting to grow. I’ve been alone most of my life and for just a little while, I didn’t feel so alone. I don’t think it would have lasted long. I couldn’t live with broken doorknobs and not knowing where the clock is. It’s okay to lounge in bed for a day every now and then. Every day would drive me crazy. Our take on life is too different to mesh. But I want you to know that you have things inside you to give. And you have something I don’t have, a family. Walking out on Jesse last night hurt him. Don’t throw your family away, Jack. Relationships are too precious to lose.”
She started to cry. Biting her lip, she walked out the door.
Jackson followed and put his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t do this to yourself, Nan. I can’t be what you want. I can’t make a commitment, be a father, or a husband. I had a family and I killed them. I never meant to hurt you.”
Nan pulled away, her emotions like a gnashing sea, stripping away at the barriers she’d spent so long building. “No, you didn’t mean to hurt me. But it wasn’t an accident that we became involved. We both chose it and we’ll have to live with the fall out. Even if you asked me to stick around, I wouldn’t. I learned from my father that only you can help yourself. Nobody else can. Don’t waste your life like my father did.”
She turned and ran to her car. Her tears fell like a heavy rain and the sobs in her heart were lost in the song playing on the radio, Tears In Heaven.
She now knew why Jackson played the song. And part of her heart was crying tears in heaven too. Tears for what he lost and tears for what would never be between them. For even though she walked away from him, she knew she loved him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
She'd left the damned African violet. He didn’t know what to do with it. For a long time after Nan left he stood rooted to the spot staring at the damned plant. Part of him was relieved she’d gone. It meant he didn’t have to deal with her hurt. She was right. He should have left her alone. At least they hadn’t gotten any more involved than they had. What lifelong consequences could just a few days have? She’d get over it. He’d get over it and everything could go back to the way it was.
And she was right about another thing. Once the newness of being together had worn off, their lives would have clashed.
But that’s all she was right about. He marched over to the whiskey bottle and took an unsatisfying swig. The alcohol did nothing to help ease the bite of Nan’s words. He stung all over and it pissed him off. But the biggest ache of all centered in the middle of his gut and in his already dead heart.
Why couldn’t she have just left? She didn’t know what in the hell she was talking about. He’d heard Amy die, crying about their baby. He’d felt their life’s blood cover his hands. And he’d fought for their lives and failed. If there was a God in heaven, he was no friend.
Grabbing the whiskey, and a pint of Tequila for good measure, Jackson stomped out to the porch and gave the swing a good kick. It swung back and slammed against the porch railing, knocking out the decorative slats, then swung forward at a crazy angle and clipped his knee. He welcomed the pain. Taking another long draught from the bottle, he plopped down into the moving swing and the damn thing broke so that his feet were in the air and his head landed on the porch with a thump. He didn’t bother to get up. By the time he finished the bottle, it wouldn’t matter which end was up anyway.
* * *
“Wake up, bro.”
“Gos asway,” Jackson managed to slur through his hangover. He forced one eye half-open, wincing at the blinding sun. It looked like there were six Jesse’s standing over him.
“Not this time. Your family has a few things to say to you and you’re going to sober up enough to hear them.”
With a great deal of effort and trying not to move his poun
ding head too much, Jackson pried both of his eyes open to a slit. The six Jesse’s settled into a blurry vision of Jesse, his brothers James and Jared, and shockingly, his mother, Emma and his father, John.
“He stinks worse than a brewery.” James said.
“Looks like that old pig we kept out by the mud hole. How’d he get so dirty?” Jared asked.
“Nan said he walked home from the hospital, Monday night. Looks like he’s done nothing but drink for two days.” Jesse added a resounding curse to emphasize his disgust.
“He walked all that way. Damn. Didn’t think the old buzzard had that much brawn left in him.” James snorted
“Hey, watch it,” Jesse said. “He’s just a year older than me.”
“If the shoe fits…” Jared muttered.
“I can still whip your ass any day little brother.”
“Boys!” Emma Weldon shouted. “This isn’t helping your brother. Let’s get him out of that swing. I do declare, I’ve never seen such a sorry sight.”
“Looks like a total loss,” John Weldon said.
Jackson winced at his mother’s description. He had never wanted his parents to see him this way. Had Jesse just mentioned Nan’s name? Had Nurse Nan called his family trying to fix his problem? He didn’t want anyone’s pity; he didn’t have a problem.
“You’re right, he’s a total loss,” James said.
“I wasn’t talking about your brother,” John Weldon said. “I was talking about the cabin. We don’t have any choice but to save your brother, but the cabin might have to just get bulldozed down. The wood is rotting.”
His father’s disgust came through Jackson’s drunken haze loud and clear. “I can’t see that he’s done a single thing to upkeep the place since he moved in. This cabin belonged to your grandpa. He built it with his own two hands. It’s a damn shame to see it this way.”
Where in the hell was a dark hole when he needed it? Jackson wondered.
“I say we strip him and dump him in the creek,” Jared said.
“Sounds good.” James, Jesse, and his father all agreed.
“I’ll go make some coffee,” his mother added.
The conversation was just about more than he could process over the jackhammer pounding his brain. Before he could get up and tell everybody to get lost, they lifted him and carted him like a sack of potatoes. He tried to struggle against his tormentors, but was too drunk and weak to overpower their combined strength as they took off his boots, shirt, and pants.
“He must have waded through a briar patch with his boots on. Never seen so many scratches,” James said.
“Shaaakspeer,” Jackson said and started to laugh.
“Hell, what did he say?”
“Beats me. Whatever it was he sure thought it was funny. On the count of three, boys.”
Jackson hit the water mid laugh with his mouth open. He didn’t bother to shut it. The water was nice, cool. He let his body go lax thinking he could close his eyes and never wake. No such luck, somebody grabbed his hair and jerked him up.
“Ouch. That hurt.” Jackson floundered, coughing. The sun was too damn bright and he had to shield his eyes to shout at his brother Jesse.
Anger lashed across Jesse’s face and Jesse pushed Jackson. “Did you just try and drown yourself?”
Jackson stumbled. “Go away.”
Jesse pushed again. “You want to die, bro? Is that what the past four years have been all about? I’ll help you.”
Jesse pushed him back under the water and held him there. At first Jackson didn’t struggle. He knew his brother would haul him up in just a second. Only Jesse didn’t. He just pushed him further under the water. Jackson could feel his lungs starting to burn, and a sense of urgency to breathe alarmed his brain.
He’d thought he wanted to die, but something inside him couldn’t let go. He started to fight and to push against Jesse’s hold. Jesse only pushed him deeper. He had to breathe, his vision was beginning to gray around the edges and he felt as if his chest was about to explode. He lashed out slugging at his brother, fighting to the surface. He finally broke through. Gasping for air, he hauled back his arm and plastered Jesse right in the gut. “What in the hell are you doing?”
“Giving you your wish,” Jesse gasped, nursing his stomach. His face was deathly grim, and his eyes were burning coals of anger. They stood in the creek staring at each other. “I think the wrong person died in that car crash.”
Tears stung Jackson’s eyes and he clenched his fists. He was more sober than he wanted to be. “The wrong person did die. It should have been me, not Amy and our unborn baby!”
His words exploded like an A-bomb with immediate fall out.
“Dear God, son.” Jackson saw his father step into the creek. Pain and concern lay heavy in his father’s gray eyes, and echoed in the weathered lines of his face.
Emotion choked Jackson. He had to turned away or cry. He turned away.
“Son of a bitch,” James said.
“Shit. I’m sorry man,” Jared muttered, parking his butt on the bank.
Jackson heard a choked sound from Jesse and saw that his brother was crying. “It could have been me. I could have lost Alexi and the baby. That’s what you were trying to tell me last week. I had planned to make one more business trip to DC. I was going to leave Monday noon and return Tuesday morning. When she developed her headache Monday night, she just wanted to crawl into a dark room, which is exactly what she would have done if I had been gone. I insisted on taking her to the hospital and the doctor said we arrived there just in time.”
Then Jesse hauled off and planted his fist in Jackson’s face. Jackson’s head snapped back and he staggered in the water. “What in the hell was that for?”
“For not telling us what has been eating you alive for the past four years. Part of loving is sharing both the good and the bad. We should have kicked your ass years ago and then maybe you wouldn’t be in such sorry shape now.”
“Your brother is right, son. You should have told us.”
“What good would it have done?” Jackson yelled, clenching his hands.
His father’s strong hand fell on Jackson’s shoulder. Rather than adding to the burdens there as Jackson expected, the crushing emotions eased as his father spoke. “We could have talked, could have understood. You’d be surprised what a difference that can make. If you keep something closed up where it can fester, all it does is spread poison throughout your body. You boys have done enough, now. I think Jackson and I need to have a little time.”
Jesse stomped out of the water. “I hope to God that you’re man enough to decide to join the living, Jack. I have a son who wants to meet his uncle and I don’t think a broken down drunk will be a good influence.”
Jared stood up. “He’s a cute little whipper-snapper. As often as he demands for Alexi to feed him, I think he’s already figured out one of the best things about women.”
Jesse went to smack Jared and Jared ducked, running up the hill. Memories of their fun times as brothers tugged on Jackson’s heart.
“You want me to get the scratches polished out?” James picked up a boot from the bank. Boots were sacred to Weldons.
“No. I think I’m going to leave the scratches a while.” A remembrance of Shakespeare was a remembrance of Nan. Shit, his gut hurt over her.
James shrugged and dropped the boot. “I feel like we should do something, but I don’t know what. Me, Jesse, and Jared are here for you. God forbid, but if I ever have to deal with what you’ve had to deal with, I hope you’ll be around to kick my ass and pick me up off the ground.” He turned to go then looked back. “The guys at work have been asking about you. They told me to tell you to haul your ass back there. Joe has taking over the singing and they’re dying as a result.”
“Thanks,” Jackson said, surprised to feel that he just might miss the guys at work. The mundane labor, like nailing boards, passed faster and the work progressed quicker if they sang things like “Car Wash,” and railroad songs.
Jackson didn’t guess he was going to get out of talking to his father. “You mind if I go put some clothes on?”
“Nope. Your mom’s at the cabin waiting with coffee. We’ll just mosey on up there and talk after you’re dressed. You can tell us both about everything. Then we’re going to have to evict you as a tenant. You can stay at the big house until you decide to start living life again. Shouldn’t take long with your mom around.”
“I think maybe I’ll just stay at the cabin and fix it up.”
“You’re going to fix it up anyhow, but you’ve had too much time alone, son. You're coming home.”
The minute he walked into the cabin in his underwear he knew his dogged dreary days of solitary depression were over. His mom sat at the dinette table folding a dishtowel. You knew Emma Weldon was praying when she had a dishtowel in her hands. He’d heard her often growing up. She looked at him. Her graying hair had more pepper than salt in it, and her eyes were grim, reminding him of the rare times she was angry enough to cut a switch to his hide. In the center of the table were about a dozen condom wrappers he’d discarded when making love to Nan and hadn’t bothered to pick up and put into the trash yet.
Damn, he was thirty-five years old, not sixteen. This couldn’t be happening. He scrubbed his hands over his face.
Jared stuck his head in the door. “Ma. You forgot one. I found this out in the driveway.” He held up a condom wrapper.
Jackson snatched it away, literally ready to pound something and his brother’s grinning face looked like a good place to start. Disgusted, Jackson stomped to the bathroom. He showered and dressed. His mother and father were waiting for him when he got out.
“Sit,” his mother ordered, shoving a hot mug of coffee into his hands. “We had this discussion twenty years ago, so I’m not going to go over it all again. I’ve only two things to say. I hope that you used those condoms on just one woman and not a slew of women. And that you care a great deal about that woman.”
Smooth Irish (Book 2 of the Weldon Series) Page 17
