Maryellen got to her feet, too. “I think you should go.”
“We’ll see about that,” he said and stormed out the door, leaving Maryellen shaken and unsure.
Why, oh, why did everything have to be so complicated? It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Yes, learning about the pregnancy must have been distressing to Jon, but once he knew, she assumed he’d feel grateful to be released from any responsibility.
Instead he was making demands—demands she wasn’t prepared to consider.
This had to be one of the proudest moments of Jack Griffin’s life. He stood with his son and Shelly at Colchester Park, which overlooked Puget Sound. The panoramic view of the Seattle skyline was breathing. The promise of summer was in the air; tulips lined the flowerbeds and fifty-foot-tall fir trees stood like sentries, keeping watch over all who entered the park.
Standing close to the water with her back to Puget Sound, Olivia faced the young couple, while Jack held Tedd and Todd in his arms, as proud as any grandfather had a right to be. Fortunately, the babies were fast asleep. At three months, they’d both filled out nicely and although they were identical, Jack could detect differences between them. Tedd was more active than his brother and always fell asleep last. Todd seemed content with his thumb, while Tedd preferred his pacifier. Both boys strongly reminded him of Eric as an infant, and Jack saw his son over and over again in his two grandchildren.
Jack’s ex-wife hadn’t been able to make the wedding. He assumed Vicki had stayed away to avoid seeing him. Bob Beldon, his AA sponsor, suggested Jack held too high an opinion of his importance to Vicki, but Jack was fairly confident he’d read his ex correctly. They hadn’t parted on the best of terms, and what little relationship they’d had at the time of the divorce quickly disintegrated when he continued drinking. Alcohol had consumed his life for the next several years.
Closing his eyes, he forced himself to concentrate on the marriage vows as Eric repeated them. Love and honor. Jack’s heart swelled with love for his son, his grandsons, his daughter-in-law—and for Judge Olivia Lockhart. Getting to know her, spending time with her, had changed his life and all for the better.
Shelly repeated her vows and then Eric’s best man, a friend from work named Bill Jamison, handed him the diamond ring, which Eric slipped on Shelly’s hand.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” Olivia said and her voice echoed through the park.
In the next moment Eric and Shelly were kissing while Olivia and the friends who’d stood up with them looked on, applauding. Several people, including Shelly’s maid of honor, Karen Morrison, took photographs.
With his arm around Shelly, Eric turned to Jack. “I’ll bet you wondered if you’d ever see this day.”
“You mean you and Shelly married, or holding my grandchildren in my arms?” It seemed to Jack he was about as blessed as any man could be, despite his faults and his past.
“Both,” his son answered. Eric took Tedd out of Jack’s arms and Shelly reached for Todd. Soon both infants were strapped into their carriers, and everyone was ready to depart.
“Thank you, Olivia,” Eric said.
“Yes, thank you so much.” Shelly impulsively hugged her and then added, “For everything. You too, Jack.”
“We’d better head for the airport if you’re going to make your flight,” Bill said. He was the most responsible of the group, Jack noted, the one who kept them all on schedule.
“I hate to get married and rush away like this,” Eric said.
Jack and Olivia walked them to the parking lot. “Go,” Jack told his son and they hugged one last time. “But call me tomorrow, you hear?”
“I will, I promise.” Eric strapped the two boys into the back seat of his friend’s car.
Before Jack could think of a reason to detain them, the young people were off, and he was left alone with Olivia. His gaze followed Bill’s car as it pulled out of the Colchester Park lot.
“I hope they’ll be all right,” he murmured, more to himself than Olivia.
“They will be,” she assured him.
Jack brought her close, placing his arm around her shoulders. These last two weeks hadn’t been good ones for them. James had come home for a visit and Olivia’s time—rightly so—had been taken up with her son and his family. That was fine and good, but Jack thought her ex-husband was at her house far too often. Still, he couldn’t really blame Stan for that, even if he didn’t like it. James was his son, too.
“Seeing Eric and Shelly with the twins brings back a lot of memories,” she told him with a wistful look.
Jack hadn’t once considered that this might be difficult for Olivia. “I’m sorry,” he whispered in a stricken voice. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Oh, Jack, there’s nothing to apologize for. I see twins all the time—right now, it’s just, oh, I don’t know…difficult, I guess. Having James home, and then seeing so much of Stan these last two weeks. Watching you hold the babies reminded me.” She wrapped her arm around his waist, and Jack took reassurance from her closeness.
Arms still around each other, they walked back toward the waterfront. Jack wasn’t ready to leave. The day was glorious and his heart was full. His son’s life was on the right path now. He valued the months they’d had together, despite the irritations, which in retrospect seemed very minor.
“I feel like I haven’t talked to you in ages,” Olivia complained.
“And whose fault is that?” Jack enjoyed teasing her. With the mood between them so good, now might be the time to declare his feelings, but again he hesitated. He’d put it off for so long that whenever he thought about it, he experienced a feeling of panic.
“As much as I loved having James and everyone at the house,” she was saying, “I’m grateful to have my own life back.”
“I’m grateful to have you back,” he said. “I don’t want to sound selfish, but I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.” She turned her head and her lips grazed his cheek.
Jack’s heart accelerated. “You mean that?”
Olivia laughed, the sound light and sweet. “Of course.” They continued to stroll arm in arm, oblivious to others around them. He loved having Olivia all to himself, and despite what he’d said, he didn’t feel the least bit selfish.
“Stan’s confided something in me,” she suddenly told him.
Jack frowned; the last person he wanted to discuss was her ex-husband. “Oh?” he said, doing his best to appear interested.
“Apparently he and Marge are having problems.”
Jack could understand that. The man was cagy. Okay, so Jack was prejudiced but he disliked Stan Lockhart, and with good reason. “He’s not getting a divorce, is he?”
“I hope not.”
“Me, too.” Alarm bells rang in Jack’s head. Bob had suggested Jack was making more of this ex-husband situation than warranted. His gut told him otherwise.
“I’m worried about him,” Olivia went on to say.
“Worried about Stan?” Jack made that sound like a waste of time. “He’s a big boy—he can take care of himself.”
“Yes, I know he can, but this has really thrown him.”
“Marital problems are never easy.” Jack strove to seem wise and mature, generous too, in his assessment of the other man’s troubles. He didn’t wish Stan ill, but he wanted one thing made clear: Olivia was off-limits.
“Poor Stan,” she murmured, shaking her head.
Jack turned her into his arms. “If you want to feel sympathy for anyone, let it be me.”
“You need my sympathy?”
“Yes.” He grinned. “I twisted my ankle this morning and the pain is so bad.” He started to walk with an exaggerated limp.
“Jack!” She broke away and slugged his shoulder. “You’re a fake if ever I saw one.”
“Ouch.” He rubbed his upper arm. “That hurt.”
“Good. It’s what you deserve.”
“If you give Stan sympathy, then you have to give
me some, too.”
Olivia laughed. “It’s not a competition.”
“Listen, I’m serious. It wouldn’t surprise me if Stan wanted you to help him through this.”
“Jack, you’re being ridiculous.”
“I don’t think so.” The playfulness left him and he shoved his hands deep inside his pockets. “What would you say if I confessed that I’ve fallen in love with you?” he asked.
Olivia didn’t answer for a long while. Jack stopped walking and turned to study her. She looked at him steadily. “I’d say you sound like an insecure little boy and that you’re trying to score points in some imaginary contest with my ex-husband.”
Jack clenched his jaw. “That’s what I thought.” Then, because he didn’t feel it would do any good to continue this conversation, he asked, “Are you ready to leave now?”
“If you are.”
“I am,” he said. In fact, he was more than ready.
Grace dug the pitchfork into the soft earth and turned the sod. She hadn’t planted a garden in years. Where she’d once tended zucchini and tomatoes had long since been transformed into lawn. Cliff had offered to rototill the patch, and now she was digging up the turf so he could prepare the soil.
Buttercup, who was busily chasing butterflies behind her, barked when Troy Davis’s patrol car turned into the driveway. Grace stood, removing her garden gloves before she walked over to the gate to greet him.
“Hello, Troy,” she called.
“Grace.” He touched the rim of his patrol cap. “You got a moment?”
“Of course. Come inside.” Her stomach churned with anticipation. She wanted to ask if this visit had anything to do with Dan, but she’d already been through that earlier in the year. “Do you have another body you want me to look at?” she said, trying to make light of the incident.
“Not this time.”
“Coffee?” she asked.
Troy shook his head and took a seat in the living room. “Sit down, Grace.”
The seriousness of his tone told her something was terribly wrong. She sat nervously on the edge of the sofa cushion. “Is it Dan?”
Troy nodded. “We got a report from a couple of hikers about a trailer up high in the woods.
“Dan’s trailer? Is he there?”
“Dan’s body is. He committed suicide.”
Grace gasped and her breath froze in her lungs. For a long moment she couldn’t breathe. She should’ve been prepared for news such as this, but nothing could have diminished the shock of learning that her husband was dead.
“He left a letter addressed to you.” Troy reached inside his shirt pocket and brought out an envelope, which he handed to her.
“Suicide—but when?”
“Best we can figure, he’s been dead more than a year. He shot himself last April.”
“But that’s not possible!” she argued. “John Malcom spotted him in May, don’t you remember? So it can’t be Dan’s body. I’m sure of it.” She was desperate to prove the body was that of someone else. This had to be an elaborate hoax. It simply wasn’t possible that the dead man could be her husband.
“Grace, the letter is dated….”
“It couldn’t be April,” she continued to argue. “He was back in the house last spring—I knew it the moment I came home from work. I sensed it. Don’t you remember me telling you how the house smelled of evergreen? When Dan worked in the woods, he always smelled like a Christmas tree…I recognized the scent. He was in this house.”
“He probably was back. Before April thirtieth…I’m sorry. But I’m afraid there’s no doubt. It’s him.”
She was shaking now, so badly that she didn’t trust herself to stand.
“Is there someone you want me to call?”
Grace stared up at him, unable to respond.
“Olivia?”
Grace nodded, then covered her face with her hands as she struggled to hold back the tears. All these months she’d assumed Dan had run off with another woman. How could John Malcom have been mistaken? He worked with Dan; surely he’d recognize him.
Troy went into the kitchen and used the phone there. He was gone several minutes and when he returned he pushed the ottoman over and sat down in front of her. “I’m sorry, Grace. Real sorry.”
She had withdrawn and barely heard him. She saw his lips move but no words registered.
“Olivia’s on her way.”
She nodded, although she didn’t understand what he’d said.
“Do you want me to call the girls?”
She just stared at him.
Troy patted her hand. “Don’t worry about any of that yet. I’ll talk to Olivia and see what she thinks is best, all right?”
Again she nodded, without knowing what she’d agreed to.
Buttercup wanted inside the house, and Troy stood and opened the door for the golden retriever. The dog ran immediately to Grace and nudged her hands. Grace wrapped her arms around Buttercup’s neck.
While Troy went outside to meet Olivia, Grace picked up the letter. Where she found the courage to open it, she didn’t know.
April 30th
My dearest Grace,
I’m sorry. Sorrier than you’ll ever know. If there’d been a way to spare you the horror of this, I would have done it. I swear I would’ve done anything. I did try, but there’s no escape from the hell my life has become. I can’t carry the burden of my guilt another day. I tried to forget, tried to put the war behind me, but the memories have pressed in on all sides and there’s no longer any hope of escape.
Years ago while I was on patrol in Nam, we took enemy fire. In the aftermath, a few of us got separated from the unit. Desperate to find our way back to base, we stumbled into a small village. What happened afterward has haunted me all these years. A young woman and her baby stepped out of the shadows. Her infant daughter was clutched in her arms but I thought she was hiding a grenade. Only there wasn’t a weapon. All she had was her child. Instinct took over and I fired. I murdered a mother and her baby in my desperation to survive the war—my desperation to get home alive. I watched her fall, watched the horror come over her face and heard the screams of her family. Then there was more gunfire and more mothers and children and the shooting just never seemed to stop. Almost forty years now, and it’s never gone away. I hear their screams in the night. I hear those screams in my sleep, cursing me, hating me. The irony is that they could never hate me more than I hate myself
There’s no forgiveness for me, Grace. Nothing can absolve me from my sins. Not you, not our daughters and sure as hell not God.
I’m sorry, but it’s better for everyone involved if it ends here and now. I didn’t write Maryellen and Kelly. I couldn’t. I was never the husband you deserved and I wasn’t any kind of father. I love you. I always have.
Dan
Grace read the letter a second time, letting her eyes rest on each word, one by one, as she tried to assimilate what he was saying. By the time she’d finished, the knot in her throat made it impossible to speak and tears slid down her face.
“It’s Dan,” she told Olivia who knelt in front of her. Then, her cries surging from deep inside her, she started to wail. Huge sobs racked her shoulders, sobs that shook the very core of her being.
She’d wanted answers, sought resolution, but not this. Never this. Dan’s death from a self-inflicted gunshot wound wasn’t even close to what she’d expected. He’d been alone, trapped in a private hell. He’d been caught in a time warp, tangled in guilt and shame created by a war he’d never wanted to fight.
The tears flowed until there were none left inside her. “The girls…”
“Troy’s gone to get them for you,” Olivia told her. “They’ll be here any minute.”
“I thought he was with another woman.”
“I know.” Olivia stroked her hair as Grace leaned into her friend’s comforting arms.
“All this time he’s been dead.”
“Yes.”
“Almost from th
e first.”
“So it seems.”
“He left that one night and then he came back, remember?”
“Apparently he changed his mind.”
Grace sobbed. “He came back because he couldn’t make himself do it.” She recalled how angry he’d been, how Dan had lashed out at her and claimed he’d been in hell for the last thirty-five years. She’d assumed he was talking about their marriage when all along it had been the war.
So many things began to fall into place.
“Troy found his wallet and his wedding ring in the trailer.”
Grace lifted her head. “He left his wedding band at home.” She’d found it the night she’d thrown all his clothes out of the house. Finding the ring was what had triggered her tantrum. She’d believed at the time that he’d wanted her to discover it. She’d believed Dan had wanted to flaunt his new love. How wrong she’d been.
“That was the ring he charged on the VISA card,” Grace whispered.
When Dan disappeared a second time, Grace had returned home and found the bedroom a shambles. He was gone and he hadn’t taken anything with him, but he’d emptied the drawers, torn the room apart. What she didn’t understand then was that he’d been on a search. What he sought, she realized now, had been his wedding band. When he couldn’t find it, he’d gone into Berghoff’s and purchased another. For some confused reason—loyalty? guilt? both?—he’d wanted his wedding ring on his finger when he blew out his brains.
“Mom!” Kelly rushed into the room with Paul and the baby. Her daughter’s sobs tore at her heart, and Grace held out her arms. Maryellen was only a few moments behind. Together they formed a circle, arms around one another, weeping, sobbing, hugging. Then Grace kissed each one in turn and whispered, “We need to make burial arrangements. It’s time we laid your father to rest.”
Eighteen
Daniel Sherman was buried three days later in a private service with only family and a few friends in attendance. Bob Beldon, a childhood friend of Dan’s, gave the eulogy. The two men had been on the high school football team together and then following graduation they’d enlisted in the Army on the buddy program. Maryellen hadn’t realized how close Dan and Bob had once been. After Vietnam her father had let that friendship and all the others slide as he became immersed in his own hell.