After taking another sip of water, Tessa explained, “Vince and I met in high school.” Saying those words brought it all back…back to that morning in the library during her senior year when she’d been sitting in a far corner out of the way and hadn’t been able to keep her tears from falling.
She hadn’t known Vince well. He’d taken vo-tech courses and she’d taken academic preparation. She’d attended a private girls’ school until ninth grade, then had made a deal with her father. She’d go to any college he chose, if he’d let her attend public high school.
So there she was, tears falling down her face, when a deep voice at her side asked, “Are you okay?”
Vince Rossi was everything she shouldn’t have been attracted to, with his dark, handsome looks and brooding gray eyes, his wrong-side-of-the-tracks attitude. With few flirting skills and little experience, she’d been afraid to get close to him.
“I’m fine,” she’d told him, but her tears stated a different story.
He sat down beside her. “You don’t look fine.”
Back then she didn’t have close friends because her father had still controlled her life, her comings and goings and who she could bring to the house. Female classmates cut her out of their cliques. She was an outsider who couldn’t break into groups with friendships established since grade school. A couple of girls who did befriend her only tried because of her father’s wealth and what they could enjoy because of it. It hadn’t taken her long to catch on.
So because of all that, because she felt alone much of the time, she’d told Vince the truth. “We had to put my dog to sleep. He was my best friend and he had a stroke. I miss him so much.”
Vince’s expression had reflected kindness and her own sadness. “I know what it’s like to miss someone. My mom left when I was a kid.”
“My mom died when I was born,” she’d replied softly.
They’d gazed into each other’s eyes, and she’d fallen in love with Vincent Rossi right then and there.
“Tessa?” Francesca called her name, bringing her back to the present.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I—” She took a breath and moved her fork. “Vince and I connected. We more than connected.” She sighed. “Then I got pregnant that April. We waited until after graduation to tell my dad. Vince insisted on marrying me, so my dad disowned me.”
“You can’t be serious!” Emily knew Tessa and her dad were close now.
“Oh, I’m very serious. Vince insisted on doing the right thing and married me. He got a job as a roofer during the day and worked in a saddlemaker’s shop at night. I hardly saw him. I was pretty sick throughout my pregnancy. I worked at Thelma’s Dress Shop. When I couldn’t be on the sales floor, I helped her with bookkeeping.”
“Thelma’s? Over on Tumbleweed? It’s been there that long?” Emily asked.
Francesca answered her. “Thelma’s daughter runs it now. But Thelma still comes in a few days a week.”
“Go on,” Emily encouraged Tessa. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Sometimes I forget you haven’t lived here all your life,” Tessa admitted. She was actually glad for Emily’s interruption because what came next was the difficult part.
Francesca reached across the table and patted Tessa’s hand. “It might be good to talk about it. You never do.”
No, she never did…because she just wanted to forget. “I was twenty-six weeks pregnant when I went into labor. I had a placenta accreta. The placenta pulled a hole in my uterus and I hemorrhaged. We lost the baby and I had to have a hysterectomy.”
Emily went very quiet. She brought her hands together in her lap, looked down at them and then returned her gaze to Tessa’s. “I’m so very sorry, Tessa. That would be devastating for any woman. As a teenager, I can’t even imagine what that did to you.”
“When my father heard what happened, he blamed Vince and the life we were living. We had a walk-up apartment and the bare necessities. Everything we earned went for expenses and the baby. The night I went into labor, I collapsed and couldn’t get to the phone. Our landlady found me and called the ambulance. I needed Vince but he wasn’t there…he was working. When I was released, I made the choice to go home with Dad rather than back to our apartment. I didn’t want to be a burden on Vince. I didn’t know if he married me because he had to, or because he thought we were meant to be together, like I did.”
She stopped to take a much-needed pause, then went on. “Vince…Vince came to my dad’s. He told me the pregnancy and our marriage was a mistake, that we’d been too young. He knew I wanted to be a doctor and he said that’s what I should be. He was going to join the Air Force, maybe make a career of it like his uncle had. His uncle was very different from his dad. His dad drank and couldn’t hold a job, and I think Vince just needed to prove he was different, that he could succeed at something. He didn’t ask me what I wanted. I could see he wasn’t willing to fight for what we had.”
“You were both grieving. You’d lost a child,” Emily sympathized.
“A baby boy,” Tessa murmured, her own voice catching. Then she regained her composure. “I know now no one should make major decisions about their life under those circumstances. But we did. He left, and I went to Stanford. Less than a year later I heard he was seeing someone. So I knew our relationship hadn’t meant as much to him as it had to me. Even though we’d broken up, even though we’d gotten a divorce, I still felt betrayed.”
“So what happened today?” Francesca prompted. “Why was he at your office? He’s moved back and he has children?”
“I can’t say. You know that. If you find out about Vince from someone else, that’s fine. But I can’t tell you anything more.”
Francesca and Emily exchanged another of those looks, and Tessa knew what that meant. Sagebrush was a small town. They’d soon know exactly why Vincent Rossi had returned.
The waitress appeared, carrying a tray with their lunches. Tessa had no appetite whatsoever. However, she was determined that Vince Rossi’s return would not affect her life. He would not turn her world upside down a second time.
Vince entered Sagebrush High School ten days later, cell phone to his ear. “Is everything okay?” he asked the woman he’d hired to take care of Sean.
“Just fine, Mr. Rossi. Sean ate all of his supper. I’m going to give him a bath and put him to bed. Or do you want me to keep him up until you come home?”
Vince had interviewed three women to watch Sean during his working hours. He’d liked Mrs. Zappa the best. She was a widow, a retired teacher who was available whenever he might need her and she loved kids. Almost everyone in town knew her and they’d all given her good references. So he shouldn’t worry when he was away from Sean. But he’d been caring for the little boy day and night, all by himself, since the beginning of March. It was hard to let go.
“No, don’t keep him up,” he directed her. “He’ll just get cranky. If he wakes up later, I’ll read him a story and then put him down again. I should be home by nine…ten at the latest. The parent meeting will probably last
