it happen many, many times in the little girl’s life.
Mary Jane’s arms were still clutched tightly to her chest, and her eyes remained hard, her expression adamant. “That’s what she’s telling you, Mom, that she’s not talking to him, but she’s lying.”
Juliet didn’t understand. Mary Jane had always been such a reasonable child. Even during her twos, when there were supposed to have been horrible tantrums, she’d usually been able to reason with the little girl.
“Did you hear Hank on the answering machine? Did he say something that makes you think Marcie’s talked to him?” Words to which Mary Jane had given wrong meaning?
It’s not that she doubted her sister for a second. She just wanted to fix whatever misconception Mary Jane was operating under.
The little girl shook her head, her full, angelic cheeks thinned with displeasure. “I heard her talking to him. And it wasn’t the first time, either, because she asked about something he’d told her a few days ago.”
It hadn’t been Hank. Marcie would have told Juliet about that. “Maybe it was Tammy. Or one of the other ladies she knew in Maple Grove.”
“She said our baby, Mom.” Mary Jane’s voice dripped with unfamiliar condescension.
The little girl was positive she was right and growing more frustrated with Juliet by the second, giving Juliet her first doubts.
“You shouldn’t have been listening to Aunt Marcie’s private conversations, honey.”
“She said that she was thinking about his questions,” the little girl continued, ignoring her mother’s admonition.
Questions?
“And that she really liked her job, but that it wasn’t like the shop. She missed her ladies and all the talk. And she asked about his mom and the hardware store and then—”
“Okay,” Juliet cut her off. Marcie had been talking to Hank. The rest of this she’d handle with her twin. “Enough. This isn’t any of your business.”
“Yes it is. She saw me.”
“She caught you eavesdropping?”
“No.” Mary Jane’s legs swung harder under the table. “She thought I was outside on the beach and she was hiding in the pantry talking really soft and I came in to get some bread to feed the seagulls and when I pulled open the door she saw me.”
“Does she know you’re mad at her?”
Mary Jane nodded.
Something else occurred to Juliet. “You heard all that just when you pulled open the pantry door?”
Mary Jane turned her head.
“Look at me, young lady.”
It took a long second before the child moved her head around, her eyes worried as they met her mother’s gaze.
Juliet didn’t say anything. She just waited.
“I got kinda scared when I came in and Aunt Marcie was talking in the pantry. I was afraid she was talking about me. Maybe to you. So I listened.”
“Eavesdropping is wrong.”
“I know.” Mary Jane’s full lower lip started to tremble.
Some pretty strong motivation must have propelled the little girl across that line.
“What on earth would Marcie and I have to talk about that would be so secret?”
“I don’t know.”
With a slight tilt of her head, Juliet silently gave the child a second chance to tell the truth.
“Blake.”
Oh. So all wasn’t as merry as she’d let herself think. On some level, she’d probably known that. Juliet never had been much of a Pollyanna.
“Mary Jane, you know I don’t keep things from you, especially when they’re about you. I’ve always been open with you.”
The child’s chin softened and sank to her chest. “I know.”
With her index finger, Juliet lifted her chin. “I said I’d let you know before I told Blake about you, and I will. That’s all there is to it.”
“But what if he asks and you like him again and I’m just a kid and—”
“You mean more to me than anything or anyone else in this world, young lady,” she said in a tone she seldom used with her daughter. “You come first. Always.”
Mary Jane’s eyes filled with tears and Juliet pulled the little girl into her arms, holding on for a long time. They’d been happy and contented for eight years. Why did it seem as if the world was trying to pull them apart now, when they needed each other most?
Or was it because they needed each other that circumstances seemed to be pulling them apart?
Something Mrs. Cummings had said back in March after the spitting episode came to mind, making Juliet uneasy. The woman had implied that her relationship with Mary Jane was too adult. Too open and equal to be natural. Juliet had completely dismissed her concerns at the time.
But could there possibly be truth to them?
Was that why everything seemed so hard? Because she expected more from a child than she should? Did she, because of Mary Jane’s ability to understand beyond her years, expect too much from the little girl emotionally?
Or was it as with everything else of great value—the better it was, the harder you had to work to keep it?
She didn’t know.
And that panicked her.
A lot.
BLAKE HAD NEVER DONE so much socializing. That last month before the trial, he accepted every invitation and hint of an invitation that came his way. Maybe, at least in part, he was driven by panic to get as much living in as he possibly could. Just in case.
However, he also wanted to see everyone he could, talk to everyone he could and meet everyone he could who might have known his father and Eaton James. Juliet had spoken to every single person on his list, turning up nothing of any substance, and he just didn’t know who else might hold the elusive piece of evidence that would gain him his freedom.
As he sat at the hospital Tuesday evening, enveloped by dread while he waited with a young woman he’d never met to find out if her husband was going to live or die, he wondered whether no one could point to that missing piece. What if his father and Eaton James were the only two people who’d ever known what had really happened between them? What if Blake would never know the whole story? What if there was no possible way to prove his innocence?
What if the father of the unborn child across from him didn’t live through the night?
“Do you have family in the
