drive, on either side of which sat a sagging chain mail fence.
May must’ve heard the engine. By the time Natalie walked from the cracked cement drive to the house, May was standing on the porch, wiping her hands on a red-striped tea towel.
A heartfelt smile lighting her face, her mother flipped the towel over her shoulder and extended her arms. Relishing the comforting warmth, Natalie burrowed her face in her mother’s shoulder, wishing her father were here, too.
After a long moment, May pulled back, her grey eyes glistening with unbridled love and pride. “You look so well, Tallie.”
Natalie smiled. “So do you.”
But in truth her mother’s hair looked frizzy and her shoulders were slightly stooped. In her mother’s eyes Natalie recognized again what she’d seen last visit. She was lonely. When her father died, she’d asked May to come live with her but she’d stoutly refused. This is where her life with Jack had been, May had said. She wouldn’t leave, no matter what.
Now with her usual brave face, May linked an arm through her daughter’s and swung open the screen door. “I put a roast on for lunch. The potatoes are browning.”
Natalie stepped into the tidy living room. Fresh snapdragons fanned from a vase on the TV, the same washed out landscape paintings hung on the wall. The surroundings were reassuring yet unsettling, too.
Memories in every corner.
Bringing herself back, Natalie nodded. “A roast sounds great.” Smelled great, too.
“Was it an easy drive from Sydney?”
“A breeze,” Natalie fibbed as May crossed to flick on the air-cooler and she sank onto the couch.
“I have your room ready in case you’d like to stay over.”
“Sorry. Can’t. Work tomorrow.”
“Well, the invitation’s always there.”
Crossing back, her mother’s gaze landed on her daughter’s hand, on the ring, and she hesitated before folding down beside her. Natalie had purposely kept the ring on so she couldn’t back out of confessing. But now her stomach looped in guilty knots. She was not looking forward to this talk. It reminded her of a past conversation, only this time she wasn’t the girl who’d got in trouble.
Smoothing down her skirt, Natalie siphoned in a steadying breath. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“About Alexander Ramirez?”
Natalie’s brows hitched. “The story made the local paper?”
May’s smile was wry. “We do get the city paper way out here in the sticks.”
“As far as I remember, you weren’t interested in either.”
“My neighbors are.”
“Of course. I should’ve seen the smoke signals spreading the news when I drove in.”
Despite Natalie’s sarcasm, her mother smiled and held her hand. “He looks very handsome.”
“He’s…” Natalie swallowed the word nice, then decent. They didn’t seem to fit.
“He’s very good to me.”
“I’m sure he is.”
“He’s what’s known as a venture capitalist. They invest in other people’s ideas.”
“There was a small write-up about that, too.”
Natalie nodded, stalling, trying to find the right words. Her mother wouldn’t bring up the other information contained in that article, the claim that another woman was pregnant with Alexander’s baby.
May Wilder would stick by her daughter under any and every circumstance, but Natalie couldn’t bear to think about the added stares and whispers her mother would endure from this town’s population after this. Whispers about that Wilder girl getting herself into strife again.
Natalie rearranged her hands in her lap.
“You know it’s not certain that Alexander’s the father of that child,” she finally said, and her mother blinked several times.
“Oh? The reporter seemed sure.”
Natalie huffed. The reporter was a slimeball.
“Alex has a friend, a doctor, who says paternity can be determined quickly.”
May tipped closer. “I want you to remember, this isn’t your fault. You wouldn’t have agreed to marry him if you’d known.”
At a twinge of shame, Natalie dropped her eyes. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
But how could she explain? How would it sound?
I am wearing a man’s ring when he knows nothing about my past, that I can’t bear his children. I know I have to tell him and when I do that will be the end. But I can’t help thinking about that baby, about giving her the love I wasn’t able to give my own.
Natalie’s nose stung at the threat of tears at the same time May’s arms wrapped around her.
Her mother didn’t speak for the longest time, but when she did it was in a supportive tone that tugged at Tallie’s heart. “You don’t have to go through with it if you don’t want to.”
She clamped her burning eyes shut. Her mother didn’t understand. Natalie wasn’t sure she understood.
Her mother’s voice lowered more. “Do you love him?”
She thought it through. She loved her parents, she’d loved her baby. After that horrible black day six years ago, she’d never wanted to love anyone again. She hadn’t thought she was capable.
“Alexander and I…we get on very well,” she murmured truthfully.
“That’s always a good sign.”
“He treats me like a lady.”
Her mother’s smile was reminiscent. “So he should.”
“He doesn’t know…doesn’t know about—”
She bit her lip, damming the sudden rush of emotion.
Her mother hugged her daughter tighter. “Tallie, you were always a good girl. Even good girls can take a wrong turn.”
But Natalie pulled away and growled. She was sick of feeling seventeen.
“I wish I could go back.” If only she hadn’t stumbled that day. If only her baby had lived. God, she’d felt so helpless. “I wish I could squeeze all the horrible memories from my mind. Sometimes I think I have. But I’ve only ever pushed them down.”
“It was God’s will.”
