once, I am keeping out of it. I told Mama if she wants to know about you and Tucker, she’d better ask you.”
“You’re the best.”
“I certainly am.”
Lori slumped back among the pillows. “As far as Tucker and me, I don’t know…”
“You should call him today.”
“I already did, yesterday. I tried to tell him I just want to talk about everything now, to get it over with. He wouldn’t listen. He says he wants me feeling good—when he lays into me.”
“Maybe that’s smart—that you wait till you’re feeling a little better, I mean.”
“Oh, Lori. This is bad. I mean, really bad. He’s so mad and he won’t talk to me. It’s awful.”
Lena gave her a chiding look. “Well, hon, you have to admit he’s got a right to be mad.”
“I know he does.”
“You just be patient, now. You’ll work it out.”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know…”
Lori stewed all day about whether or not she should be downstairs to greet Tucker when he showed up to get Brody. In the end, she decided against it. She looked truly terrible—her forehead, on the left side, beneath the bandage, was all black and blue, her left eye big and purple as a ripe plum. She just didn’t want him to see her that way. She knew he’d feel sorry for her.
She could do without his pity, thank you very much.
He showed up at five on the dot and whisked their son off in the back seat of a big black Cadillac. She stood in her bedroom window and watched the car drive away.
Four hours later, she was waiting in the same spot, watching for their return, with the window open a crack. At two minutes after nine, the big car slid up to the curb and Brody jumped out before the chauffeur could get around and open the door for him.
“It’s all right, Jesse,” she heard Brody say to the driver. “I like to open doors for myself.” The driver went back around the front of the car as Brody leaned in the still-open rear door. “Bye, Tucker. See you Wednesday…”
So, then. Wednesday was a go.
She knew it was a good thing, for her son to finally get to know his natural father. She was glad for that.
She honestly was.
Everything else, though?
What an awful, ugly mess.
Tuesday, Enid took her to see Doctor Zastrow. The doctor removed her bandages, prodded the healing gash at her temple and told her things were looking good. As he bandaged her back up—a much smaller bandage than before—she joked that he must be blind, considering that the top half of her face on the left side bore a startling resemblance to an eggplant.
He told her what she already knew: the swelling would go down, the stitches would be absorbed, the scar would heal and the bruises would fade. “Give it time. And if in six months you’re not happy with that scar, a little minor plastic surgery will have you looking as beautiful as ever.” She realized he was right on the verge of flirting with her.
She broke eye contact. And not because he seemed like the kind of man who flirted as a matter of course—though he definitely did. No. She looked away because of Tucker. If she was going to do any flirting, she wanted it to be with him. Which, considering the way things stood between them, was right next-door to pitiful.
On the way back to the house, Enid daintily tried to find out what had happened between her daughter and Tucker.
“Lori, hon, your father and I have been wondering—”
Lori cut her off at the pass. “Is this about Tucker, Mama?”
Enid nervously clenched and unclenched her slim hands on the steering wheel. “Well, sweetie, he did save your life and he seemed so attentive and then—”
“Not now, Mom. I can’t talk about it now.”
Enid didn’t press her further. Lori was grateful for that.
Wednesday, she decided she was through hiding in her room. When Tucker arrived for Brody, she answered the door herself.
His face, all ready with a smile of greeting, went blank at the sight of her. “Lori.”
“Hello, Tucker.”
“That eye looks pretty bad.”
She drew herself up. “It’s better than it was. In fact, I’m feeling pretty good. By tomorrow, I’ll be ready for that long talk we need to have.”
“We’ll see—Brody here?”
“You know he is.” She stepped back so he could enter as Brody pounded down the stairs.
“Hey, Tucker!”
The look on Tucker’s face at the sight of his son made her heart squeeze up tight in her chest. “Hey, bud. There you are. Let’s get the heck out of here.” He turned and headed down the front steps.
“Okay!” Brody flew by her, close on Tucker’s heels. Halfway down the walk, he paused to look back at her. “Mom? You could go with us, if you want…”
Tucker stopped in midstride and turned to face her again, his eyes flat, giving her nothing.
She beamed a thousand-watt smile at her son. “Uh. No. I’ll stay home tonight. You have a great time.”
Brody ran back and hugged her. “Love you, Mom…”
She was careful, not to hold him too tight. “Love you, too…”
His arms dropped away and he was off again, racing down the steps and along the walk, yanking open the rear door of the big black car and sliding inside.
Lori stepped back into the house and quickly shut the door. She was simply unable, at that moment, to watch the gleaming Cadillac drive away from her carrying her child.
She turned from the shut door to see her parents standing together near the foot of the stairs wearing twin expressions of sad bewilderment.
In their loving, confused faces she saw her secret reflected. She saw what the secret had done to her family, how it had ripped right through the fabric of it, tearing a ragged hole of hurt and misunderstanding every bit as wide as the one that yawned now between her and the father of her child.
Her dad and mom—and Lena—they were her people. And she had deserted them, left them behind. She’d made a new life for herself without them in it.
Because she was a coward unwilling to face the consequences of the huge mistakes that she had made.
No more, she thought, the words as loud and final as gunshots inside her head. No more secrets and no more lies.
She
