cried. “No one understands, but I do. I’d love him if he didn’t have the money or the big house. I can’t think about what it would be like without Shelby.”
Helena lowered herself into the chair next to Anna, directly across from Crystal. “We know you love him.” The older woman patted Crystal’s arm. “J.D. told me many a time that you must love Shelby to put up with his drinking and pranks.”
Anna thought Crystal suddenly looked far younger than her years as the tears ran down her face. She and Randi had to be close to thirty, but Anna felt a lifetime older. They might have lines forming around their eyes, but Anna felt like she had them on her heart. Maybe people who never got involved in life aged faster on the inside. Anna felt sorry for Crystal, the kind of blind love she had for Shelby seemed far sadder than the cold, routine love she had for Davis.
“Shelby isn’t so bad.” Crystal sniffed. “Oh, he gets crazy and makes me do things that embarrass me something terrible in front of his drinking buddies. But then he says he’s sorry and can’t live without me. He’s always buying me stuff after he hurts my feelings.”
“Jewelry?” Randi leaned closer, looking genuinely interested in her friend’s whining. The lines on Randi’s face reflected years of answering to last call.
“Sure. Lots,” Crystal said proudly. “But it’s all locked up at the office. Trent won’t get it for me unless his daddy tells him to.” Crystal blew her nose. “I don’t care about the money or the jewelry. I just want Shelby.” She sniffed loudly once more. “I don’t want to be out on the streets again. I want to be close to him and he feels the same. He says his heart doesn’t start each morning until he looks at me.”
Anna watched as Helena pulled the crumbling group back under control. “What about you, Meredith? Is there family you’d rather be with?”
The schoolteacher raised her head. She had not said anything in half an hour. The size-too-small sweater she wore was hopelessly twisted, once more making the letters tumble together. “No,” she answered. “My mom moved to Arizona to live with her sister when she retired. I have no siblings, or kids of my own. I guess I always figured Kevin is enough of a kid to keep me busy. Since I can’t go back to my classroom, this is as good a place as any to wait.” She lowered her head, returning to the thread she had been twisting off her sweater.
“Well, I have enough kids for us all.” Helena smiled. “I had two girls by my first husband. Twins, though they look nothing alike. My second husband had four children I helped raise, but none of them live close any longer. I was fifty when I married J.D. but if it had been possible, I’d have had his child.”
“You’re kidding.” Randi gulped her drink. “You’d be on Social Security before the kid got out of high school.”
Helena laughed. “It’s crazy, but I wish I could’ve done that for him. He’s my third husband, and the only man I ever really loved. If he’s dead, he’ll also be my last. God only made one man like J. D. Whitworth.”
“I—I have tried,” Anna said slowly, trying not to stutter. “T-to have children, I mean. But there have been no babies.”
“Not me.” Crystal shook her head. “First, a kid would ruin thousands of dollars of surgery. Second, I might have a brat like Shelby’s others. I can’t see going through all that to bring someone like Trent Howard into the world.”
“That kind of thing is not for me,” Randi’s low voice was added to the group. “I don’t mind running the plays, but I sure don’t want to make a touchdown. Western clothes are hard to find in maternity sizes.”
Suddenly the talk turned to life, and living life, and making choices all women have to make. Their conversation became real. No need for social barriers or polite lies. Somehow, the accident, on the rig miles away, made them all the same. All equal. All sisters. The fear they shared brought them together, making each stronger because of their bond.
They talked of the joys in their lives and the changes they wished they had made. Helena, as the oldest, perhaps felt she could be the most honest and her honesty cleared the table of all pretenses. She told of marrying young the first time and losing him in Vietnam, a month after the twins were born.
For a while she had been a single mother trying to start a business and rock two babies at night. After five hard years, she’d married a man ten years her senior for security.
They’d found babysitters and housekeepers to manage the children and he’d taught her how to build her small dress shop into Helena’s Choice.
When he’d died years later all she could say about him was that he had been a good accountant.
Randi talked of deeds done and regretted, Meredith talked of thoughts she harbored, and somewhere in the confessions the cowgirl and the schoolteacher were the same. The difference lay only in degrees.
Anna mostly listened and smiled to herself. In the strange room so far from Italy, she suddenly felt very much at home. She even told the others of her art, something Davis would never approve of, and, to her surprise, the women were interested.
The room finally grew silent, except for the low rumble of the vending machines. Each woman knew they were opening, showing themselves as they never would have done under normal circumstances. Their honesty bred a calmness that floated like a current through the room, washing away worry and fear.
Helena leaned across the table and touched Crystal’s manicured hand with her wrinkled one. “No matter what, we’ll survive, dear. If no one else, we have each other. I’ll be there for you, if you need me. I swear.”
“Helena’s right.” Meredith added her hand brushing the older woman’s. “We can get through this.”
Randi joined the covenant. “Oh, well. Hell, why not. I’ll help where I can, if any of you need me.”
Slowly, Anna’s hand finished the circle of fingers in the center of the table. No one said a word, but a pact wove its way around them. They silently agreed to stand beside one another. Women from different worlds within the same small community.
Whatever lay beyond the door did not seem so terrifying knowing someone stood near. They were silent, thinking of what was to come, realizing the news would be bad for some, if not all, in the room.
The door opened with a slight swishing sound. All hands retreated slowly, yet the covenant remained. Invisible. Strong. In the passing of a few hours they had put aside their masks and accepted one another. The world’s intrusion would not alter that acceptance. For the first time in her life, Anna did not feel so alone.
“Ladies.” A retired doctor shuffled into the room on shoes that never lifted from the floor. He was stooped with age and looked well into his seventies, but intelligence shone from his eyes. “The staff called me in to help right after they sent the ambulance out to the Montano place. I was here by the time the men started arriving. Because I know most of you, I was asked to speak to you.”
He nodded a greeting to Helena and Crystal, and then touched Meredith on the shoulder. When his watery gray eyes met Anna’s, he said, “I’m Dr. Hamilton.” Before Anna spoke he added, “Mrs. Montano.”
Randi turned toward him, lifting her Coke a few inches. “Doc.”
“Randi,” he answered with an honest smile.
“We’ve
