you know what?” Wyatt shot out of his chair and was in front of her before she could blink. “Then you should tell people that. Because normal people don’t keep secrets from their dads. Which means other normal people don’t suspect you’re keeping a secret from yours.”
Her chin rose. “I guess that means I’m not normal, then. Thanks for that.” She pivoted and smacked her hands on his screen door, opening it. “I need to get back to the kids.”
When she was gone, Wyatt fell to his chair. Part of him insisted he shouldn’t feel bad. He hadn’t known. She hadn’t told him.
But he remembered his charmed childhood. He might not have been well liked at school, but he was well loved at home. What the hell did he know about being abused? What did he know about the dark reasons for keeping secrets?
He’d been born under a lucky star and he knew it.
He scrubbed his hands down his face. Looked over at the cake. It was the best thing he had ever tasted. Missy had talent. With a little help, she would succeed. Maybe even beyond her wildest dreams.
But like an idiot, he’d blocked his chance to help her, by offering her money so he could stop being attracted to her.
Her life was about so much more than sex and marriage and who was attracted to whom. It was about more than being praised and admired. All she wanted to do was make a living. Be safe. Keep her kids safe.
And Wyatt kept hurting her.
He was an idiot.
Missy spent the rest of the kids’ nap in tears. Not because Wyatt had ratted her out to her dad. He couldn’t have ratted her out. As he’d said, he hadn’t known she kept her success a secret from her dad. Because she didn’t tell anybody about him.
And if she really dug down into the reasons she was suddenly so sad, so weary of it all, that hit the top of the list.
She didn’t talk to anybody. At least not beyond surface subjects. No one knew her. It was the coldest, emptiest, loneliest feeling in the world, to exist but not be known. In high school, she could pretend that the life she led during the day, in classes, at football games, cheering and being chosen to be homecoming queen, snowball queen and prom queen, was her real life. But as she got older, her inability to have real friends, people she could talk to, wore on her. And when she really got honest with herself, she also had to admit that her company was a nice safe way of having to connect with people in only a superficial way. Once a wedding was over, she moved on to new people. No one ever stayed in her life.
Of course, she had wanted to connect with Wyatt, but he didn’t want a relationship. He wanted a fling.
She swiped away her tears. It didn’t matter. She was fine. When her dad was out of the picture, her life was good. And that morning she’d scared him off. He wouldn’t be back. And if he did come back, testing to see if she was serious about her threats, she’d call the police. After a night or two in jail he would stay away for good. Because he was a coward.
Then the whole town would know and she’d be forced to deal with it. But at least her life wouldn’t be a lie anymore.
And maybe she could come out from under this horrible veil of secrets that ended with nothing but loneliness.
When the kids awoke, she kept them inside, working on a special project with them: refrigerator art. She got out the construction paper, glue and little round-edged plastic scissors. They made green cats and purple dogs. Cut out yellow flowers and white houses. And glued everything on the construction paper, creating “art” she could hang for Nancy to see on Saturday when she babysat.
And outside, Wyatt sat on the bench seat of his gram’s old wooden picnic table, peering through the openings in the tall shrubs, waiting for them to appear.
But the kids and Missy didn’t come outside. Because she was angry? Or sad? Or in protection mode?
He didn’t know.
All he knew was that it was his fault.
He rose from the picnic table and walked into his house, back to the bedroom littered with shoe boxes. He sat on the bed and began the task for looking for the jewelry, trying to get his mind off Missy.
It didn’t work. He was about to give up, but had nothing else to do—damn his mother for canceling the cable. So he forced himself to open one more box, and discovered a stack of letters tied with a pink ribbon. He probably would have tossed them aside except for the unique return address.
It was a letter from his grandfather, Sergeant Bill Mc-Kenzie, to his grandmother, sent from Europe during World War II.
Wyatt sat on the bed, pulled the string of the bow.
Though his grandfather had died at least twenty years before, Wyatt remembered him as a tall, willowy guy who liked to tell jokes, and never missed a family event like a birthday party or graduation. He’d liked him. A lot. Some people even said Wyatt “took after” him.
He opened the first letter.
Dear Joni…
I hope this letter finds you well. Things here are quiet, for now. That’s why I have time to write. I wanted to thank you and everyone at home for your efforts with the war bonds. I also know rationing is hard. I recognize what a struggle it is to do without and to work in the factories. Tell everyone this means a great deal to those of us fighting.
The letter went on to talk about personal things, how much he missed her, how much he loved her, and Wyatt had to admit he got a bit choked up. A kid never thought of his grandparents loving each other. He’d certainly never pictured them young, fighting a war and sacrificing for a cause. But he could see his grandmother working in a factory, see his grandfather fighting for freedom.
What Wyatt hadn’t expected to find, in letter after letter, was how much encouragement his grandfather had given his grandmother. Especially since, of the two, she was safer.
Still, his gram would have been a young woman. Working in a factory. Going without nylons—which might explain why she saved old panty hose. Getting up at the crack of dawn, doing backbreaking labor. He’d never thought of his grandparents this way, but now that he had, their lives and their love took on a new dimension for him.
Hours later, feeling hungry, he ambled to the kitchen and saw the cake. He took a chunk of the half-eaten slice he’d left behind. Flavor exploded on his tongue like a recrimination.
He sat at the table, staring at the cake. His grandfather was such a people-smart guy that he never would have let anyone suffer in silence the way Missy was. Sure, she baked cakes and attended weddings, looking pretty and perky, as if everything was fine. But everything wasn’t fine. She worked her butt off to support her kids, and probably lived her life praying her dad would forget she existed.
And Wyatt had blown that in a one-minute conversation after eating pie.
He had to do something to make that up to her. He had to do something to make her life better. He already watched her kids while she worked every morning, but from the way she’d kept them inside after their naps, she might be changing her mind about letting him do even that.
So that left her business. If he wanted to do something to help her, if he wanted to do something to make up for the things
