street—an unaccustomed gesture she would later regret.
Taking Cate’s overnight case and setting it to one side in her living room, Brenda had rolled her eyes in silent exclamation over its weight. For its modest size, the case had been fairly heavy. Convinced that she wouldn’t be able to return to her parents’ house for any personal belongings after eloping with Danny, Cate had stuffed the modest little case full, cramming in extra socks, underwear and a change of clothing, along with as many personal mementos as possible.
She’d also withdrawn a hundred dollars from her savings account, afraid that, if she asked for more, the bank teller would tell her father about it. In a town like Beckwith, everyone knew each other’s business. Adults gossiped about their children as a matter of course. Thinking ahead, she’d decided that, if her father learned of the withdrawal anyway and demanded to know why she needed the money, she’d explain it as cash to buy Christmas presents.
I wish things hadn’t been so complicated, so fraught with difficulty, she thought now, punching her pillow into a more accommodating shape. That my parents had liked Danny—made him welcome at our house. Instead of sneaking around to see each other, we could have dated openly. We’d probably have waited to get married until after I graduated. I might not have gotten pregnant when I did.
Even if they’d made a baby under those circumstances, she believed things would have worked out for them. Of course, Brian, as she knew him, might not have made it into the world. They might have had a different child instead. Though she’d have loved that child just as much, Brian had turned out to be worth every bit of the anguish his conception had produced. Despite his teenage foibles, which she regarded as a passing phase, he was smart, affectionate and loyal, an amazing, wonderful kid.
Meanwhile her what-ifs came down to a single question. She still wanted to know why Danny had abandoned her seventeen years earlier, leaving her alone in such a predicament. Would he have dumped me eventually, anyway, even if our elopement had succeeded? she asked herself. Or would we have been happy together? Why did he fail to come back for me, as I believed and hoped he would?
When she’d gone downstairs to meet him in her side yard earlier that evening, neither of them had broached the topic of how they’d parted. She only knew that he’d seemed to feel the hunger, the unmitigated urgency to reconnect that she still felt. Of course, the heated kisses they’d exchanged might not have meant as much to him as they had to her. Maybe they’d simply connoted the appeasement of long-denied curiosity, a romantic interlude undertaken to add zest to his sojourn in Beckwith.
As she lay there with empty arms and a thousand questions competing in her head, Cate couldn’t keep her thoughts from returning to the past as if they were drawn there by a magnet. Surely it holds some answers, she told herself. Yet she’d gone over the events of the night they’d eloped and then parted a million times, without coming up with an adequate explanation for Danny’s subsequent behavior. Powerless to resist with him so near, just a few miles away at his grandmother’s house, she dove back into the well of remembering.
Jittery over the agitation their elopement would cause and worried that they might not be able to pull it off, Cate had settled with Brenda in front of the Hales’ TV set. The latter had gotten out her Monopoly game to pass the time, and they’d begun to play somewhat distractedly while Brenda’s mother had dressed for her Friday night bingo game.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think the two of you were up to something,” Miriam Hale had observed with an indulgent smile as she’d put on her coat. “You both seem fairly wired tonight.”
According to Cate’s parents, Mrs. Hale, a widow, had been an indulgent, irresponsible parent who gave Brenda far too much leeway.
Guilty as charged, Cate had blushed. With less at stake, Brenda had kept a cooler head. “How can you say that, Mom?” she’d demanded with her usual insouciance. “The worst thing we could do around here would be to cheat at this game. And if we agreed to cheat, that wouldn’t really be cheating, would it?”
Miriam Hale had laughed heartily and shaken her head as she’d picked up her purse. “You think like an attorney,” she’d told her daughter affectionately. “A real Philadelphia lawyer. Too bad I don’t have the money to put you through law school.”
As soon as she’d gone, Cate had leaped to her feet. “I should call Danny,” she’d blurted with a churning sensation in her stomach.
Sudden tears had welled in Brenda’s eyes. “You know I want you to be happy,” she’d whispered. “But the truth is, Cate, I don’t want you to go. We’ll never get to see each other. Can’t you wait until you’re eighteen? You and Danny could stay here in Beckwith.”
“I’d give anything if we didn’t have to leave,” Cate had answered. “But it’s getting too difficult for us to see each other. My parents are watching me like a pair of hawks. Besides, Danny and I each want to get an education. Good jobs. Things that just aren’t available here. We won’t be apart forever, Brenda…I promise. Next summer you can come and visit us. In the meantime, we can write each other.”
It had sounded good. But they’d both had misgivings. Several years might pass before they saw each other.
Meanwhile Cate had made up her mind. She’d been tired of sneaking around, of lying to her parents. She’d wanted to be with Danny openly. Let the whole world know about their relationship. “I’d better call him,” she’d repeated, a little more firmly. “We should leave as soon as possible…before my parents get a hunch something’s wrong and decide to come over and check on me. We’ll be in really big trouble if they catch us.”
It had been a gross understatement. Her mouth still warm from Danny’s kisses as she waited for their son to come home, Cate recalled his light tap on the horn as he’d pulled up at the curb outside Brenda’s house that night…the hurried squeeze she’d given her friend before snatching up her bag and running down the steps. Ensconced in the old-fashioned double bed where she’d slept alone since Larry’s death, she relived Danny’s embrace and his deep-pitched growl, “Maybe we’d better get going, sweetheart…”
Nestled in the curve of his arm as he drove, Cate had kept glancing over her shoulder to make certain they weren’t being followed. For his part, Danny had tried not to be too obvious as he’d checked the rearview mirror. “The coast is clear,” he’d reassured her at one point. “Everything’s going to work out. You’ll see…as soon as we find a place, you can register and finish high school. Or take your GED. Either way, you’ll start college in the fall. I’ll work days, sign up for a couple of night classes if possible. We’ll get in touch with your parents on your eighteenth birthday. When they realize how hardworking and happy we are, they’ll come around.”
Cate had strongly doubted it. In her opinion, they would never forgive her, let alone make their peace with him. The product of a poor, somewhat eccentric family, he struck them as the antithesis of everything they’d hoped for her.
Ironically, the farther they’d driven from Beckwith, the more convinced Cate had become that her mother and father were nipping at their heels. Oh, she and Danny had found a justice of the peace willing to hear their vows without much trouble—a funny, rumpled man already wearing his bathrobe who’d gone through the motions.
A short time later Danny had slowed the car as they approached the Heart’s Desire Motel—a shabby, inexpensive-looking place some twenty miles east of the Cincinnati city limit. Its Vacancy sign had been lit as if in invitation.
Cate hadn’t wanted to stop. She’d begged Danny to keep driving across the state line into Kentucky or Indiana if possible,
