Heart of Clay (13 page)

Killing our baby.

Those three words and the raw desperation in
Callan’s eyes were going to haunt him for the rest of his life.

Surprised by where his wandering took him,
he drove down the street toward Aunt Julie’s house. She knew Callan
as well as anyone. Maybe she’d have some insight for him.

As he pulled into the circular drive, he
could see Julie at the kitchen table through the well-lit window.
He walked to the kitchen door and knocked. Julie was quick to
answer.

“Clay, what a nice surprise,” she said
pulling him inside and into a warm hug. She looked behind him
expecting to see Callan, but soon surmised he was alone. “What
brings you by this evening?”

“Callan and I just had a really ugly fight.
I was hoping you could maybe shed some light on a few things for
me.” Clay was unable to look Julie in the eye as he took off his
ball cap and toyed with the brim.

“I thought I heard voices,” Uncle Ralph
boomed as he sauntered in from the workshop attached to the back of
the house. “Clay, come back here and see what I’m working on.”

Julie gave his arm a pat and motioned toward
Ralph. “Go see what this crazy old man is working on now,” Julie
said with a wide smile. “We’ll talk when you get back.”

Clay followed Ralph to his workshop where he
had every kind of wood working tool anyone could want. Ralph spun a
beautiful piece of birds-eye maple on a lathe, creating a large
bowl.

“Whew, Ralph, that is a beaut.” Clay ran his
hand alongside the outside of the bowl and admired the simple but
artistic lines.

“The neighbor lost a tree last winter in
that big windstorm and was going to burn this trunk, so I told him
I’d take it off his hands,” Ralph said, starting up the lathe. “You
wouldn’t believe the great pieces of wood that you can reclaim
after a big storm. Most people are glad to have you haul it off,
thinking it isn’t worth saving. I’m kind of glad they don’t realize
what they are throwing away, otherwise I’d be paying a pretty penny
at the lumberyard for wood like this.”

Clay sat down on a stool and quietly watched
Ralph turn the wood.

"You look like you just lost your best
friend," Ralph casually commented, looking over his shoulder at
Clay.

"I think I may have.” Clay watched Ralph
work the wood. “Callan and I just had the worst fight of our entire
marriage."

“I’ve never known you two to fight. I bet
you could count on one hand the times you two have gone at it.”

“Possibly.”

“You know working this wood is a lot like
marriage.” Ralph gave Clay a sideward glance, pleased to see he had
his full attention. “You start out with a whole lot of promises and
dreams and ideas of what it could turn into. You start working with
it, turning it, and smoothing it. But eventually you’re going to
hit a knot or a flaw. If you’re careful in your craftsmanship, you
can work through and around those problems and come out on the
other side with something that is uniquely beautiful. If you let
the knots draw a halt to the work, you’ll never know what would
have emerged if you’d kept working at it. You know what I
mean?”

“Yeah, Ralph, I get it. But what happens if
no matter how you turn it, the knot seems to get bigger and
bigger?”

Ralph laughed and slapped Clay on the back.
“That’s when you step away, take a breather, and come back ready to
work at it again. I guarantee you’ll know just how to work out that
knot when you get started again. You go on back to the kitchen.
Julie will be waiting for you.”

“Thanks.” Clay stood and shook his hand. “I
appreciate it.”

“No problem, son. Why don’t you come back
someday when you don’t have heavy thoughts weighing you down and
we’ll work some wood together?” Ralph invited.

“That would be great.” Clay offered the
older man an appreciative nod. “Thanks, Ralph.”

He walked back to the kitchen where Julie
sat working on a puzzle at the kitchen table. As long as he had
known her, when she wasn’t busy working around the house or
volunteering on a committee, she put together puzzles, read mystery
novels, or did fancy stitching on pillows and the like.

“Can I get you something, Clay?” Julie
asked, already rising from the table. She didn’t wait for his nod,
but filled a mug with hot chocolate, topping it off with a few
marshmallows while he removed his coat and laid it along with his
hat on a chair.

After setting the mug down on the table
along with a plate of sugar cookies, she patted the chair next to
her. “Suppose you tell me what has you driving around our
neighborhood on a cold night like tonight.”

Clay sat down, took a sip of the chocolate,
and started tracing a pattern on the edge of the table with his
index finger. “I don’t know what to do, Julie. You know I love
Callan and I’d do anything for her, but I can’t keep on like this.
She’s so angry, so distant. I can’t do anything to make her happy.
Tonight, I decided to have it out with her and in the process, I
think I’ve gotten to the root of the problem. She kept a secret
from me she had no right to keep and I don’t know how I’m going to
get past it.”

He sat back and sighed, staring up at the
ceiling before looking at Julie. She did her best not to cry. Clay
cleared his throat before he spoke again.

“Callan had a miscarriage three years ago. I
had no idea. I finally pushed her enough she told me tonight. How
could she keep something like that from me? Didn’t I have a right
to know?” Pain filled both Clay’s face and voice.

“Oh, Clay.” Julie took his hand in both of
hers. “She never told you? Oh, honey.” Julie started to cry. She
dabbed at her tears and took a deep breath. “Do you remember when
you had to put down Callan’s dog after she got run over? Callan
loved that dog so much. She had literally just found out she was
expecting. The only reason I knew was that it was my day to
volunteer at the clinic when Callan came in to see the doctor. She
was so afraid because she was still taking birth control pills and
worried about what affect that would have on the baby. The doctors
told her years ago getting pregnant wasn’t a good idea. She was
also frightened about what you would think. Neither one of you were
planning on a baby right then. It wasn’t a week or so later that
Margo was diagnosed with cancer. She went so fast.”

Julie took a deep breath and wiped at more
tears. “Shortly after the funeral, you had that out-of-town
training. I know you told Callan you’d stay home with her but she
kept insisting you go. In the end you went, thinking that
everything was fine. No one could have known what would
happen.”

“I had no idea, until tonight. She never
said a word about any of it.” Clay worked hard to keep from coming
unglued in front of his wife’s favorite aunt. A mixture of anger,
disappointment, regret, fear, and grief tore through his head and
heart. “I was on my way home tonight when I saw Callan driving like
the hounds of Hades chased her. She could have caused a wreck or
killed herself. I was already irritated at her for leaving town
this week. For months, she shut herself off from me. She went
through all the motions of her life without any emotion. By some
miracle, the Callan I first fell in love with seemed to come back
for the holidays. I was hopeful that things were going to get
better, but it didn’t last beyond New Year’s. The past few weeks,
she’s been overly emotional, crying all the time, yelling at me for
hours on end about things that normally wouldn’t bother her at all.
Tonight, I saw red. I couldn’t believe she would endanger herself
and others like that. When I got home, I gave her a piece of my
mind and kept pressing her to tell me what’s been bothering
her.”

Emotion threatened to choke the air from
Clay’s lungs, but he felt the need to share this with Julie. He
swallowed the pain and continued. “I kept pushing her and finally
asked what was making her so miserable. She said ‘Killing our
baby.’ She thinks it was all her fault, Julie. Is that why she
didn’t tell me?”

“Yes,” Julie whispered, unable to stop her
own tears. Callan had always been her little girl. With two boys
nearing their college years when Callan was born, Julie poured all
the love into Callan she would have given a daughter if she’d had
one.

Callan had needed it with a mother who
resented her very existence. She and Callan were close. How could
she have missed this? Missed the agony Callan had been in since she
lost the baby.

Julie sighed. “I was there, Clay. The
doctors told her stress and fatigue may have accelerated the
process, but with her preexisting health problems, the pregnancy
most likely would have terminated before it reached full-term.”

“What health problems?” Clay looked intently
at Julie, wanting to know exactly what had happened. “What do you
mean you were there?”

“When she was seventeen, Callan experienced
a lot of pain and bleeding. The doctor discovered tumors and ended
up removing one of her fallopian tubes and an ovary. He told her
she would have trouble conceiving and if she did, there could be
complications. She never told you about this?” Julie was shocked
Callan hadn’t shared the information with him.

“How could she not tell me?” Clay asked
brokenly. Callan had never once even hinted that she had any
problems that would keep her from carrying a child. “Wasn’t that
something she should have mentioned before we got married?”

“She’s an incredibly private person. It
doesn’t excuse her not telling you the truth, but you know she
doesn’t talk about anything like that unless forced.”

When he nodded his head in agreement, she
forged ahead. “As for being there, it was the day you left for your
trip and…” Julie stopped to think for a moment. “Oh, Clay, it was
three years ago… today.”

Clay groaned and put his head in his hands.
Julie placed a comforting hand on his back and went on with the
story.

“Callan didn’t feel well that morning, as
you probably remember. She told you she thought she was getting the
flu. You called and asked if I’d check on her. She kept insisting
she was fine, but you were right to be concerned. By the time I got
there, there was no doubt something was wrong. I rushed her to the
hospital. When she miscarried, she nearly bled to death. She had
what they call a placental abruption and they couldn’t get the
bleeding to stop. That’s why they performed an emergency
hysterectomy. I’ve never been so scared in my life. Callan stayed
several days at the hospital and called you every day so you
wouldn’t know anything was wrong. She said she didn’t want to ruin
your trip and swore me to secrecy. Even Ralph doesn’t know. You
were gone for nearly three weeks. By the time you returned home,
she was getting back on her feet.”

Julie wiped her tears. “Imagine being
Callan. How do you suppose she felt? She lost so much in such a
short time. Knowing our girl, she was desperately afraid of losing
you, too. Callan has had a lot of hurt in her life, Clay, and some
of those hurts run so deep, she’ll have them with her always. It
was a crying shame that a little girl with such deep feelings was
saddled with that mother of hers. Margo was a perpetually unhappy,
selfish person. She constantly beat Callan down, convincing her
that she was worthless, that no one cared about her, that no one
would ever love her. Callan has such a soft heart and tender
spirit, but she learned to keep her emotions hidden to survive her
childhood.”

Julie took a deep breath and patted Clay’s
arm. “You know she used to have such a passion and zest for life
that even her mother couldn’t completely subdue. It’s still in
there somewhere, Clay. You’ve got to help her find it again. I knew
you were the one for her because she let you into her heart. She
opened herself up to you. That’s why you’re the one who brings
Callan the most joy and the one who can wound her heart the
deepest.”

Clay couldn’t breathe. If what Julie said
was true, he’d carved chasms in Callan’s heart tonight. He needed
to leave, needed to stay, needed to know that everything was going
to work out.

“What should I do, Julie?” Anguish filled
his voice.

“I think you and Callan would do well to
give each other some space until you get your thoughts sorted out.
Go spend the weekend at the ranch and I’ll visit Callan
tomorrow.”

Clay got up and put his mug in the sink.
After giving Julie a hug, he put on his coat and hat. “Thanks,
Julie. I don’t know what either one of us would do without
you.”

As Clay started out the door, Julie put her
hand on his arm and he turned around. “You have every right to be
angry, Clay, and every right to be hurt, and every right to grieve.
Take care of your feelings then you can help Callan work through
hers.”

Clay drove home and sat in the driveway for
a while before going inside the house. He quietly closed the front
door then took off his coat, hung it in the closet, and tugged off
his boots, leaving them by the door.

Softly walking to the bedroom, he opened the
door. The light was on, but Callan curled into a sad little ball in
the middle of the bed, clutching his pillow to her chest, crying in
her sleep.

She must have been like this since he left.
Her suitcase, and the contents she’d partially unpacked, still sat
on one corner of the bed.

Clay put her things back in the suitcase and
set it off to the side on the floor. He pulled off Callan’s shoes,
lifted a thick quilt from the closet shelf and covered her. He
turned off the light and backed out of the room. For tonight, he’d
sleep in the guest room.

The sound of a car door shutting awoke Clay
the next morning. Lifting the blind on the window, he watched
Callan back out of the driveway and head down the road while bright
sunlight shimmered across a coating of new snow.