Sins of the Father (28 page)

I slugged him in the arm and took off for
the bistro the second the elevator doors opened. They didn’t have
the parfait with the kind of fruit I wanted, so we waited while
they whipped one up with strawberries alone – in vanilla flavored
Greek yogurt.

“Tell me your clue.”

“No way,” Devlin shook his head. “You’ll
dash off to investigate on your own after you ditch Johnny at the
diner.”

I wiggled my ankle. “Wearing it willingly
now. Doesn’t that prove something to you?”

“Maybe that you’ve got a little bit of
common sense after all?”

“You’re in rare form today. What made you
decide to accept Johnny’s job offer? You can at least tell me
that.”

“He called on the way to Darkwater proper
this morning, asked me to meet him here. I figured it wouldn’t hurt
to hear what he had to say, so I met him. He came clean with what
Crevan’s working on. I told him I already knew.”

I chuffed out a soft breath and paid for my
treat. “Mmm. Delicious. You should buy one. How’d he take the news
that you spied on them and dug into the matter on your own?”

“I think he said something about admiring my
initiative, but that I should’ve told him what I learned
immediately.”

“You found something they hadn’t?”

He nodded. “Which I will not under any
circumstances share.”

“Meanie.”

“Pragmatic,” he said. Devlin turned to the
clerk at the counter. “I’ll have the strawberry-blueberry parfait,
thanks.”

“I know why you’re all trying to shield me,”
I mumbled around another bite. “What you all fail to realize is
that anything that might interfere with uninhibited eating is
completely off the table. I’m surprised I didn’t die of starvation
when I was trapped on
The Celeste
. Trust me. Gillette had to
die based on food deprivation alone.”

“Can’t you just trust that we’re doing
everything possible to protect you now, Helen? Why are the details
so important to you?”

“I don’t know. What if there’s something I
know, but don’t realize I know that could help the
investigation?”

“If you really feel that way, then this is a
conversation you should have with your husband. Who, if my eyes
don’t deceive me, is heading this way.”

“Was that ten minutes already?”

“I wouldn’t suggest saying that if you want
his mood to remain… improved.”

I turned around and smiled. “Wanna
bite?”

“Sure,” Johnny said.

I spooned a bit into his mouth.

“Mmm, that’s very good, Doc. Crevan says
they’re delicious. He’s right. Asked you to bring one back upstairs
for him, Devlin.” To me, “Ready to go?”

“Yes. Thanks for the company Devlin. See you
later.”

Johnny fell silent.

“That was in the general sense,” I said. “I
have no plans to meet him specifically at a later time.”

“Am I driving or are you?”

I grinned. “Me. You can pick the car up
after lunch and help me do the grocery shopping.”

“Wise move to eat before we get to the
store,” Johnny chuckled. “With your love of frozen shakes, I
presume that’s not the errand you mentioned before we have
lunch.”

I dangled my keys in front of him. “Changed
my mind. You drive, I’ll eat.”

“I have no problem with that, but I don’t
know where we’re going.”

“Annell’s Sewn Bit o’ Heaven in Downey.”

“And why are we going there?”

I shot him a coy look. “I think it’s time
you see what I picked out for the nursery.”

Johnny’s smile made me feel better than
anything in my life to date, hands down.

“Really?”

“I only ordered the stuff yesterday, so if
you have any suggestions, now’s the time to make them. Before
Annell gets too far into the project.”

“So when you say
picked out
, you
meant what exactly?”

“She’s custom designing some stuff for me. I
had a dream the other night, and it was so precious, Johnny. I had
to write it all down and find it for the boys’ room.”

“The dream when you looked so happy,” he
said softly. “And you stayed up all night moving furniture.”

“I wanted to do it earlier before I fell
asleep.”

“Would you have let me help you?”

I chuckled. “Would I have had a choice?”

“No.”

“Let’s go. I can’t wait for you to see
it.”

Thirty minutes later we strolled out of the
store. Johnny threaded our fingers together. “Let’s walk to the
diner from here. It’s only a few blocks.”

“Did you really like my idea?”

“It’s perfect, sweetheart. I loved it.”

We walked to the diner, sat side by side in
the booth and enjoyed looking forward to a happy future instead of
dwelling on an unhappy past.

What was that old saying? Those who do not
learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.

Chapter 26

Johnny flipped on the news and sprawled out
over the sectional in the family room after we cleaned up the mess
from dinner. He hadn’t brought up our conversation that morning
again, even though we spent the whole afternoon together.

I suppose he felt as reluctant to disturb
our fragile truce as I did.

But the longer I thought about it, the more
his question gnawed at my gut. Did he believe I knew something I
just hadn’t clearly recalled yet, or was the question a symptom of
his lack of trust that I was even capable of telling the truth? I
suspected the latter, though he’d given no indication of raging
mistrust all day.

In fact, our afternoon felt an awful lot
like what a normal first date was. You know. For normal people. No
one could ever accuse us of that.

I wandered around a bit under the pretense
of arranging groceries in a convenient manner. This went in the
butler’s pantry. That went in the cupboard. Those belonged in the
food pantry. Johnny settled into something I was accustomed to
seeing. He watched the news, calmly bland no matter how incendiary
the rhetoric became on screen.

Any more organization would’ve bordered on
obsessive compulsive behavior. I sighed and closed the pantry door…
drifted across the room. “Want something to drink?”

“Mmm, I’m good,” Johnny said.

“The saga of Joe versus the Devil continues,
huh.”

“Yeah.” He craned his neck to see around
me.

“Sorry,” I said and started to move away.
Johnny gripped my wrist suddenly.

“Don’t go. Just… don’t block the news.”
Punctuated with a lopsided grin.

Dangerous gambles run in the Eriksson
family. I stretched out on the sofa and tucked my head into the
juncture of his shoulder and arm. Breath froze in the chest behind
me. I reached for Johnny’s hand and slid it up beneath my
shirt.

“Helen.”

“They’re jumping around. Feel that?”

“I feel it,” he said softly.

I smiled and started tracing the corded
veins on his arm with the tip of my finger. “Do you want to finish
that conversation we started this morning?”

“Have you remembered something else?” The
timbre of his voice sobered instantly. It clearly quelled my
paranoid fears.

“No. Should I remember something else about
it?”

“I guess I’m having a hard time seeing how
you jumped from Gillette to Sanderfield in this thing. Believe me,
this isn’t about lack of trust in your instincts. I just wish I
knew the threads that made you connect them, beyond Sanderfield’s
pressure to close OSI.”

Ever want to recoil from a memory? It was
the sensation that I felt.

“This is why I haven’t pushed you, Helen. I
know it’s painful and raw, even though a whole lot has happened
since then. You’ve had almost a year of never ending crap raining
down. This one went too far. Gillette took something precious away
from you. God help me, I only made it worse.”

“No,” I said. “You didn’t make it
worse.”

“I made you feel like property. Even though
that wasn’t my intention, it was fear and frustration and anger,
knowing that I did that to you just about killed me.”

The conversation lapsed into the comfort of
touch, his hand stroking my belly while I continued to trace the
bifurcated highway of veins on his arm. The hairs suddenly rose and
Johnny shivered.

“That tickles, Doc.”

“Sorry,” I stilled the fingertip.

“Don’t stop.”

I tilted my head against his arm, craned my
neck and stared up at him. “You know what you said this morning –
when you said goodbye to the boys?”

His eyes morphed into my universe again when
he stared down at me and shook his head. “I’m not sure. One
specific thing?”

“When you told them that you love them.”

“Helen, I do. I love them so much, and I
know you do too. I never doubted that. Not really. I said a lot of
things in anger that I absolutely didn’t mean. Guess I’m hoping you
did too.”

Whatever I thought to say when I brought up
the subject of that sweet first communication fled. I rolled close
to Johnny and rested my head against his chest. “Your hope is
rewarded. For once.”

He didn’t push me away or throw me on the
floor. Instead, Johnny’s arms wound around me. Warm. Strong.
Comfortable. The slow thud of his heart against my ear quickly
lulled me to sleep.

I’m not sure how long I slept, only a slow
awareness that I was half draped over Johnny’s body when I woke,
and his fingers were skimming slowly up and down my spine. A flood
of memories assailed me, happier days when I woke frequently in
Johnny’s arms this way. Usually it was because of nightmares. I
always woke with a feeling of unease, clinging to Johnny as if his
arms would protect me from the demons in my conscience.

I experienced a moment of panic. Had
Gillette been chasing me in my sleep again? No. Fragments of the
pleasant dream drifted in and out. Fields of wild flowers, children
laughing, salty breezes. Were we in the backyard?

The hand stroking stilled for a moment.
Johnny resumed the soothing touch when I relaxed.

He spoke softly. “You awake?”

“Sort of.” I paused. “Was I…?”

“No nightmares this time. Have they been
bothering you again?”

The last time Johnny regularly slept beside
me, it was a several time a night ordeal. Of course, the fear of
psychosis and my abduction were much fresher in my mind then.
Closer maybe, since it all felt like it happened two blinks
ago.

My shoulder lifted slightly.

“You don’t remember, or you don’t want to
tell me?”

“If I’m having them, the good ones outweigh
the bad.”

The hand on my back stilled again, flattened
and hugged me. “I’m glad for that. You seem a little more… grounded
these days.”

“How can you say that after the horrible
fights, the things I’ve said to you?”

“Except for those moments. I’m not blind,
Helen. I’ve noticed how happy you are… when I’m not around at
least, or you haven’t realized I’m around anyway.”

“I don’t feel that way now.” I should’ve
lifted my head and let him see the sincerity I felt. Instead, my
head remained pillowed on his chest, somewhat shyly.

“I’m grateful for this good day,” he said.
“I’ve been praying for it. Now I pray for another one
tomorrow.”

Of course he had doubts. A single day of
being decent to my husband wasn’t going to erase all the bad things
I’ve done to him since we met. The most recent was merely the
collision of inevitability. He knew. Had my MO down pat. I wondered
idly why he ever loved me, though that fact was now in
question.

He said he loved me enough to set me free.
It wasn’t exactly a declaration of being
in
love.

“I’ll try very hard to do my part,
Johnny.”

“Me too.”

Our children chose that moment to use my
bladder as a trampoline. I jumped up off the sofa in automatic
response and ran for the nearest bathroom – the powder room just
off the living room. I cursed the timing of the event, but never
the ones who caused it.

By the time I crept back toward the family
room, the sofa was empty. Only the dent of Johnny’s body remained.
Television off.

It bothered me more than I’d like to admit,
that the moment had passed.

“Hot chocolate?”

I spun toward the kitchen. Johnny was
standing with the refrigerator door open, carton of milk in
hand.

Couldn’t have wiped the goofy smile off my
face if I tried. “Mmm. Sounds great!”

“Are we in a marshmallow kind of mood
tonight, or do we prefer it straight up?”

I wrinkled my nose for a second before
making the decision. “Whipped cream.”

“Do we have any?” Johnny started rifling
through the dairy bin in the door.

“I picked up a can of that pressurized stuff
at the store this afternoon. It wouldn’t fit on the shelf, so I
stuck it in the one below the dairy.”

He chuckled softly. “And here I thought that
huge lunch you devoured might curb some of the impulse buys at the
market.”

I drifted toward the kitchen and sat on a
stool at the bar. “Sorry for that abrupt departure. I can’t imagine
what it’s going to be like in six months.”

Johnny started heating the milk. “I figured
it was either that or morning sickness. It always seems to bother
you more after you’ve been asleep. You were out like a light
earlier. It never ceases to amaze me how the chronic insomniac
behaves like a narcoleptic all of a sudden.”

“Did I miss something important on the
news?”

“I’m not sure,” Johnny said. He stirred
cocoa into the brew on the stove. “Joe seems to have gained a
little bit in the polls, but he’s still taking a beating from
Sanderfield and the pundits for closing OSI.”

“Did any of you make that argument to him
yesterday?”

Johnny nodded. “Chris said it first. David
seconded it. They’ve been around this political bullshit a lot
longer than I have. At the same time, I saw Joe’s point. If OSI was
the major bone of contention, amputation seemed as good a solution
as any.”