Stay a Little Longer (26 page)

Shakily, he rose to his feet and added, “I’ll always love you, Alice.”

Just as Mason was about to turn back to Rachel, his eyes caught sight of the tombstone lying next to Alice’s and a startled
expression crossed his face as he realized that his name was carved upon it.

“My own… tombstone,” he muttered.

“Alice had it placed here several months after you were reported as having been killed,” Rachel explained gently, wiping the
tears from her eyes. “I think she waited so long in the hope you somehow might return, that there had been some mistake.”

“I should have proven that thought true.”

As another peal of thunder rolled across the countryside, Rachel remembered her own thoughts the last time she had stood at
Mason’s grave. Before she could stop herself, she began to speak of them. “For the longest time, I hated you for what happened
to Alice,” she said. “I believed that if she hadn’t met you, if she hadn’t loved you so deeply, then your death wouldn’t have
broken her heart.”

Mason nodded, his eyes fixed upon her.

“Every year, my mother insists that I bring Charlotte to the cemetery on the date of Alice’s death, Charlotte’s own birthday,”
Rachel continued. “And every year I’ve stood here and cursed you and the day you came into my sister’s life. I’ve held such
terrible resentment.”

“Do you still feel that way?” he asked.

Rachel regarded Mason closely. So much had happened since Charlotte had first found him racked by illness out in the woods.
While she had felt some undeniable anger toward him when he finally revealed his identity, most of that had vanished. When
he had rescued her from Jonathan Moseley, something else had come over her, an emotion that still proved elusive, but it was
certainly not anger.

“No, I don’t,” she answered.

“You have every reason to hate me for what I’ve done.”

“Like you, I’m ready to put the past behind me.”

“Thank you, Rachel,” Mason said humbly. “Let’s hope the next person I have to see will be as forgiving.”

“Who’s that?” she asked.

“Your mother.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Mason stood beside Rachel in the hallway outside the door to Eliza’s room, the scant light rising from the ground floor of
the boardinghouse casting deep shadows across the walls. The sun had long since set and Rachel had collected all of the dishes
from suppertime, a meal he had skipped as he had screwed up his courage to do what he knew needed to be done. The only sound
to compete with his own ragged breathing was the rumbling of Otis’s snores coming from somewhere below.

“I am,” he answered.

Rachel knocked gently before opening the door and stepping inside. He followed her and shut the door behind them.

The entryway was gloomy, full of deep shadows that filled much of the rest of the room; only the faint, flickering light of
a candle on a dresser gave any illumination. Mason’s first reaction upon seeing the room was surprise; his memories of Eliza
Watkins were of a woman who surrounded herself with the brighter things in life. Then he glimpsed her for the first time as
she stood over by the window, peering through the curtains, a sad figure alone in the gloom.

Am I responsible for what she has become?

“Mother, I don’t know how to tell you this, but—” Rachel began but faltered as she moved farther into the room.

Mason had stayed close behind her as she had advanced, and for the first time, Eliza’s eyes went to him, peering intently
for a better look at the man who accompanied her daughter. As, suddenly, a fork of lightning lit the room, his identity was
revealed to her.

She recoiled. “No… no, it can’t be…”

“Mother,” Rachel said, stepping toward her mother, “please don’t…”

But it was already too late. Eliza backed away quickly, one hand flying to her throat and another wildly grasping about. She
brushed against a small table, sending a teacup hurtling to the floor where it shattered into pieces.

“How… how is this possible?” Eliza exclaimed. “You’re dead! It can’t be you, it can’t be…”

Stumbling backward, she bumped into a chair and fell to the floor. Before Rachel could react, Mason was already beside Eliza.
Still, she did her best to stay away from him, cringing against the wall with nowhere else to go. Mason, dropping to one knee,
gently extended his hand.

“This isn’t real! I must be dreaming… a nightmare!”

“Maybe so, Mrs. Watkins, but it’s me, Mason.”

“It can’t be!” Eliza cried in disbelief. “It just can’t!”

“But it is.”

“But your… your face…” she said, shaking her head, her eyes unwilling to look upon the mess that war had caused of Mason’s
handsome features. “It’s… it’s so scarred… it’s…” she stammered. Tentatively, Eliza reached out her trembling hand to touch
the ragged ridges on the side of Mason’s face; the instant her fingers made contact, she recoiled as if she were the one being
burned.

Rachel knew that her mother’s reaction to Mason’s burns must be causing him incredible dismay; but if he was upset, he didn’t
show it.

“Mrs. Watkins, please, take my hand,” Mason implored. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

“But, I—”

“Let him help you up, Mother,” Rachel said.

With only a little more hesitation, Eliza allowed her hand to slip into Mason’s, and he helped her to a soft chair near the
window. Rachel fetched a pitcher of water and poured her mother a glass, which Eliza drank; all the while, her disbelieving
eyes never left Mason’s face.

Mason felt a stab of guilt as he looked upon Alice’s mother. While he had imagined that her reaction would be one of surprise
at seeing him again after so many emotional years apart, especially since she imagined him to be dead, but her horror upon
recognizing him had been more intense than he had expected. He’d hoped that she would respond much like Rachel had, more with
disbelief than outright shock.

“How can it be you?” Eliza asked after she had regained some measure of composure. “They told us that you were dead! Your
own father came and told Alice that you had died in France! How can this be?”

Patiently, Mason began to explain what had happened to him since he had left Carlson eight years earlier. Much as he had with
Rachel, he talked about the trenches of France, the explosion that had mistakenly led to his being pronounced dead, and his
rehabilitation at a military hospital. He told Eliza of being unable to come to grips with the extent of his injuries, his
fears of how everyone would react to his disfiguring scars, and how that had led him to avoid returning home.

Mason summed up the life he had been living, traveling the rails and hiding from trainyard authorities. He went so far as
to detail some of the violent episodes that had led him to decide to return to Carlson. Through it all, Eliza’s expression
grew harder, less friendly, until she was frowning.

“But I don’t understand why, once you had returned to America, you didn’t tell anyone that you were alive.”

“I just… just thought it was best—”

“The Mason Tucker that I knew would never have let those he had left behind believe he was dead,” Eliza said emphatically.
“To think that your own poor father has been led to believe a lie! Why, the shock of such deceit would probably be enough
to kill him!”

“Mason felt so damaged…” Rachel began defensively.

“He’s not the only one that I’m cross with,” Eliza interrupted, turning her anger toward her daughter. “How long have you
known that Mason was still alive? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Do you remember when you told me to follow Charlotte?”

Eliza nodded.

Rachel explained how she had done as her mother had told her and followed the little girl out into the woods to the north
of the lake. She told of her discovery of Charlotte caring for a haggard man in a decrepit cabin and, truthfully, she admitted
that she hadn’t been certain of who he was until after she had brought him to the boardinghouse to recover.

“Why wasn’t I told that there was a stranger living under my roof?” Eliza demanded.

“Mason isn’t a stranger,” Rachel disagreed.

“You didn’t know that when you brought him here.”

“Because I—”

“Rachel didn’t say anything because I asked her to keep my identity a secret from everyone,” Mason cut in. “There’s no reason
to be angry with her for failing to tell you I was here.”

“I believe there’s plenty of anger to go around for this,” Eliza snapped.

For a moment, silence filled the room. Mason knew there was nothing he could do to make up for all hurt he had caused. Over
the years, he had imagined Alice’s suffering, but he hadn’t given much thought to how her distress would affect those around
her. Standing before Eliza Watkins, feeling her anger, made him realize how wrong he had been.

When Eliza finally spoke, her voice trembled with fury. “I’ve sat here and I’ve listened to everything you’ve had to say,
Mason,” she said, “about what happened in the war and why you chose not to come home, allowing everyone to believe you were
dead. But what I hear are the words of a coward, excuses filled with more excuses. Am I wrong… am I to believe that you’ve
stayed away because you were afraid?”

Slowly, Mason shook his head. “No, you’re—”

With an alarming suddenness, Eliza rose from where she sat and slapped Mason across the face. In the close confines of the
room, the sound seemed thunderous. Mason’s head snapped to the side more out of surprise than pain, but the sheer violence
of Alice’s mother’s reaction unsettled him.

“How dare you!” she bellowed as tears began to form in her eyes. “How dare you come back here after all of these years! Your
fear, your cowardice, your vanity caused Alice’s death just as sure as if you had stabbed her heart! Nothing will ever return
her to us! Nothing!”

Throughout the barrage of words and accusations, Mason did nothing to argue with Eliza; the truth was that he knew he deserved
everything being levied against him. Even as tears began to fall from the older woman’s eyes, he refused to turn away.

“I want you to get out!” she finally shouted. “Get the hell out of here!”

“But Mother,” Rachel began to protest, before Mason gently grabbed her by the arm and headed back toward the door.

“She’s right,” he admitted. “Everything your mother says about me is right.”

While Eliza began to sob hysterically behind him, Mason couldn’t help but wonder that if Alice were still alive to see his
fateful return, she wouldn’t have hated him just as much.

T
HE NEXT DAY MASON
awoke to sunlight pouring through the windows; the gentlest of breezes rustled what few leaves remained on the storm-shaken
trees, and birds chirped hungrily at the dawning of the new day. He was marveling at it all and buttoning his shirt when the
unmistakable sounds of Charlotte and Jasper racing down the hallway came to his ear.

“Charlotte!” he called. “Could you come in here for a moment?”

Instantly the tramping of feet came to a halt just outside his room and the door cracked open a couple of inches; Charlotte
looked in hesitantly, clearly a bit fearful that she had done something wrong.

“Don’t worry,” Mason reassured her with a gentle laugh. “I’m not mad at you for running down the hall.”

Her face brightened. “Good.” She sighed. “ ’Cause Grandma doesn’t like it.”

“Then why do you do it so much?”

“It’s fun!” she declared as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Playfully, Charlotte bounced into the room with Jasper, as always, at her heels and just as full of mischief. Dressed in a
simple blue dress, her black boots still flecked with the mud of an earlier day’s play, she looked amazingly like her mother.
Charlotte regarded Mason curiously.

“Your face looks different,” she commented.

“Yes, it does,” he agreed. “I shaved off my beard yesterday.”

Mason watched as Charlotte’s eyes drifted across his face. Turning her head slightly to the side, she focused upon the scarring
on the side of his face, her eyes narrowing to get a better look.

“Does what you see frighten you?” Mason asked.

“Nope,” she answered immediately with a sideways shake of her blonde braids. “I like you better without that big old beard.”

Mason couldn’t stop a smile from forming at the corners of his mouth.

After Charlotte had taken the seat he had offered on the edge of his bed, her legs kicking out rhythmically, Mason said, “I
asked you to come in here because I want to tell you a secret.”

“Really?”

Mason took a deep breath. “Do you remember, in the days after you found me out in the cabin, when I was really sick, and I
called you by another name… when I called you Alice?”

“That’s my mother’s name!”

“Yes, it is.” He smiled. “Well, the reason that I called you by her name was that you reminded me of her. You see, besides
your aunt Rachel and grandmother, I knew your mother better than anyone in Carlson, even in the whole world.”

“You did?” Charlotte asked, wide-eyed.

“Yes,” he answered carefully. “The secret I wanted to tell you is that your mother was my wife, which makes me your father.”

“But… but my father… is dead,” Charlotte said, puzzlement on her face. The kicking of her feet had stopped and her eyes looked
up at him brimming with confusion; it was clear that she expected him to provide answers to her dilemma.

“Oh, Charlotte.” He sighed. “I know that’s what you believed to be true, but sometimes things aren’t what they seem.”

“But he’s buried next to my mother in the cemetery!” she exclaimed, unwilling to believe the explanation Mason gave her. “Rachel
and I were just there for my birthday and I saw it!”

“Sometimes people make mistakes,” Mason patiently explained. “They don’t mean to, but it happens all the same.” He sat down
beside Charlotte and tenderly took her hand in his own. “Many years ago, even before you were born, I went a long way away
to war and I didn’t come back when everyone expected me to. I was really sick, not like how I was when you found me, but sick
in a different way. Do you understand?”