Wedding Ring (5 page)

T
he Episcopal church where Mack’s Compassionate Friends group met was cool and dark, designed as an oasis from the secular world. The meeting rooms continued the theme. The outside wall in this one was brick, with dark paneling on the inside walls. Twisted metal sculptures adorned them, not crosses, exactly, but something more abstract that still represented human suffering. Mack had always thought both the room and the sculptures were immensely appropriate for people who were trying to adjust to the loss of a child.

A casual friend had brought Mack to his first meeting here. Mack would not have come on his own. He was a man who had always handled his problems alone. He was a fixer, a solver, a windmill tilter who made a good living seeking justice for the aggrieved. When his father died unexpectedly between the seventeenth and eighteenth hole at Pebble Beach, Mack had flown to California, sobbed at the funeral, consoled his shattered mother, then set about making certain her finances were in order and her future secured.

When Kayley died, he couldn’t remember to shave or brush his teeth.

The friend, whose grown son had died several years before in a skydiving accident, had come to Mack’s house three weeks after Kayley’s funeral, chosen clothes for him to wear, helped him into the car and driven him to the meeting. Mack had been attending ever since. The friend only showed up occasionally now, but Mack was not yet at the point where he could cope without the group.

Tessa had only attended once, at his insistence. He had no hope she would ever attend again.

This evening the room was empty. The meeting wouldn’t start for another hour, and he had only come to drop off pamphlets he’d copied at his office before he headed for Helen’s house with Tessa’s suitcase. Erin Foster, another group member, had mentioned that they were running low. He did not want another grieving parent or sibling to be without information.

The room was already set up for the meeting. He opened his satchel and stacked the pamphlets on a table beside the door. Erin, who usually came early to be sure the room was set up correctly, would see them and take care of them afterwards.

He stood quietly for a moment, reluctant to leave for Toms Brook. Whatever peace he had found since his daughter’s death, he had found here. Tessa considered his regular attendance a form of addiction, but he knew it for what it was. A lifeline for a drowning man.

The room was cool and quiet. He stared at the wall above the table, but he saw his wife’s face instead. Once upon a time they would not have disagreed about anything so fundamental. From the start, their attitudes, their values, their hopes and dreams, had been the same. They were very different people, but they had seen the world through the same eyes, and breathed in and out in the same rhythm.

Now they were strangers.

“Mack?”

He looked up and saw Erin in the doorway. She was in her late twenties, a former Minnesota Butter Princess who had come south after college to work for the Department of Agriculture. Her round face was classically Midwestern, open, friendly, marred by nothing except a spattering of freckles. Her hair was pale rippling cornsilk, her smile as wholesome as a day at the State Fair. He had trusted her on first sight. But nowadays, he didn’t trust himself when it came to Erin Foster.

She entered the room the way she did everything, bouncing with enthusiasm. “Mack, what are you doing here so early?”

“I just came to drop these off.” He motioned to the pamphlets. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, thanks for doing that. The board’s going to meet for a few minutes before the meeting gets started. I wanted to get the coffee brewing.” She favored him with a radiant smile. “Want to help me set out the cream and sugar?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t stay.”

“You won’t be here for the meeting?”

“Afraid not. My wife’s out of town. She’s staying over in Shenandoah County for the summer. I have to take her a suitcase she forgot.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. We’ll miss you.”

She sounded genuinely sad. He was an expert at deciphering unspoken messages—the skill served him well in his professional life. Now, though, he was as unsure of his own words as he was of her response.

He had just told Erin that for all practical purposes he would be a bachelor for the next two months. And he had neglected to make it clear that Tessa had left home because of family obligations. He might as well have lied and said that he and his wife were undergoing a trial separation.

And how much of a lie would it be?

“You look a little down about it. You’re doing okay?” Erin said. “Need to talk?”

He was afraid that what he needed were Erin’s strong arms around him, Erin in his life and in his bed. He needed her compassion, her warmth and, most of all, her desire for a future.

He needed to leave.

“I’m doing okay, thanks.” He closed the satchel. “I’ll be here next time, but I’d better not keep Tessa waiting. I’m getting a late start as it is.”

“You need to be careful, Mack. It sounds like you’re going to have a lot of free time to brood this summer. Make sure you spend some good time with friends.”

Her gaze was unflinching. She had lost a younger brother to leukemia four years ago and suffered agonies over it. Erin understood how easy it was to fall into a chasm of despair.

There was nothing provocative in her expression or in her words, but Mack was fairly sure an invitation had been issued.

“Thanks.” He bent and kissed her cheek. That was appropriate enough. They had been friends now for three years. But his reaction to that simple, quick kiss, to the cinnamon apple fragrance of her skin and hair, was anything but appropriate. “Have a good meeting.”

In a moment he had left both temptation and solace behind.

After another day of backbreaking labor, Tessa had few choices on how to spend her evening. Faced with the prospect of socializing with her mother and grandmother in the newly cleared living room, sweltering alone in her bedroom as kamikaze moths and beetles threw themselves against her screens, or offering herself as a target for mosquitoes on the front porch, Tessa gladly chose the porch swing.

In the hottest part of the afternoon, she had made a quick run into Woodstock and come back with a cheap blue T-shirt, plastic barrettes to keep tendrils of hair off her neck, insect repellent and a trunk full of bottled springwater. Now she made use of all of them, showering quickly, donning the T-shirt, pulling her hair on top of her head and clasping it in place, and coating herself with the repellant. With a springwater in hand, she made herself comfortable on the porch swing and listened to the first swarm of mosquitoes chide her for a lack of cooperation.

The day had gone better than she’d feared, mostly because the three women had steered clear of each other. Nancy had spent significant portions of both morning and afternoon on her cell phone, no doubt shoring up her complicated social life. Nancy had worked so hard to reach her rung on the state capital’s social ladder that nothing as insignificant as Helen’s future was going to interfere with her continued ascent.

Tessa’s life in Fairfax had intruded, as well. In between trips to the horse trailer that Ron Claiborne had parked in the front yard, she had fielded multiple phone calls from comrades in Mothers Against Drunk Driving. There was new legislation afoot, and they had sought Tessa’s advice on how best to influence it.

Helen had stayed upstairs and quilted.

“Any breeze out here?”

Tessa didn’t turn at her mother’s voice. “Not so you’d notice.”

“Mind if I join you?”

Tessa moved over to make room. “Where’s Gram?”

Nancy plopped down beside her, and the swing screeched a mild protest. Tessa handed her the repellent, and Nancy began to rub it on her arms. “She’s washing dishes.”

On her trip to town Tessa had bought chicken salad from the Food Lion deli, and in a rare moment of agreement the three women had decided it was a good choice. “Maybe she’s feeling a little better about everything.”

“It was more along the lines of ‘Get out of my kitchen, city scum, you don’t belong here.’”

“See? She’s sounding more like her old self.”

Nancy laughed. “You have no idea how many hours I sat in this swing—or at least its predecessor—and waited for something to happen. There were hundreds of nights like this one. Just sitting.”

Despite heat-induced lethargy, Tessa was curious. “You always make your years here sound so bleak.”

Contrary to Tessa’s expectation, Nancy didn’t take the bit and run with it. “That was a long time ago. Maybe it wasn’t as bleak as I remember. Sitting out here on summer nights, there were always a million stars, the smell of honeysuckle or wild roses. Sometimes your grandmother would come outside with me, at least until it got too dark for her to sew. She always had a quilt in progress, and she always worked late.”

Honeysuckle scented the air tonight, and Tessa hadn’t even noticed. She took a deep breath of it. “She’s working on a quilt now. She put it in the frame this afternoon. I took iced tea up there about three, and she was struggling to get it tight enough.”

“What does it look like?”

Tessa hadn’t paid much attention. Helen’s quilts were simply a fact of life. She and Mack had several that they swapped in and out for variety in their guest and master bedroom. In fact, Tessa had only realized that morning that the stacks in Helen’s room weren’t simply trash but projects she was working on, carefully separated into piles.

“Earth tones, I think,” she said. “Lots of little squares.”

“Probably Trip Around the World,” Nancy said. “Or Irish Chain. She loves the traditional patterns.”

Tessa was surprised her mother was so knowledgeable and started to say so, when she caught movement by the road. She leaned forward and squinted into the dusk. “Who’s that?”

“Where?”

Tessa gestured with a twist of her head. “At the edge of the cornfield across the road.”

Nancy shrugged. “Probably just somebody out for a walk.”

“No, it looks like she’s looking for something. I feel like stretching my legs. I’ll go see.”

“Don’t mind me. I’ll still be sitting right here waiting for something to happen.”

Tessa ached everywhere. The unaccustomed run that morning, and hours of bending and lifting, had taken their toll. She moved slowly, but the woman across Fitch was oblivious to her, still standing in the same place.

Only when Tessa crossed the road did the woman—a girl, actually—notice her and speak. “Hi.” She smiled shyly. “Nice evening, isn’t it?”

The girl looked to be no older than seventeen. She was more ethereal than pretty, long wispy wheat-blond hair, pale lashes rimming blue eyes. Her skin was translucent, which made the multitude of freckles stand out in sharp relief.

She was also very, very pregnant.

“I’m Tessa MacRae.” Tessa extended her hand. “Did you lose something out here?”

“Cissy Mowrey. I live over at the Claiborne place.” She shook Tessa’s hand, but dropped it immediately and clasped her own hands behind her back, as if to support the extra weight in front. “No ma’am, I was picking flowers.”

Tessa’s eyes flicked downward, where a neat bundle of dandelions lay at the girl’s feet. They were scrawny and closing for the night, but there was a fair-sized cluster of them.

“Gram will thank you,” Tessa said. “The more you pick, the fewer she’ll have next year.”

“Mrs. Henry’s your grandma?”

“You know her?”

“No ma’am, not really. I seen her in church a time or two. I mean, I saw her.”

The English teacher in Tessa applauded the correction. “Well, I don’t want to keep you.”

And she didn’t. Tessa sensed something here, some need, some yearning that she had no desire and no resources to fulfill. The girl was walking alone a good distance from the Claiborne place, picking weeds for something to do on a summer evening. She looked to be somewhere in her second, even her final, trimester of pregnancy, and Tessa had already noticed there was no wedding band on her ring finger.

Tessa understood teenagers; she had developed a sixth sense for spotting trouble in their personal lives. Years ago, she had felt strong enough to involve herself when needed, to offer counsel, and if that wasn’t warranted, a listening ear. Nowadays, no one came to Mrs. MacRae for anything except extra credit assignments.

“Oh, that’s all right,” Cissy said. “Zeke’s off with his buddies. And there’s nothing much good on television tonight.”

“Zeke?” Tessa remembered that Ron had said his son Zeke would bring the pickup if they needed to borrow it.

“Zeke’s my boyfriend. We live in the trailer up behind the house.”

Tessa had seen the trailer that morning. She tried to imagine Cissy and the Claiborne son raising a baby there. Surely Cissy wasn’t old enough to have finished high school. And how old or educated was Zeke? Tessa felt unwelcome concern for the baby they were going to bring into this world.

“What are you doing here?”

Tessa was startled by Helen’s voice. She hadn’t even heard her grandmother coming toward them.

She tried an introduction. “This is Cissy…” She couldn’t remember the last name.