Blue Skies Tomorrow (13 page)

“No, don’t leave me.” She clung to him and kissed him. She wasn’t finished.

“Helen,” he said against her lips. He took her face in his hands and stepped back. “Believe me, I don’t want to go, which is exactly why I need to go.”

“No, no, no.” She shook her head in his grip. If he left, she’d explode. Something would explode inside and kill her. “Don’t go. Please, don’t go. You have to stay.”

“Are you . . . are you all right?”

“Stay. I need you. I need you to stay.”

He ran his hand over his mouth. “Um, Helen, I need to go.”

“Why?” A spark traveled up her fuse. He demanded so much of her. Why wouldn’t he give her what she needed? “You said you wanted to kiss me in private. We’re in private. Did you change your mind? Huh? Would you rather go back outside, kiss me for all the world to see?”

“What? That’s not what I meant.”

“You want everything public, don’t you?”

His head swung from side to side, his forehead in knots. “I don’t—I don’t know what’s going on here.”

“Let me get this straight.” She charged for the window and flung back the ruffled white curtains. “Out there I need to stay by your side, always by your side, only by your side, and hold your hand and gaze adoringly at you, but in here—that’s where you can kiss me, where you can beat me up.”

Ray’s eyes, his whole face stretched long. “Beat . . . what?”

“No!” She clapped her hands over her ears, worked them up into her hair. “I didn’t say that. I didn’t.”

Concern curved around his eyes. “Did Jim . . . did he hit you?”

“No! Don’t say that. He couldn’t. He didn’t. He loved me.”

“I know, but did he—”

“No!” She gathered her hair in fistfuls. “He was a hero. Everyone loved him.”

Ray lifted his hand.

She flung out her arms to block him, but she deserved it. She started it.

No blow landed.

“Oh, Helen.” His voice fell on her instead, his soothing voice.

She peeked between her arms.

“Oh, honey. How could he do that? What kind of man beats his wife?”

His sympathy sank deep into her soul, but the truth, voiced for the first time, plunged faster and harder, and shattered her. The shards exploded out—out at Ray.

Her hands closed into fists, coiled in front of her chest. “No. Don’t say that. Jim was a hero. A hero!”

“But he hit—”

“No, he didn’t. He never did. How dare you? You’re ruining everything.”

“I—I’m trying to figure it out. He hurt you, but you defend him?”

She pressed her arms down to her side, down on stiff, ratcheting gears. “I’m defending the truth. I’m defending the father of my son. And you’re attacking him.”

“Helen—”

“How dare you? You—you’re a clerk, a coward. You are. Jim said so. Jim said you were soft, a coward. He was right. You won’t fight, and now you’re picking on Jim. He’s dead and you’re picking on him. That’s what cowards do. They pick on the defenseless.”

Ray’s expression hardened. “As Jim picked on you?”

“No! He didn’t.” Her fists shook at her sides. “No one—no one stands in my house and insults my husband, the father of my child. You wanted to leave, didn’t you? So, leave.”

“Helen—”

“Get out!” Her voice hurt her ears. She had to get rid of Ray Novak, get him out of her life forever. She stamped her foot and pointed a shaking finger at the door. “Get out and don’t come back.”

Something flickered in those gray eyes. Fear. A woman’s anger scared him. Jim was right. He was always right.

“You coward. Get out of my house now!”

He set his lips in a thin line and headed for the front door. “I’m leaving.”

She followed to make sure he left. He retreated down her front steps, and she stanched the pain at the sight of his back, which had felt so strong under her hands only moments before. But she was wrong, always wrong. Ray was weak. “Don’t ever come back.”

He looked over his shoulder, his eyes narrowed to slits in the moonlight. “I won’t.”

Helen slammed the door, her knees wobbled, and a low moan rose in her throat.

She stood alone with her memories. They had lurked offstage in the wings, ever present but never acknowledged. Now they slinked onstage and assaulted her.

She buried her face in her hands. “Oh Lord, take them away. Take them away.”

“What on earth happened?” Ray marched home for his swim trunks and towel.

“She’s crazy, Lord. Crazy. The woman’s stark raving mad. To think I contemplated a life with her.”

He puffed air into his cheeks and let it vibrate over his lips, as if he could blast off her kisses—first so passionate he thought he’d better marry her within the week, then something new, fierce, almost hostile.

He shrugged off his jacket and slung it over his shoulder.

Helen sounded desperate for him to stay, as if her sanity depended on it.

Ray expelled another puff of air. “Too late.”

Helen picked up Jay-Jay’s Daddy book from the coffee table and stumbled down the hallway, her left foot drooping. She had work to do.

Everyone thought the world of Jim Carlisle, and that’s the way it had to be. Jay-Jay must never know what his father was like, and therefore, no one else could know, including Helen. She had to forget again.

Of course, Ray knew now. But he’d never tell and he’d never be back. A fresh shard pierced her heart, and she grasped the doorjamb to her room for support.

Even if he forgave her—and how could he?—she couldn’t take him back. He knew. For Jay-Jay’s sake, she could never have him.

She stripped off her dress, which smelled of Ray, slipped on the lilac silk nightgown Jim loved, and studied herself in the mirror. The gown fit as it had in the early days of their marriage. On Jim’s last furlough in June of ’42, it had been tight from weight remaining after Jay-Jay’s birth. Jim rhapsodized over certain parts of her fuller figure and belittled her for others.

She slammed her eyes shut. No, she needed to chase Jim’s dark side back to the wings where it belonged. For that, she needed light.

She pulled two candles and a box of matches from the top dresser drawer, and pressed the candles into the stupid Carlisle heirloom candlesticks, wobbly things. She twisted each candle for good measure.

Jim loved candles. He loved fire, didn’t he? Loved to use it, loved to burn her, loved to slam her hand onto the stove burner if she messed up dinner or forgot to serve pork chops on a Friday night.

Helen whirled toward the bed. Only the good things. Only the good things.

She lay on her stomach on the bed, propped the Daddy book on pillows before her, and opened it to a picture of Jim in his sailor suit holding three-month-old Jay-Jay for the first time. His elbows stuck out at an awkward angle, and his face shone with wonder.

This was the Jim she needed to preserve, the man with the disarming grin and quick joke, the man who crooned love songs in her ear and died for his country.

Helen turned the pages and filled her mind with the chosen past, the sanitized past, the false past, but the memories refused to leave stage. They spewed vile lines at her and rehearsed every hit and kick.

“Lord, help me.” She slumped to the pillow, her hand on the wedding photo, her scarred body curled around the book of lies, and she yielded to her grief.

“A coward?” Ray stomped across the deserted beach around a small cove on the San Joaquin River. The moon cast sparse light on the charcoal ripples.

After he stashed his clothes and towel under the willow tree, he took a running dive into the water. Boy, did that feel good. He slicked back his hair and washed off the feel of Helen’s caresses.

“A coward?” He plunged forward and divided the water with strong strokes.
Lord, you said, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and that’s what I am. How does that make me a coward?

With powerful kicks, he propelled himself across the cove, faster than he’d ever swum. How many German or Japanese dragons did he have to slay to earn respect? He did his part. He wore the uniform and contributed to the war effort.

Cowards feared death and war, but not Ray.

His body drooped under the weight of the lie.

He surfaced to tread water.

He didn’t fear death, but he did fear war. He didn’t want to cause pain and destruction, to kill someone even by accident, to smell blood, to see death, to experience the adrenaline pressure of attack. What if he couldn’t handle it? What if he was hiding behind his age and his pastoral calling and his supply position?

What if he
was
a coward?

On the far side of the river, a black band of hills separated the sky from its reflection. Before tonight, Ray’s view of himself was as clear as the star-strewn sky, but now, mirrored over the blackness of Helen’s accusation, his image wavered like the stars on the river.

“Lord, am I a coward if I don’t confront my fears?”

He dunked his head and spat out river water, nauseated at who he was and what he had to do to change it.

13

Jim held Helen’s hand over the candle on the dresser top, lower and lower.

She screamed and writhed, powerless to stop him. The flame seared the palm of her hand. How would she explain this wound? Another cooking mishap?

“Promise you’ll stay home when I’m at work.” Jim’s cool voice contrasted with the heat enveloping her hand.

“I promise. I promise.”

“No phone calls, no guests, and no visiting when I’m gone, you hear?”

“Yes! Yes!” With her scream, she blew out the candle.

Jim cussed and threw her onto the bed. Her shin cracked against the footboard. She curled up in pain, clutched her blackened hand to her chest, and screwed her eyes shut against the heat.

So much heat. An orange glow shone through her eyelids. A crackle, a crash.

Helen opened her eyes, panting. It was only a dream. Jim was dead. She uncurled her right hand to reveal the glossy silver-dollar scar. The heat remained, the orange glow, the pall of smoke.

Smoke?

Helen sat up and gasped. Flames licked up the wallpaper around the dresser and the door frame. One of the candles had fallen from its candlestick.

“Oh no!”

Despite the heat, a chill stopped her heart. “Jay-Jay!”

She sprang for the door, but the flames beat her to it.

“Jay-Jay, wake up! Get out of the house.” She’d have to go around to rescue him. On the other side of the room, orange tentacles groped for the curtains.

“No!” She scrambled over the bed and tugged back the curtains. “Jay-Jay, get out of the house!”

Helen flipped open the window latch, coughed, and swatted away a cloud of acrid smoke. She pushed up on the sash with the heels of her hands, but it didn’t budge. She screamed out her frustration. Jim never fixed the fool window, and he never let her hire anyone else to do it.

She grabbed the ceramic table lamp and heaved it at the window. The lamp shattered, but the window remained intact.

Helen screamed until a fit of coughing doubled her over.

“Lord, please.” Her gaze ransacked the room for something, anything to break the window.

Nothing. Everything was too big, too little, or too soft.

Every breath burned. “Please, Lord. Please get me out. Save my baby.”