Circled Heart (38 page)

“Is that why you asked me if I cared very much about your cousin’s death?”

“Did I?”

“Driving back from the Yacht Club.”

I remembered then. “I don’t know. I wasn’t myself.” At his continuing steady gaze, I added reluctantly, “I suppose it was.” Drew set his glass down and rested folded hands on the tabletop.

“Johanna, I was not the father of your cousin’s child.” I started to protest that the thought never crossed my mind, but of course, I would have been lying and he would have known, so I said nothing. “Do you believe me?”

Instead of answering his question, I commented, “Jennie was young and beautiful with a wild side to her many men would find hard to resist. It would be understandable if a man acted on the attraction.” My response did not satisfy Drew.

“I was not the father of your cousin’s child. Do you believe me?” he repeated.

I wanted to, more than anything, and in fact at that moment, sitting across from him with the force of his personality and his hazel glare both directed at me, I did believe him. But once apart from him and alone with my own thoughts, I wasn’t sure the confidence would last. Whatever he saw on my face made him unfold his hands and lean forward. Were it not for the expanse of the table, I believe he would have grabbed me by the shoulders.

“Johanna, since the evening of the Starr Award, I have not been alone with any woman but you and Yvesta. In any capacity for any reason. Period. And please remove that skeptical expression from your face. It irritates me.”

“I just find it hard to believe, generally speaking. You told me you liked women and preferred a variety of them.”

“Are you always going to throw my words back into my face?”

“I’m not the one who prided himself on his feminine conquests. You did say that, didn’t you?”

“I said a lot of things that were all your fault.”

“My fault?! How is your masculine braggadocio my fault?”

“If you were in a boat overloaded with cargo, Johanna, and it started to sink, what would you do?”

“I hope there’s a good reason for this digression. I’d throw items overboard, of course.”

“So do you understand now?”

I stared at him. Had he lost his mind? “Understand what, for heaven’s sake? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” My frustrated response made him grin.

“I know you don’t. That’s one of the reasons I find you so damned delightful. Such an intelligent woman and still so dense! I’ve been sinking, Johanna, in one way or another since the afternoon you invaded my house and dripped rainwater all over the floor of the library, and I’ve been throwing all my excess baggage overboard ever since. Yes, it’s true I like women, and I imagine I’ll always look twice at a beautiful one. But I love you.” His good-humored tone and easy smile were not how I expected to receive a declaration of love.

“Aren’t you supposed to be down on one knee when you say that? Aren’t you supposed to snatch me into your arms and cover me with kisses?”

“I don’t think it’s humanly possible to do all those things simultaneously or even consecutively. Think about it.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes, my darling, I do, and while the thought of covering you with kisses has its own inherent attraction, I’m not going to take advantage of a sick woman.” I could only stare at him, so that he reached even farther across the table and took my hands in his. “Johanna, your cousin was a beautiful woman, but she paled next to you, as every woman inevitably does—at least to me. I never touched her. The only woman I want to touch is you. You.”

“Oh.” The look he gave me was having an effect on my heartbeat, my ability to maintain coherent thought, and my emotions. Even worse, out of nowhere I began to cry, tears filling my eyes and overflowing down my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m crying. I never cry.”

“You’ve been sick and you’re still tired. It’s all right to cry.” He stood and came around the table. “And it’s all right if you don’t love me. That’s all right, too.”

“But—”

“Don’t say anything in your weakened condition that you might later regret. Wait until you feel better and you’re yourself again.”

“Preachy and annoying, you mean?”

He laughed out loud. “No. Headstrong and confident and feisty.”

I dabbed at my eyes with a table napkin before I stood. “You say the sweetest things to turn a girl’s head.”

At that he stepped closer and took me by the shoulders. “If you want sweet things, all you have to do is ask. I didn’t think they’d hold any weight with you.” Looking down into my face, he smiled and said, more gently, “Poor girl. All you really wanted was tea and toast, wasn’t it? You need to go back to bed. Crea will have my head for letting you sit in this cold kitchen.” He cupped my face between his hands. “But first I want to be sure you know that everything I told you tonight is true. Everything. I will never lie to you, Johanna.”

“I know,” I said, turning my face so I could lightly kiss each finger of his left hand, “but you’re right, my illness gives you an unfair advantage. I’m teary and tired and I don’t like that. I need to get stronger so I can think clearly, and I need to find out the state of my family. I want to go home tomorrow, Drew. Thank you for everything, but I want to go home.”

“I wish this house on Prairie Avenue was your home.”

I backed away, smiling, and shook my head. “It’s not, though.” Then softening my words, I added deliberately, “Not yet, anyway.”

Crea and I left for Hill Street the next day. Seated behind Levi, I waved at Drew as he stood in the doorway and felt a pang of loneliness and loss as the automobile pulled away and Drew faded from sight. It was a necessary move, though, both practically and emotionally. I needed to get away from Drew long enough to catch an emotional breath, and I was anxious to see Grandmother. She was back from her stay at Uncle Hal’s, and seeing her at the front door, I felt an immeasurable relief. If anything, she looked more robust than I remembered and her limp was hardly noticeable.

Peter visited that same afternoon and I was pleased to see that Crea didn’t retreat. Instead, they sat together on the loveseat, not touching but each comfortable with the other, two people who belonged together and had finally accepted it. He didn’t have any good news about Aunt Kitty, whose delusions continued, to the grief and disruption of her family.

“We’ve brought in a nurse to stay with her so she doesn’t wander outside again. She’s determined to go looking for Jennie on the lake.” Peter hesitated, the memory of the terrible afternoon showing in his eyes, and then asked, “Do you know why Jennie did what she did, Johanna?”

“She was unhappy about the wedding,” I answered, a half-truth that would have to do as explanation. I was not going to share any more with the family. What purpose would be served by revealing the whole sad story? “She felt trapped between Carl’s parents and your mother, and she didn’t have the ability or the strength to say no. I don’t think she cared very much for Carl, and she couldn’t bear the idea of a lifetime spent with someone she didn’t love. Jennie was confused, Peter, confused and running away. I know she never meant it to end as it did.”

Without realizing it, Peter reached for Crea’s hand and clasped it in his. “She should have told me. I would have helped her.” I had no response to that. Of all people, Peter understood the inexorable strength of his mother’s will and purpose. And, of course, he did not know the whole story. Crea may have guessed there was more, but she and I never spoke of it. Ever.

“I’m going upstairs to rest a while. No, don’t get up. I can manage fine on my own.”

I wanted the two of them to have the opportunity to talk about their own future, hopefully to conclude that finding a life partner was more than a match of families and fortunes. Amid all the intricacies and the unknowns of life, discovering a person with whom to share the future was the finest of miracles and should be recognized and appreciated as such. What power could society’s disapproval have against so rare and so precious an encounter?

That line of thought always brought me to Drew saying he loved me and the conflicting emotions that declaration stirred inside me: my wanting it to be so with all my heart and loving him in return but also a shadow of doubt I could not banish. I believed him about Jennie, I did, except for an unbidden thought first thing in the morning or an unvoiced question just before I fell asleep. Too many Floras, Betsys, and Henriettas in my past. Too much deception and grief.

Yet warring with that cautious past was the feel of Drew’s hands clamped firmly on my wrists as I scrabbled to find the edge of the ice, his arms around me, rocking me, talking to me after a nightmare, the calm sincerity of his voice when he said, “I will never lie to you, Johanna.” I thought I would get to the point where I believed him completely but feared it might take longer than he was willing to wait. Drew would not be content with even the smallest doubt about his veracity, I could not convincingly lie to him, and I could not imagine life without him. For several days I struggled with the conundrum of truth and desire, grew stronger, and gradually regained my energy.

When Uncle Hal visited at the end of the week, my heart went out to him. He looked all his age and then some, tired, thin, and sad. Grandmother was resting, but he and I sat together in the front room and I told him the same story of Jennie I’d shared with Peter.

When I finished, he said, “I should have seen what was happening. I should have known.”

“You can’t blame yourself. Jennie didn’t share her misery easily, and Carl seemed to be—perhaps is—a nice enough young man.”

“She never loved me, you know.” For a minute I thought he was talking about Jennie and opened my mouth to protest, but then I realized he wasn’t talking about Jennie at all. “You never knew Kitty as a girl. Jennie was her exact image. She was a beauty and I fell hard the first time I met her. Kitty had other plans, though. She had her heart set on another young man and until her parents got involved, I didn’t stand a chance. But I was the better catch—old family, old money, prestigious law firm. Poor Kitty. Like Jennie she didn’t have the will or the words to refuse. I knew it all along, knew there was someone else, but a young man in love can’t see anything but his own need. I thought she’d grow to love me in time but she never did. I was always a duty to her. I shut my eyes and my ears to her plans for Jennie because it was the first I’d seen Kitty happy in years. Now I’ve lost them both and it’s no one’s fault but my own.”

“That’s not true. People are responsible for their own decisions. Aunt Kitty could have refused you. Jennie could have spoken up. Women aren’t children at the mercy of a man’s stronger will and higher intelligence. We’re adults who must make our own thoughtful choices.” My vigorous, spontaneous response made me realize how profoundly some of my own beliefs about women had changed over the past months, fault harder to place and roles more ambiguous. Without articulating the words, for years I’d assumed most women were victims, helpless and ultimately passive in their own lives. Now I saw things differently, saw the power of accountability and self-respect. I would have to rework my own assumptions to fit this new century of promise.

“I was blind to what was happening in my own house,” Uncle Hal repeated doggedly. “I failed them both.” He straightened in his chair, the sharing at an end. “We’re not having any kind of service for Jennie, not yet. Maybe in the spring.” When her body washes ashore, I thought, and in case Aunt Kitty regains her faculties. That’s what he’s thinking.

“Jennie loved light and color,” I commented. “She was like springtime, bright and beautiful.” Uncle Hal blinked back tears, patted my hand, and rose.

“Jennie admired you, Johanna. She often said she wanted to be like you. As strong and brave as Johanna, she said. In a way you were her hero. She never would have done what she did if she’d known you would be endangered, too. She would never have done anything to hurt you—you, especially, Johanna.”

I saw Uncle Hal to the front door and after he was gone went to sit by the fire. His departing words, similar to Jennie’s enigmatic response to my questions about her baby’s father—“You especially don’t need to know; it would only make matters worse”—struck me with the force of a blow. Of course, Drew and Jennie were not involved in any way. What was I thinking? They could have seen each other publicly and openly if they’d wished. There was no need for subterfuge. Even more than that, I knew neither one would willingly hurt me with such a deceit. But then what did her words mean? Compared to everyone else, why should I especially be kept in ignorance? Why would my knowing the father of Jennie’s make matters worse? I sat deep in thought for a long time, mentally retraced my steps from the moment I arrived home last April, pictured parties, envisioned faces, tried to recapture Jennie’s presence on all the occasions I was with her. When I was done, I could draw only one conclusion. How had Uncle Hal phrased it? “I was blind to what was happening in my own house. I failed them both.” I felt a similar frustrated regret but mixed with that regret was a surge of selfishly pure joy. Drew Gallagher said he loved me and I believed he did, believed it with all my heart, sat amazed at the extraordinary gift I’d been given, wanted him to know I could match him love for love and was prepared to do just that—if he hadn’t changed his mind through this past silent week. I would have to risk his change of feeling, however, because before I went to Drew and offered him myself and my future, I had someone else I needed to see. I sat down and wrote a note that Levi delivered the next day.

The following morning I dressed for a trip on the train much as Amundsen must have dressed en route to the South Pole. It was the last week of February and surprisingly warm and sunny, but I retained a horror of being cold that I imagined would stay with me my whole life.

“Johanna, you’re not fully recovered. I don’t know why you feel you have to go out at all, but at least let Levi drive you to your destination.” Crea fussed over me so annoyingly that I had to shake loose.

“I am recovered. At least recovered enough to go to church. I’ll be fine.” As a distraction, I added, “Isn’t Peter leaving for school tomorrow?” and had the satisfaction of seeing her annoyed look.