Kristin Hannah's Family Matters 4-Book Bundle: Angel Falls, Between Sisters, The Things We Do for Love, Magic Hour (97 page)

Slowly, the girl faded to gray and disappeared; it was as if a mist had swept in and veiled the world.

Then she saw Conlan on the ball field, coaching Little League.

The images were watery and uncertain because she’d never really been there in the stands, watching her husband coach his friends’ sons, clapping when Billy VanDerbeek hit a line drive up the middle. She’d been at home on those days, curled in a fetal position on her bed.
It hurts too much,
she’d told her husband when he begged her to come along.

Why hadn’t she thought about what
he
needed?

“I’m sorry, Con,” her dream self whispered, reaching out for him.

She woke with a gasp. For the next few hours she lay in her bed, curled on her side, trying to put it all back in storage. She shouldn’t have tried to go back in time; it hurt too much. Some things were simply lost. She should have known that.

Every now and again she realized that she was crying. By the time she heard a knock at the front door, her pillow was damp.

Thank God,
she thought. Someone to keep her mind off the past.

She sat up, shoved the hair from her eyes. Throwing the covers aside, she climbed out of bed and stumbled downstairs. “I’m coming. Don’t leave,” she yelled.

The door swung open. Mama and Mira and Livvy stood there, all dressed in their Sunday best.

“It’s Advent,” Mama said. “You’re coming to church with us.”

“Maybe next Sunday,” Angie said tiredly. “I was up late last night. I didn’t sleep well.”

“Of course you didn’t sleep well,” Mama said.

Angie knew when she’d hit a wall, and the DeSaria women with their minds made up were solid brick. “Fine.”

It took her fifteen minutes to shower and dress and towel dry her hair. Another three minutes for makeup, and she was ready to go.

By ten o’clock, they were pulling into the church lot.

Angie stepped out into the cold December morning and felt as if she were going back in time. She was a girl again, dressed in white for her first communion … then a woman in white on her wedding day … then a woman in black, crying for her father. So much of her life had happened beneath these stained glass windows.

They went to the third row, where Vince and Sal had the children lined up by height. Angie sat next to Mama.

For the next hour, she went through the motions of her youth: rising and kneeling and rising again.

By the closing prayer, she realized that something had changed in her, shifted suddenly back into place, though she hadn’t known it was out of alignment until now.

Her faith had been there all along, flowing in her veins, waiting for her return. A kind of peace overcame her, made her feel stronger, safer. When the service was over, she walked outside into the crisp, freezing air and looked across the street.

There it was: Searle Park. The merry-go-round from her dream glittered in the sharp sunlight. She’d grown up playing in this park. Her children would have loved it, too.

She walked across the street, hearing laughter that had never been:
Push me, Mommy.

She sat down on the cold, corrugated steel and closed her eyes, thinking about the adoption that had failed, the babies who’d never been, the daughter who’d been taken too soon, and the marriage that had been broken.

She cried for it. Great heaving sobs that seemed to crack her chest and bruise her heart, but when it was over, she was dry inside. At last.

She looked up to the pale blue sky. She felt her father beside her, a warm presence in all that cold air.

“Angie!”

She wiped her eyes.

Mira was running across the street, her long skirt flapping against her legs. She was out of breath by the time she reached the park. “Are you okay?”

It was surprisingly easy to smile. “You know what? I am.”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding.”

Mira sat down beside her. They kicked their feet in the sand, and the merry-go-round started to turn.

Angie leaned back and stared up at the sky. She was moving again.

Lauren spent all of the next day gathering her courage. It was dark by the time she reached Mountainaire. The gate was closed and the guardhouse looked deserted. A man in a tan uniform was stringing Christmas lights along the tall wrought-iron fence that protected the houses within.

She went to the guardhouse and peered through the window. An empty chair sat behind a desk cluttered with car magazines.

“Can I help you?”

It was the man with the lights. He looked irritated by her presence, or maybe it was simply the job.

“I’m here to see David Haynes.”

“He expecting you?”

“No.” Her voice was barely there. It wasn’t surprising. Last night’s party had been Thunderdome loud. She and David had had to shout at each other just to carry on a conversation. Later, after he’d gone home—just in case his folks showed up—she’d cried herself to sleep.

This wasn’t a secret she could keep. It was ripping her up inside.

In front of her, the gate jerked once, and then arced inward slowly.

Lauren nodded at the guard, though she couldn’t see him through the small window. In its square surface all she could see was her own reflection: a thin, frightened-looking girl with curly red hair and brown eyes that were already filling with tears.

By the time she reached David’s house—she’d gone the long way, walking up and down several unfamiliar streets—it had started to rain. Not much of a rain, really—more of a mist that beaded your cheeks and made it difficult to breathe.

Finally, she came to his house. The majestic Georgian home looked like a Hallmark Christmas card. The perfect
holiday house with lights everywhere, fake candles in the windows, and evergreen boughs draped above the front door.

She pushed through the gate at the perimeter of the lot and walked up the patterned stone path to the front door. When she reached the door, a light automatically came on. She rang the bell. It played a symphonic melody; Bach, maybe.

Mr. Haynes answered the door, wearing a pair of expertly creased khaki pants and a shirt as white as fresh snow. His hair was as flawless as his tan. “Hello, Lauren. This is a surprise.”

“I know it’s late, sir. Almost seven-thirty. I should have called. I
did
call, actually. Or I tried to, but no one answered.”

“So you came anyway.”

“I figured you were on long distance, and I … really needed to see David.”

He smiled. “Don’t worry about it. He’s just playing that damn Xbox. I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you.”

“Thank you, sir.” She could breathe again.

“Go on downstairs. I’ll send David.”

The carpet on the stairs was so thick her shoes made no sound at all. Downstairs, the room was big and perfectly decorated. Flax-colored carpeting, an oversized cream suede sectional with gold and taupe pillows, a coffee table made of pale marble. Ornately carved wooden doors concealed a huge plasma screen television.

She perched uncomfortably on the sofa, waiting. She didn’t hear footsteps on the stairs, but suddenly David was there, bounding into the room, pulling her up into his arms.

She clung to him.

She would give anything to go back in time, to have nothing more important to tell him than how much she loved him. Adults always talked about mistakes, the cost of doing the wrong thing. She wished she’d listened now.

“I love you, David.” She heard the tinny, desperate edge in her voice and she winced.

He frowned down at her, drew back.

She hated that, the pulling away.

“You’ve been acting weird lately,” he said, lying down on the sofa, pulling her on top of him.

She slid sideways, then knelt beside the sofa. “Your parents are home. We can’t—”

“Only my dad. Mom’s at some fund-raiser in town.” He tried again to pull her on top of him.

She wanted to. Wanted to kiss him and let him touch her until she forgot all about …

the baby.

She gently pushed him back, then sat on her heels. “David.” It seemed to take everything she had just to say his name.

“What’s up? You’re scaring me.”

She couldn’t stop herself; tears burned her eyes.

He touched her face, wiped her tears away. “I’ve never seen you cry before.” She heard the rising panic in his voice.

She took a deep breath. “Remember the Longview game? The first home game of the year?”

His confusion was obvious. “Yeah, 21–7.”

“I was thinking of a different score.”

“Huh?”

“After the game we all went to Rocco’s for pizza, and then to the state park.”

“Yeah. What’s your point, Lo?”

“You had your mom’s Escalade,” she said softly, remembering it all. The way he’d pushed the back seat down and brought out a pale blue blanket and a chenille pillow. Everything except the accessory that mattered most.

A condom.

They’d parked out on the edge of the beach, beneath the dark fringe of ancient cedar trees. A huge silver moon gazed down on them, giving their faces a tarnished, shiny look. Savage Garden’s “Truly, Madly, Deeply” had been playing on the radio.

He remembered it, too. She saw the memories move across his face. She knew instantly when the realization dawned. Fear narrowed his eyes. He drew back, frowning. “I remember.”

“I’m pregnant.”

He made a sound that tore at her heart, a sigh that faded into silence. “No.” He closed his eyes. “Fuck.
Fuck.
”

“I guess we’ve pinpointed the problem.” She felt him ease away from her, and it hurt more than she’d imagined. She’d tried to prepare herself for any reaction, but if he stopped loving her, she couldn’t bear it.

Slowly, his eyes opened. He turned, looked at her through eyes that were dull. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Oh,” he said softly, and though he looked dazed and terrified, he was trying to smile, and the attempt pushed some of her despair aside. “What now?” he finally asked in a voice that was thick and tight.

She refused to look at him. She could tell that he was on the verge of tears. She couldn’t see him break. “I don’t know.”

“Could you … have … you know?”

“An abortion.” She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling
as if something inside were tearing away. Tears burned again but didn’t fall. It was the same thought she’d had. So why did it hurt so much to hear him say it? “That’s probably the answer.”

“Yeah,” he said, too quickly. “I’ll pay for it. And go with you.”

She felt as if she were slowly falling underwater. “Okay.” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded distant.

Lauren stared out the window at the blur of green and gold landscape and tried not to think about where she was going, what she was doing. David was beside her, his hands tight on the steering wheel. They hadn’t spoken in almost an hour. What was there to say now? They were going to

take care of it.

She shivered at the thought, but what choice did she have?

The drive from West End to Vancouver seemed to take forever, and with every passing mile, her bones seemed to tighten. She could have had this done closer to home, but David hadn’t wanted to risk being seen. His family was friendly with too many local doctors.

There, through the filmy glass of the car window, was the clinic. She’d expected picketers out front carrying signs that said terrible things and showed heartbreaking pictures, but the entrance was quiet today, empty. Maybe even protesters didn’t want to be out on such a bleak and freezing day.

Lauren closed her eyes, battling a suddenly rising panic.

David touched her for the first time. His hand was shaking and cold; strangely, his anxiety gave her strength. “Are you okay?”

She loved him for that, for being here and loving her. She would have said so, but her throat was tight. When they parked, the full weight of her decision pressed down on her. She wasn’t taking care of something, she was having an abortion.

For a terrifying moment, she couldn’t make herself move. David came around and opened her door. She clung to his hand.

Together, they walked toward the clinic. One foot in front of the other; that was all she let herself think about.

He opened the door for her.

The waiting room was full of women—girls, mostly, sitting alone, their heads bowed as if in prayer or despair, their knees clamped together. A belated gesture. Some pretended to read magazines; others didn’t pretend that anything could take their minds off why they were here. David was the only boy in the room.

Lauren went to the front desk and checked in, then returned to an empty chair and filled out the paperwork she’d been handed. When she finished, she took the clipboard up to the desk and handed it to the woman, who looked it over.

“You’re seventeen?” she asked, looking up.

Lauren felt a rush of panic. She’d meant to lie about her age, but she’d been too nervous to think clearly. “Almost eighteen. Do I …” She lowered her voice. “Do I need my mom’s permission for the … for this?”

“Not in Washington. I just wanted to make sure it was accurate. You look younger.”

She nodded weakly, relieved. “Oh.”

“Have a seat. We’ll call you.”