Shaker Town (Taryn's Camera Book 4) (17 page)

“Then why not keep a job,” Julie snapped, crinkling her nose in disgust. “The rest of us have one.”

Lydia frowned. “We have jobs and we're still poor. You know our house is going through foreclosure?”

Taryn did not know but felt instant sympathy for them. They held themselves together so well. She often saw Dustin and Lydia walking through the park together, holding hands and laughing after work. Sometimes, when they thought nobody was looking, he'd sneak over from the farm and give her a very unchaste kiss behind the trees or in the shadow of the meeting house door.

“What happened?” Taryn asked and then blushed. “I mean, if you don't mind me asking. I know it's none of my business.”

Lydia looked down at her dress and picked an invisible piece of lint off it. “A few years ago we had a...health problem,” she said softly.

Taryn nodded. “I understand. I have some health issues too, a rare connective tissue disorder. My insurance isn't great and every time I check the mail I find I owe more money from some test, lab, or specialist visit.”

Dustin signaled his sympathy and then reached for Lydia's hand. “We were pregnant and
didn't
have insurance. We made it to the eight month and then there were some issues. Lydia developed preeclampsia and had a complete placental abruption. She delivered early and he was born sleeping.”

Taryn looked at the couple in horror, unable to speak. Julie looked stunned as well; it was clear she did not know this information about them.

“Oh my God,” Taryn murmured, wanting to reach over and hug them both but not really knowing where her boundaries were. “I am soooo sorry. And even sorrier I compared my stupid health issues with yours.”

“It's okay,” Lydia smiled with her mouth but the rest of her face was stone cold. “It's been four years. We had a lot of bills after that, though. The hospital bills, after care bills, burial bills...not to mention what we'd already spent on Carter.”

“We got pregnant again after that but Lydia's uterus ruptured,” Dustin explained, “and it had to be removed. So no more kids for us.”

“And that meant
more
bills,” Lydia added bitterly.

“But we're okay. We
will
pay them,” Dustin assured her. “It meant we got behind in our house payments, though. We're trying to pull it out but it's hard. I freelance in IT and she makes jewelry on the side and sells them at craft fairs but we feel like we're constantly working to dig ourselves out.”

Taryn could understand how that felt. It seemed like the more money she earned the higher her bills got. She couldn't get ahead. She was grateful, though, that she hadn't asked either one of them about the infants haunting the pond. That would've been terrible, although she hadn't known their history.

“Anyway, we didn't mean to bring the party down,” Lydia put in. “It's always a downer.”

“It's just so sad,” Julie all but wailed, her youthful sympathy both touching and over the top. “To plan for something like that and then it all just fall apart.”

“Yeah, well, the idea was not something we talked about at first,” Dustin admitted. “We hadn't been married long and kids wasn't even on the table.”

“I was terrified when I first found out I was pregnant,” Lydia agreed, casting a glance over at him. “I cried and cried. He tried to take me out to celebrate and all I could do was bawl. I was a mess. I just saw our lives ending, my youth over, being tied to someone you were responsible for. It all felt like too much.”

“And then we picked up this baby book and read about pregnancy and went to the first doctor's visit,” Dustin interjected.

“It changed then. It was a slow build up, but we got excited. So, yeah, it was like having the rug pulled out from under you. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.”

A
fter Dustin and Lydia left, Julie helped Taryn straighten up a little. Taryn didn't expect maid service while she was there, and had asked not to receive it, so they just sent her new towels and sheets every few days. Julie helped her stack them in the bathroom and change her bedding. While she worked, she chatted away.

I had zero idea about Dustin and Lydia,” she said, expertly slipping the feather pillow into the tight case. “Man, that was awful.”

“Yeah,” Taryn agreed. “That was pretty bad. Do you ever think about having kids?”

Julie stopped, the pillow dangling in the air. “I do sometimes. I love the idea of kids, you know? But I don't have a boyfriend right now so it's definitely not in the cards at the moment unless I pick someone up from a biker bar.”

Taryn laughed and cleared off the trash on her desk. “Well, there's always that.”

“And then there's the pain,” Julie continued. “Maybe if they put me to sleep first. What about you?”

Taryn thought of Matt, of what kind of parent he would be. Would he be strict? Anal retentive? Would he play with the kids or be more of a big kid himself? Would he be able to handle their messiness? It was a lot to consider.

She had no problem imagining Andrew as a father. They'd talked about kids a lot. But he'd had a nephew, too, so she'd seen him in action. It wasn't fair, of course, to compare the two. She knew that and silently scolded herself.

“I think about it sometimes, but just kind of in a theoretical sense. You know, I wonder what a child of mine would look like. Wonder what they'd act like. But I have a hard time seeing myself as a mother,” she admitted. “I don't know that I have the motherly instinct. I'm always by myself, I get annoyed when my time has to belong to someone else. I'm stubborn and bossy,” Taryn laughed.

“Yeah, well, we're all a little like that,” Julie pointed out. “It's human nature, after all.”

Taryn thought she had a point. Maybe she wasn't as unique in these thoughts as she figured she was.

“Hey, so tell me about your boyfriend,” Julie pleaded, bouncing on the freshly-made bed and making herself at home.

“Don't you have work to do?” Taryn teased her.

“Nope. Just came to pick up my check. I'm off today. So what's he like?”

Taryn settled in beside her and leaned back on the pillow. “Well, I've known him since I was a kid. And I mean a little kid. He was a weird child and so was I. We didn't have many friends at that age, just each other. Kind of ran in a posse of other kids but they didn't have much to do with us, truth be told. We clung to each other. It lasted through middle school, high school, college...”

“Sounds romantic,” Julie gushed. “Like your childhood sweetheart. So have you always been together?”

“No,” Taryn said. “We actually only just started dating recently. I was in a long-term relationship after college and was going to marry him. His name was Andrew.”

Even now, saying his name filled her with both thrill and sadness.

“Wow, what happened? Did you leave him at the altar?” Julie pressed, eyes shining.

“No, he died in a car crash. We lived together, worked together, spent almost every minute together. And then he was just gone. It took me a long time to adjust and during that time Matt and I had a falling out. I didn't exactly handle Andrew's death very well.”

“Yeah, well, who would?” Lydia argued. “There is no real 'right way' or 'wrong way' to handle someone's death. I lost my best friend from high school from a heroin overdose. He was nineteen. He was living alone at the time and they didn't find him until he'd been dead for almost twenty-four hours. It was terrible. That was a few years ago and I am still struggling with it.”

“I'm sorry,” Taryn said simply. Sometimes life was just too sad to bear. It broke your heart over and over and over again.

S
omething was calling Taryn outside. It wasn't a voice or even a sound at all. It was a tugging sensation, a pull towards something she didn't understand. She'd just washed the paint off her hands and was laying her brushes out to dry on a towel spread out on her bureau when she felt it. There was an urgency, a prodding, she couldn't ignore.

She didn't think about what it might mean for her or how silly it sounded; she simply slid on her sandals, grabbed her room key, and slung Miss Dixie around her neck. Despite the throbbing that still persisted in her hip, she was downstairs in a matter of minutes.

Almost as if she were swimming through molasses, Taryn made her way down the sidewalk, to the thoroughfare. She didn't know where she was going. It was evening now and the last bell had rung for the day. The doors were all closed and locked, except for the ones that housed accommodations, and small electric candles burned brightly from many of the windows. A friendly chatter could be heard from those who waited outside the Trustee's Office, ready to go inside and eat. The remainder of the doors slammed to as employees put things up for the night, a flurry of car engines started and the roar of vehicle departures rumbled in the distance. Somewhere a lonely goat cried “Maaa! Maaa!”

Taryn ignored all of this.

She felt excitement, a rush of good things to come. Her heart felt light, her stomach was nearly in her mouth from jittery nervousness, and her steps were lighter than normal. The more she walked, the less pain she felt. The feeling in her hips and legs, usually a distraction, slowly melted away until it ceased altogether. With the lack of pain she was able to pick up her pace and hurry. Miss Dixie bounced against her chest, and she wasn't a lightweight candle, but Taryn was able to ignore the “thumping” and smacking against her breastbone.

A smile spread across her face from ear to ear. Why, she was almost a young girl again, still in high school. Back when she looked forward to getting up every morning, getting dressed, and racing off to school because she had a crush on Joey Moody and she couldn't wait to see him. Oh, the thrill of flying down the hall to her locker and unloading her books, slipping into the dingy bathroom to reapply her lipstick, and then scurry to her homeroom where he'd be waiting. To catch that first glimpse of him, sitting in the back and goofing off with his friends, his dark jeans with the tear in the left knee and his wavy mullet...that had been pure bliss. (Of course he'd never noticed Taryn and she'd never actually spoken to him, except once in English when they had to read lines from a play out loud together in front of the class.) But those passionate teenage hormones had driven her, propelled her forward every single day.

She'd never felt like that since. Until now.

If she didn't get there soon it would be too dark to take pictures. She looked at the diminishing light and down at her camera. Miss Dixie's flash wasn't what it used to be; well, they were both getting older. Her bulb wasn't always the brightest anymore either.

Soon, Taryn arrived at her destination. She found herself standing where she'd only been just an hour before–outside the old schoolhouse. It looked spooky at night, one of the few buildings at the park that wasn't illuminated by the quaint street lamps or adorned with the vintage-inspired candles. Now it was just a dark shadow, black against the deep blue sky. The moon was full, giving Taryn more light than usual, but slivers of white clouds hung low around it, threatening to cover its glow.

The excitement continued to build, however, and Taryn felt downright giddy. She was literally shaking as she turned Miss Dixie on and pointed her at the structure. The flash was a startling contrast in the darkness, the small bulb light a spotlight that blinded everything in its path. Black dots swam in front of Taryn's eyes when she pulled away and the flashes of light continued to dance in the night in front of her, despite the fact Miss Dixie was finished with her part.