Journey of the Heart
Autor
Elissa Ambrose
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14
HarlequinChapter One
She knew he’d show up.
Face it, she told herself. She’d hoped he’d show up.
She’d spent five long years telling herself she had forgotten him, all the while wanting to see him once again. For closure. It was closure she desired, not the man himself. And what better place for closure than at a funeral?
Now here he was, standing directly in front of her, extending his hand, and she could think of nothing, not one single thing, to say. Take his hand, dummy, her inner voice directed. Don’t be nervous. Now smile. That’s it, you’re doing fine!
She raised her head and looked into his eyes. They were as dark and compelling as she remembered, eyes a woman could easily get lost in. But those telltale lines around the corners were new, and so was that little scar above his right brow. An accident at a site? A fallen crane? A minor explosion? But wouldn’t Cassie have told her if something had happened to Jake? Laura had instructed her dear friend to never, absolutely never, speak his name to her again, but where Jake was concerned, Cassie never listened.
“It’s good to see you, Squirt,” he said, holding Laura’s hand. “You look well. So do you, Cass.” He nodded at the slim, dark-haired woman sitting next to Laura in the pew.
Laura was well. Surgery and chemotherapy had seen to that. After her recovery, she had resolved to follow a healthy lifestyle, which meant regularly working out at the gym. Now, five years later, she was in better shape than ever. She wasn’t one to toot her own horn, but these days Laura Matheson knew she looked better than well. She had managed to keep off those extra pounds she’d lost during treatment, and after her hair had grown back in, she’d added gold highlights to her natural dark blond.
As for Jake, he looked basically the same. Laura remembered the lanky boy she had adored in high school, the cocky teenager with the dark, unruly shock of hair that kept falling in his eyes. And he still had that same little dimple on the left side of his smile, although he wasn’t smiling now. The scowl on his face looked as fixed as a tattoo.
But even though he was no longer the happy-go-lucky boy from her youth, Jake Logan still looked good. Damn good, especially in that suit. Laura suppressed a smile, imagining him swearing under his breath, trying to straighten his tie. He’d always been a jeans-and-lumber-jacket kind of guy. A man’s man. Strong and muscular because of so many years in construction, at six foot two he was almost a foot taller than Laura. Now, hearing him call her Squirt, her old nickname, she felt a familiar rippling in her heart.
“You look well, too,” she said, trying to ignore the electricity from his touch. She pulled her hand away. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why couldn’t she think of something clever to say? Something with ginger, Cynthia might say. Might have said, Laura corrected herself.
Her throat tightened with remorse. Would she ever be able to think about Jake without thinking about Cynthia? But that wasn’t the six-million-dollar question. It was Jake who had never stopped thinking about Cynthia, Laura’s best childhood friend, and years later, Jake’s first wife.
“I’m sorry about your aunt,” he was saying now, his voice somber. “I know how difficult this must be for you. How are you holding up?”
Before Laura could respond, the minister arrived at the lectern, signaling that the service was about to begin. Jake abruptly turned his back and began to walk away.
“Jake, wait!” she called after him, surprising herself with her forwardness. “Will you be coming over later? People will be dropping by the house after the service, and I’d like it if you came by. Bring Cory, too. How is he? I’d love to see him.”
He spun around. “How the hell do you think he is? How would any ten-year-old kid be in his situation? You have your nerve, asking about him. You may not have given a hoot about me, but don’t sit there pretending that you cared about my son. You abandoned him when he was only five.”
She felt the color drain from her face. “What are you talking about? My leaving had nothing to do with him. I never thought—”
“That’s just it, you didn’t think—which is odd, considering how you used to overanalyze everything.” He exhaled slowly. “Look, I didn’t come here to make a scene. No, Cory and I won’t be coming by later. He doesn’t remember you, and I don’t want to resurrect old wounds.” He gave her a curt nod of farewell. “Take care of yourself, Laura.”
Tormented with conflicting emotions, she watched her ex-husband walk away. What exactly had she expected? To find that Jake had changed and wanted to start over? She had made a life for herself without him. She had a fiancé who adored her, and she was happy. She had come back to Connecticut to pay her last respects to her aunt, and that was all.
But that was not all. She still hadn’t decided what to do with the house. The rambling two-story cottage was now hers. Legally it had been hers since the death of her parents, but after she had left home to marry Jake, she had been content to let her aunt stay on. On the one hand, Laura wanted to sell the house and get on with her life. On the other hand, part of her wanted to keep it, reluctant to let go of the past once and for all. Although she had almost no memory of the years before her parents had died, she had a vague sense that she had been happy there, before her aunt had moved in.
“Looks like Jake still has the old charm,” Cassie murmured, breaking into Laura’s thoughts.
Laura reached into her purse for a tissue. “I can’t really blame him. I just thought he’d be over his anger by now. He’s still so…bitter.”
She scanned the pews, telling herself she wasn’t looking for him. She took in the scene around her, noting how quickly the chapel had filled. Who were all these elderly people? Aunt Tess hadn’t exactly been the sociable type. Or the motherly type, either.
Laura closed her eyes, trying to conjure up an image of her parents. If she could only remember one thing, a lingering scent of aftershave, a hairpin left on the bathroom counter, anything at all…. She had been five years old when the driver of the truck lost control and crossed the median, killing himself and her parents. Five years old. The same age as Cory when she’d left Jake. A dull ache centered inside her. Did Cory ever think about her? Or had he completely obliterated her from his mind, as Jake had said?
She opened her eyes and tried to focus on the minister.
“…generosity of spirit,” he was saying. “Elizabeth Armstrong touched the hearts of all those who knew her, and will be sorely missed….”
Cassie leaned over and whispered, “‘Generosity of spirit?’ The only one generous here is the minister.”
“Be good,” Laura admonished. “Try to remember, she took me in. She raised me.”
“Took you in? It was your parents’ house, not hers! That woman got a free ride, living in that house. Not that she was ever there to take care of you. Raised you? I don’t think so. You raised yourself.”
“Shhh!”
But Cassie whispered on. “And while we’re on the subject of who wronged whom, I want you to remember that it was charm-boy here who abandoned you, not the other way around. Sure, technically you left him, but he didn’t try very hard to get you back, and he wasn’t there for you when you needed him most.”
As far as Laura was concerned, the issue regarding who left whom was still off-limits. As if sensing her friend’s discomfort, Cassie relented and leaned back in the pew. But Cassie was Cassie, and couldn’t stay quiet for more than a minute. “Where did you find this guy?” she snickered, motioning to the pulpit. “‘Touched the hearts of all those who knew her’? Is he for real?”
“He’s from Ridgefield,” Laura answered in a low voice. “My mother and Aunt Tess grew up there. Honestly, Cass, can’t you just sit still and listen to the sermon? The woman was my mother’s sister.”
But Cassie remained undaunted. “Remember when she caught me climbing through your bedroom window, trying to sneak you down the old oak tree?” She poked her friend lightly in the ribs. “I’ll never forget the look on her face. But we made it! And Ellen and Cyn were waiting at the bottom, waving flashlights. Ellen was all prepared with swabs and bandages. She was so sure we’d fall. How old were we? Seven? Eight?”
Despite her resolve to keep up a solemn front, Laura smiled at the memory.
“And what a sight your aunt made,” Cassie continued, “flying out the front door, trying to stop us from getting away. I can still see her running down the street, wearing that wretched old bathrobe, her face in that awful mudpack.”
“Will you please stop? People are looking!”
“And what about the time she ran outside, screaming like a banshee after finding a snake in the toilet? Did you ever tell her it was Jake who put it there?”
“Cass, I’m warning you!” But it was too late. Laura had doubled over in a fit of giggles. Cassie could always make her laugh, in any place or situation, even a funeral.
What’s wrong with me? she thought. This is a funeral. My aunt’s funeral. It doesn’t matter that she left me all day with baby-sitters. It doesn’t matter that she was always so critical, scolding me for the least little thing. Control yourself! What kind of person behaves this way at a funeral? “Stop it, Cass! What will people think?”
“You mean what will Jake think, don’t you?” Cassie’s face turned sober. “Okay, take it easy, kiddo,” she said. “Put your head on my shoulder. They’ll all think you’re crying.”
Except that Laura was crying, somewhere deep inside.
From her pew in the front row, she could feel Jake’s eyes on her back. Who was he to judge her? What did he know about her life? When they were growing up, he’d been her ally and her foe, her friend and her tormentor and, always, her secret love. But throughout their three-year marriage, he’d remained distant, as if he’d never really known her.
She turned in her seat and looked in his direction. Their eyes met, and for a moment she felt dizzy. He needs to keep a safe distance, she thought sadly, noting that he’d chosen to sit in the last pew.
She looked back at the minister, who was now saying, “…a beautiful soul who will be mourned by her dearly beloved niece and friends…”
One glimpse at Cassie and she fell into another fit of giggles.
Laura’s feet were aching. After the service, people had been dropping by the house all afternoon and evening. Laura had been standing for hours, acting as hostess to a stream of strangers, and now she was in the hallway, bidding her guests farewell.
“What a caring, lovely person she was,” Reverend Barnes was saying. Except for Cassie, he was the last to leave. “When I heard that a stroke had taken her from us, I insisted on giving the eulogy.”
Laura was having difficulty concentrating on the minister’s words. Her thoughts kept returning to the scene in the chapel. It had shaken her to discover that Jake was still angry, or that she even cared how he felt. She kept playing his words over in her head like a song on repeat until she was sure she’d lose her mind.
“…great childhood friends,” the minister was saying. “I had a secret crush on her, but she had her eye on some other fellow….”
Angry or not, he should have come to the house. Not that she’d been expecting him. Not that she’d wanted him to come. But they had been married. It would have been the right thing, the decent thing, for him to do.
“…didn’t work out. Poor Tess, bless her heart…”
Every time the doorbell had rung, she’d stiffened, half with anticipation, half with dread. But he hadn’t shown up. This is ridiculous, she rebuked herself, glancing at the front door. What did she care?
“…would always tag along. But we never minded. Your mother was such an adorable little thing. Just like you at that age.”
Laura’s attention was riveted back to the minister. “You knew my mother?”
“Of course I did! Even though she was six years younger, Elizabeth used to take her everywhere. I can still picture little Caroline, her golden-brown pigtails, those shining turquoise eyes. And those freckles! She couldn’t say the word ‘sun’ without twenty new dots popping up all over her face. And she had a cute little bump on her nose, just like yours.”
Automatically Laura raised her hand to the bridge of her nose. As a teenager, she’d wanted to have it fixed, but all her friends had been against it. “It gives you character,” Jake had said, “not that you lack any.” Later, she decided that the bump she had inherited from her mother was too small for her to even consider having it removed.
Why can’t I remember what my mother looked like? Laura thought now. I wasn’t that young when she died. I should be able to remember something. For years after the crash Laura had searched for her mother in the park, at school, at the doctor’s office. Even to this day she still caught herself looking around corners in department stores, in the supermarket, in the library. It’s no wonder, she told herself, considering I’ve never seen pictures of my parents. Where are the mementos of our lives? Where are the family albums? These were questions Aunt Tess had never answered.
“My mother looked like me.” The statement had been meant as a question.
“My stars, yes! And how your aunt doted on her! Until the day I performed the wedding ceremony for your parents, Tess was always there, looking out for her. Always sewing something special for her to wear or fixing her hair or baking a special treat. That girl was more like a mother than a sister.”
It was as if Reverend Barnes were describing some other person. Aunt Tess, so it seemed, had worn two faces, one at home, the other for the outside world.
A honking outside jolted Laura back to the moment.
“My taxi must be here,” the minister said, taking her hands in his. “Don’t be a stranger, Laura. Come visit our church in Ridgefield. You might find comfort there.”
She watched as he shuffled down the front walk, leaning heavily on his cane. The taxi drove away and she closed the door.
Her thoughts returned to Jake. She remained in the hallway for several minutes, her eyes fixed on the door as though she could will the bell to ring.
“Weren’t they a nice bunch? Who would have figured she knew so many people?”
Laura sat on the couch next to Cassie, her feet propped up on the coffee table. They had just finished rounding up plates and coffee cups and were relaxing in the living room, going over the events of the day.
“Just be grateful that everyone from the chapel didn’t show up,” Cassie answered, yawning. “These walls would have burst wide open. It would have been a geriatric nightmare. Speaking of absenteeism, why wasn’t Steady Eddy at the service?”
“I told you, Edward couldn’t get away. His surgery schedule is set weeks in advance.” In truth, Laura was relieved. Somehow she couldn’t picture her fiancé here in Middlewood, Connecticut, as she went on with her everyday life. She burst out laughing, trying to imagine the prominent heart surgeon wearing one of her aunt’s prissy smocks, helping her clean the house.
“No fair,” Cassie said. “You’ve got to share your private jokes.”
There was no stopping Cassie once she got started on the defectiveness of the male species, and Laura had no desire to discuss Edward’s flaws. “I was thinking about Ellen with all those bandages, the night we climbed down the tree. I wish she could have been here today. But you know Ellen, busy saving the world.”
“How is our little Florence Nightingale? It must be months since she last called me. Any man in her life?”
“Dr. Ellen Gavin is fine,” Laura said with affection. “And the phone works both ways. To answer your question, yes, there is a man. Although I don’t know how she makes time for any kind of personal life, with the schedule she keeps.”
“There’s always time for a personal life. Trust me, I know.”
Laura didn’t know how Cassie did it, flitting from relationship to relationship without getting involved—or hurt. When it came to men, Cassie claimed she knew exactly what she wanted; the problem was that what she wanted changed from week to week. When it came to business, however, she was as sharp as a razor. Cassie was one of the town’s most successful real estate brokers. Her rise to the top of her field was a result of hard work and shrewd planning, but to Laura it was nothing short of amazing.
Ellen Gavin, too, amazed Laura. Even as a child, Ellen had known exactly what she wanted to do with her life, letting nothing stand in her way. Years later, it was that same will, that same determination, that had helped save Laura’s life. When Laura first became sick and decided to leave Jake, it was Ellen who had convinced her that life was worth living. Even though Ellen had just become a resident in internal medicine, she was the one who had made sure that Laura had the best team on staff—the oncologist, the anesthesiologist, the surgeon, the chemotherapist. And despite her heavy schedule, it was Ellen who had been there for her day and night throughout the entire ordeal.
“It was Ellen who introduced me to Edward,” Laura said to Cassie. “She has a lot of friends at the hospital. Maybe if you’re nice to her, she could set you up with someone who just might convince you to settle down. Didn’t your mother always want you to marry a doctor? How about a psychiatrist?”
“Are you insinuating that I’m not nice, I have bad taste in men and I need therapy?” Feigning indignation, Cassie reached behind her and picked up a throw pillow.
“No, don’t!” Laura squealed. But it was too late. Feathers were flying everywhere. “I tried to warn you,” she rebuked her friend lightly, “but as usual, you just ignored me.”
“Did you say something?” Cassie said, and Laura laughed. Cassie rose from the couch. “I guess this means you want me to sweep up. What a mess!”
“It’s nothing compared to the mess before I cleaned up for the gathering. This place was like a warehouse. Aunt Tess had put everything into boxes and stacked them all in here. It was as if she had known she would be leaving this house.”
“Spooky,” Cassie said. “Where are the boxes now?”
“Forget the broom, and come with me.”
Cassie raised an inquisitive eyebrow, and followed Laura through the archway. “I’d forgotten how dismal this place was,” she said with a shudder. “You should probably renovate before putting it on the market. You could make a tidy profit. What about adding a breakfast nook at the back of the kitchen? And a skylight would do wonders.”
“I don’t want to spend the time, not to mention money I don’t have. Edward keeps asking when I’m coming home.” She pulled open the door to the pantry off the kitchen. “Voilà!” she sang out.
The pantry had been intended as a maid’s room when the house was built in the early 1900s. Layers of wallpaper and different markings on the walls indicated that at one time the room might have been used as a den, a guest room or even a sewing room. As a child, Laura would sneak in there to daydream, and in her fantasies, her mother would be sewing something special—a Halloween costume, a new party dress, Laura’s wedding gown….
Piled up in the middle of the room were dozens of boxes. “You should have seen what I threw out,” Laura said. “There were hundreds of rusty tins on the shelves, and over there—” she pointed to the far wall “—barrels of flour had turned black. I had to disinfect before moving in the boxes. These boxes, by the way, are my next project. I can’t just throw them away without first checking what’s inside.”
“You sure have your work cut out for you,” Cassie said. “I’ll be glad to help—but not tonight. This puppy is off to bed, and I suggest you do the same. It’s been a long day.”
Laura turned to her friend and hugged her. “Thanks so much for being here for me, Cass. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
“You always say that, but the truth is, you’re the strong one here. You’re the fighter, the survivor.” Laura opened her mouth to protest, but Cassie cut her off with a quick peck on the cheek. “You don’t have to walk me to the door. I’ll let myself out. If I know you as well as I think I do, you won’t call it a night until you’ve gone through every box with a magnifying glass.”
Sometimes it seemed as if Cassie knew Laura better than Laura knew herself. But on one particular point, Cassie was wrong. Laura was not strong. There were times when she felt she couldn’t go on, times when she didn’t want to go on. Whenever she thought about going through life without having children…
She waited for the click of the front door before reaching for one of the smaller boxes in the middle of the room. Wrapped in silver cellophane, it was tied with a faded crimson bow. It was one of her own old memory boxes, she realized, one of the many she had not taken with her after she had married Jake and moved into his house. I wanted us to have a fresh start, she thought as she removed the bow.
She tore away the wrapping and hesitated. Weren’t some memories better left buried? As if taunting her to take that scary trip down memory lane, the box lay there, unadorned on the pantry floor. She took a deep breath and lifted the lid.
The first thing she pulled out was a snapshot of her and Cassie proudly dressed in full Girl Scout garb, marching down Saw Mill Road in the Veterans’ Day Parade. She smiled. Going down memory lane wasn’t so bad, after all. Next, she picked up a picture of Jake in his gold-tasseled uniform, playing the trumpet. That is, trying to play the trumpet. His cheeks were puffed out, his eyes bulging out of their sockets.
Then she picked up a photo of Cynthia.
Cynthia was wearing a white satin gown she had designed and made herself. With its deep décolleté, and a side slit that ended at the hip, it was so risqué that Cynthia’s mother had forbidden her to wear it. But Cynthia had been determined, and what Cyn wanted, Cyn got. The night of the Sweetheart Dance, she told her mother that Jake would be picking her up at Laura’s house. She put on a plain, high-neck dress, then drove over to Laura’s, where the girls spent hours on their makeup and fixing their hair. Laura had always felt awkward next to her chic, lithe friend, but she had to admit, by the time Cynthia had finished working on her, she looked good. In fact, for the first time in her life, Laura felt beautiful. She slipped into her gown, a fairylike creation of dawn-tinted crepe, and twirled around and around, feeling wonderful and weightless.
Cynthia then wriggled her body into her sleek, tight dress. She was not only sensuous, she was majestic, and wore her confidence like a crown. Laura looked at her with awe. “After you, Your Royal Highness,” she said, curtsying.
“You’re the one who looks like a princess,” Cynthia said, then added jokingly, “I’ll be watching you tonight, so don’t get any notions about my prince!”
Laura studied the photo, trying to recall the name of the boy who had taken her to the dance. That night, all she had thought about was that he wasn’t Jake. David? Donald? I guess some things aren’t worth remembering, she thought now with a twinge of regret.
But there were some things a person couldn’t forget.
An old pain came hurtling back. Cynthia had told her mother that she’d be spending the night at Laura’s.
Laura pulled out more snapshots. Here was Cyn waving goodbye after spring break. Laura remembered how she, Ellen, Cassie and Cynthia had huddled together at the station, as though New York was a thousand miles away. And here was Cyn walking down the aisle, wearing a stunning gown of silk and lace, which she had designed and sewn herself. And here was Cyn, hair and blouse drenched, holding her pink, naked one-year-old son after giving him a bath.
She fingered the photograph of Cynthia with Cory. It might have been the last one ever taken of her once-best friend.
She thought back to that final day, that final hour, that final moment in the hospital when Cynthia had opened her eyes for the last time.
“Take care of my men,” she’d said.
And Laura had. Eight months later she and Jake were married.
What was it Rhett Butler had said to Scarlett? It must be convenient having the first wife’s permission.
Oh, Cyn, I certainly made a mess of things, didn’t I?
Maybe resurrecting old memories wasn’t such a good idea. With each recollection came a fresh wave of pain.
Laura’s thoughts strayed back to her childhood. Aunt Tess had been a cold and stern caretaker. Yet in spite of the resentment Laura felt, she was filled with pity. Poor Aunt Tess. The woman had never known the meaning of happiness.
Before Laura could stop herself, she started to cry. Not the low, broken whimpering that, as a child, she used to smother by burying her head under her pillow, but deep, loud, heart-wrenching sobs that threatened to tear her body into pieces. Whether it was because of her reminiscing or because she was exhausted made no difference; her anguish was an acute physical pain that wouldn’t ease. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, rocking herself to and fro as if her spirit were the mother, her body the child. Through a small window in the kitchen, the late night’s moon cast its rays over the boxes. Outside, the wind had picked up, and she could hear the insistent tinkling of the chimes hanging from the eaves. She sat there for what seemed like hours, weeping for all the losses she and those she had known had endured, until finally her sobs dwindled into whimpers, and exhausted, she lay down and fell asleep.
