The Atonement Child (26 page)

“Not yet. I left my things in the car. I’ll bring them in later.” She watched Hannah rub her forehead. “What’s happened since we talked?”

“Nothing. Dynah hasn’t made a decision yet. I took her to a clinic this afternoon. . . .”

“What sort of clinic?”

“You
know
what sort of clinic, Mother.” Did she have to spell it out?

“I hope you’re not pushing her into having an abortion.”

“I’m not pushing. Doug’s pushing.”

“It’s not his decision.”

“Tell
him
that! Dynah’s his daughter. She lives in his house. He pays the bills. He’s the one who’ll have to keep working if she has this child. And why should she, Mother? She was
raped
. What sort of human being could she be carrying?”

“You know what abortion is.”

“Don’t say it, Mother.”

“You’ve been through it yourself.”

“I don’t want to talk about it! I’ve had an awful day, and it’s going to be a worse evening. All I want is to have this glass of wine and a nice, comfortable visit. Can we do that?
Please?
”

Evie sighed heavily and said nothing more. Time enough when Doug got home. She intended to say what she had to say. She hoped to God they’d listen.

Dynah awakened once when her mother came in to ask if she’d like to come down to dinner. Tired and depressed, she declined. “I’ll eat later, Mom.”

“Okay, honey,” Hannah said, readjusting the covers and leaning down to kiss her.

When Hannah came downstairs, her mother was putting serving dishes on the dining room table while Doug sat in the family room watching the news. He had changed into his worn Levi’s, polo shirt, and sneakers. Even in his relaxed pose, she sensed he was coiled and ready to strike at the first provocation. They’d exchanged only a few words upon his arrival home.

“Did you take care of it?” he had said.

“I tried.”

“Did you invite your mother?”

“Sort of.”

He gave her a narrow-eyed look that said he didn’t believe her. A muscle jerked in his jaw, and he rose, stepped past her, and went upstairs with his briefcase.

From the look of him now, she figured he hadn’t removed his armor.

Choruses of bitter voices jabbered in her head, dredging up the hurts from the past. Every hurtful word he’d ever spoken was played again, fast-forward. Self-pity filled her, bringing along with it a boiling anger that steamed away love, patience, gentleness. Self-restraint hung by a thread.

They sat down at the dining room table together and ate the spicy meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and carrots Hannah had fixed. Doug liked things hot. She watched him douse his meat loaf with Tabasco sauce and felt her temperature rising. He hadn’t even bothered to taste the meal before he doctored it up.

Evie was saddened by what she saw happening between Hannah and Doug. She remembered their being like this in the early years of their marriage. Stony silences. Tension. She used to wonder if it was her and Frank who weren’t welcome. It wasn’t until later, when Hannah told her the whole story about Jerry, that she began to understand what was tearing at her daughter’s marriage.

Well, she had her own secrets. Maybe unveiling them would help these two come to terms with their past—and their future. . . .

Or was she just going to be opening Pandora’s box?

Doug finished quickly and excused himself. Hannah fumed as she heard the television go on again. A boxing match this time. A suitably violent sport. Too bad hockey wasn’t on tonight. Or he could pull out one of those god-awful war movies he loved to watch so much. He said they were cathartic. What was so cathartic about seeing blood and mayhem?

She stacked the dishes noisily and carried them into the kitchen. “I can handle it, Mom. Go sit down and relax.”

Evie itched to do something, anything. So she picked up a sponge and went back in to wipe the table, rearrange the flowers in the center, and push all the chairs into place.

They all sat in the family room together, separate islands with their own hurricanes. Doug stared at the television. Hannah sat fidgeting. Evie dug into her travel sewing basket and pulled out a pillowcase she was embroidering. A Christmas present for someone.

No one talked about what was on their minds. The issue could have been a pink elephant in the middle of the room, trumpeting and leaving scat about, and they would pretend they didn’t notice. They’d tiptoe around it and try not to arouse it.

“We need to talk,” Hannah said finally.

Doug stared at her. “We talked already.”

“We haven’t talked at all.”

He glanced pointedly at Evie.

“Mom knows everything.”

“I should’ve guessed. No insult to you, Evie, but this is
our
business.”

Evie anchored the needle and lowered the project to her lap.

Hannah grimaced, feeling the tension mounting in the room. Pompeii must have felt like this just before Vesuvius erupted. No matter what she said, Doug was going to blow. Better she take the blast than her mother.

“We have to talk about it.”

His gaze turned on her. “What more is there to say?”

She let out her breath. It was just like him to dump the whole thing in her lap.
Fix it, Hannah. Don’t bother me with it.
“I spoke with a doctor today.” She didn’t dare tell him she knew Jim Wyatt from college days. Doug would make all kinds of assumptions. He’d probably think she’d slept with him, too. “He said he can admit Dynah to General and do the procedure there. She’d stay overnight for observation.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“So, it’s settled. What do you want from me?”

She began to shake. She wanted to scream at him and pound on him. Instead, she clung to her self-control. “Dynah has to say yes. I can’t drag her there.”

He looked at her then, eyes fiery. “I didn’t
say
drag her, did I? Did I ever say that? No. I told you to help her through this.”

“Meaning it’s up to me to convince her.”

“You know more about it than I do.”

Oh, God, here we go again.

Doug turned his head away, staring at the television.

Hannah sat silent, wallowing in her pain, filling her cup with resentment. Sometimes she almost hated him.

Evie looked between them and wanted to weep. She wondered if she was somehow to blame, planting that tiny seed all those years ago, never guessing the consequences in generations to come. She had thought Hannah was too young to know anything, but maybe she’d absorbed it somehow, taken it into herself, and kept the sorrow growing.

She dumped her handwork heedlessly in her travel basket, quietly got up, walked across the room, and turned the television off.

“Mother!”

“What’re you doing?” Doug said, furious.

She didn’t mind being the target. Better they were united against her than fighting one another. “Don’t let Dynah have an abortion,” she said simply, ready to do battle.

“Mother,” Hannah said, sure she would launch into a diatribe about the unborn.

Evie saw Doug’s eyes narrow and the muscle in his jaw jump. “Please hear me out,” she said and returned to her seat. She strove to stay calm though she wanted to burst out loud and say she was older and wiser and knew more than both of them put together.

“Dynah’s situation has nothing to do with how you or anyone else thinks,” Doug said pointedly, eyes fierce.

“You know how I feel about the issue, Doug, but you don’t know why.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“She’s my granddaughter, and I love her.”

“She’s my daughter, and you think I don’t?”

“I know you love her. You love her more than your own life. All I ask is that you hear me out.” She sat forward, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, and bowed her head. This was going to be harder than she expected. “I’ve carried this around in my heart for years, and now it seems I have to tell you whether I want to or not.”

Doug looked from her to Hannah and clenched his teeth. He was struggling to maintain control—that much was clear. He let out his breath, as though loosening his muscles through an act of will.

Good. At least he was trying. Evie knew her son-in-law admired her spunk, but she also knew that didn’t mean her opinion mattered on whether Dynah should have an abortion or not. She was fairly sure Doug thought he knew what she was going to say. He was well aware she belonged to a fundamentalist church. Her Bible was sitting beside the swivel rocker right now, looking frayed and ragged around the edges, half a dozen ribbons sticking out of it—which he probably figured marked all the suitable passages for the upcoming sermon he expected. But the last thing she was going to do was preach.

After the first few years Doug and her daughter had been married, she had learned to stay out of their affairs. It had been harder for Frank, a retired executive who was used to running the show. Evie was aware that distance and poor health had saved Doug from having to tell his father-in-law to back off. She was sure it hadn’t been easy for Doug and that it probably hurt knowing it had taken fifteen years to convince Frank he was sticking with Hannah through the long haul. Another residue from the past. Frank had seen his daughter hurt before and hadn’t wanted to see it happen again.

Noting Doug’s closed expression, she wondered if he would hear a word she said. Whatever the case, she had to take the risk. “Before Frank and I were married, I had tuberculosis.”

“We know that, Mom—”

“And I relapsed after you were born,” Evie went on, seeing she was going to have to plow ahead and override Hannah’s desire to avoid the uncomfortable and Doug’s antipathy to the truth. “The doctor wanted me to go into a sanatorium, but Frank insisted I remain home. He wanted me close, and I wanted that more than anything, too. You were three, Hannah, your brother six, and I didn’t want to be away from you for months on end.

“Your father had a hospital bed brought in. We didn’t let you come into the bedroom. Granny would hold you in her arms at the door, and you’d say good morning and good night to me. Sometimes we’d let you sit in a chair in the doorway so we could talk. You broke my heart, Hannah. You’d ask me over and over why you couldn’t come in and cuddle with me that way you used to do. You didn’t understand what TB or infection meant.” She looked at her grown daughter, knowing she had felt rejected despite the reassurances. “It was so hard not to hold you and kiss you.”

Her throat closed, remembering how much it had hurt to turn her children away. Even knowing her own mother was there to scoop them up and nurture them hadn’t eased the pain of those months of separation. And what damage had it done in the years following?

She knew she was digressing. She could see by Hannah’s and Doug’s expressions that they had no idea where she was going with all this. She had to gather her wits and courage.

Oh, Lord, help me!

She thought she knew how she would say it. Hadn’t she planned every word on the long drive south from Oregon? Now that the time had come, she couldn’t remember a single word of the speech she had prepared.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I became pregnant.”

“Daddy told me,” Hannah said, wanting to spare her mother, afraid of where all this was going and what Doug’s response would be.

Evie struggled past the tears that threatened. Odd how time never healed some wounds. “Yes, I remember. On the night of your first miscarriage, your dad told you we’d lost one, too. He told you that because he wanted you both to know we understood and grieved with you. But the thing is—” Evie said, looking from Hannah to Doug—“I didn’t miscarry. I had a therapeutic abortion.”

Doug stared at her, clearly stunned; the look on her daughter’s face was indecipherable.

Evie rushed to fill the shocked silence, wanting to get it all said and done. “You see, the doctor told your father I wouldn’t survive another child. Frank believed him. I told him I was well enough to carry the baby to term, but I couldn’t convince him. He was afraid my health would decline and he’d end up a widower rearing three small children by himself. He said he didn’t want to risk losing me. God forgive me, I went along with his decision. I allowed the doctor to admit me to the hospital, cosigned the papers with your father, and went through with it.”

She looked at Hannah through her tears. “I was five months along. The baby was a boy. Your brother would be forty-six had he lived.”

Doug stared at her, then shook his head. “You did what you had to do, Evie. Frank was right.”

“No, he wasn’t, Doug. And worse, he knew it, though he never said so aloud. It might have helped both of us to talk about it. All the years we were together, we never spoke of it. I was angry and hurt for several years afterward, and he just wanted to forget. For a while, I didn’t know if we’d stay married. You’ll remember that time, Hannah. You were about six when things leveled off. Granny moved home, and we sold that house and started building another. Gradually, we buried thoughts of what we had done and went on with our lives.”

Evie watched Doug glance at Hannah to see how she was taking this new information. She was pale, her eyes glistening with tears.