The Diary (6 page)

“Who could forget?” Sarah had been old enough at the time to feel mortified at hearing her father speak out in front of all those people, especially in an era when his was such an unpopular stance. “Mr. Oxandale accused him of being a communist. Imagine that—Dad a communist!” Sarah chuckled, taking another sip of her wine. Eventually their father had been vindicated and the shelter had sat dormant, gathering mold and scorpions, until finally, years later, it had been bulldozed under. There had even been an article about it in the
Bugle
, calling it one of the biggest boondoggles in the town's history. Now there was a playground where it had stood.

The sisters fell silent, gazing at the fire crackling in the hearth as they mulled over their mother's account of that long-ago day. The diary entry had given rise to more questions than answers. Who was this mystery man who'd captivated the young Elizabeth? All they knew about AJ, from what they'd read thus far, was that he and their mother had gone to school together and that he'd done time in juvenile detention for having set fire to a car belonging to an uncle described only as a “horrid brute” who'd deserved it. While their mother had written at great length about AJ jumping in to save her after she'd fallen into the creek and the feelings evoked by that incident, she'd only alluded briefly to earlier events. She obviously hadn't intended for her diary to be read—and puzzled over, in this case—by a future generation.

“What I want to know is, what did AJ have that Dad didn't?” Emily ventured after a bit.

Sarah sighed. “Who knows?” Did it even matter at this point? Their mother had clearly made the right choice in the end. “Whatever it was, it wasn't enough to keep her from marrying Dad.”

“But what if she didn't marry him for love?” Ever since her divorce, Emily had been prone to dark ruminations about marriage in general.

“There are all kinds of love,” Sarah said.

Emily drained the last of the wine from her jelly jar. “Still, I can't help wondering,” she said. “If Mom was so crazy about this other guy, why didn't she marry him instead?”

“Maybe he wasn't the marrying kind.”

“Or maybe Grandmother Mildred put her foot down.” The sisters hadn't known their grandmother—she'd died when Sarah was little, shortly after Emily was born—but from what little their mother had told them, it was plain that their grandmother had ruled her household with an iron fist. If she hadn't approved of AJ, that alone might have been enough to nip any romance in the bud.

Sarah put an end to the speculation by pronouncing, “Either way, Dad was the better man. Mom must have known that deep down, even when she was infatuated with AJ.”

Emily remained unconvinced. “Actually, it's kind of tragic when you think of it,” she said, getting up to toss another log onto the fire. “I mean, if AJ was the one she
truly
loved.”

Sarah shook her head in fond exasperation. Why did Emily always have to be so theatrical? “If she hadn't married Dad, neither of us would be here,” she reminded her sister. “Now, that would be tragic.”

“Speak for yourself,” Emily replied moodily as she stood idly poking at the fire. No doubt she was thinking about her own unhappy marriage, which had dragged on much longer than it should have.

“I don't think Mom ever regretted her choice.” Sarah sought to bring some perspective to her sister's dark flight of fancy. “Even if she wasn't madly in love with Dad in the beginning, it deepened over time.”

Emily, still wearing a troubled look, turned to face her sister, holding the brass fireplace poker clenched in one hand as if it were a magic wand with the power to shed light on the past. “Yes, but that still doesn't answer my question: Why
him
if she was in love with someone else?”

Sarah heaved another sigh and gazed down at the worn leather volume on her lap, its ink faded and its pages yellowed with age. “We won't know the answer to that until we read more.”

Emily eyed the nearly empty wine bottle on the coffee table. “I think this calls for another drink.”

Sarah shook her head. “Better not. Remember, we still have to drive home.” Also, the next morning they had church, then the usual Sunday visit to the nursing home, for which they would need every ounce of their strength. “If I don't make it in one piece, my husband and kids will be in the same boat we're in now.”

“Don't even think it.” Emily replaced the poker in the fireplace stand with a loud clang. “Nothing's going to happen to either of us. I won't allow it. If we weren't around, who would take care of Mom?”

Sarah wondered what their mother would have had to say about their reading her diary. Would she have seen it as an invasion of privacy—was that why she'd kept the journal hidden away all these years? Or would she have been relieved to know the truth was finally coming out? Something else occurred to Sarah just then, something so dreadful it sent a jolt through her. “I wonder if Dad knew,” she said.

“About AJ, you mean?”

Sarah nodded, feeling a little sick. “Didn't they all go to school together? And you know how it is in small towns. People talk.”

Emily's eyes widened. “Oh, God. You're right—he must have known. Poor Dad.” She shook her head pityingly.

“And to think of his never letting on all those years.” It was almost more than Sarah could bear to contemplate.

“So you think he married her knowing she was in love with another man?”

Sarah thoughtfully fingered a page of the diary. “Since he can't answer that, there's only one way to find out.” Reluctantly, part of her still not wanting to know, she turned to the next entry.

CHAPTER FOUR

J
ULY
18, 1951

Dear Diary
,

I stopped by AJ's grandparents' house today. I knew I wouldn't find him there, but I wanted to know if there was a number or an address where I could reach him. Ever since he took off, I've been going a bit mad wondering if the reason I haven't heard from him is because he's still angry with me, deep down, or maybe upset because I didn't give him proper credit for saving me from drowning. Or, worse, if it's because he was in an accident. Isn't that the silliest thing? Imagining him laid up in a hospital with broken bones, or possibly in a coma, just because he hasn't called or written? Goodness! What a swelled head I have! Maybe that caricature he did of me was the real Elizabeth Harvey after all, and I'm just put out because he's not falling all over me like every other guy. As for his pulling me out of the drink, I'm sure he'd say it was only what anyone would've done. Hardly the act of a lovesick man. Even if he had a crush on me at one time, it's foolish to think he's still pining for me
.

On the other hand, it seemed like we had a true connection. I'm not sure I can explain it. But I felt it. I think AJ did, too. If only I could talk to him again! There's so much I want to know
.

Elizabeth frowned
at the steno pad propped next to her typewriter. Shorthand had never been her strong suit, and she was having trouble deciphering what she'd jotted down in her boss's office just minutes ago. Something about a consignment … or shipment … to a retail outlet in Peoria. Or was it Porterville? She heaved a sigh, glaring at the old Royal as if it were to blame. Which was easier than having to knock on Mr. Arno's office door and ask nicely if he'd mind terribly repeating it one more time, knowing her boss wasn't one to suffer fools gladly. Besides, Mr. Arno was a busy man. He ran Arno Fashions, the largest manufacturer of women's hats west of the Mississippi, which employed more than two hundred workers. The only reason she'd gotten this job was because Mr. Arno had owed her mother a favor: She had introduced him to his wife some thirty years ago. Certainly it wasn't because Elizabeth was a crack secretary, despite her diploma from Masterson Secretarial College in Lincoln. She had the capacity to become a whiz at shorthand and typing if she were to apply herself, but, in all honesty, her heart wasn't in it.

Her fondest wish was to become a wife and mother. It was all she'd ever really wanted, perhaps because she hadn't had much of a family life growing up. Her happiest memories were of the years before her father had become ill. After his death when she was eleven, only she and Mildred had been left to rattle around in their big, empty house. Every holiday season, it felt as if they were simply going through the motions. Her mother would dutifully put up a tree and deck the house in pine boughs and holly branches, but it was never the same as when Elizabeth's father had been alive. She dreamed of the day she would have a house of her own, one that would resonate with the happy cries of children. In her mind, she could see the shining faces of those children gathered around the Christmas tree, or on Thanksgiving around a table laden with turkey and all the trimmings.

As for her future husband, there was no guesswork there. Ever since they'd started going together their junior year, she'd simply assumed it would be Bob. He, too, had expressed a desire for a family of his own someday. And there was no question that they loved each other. It was only a matter of time before they made it official. At least that was what she'd always thought.…

An image of AJ intruded. She pictured him as he'd looked that day, sitting beside her on the creek bank like some sleek-limbed mountain lion in repose. Since then he seemed to have vanished into thin air, leaving her to wonder where he had gone and fret over the possible reasons for his maddening lack of communication. Ordinarily she wouldn't have expected a chance meeting with a former classmate to lead to anything, but she'd felt a connection between them and thought AJ had, too. Clearly she'd been mistaken. Fourteen whole days, and not a word in all that time.

But who was keeping track? Didn't she have better things to do than ponder yet another mystery surrounding AJ? Tonight was the engagement party for her best friend, Ingrid, which should have been enough to occupy her thoughts. The women of both households, Ingrid's and Elizabeth's, had been in a tizzy of preparation. Ingrid and her family lived just down the street, and the two young women and their mothers had been shuttling back and forth for days. Mildred was advising Gertrude Olsen on the menu and décor, which left Ingrid and Elizabeth free to devote themselves to more important matters, such as what to wear. It was to be an elaborate affair, complete with the finest champagne from Torvill & Sons in North Platte and delicacies such as foie gras imported from France; there was even to be an ice sculpture in the shape of a swan (though it wasn't expected to hold up well in this heat). Everyone who was anyone in Emory had been invited, including the mayor and his wife. Naturally Bob would be there, too.

All week Ingrid and her sisters had been making sly remarks about Elizabeth being next in line. Last Saturday, while trying on gowns in Gold's department store during a shopping trip to Lincoln, Ingrid had predicted coyly, “I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be a big night for you, too. Just think, by this time next week you could be wearing a diamond ring on your finger.” She'd paused as she was zipping up to admire the emerald-cut solitaire twinkling on her own left hand.

This seemingly lighthearted remark had sent Elizabeth into a mild panic. What on earth was the matter with her? she wondered. Why wasn't she filled with joy at the prospect of becoming engaged? Bob was everything she could want in a husband: smart, kind, well-mannered, and good-looking in a manly sort of way that didn't rely on such enhancements as Brylcreem and the bespoke suits favored by Mr. Arno and the men with whom he did business. Why were her thoughts occupied more and more these days by a man she barely knew and who wasn't a patch on Bob?

And yet she couldn't seem to escape those thoughts. Over and over she'd replayed in her mind the moment AJ had hauled her, dripping, from the stream. She recalled how they'd stood teetering on the rock, pressed together as if in a slow waltz. In real time the moment couldn't have lasted more than a few seconds, but in the reliving, it seemed to go on forever. She could see droplets of sun-struck water, tossed by the current, sparkling in the air around them, brighter than diamonds. She could feel the water rushing over her feet and the firm pressure of AJ's arms around her. Part of her wished she could have remained on that rock, locked in AJ's arms, far from the predictable life she'd always known.

The day before, she'd paid a visit to AJ's grandparents in the hope of obtaining an address or phone number for him so she could thank him properly for having saved her life. Despite his claim that he wanted nothing more to do with them, she couldn't believe he would shut them out entirely. His uncle, yes, but Joe and Sally were his only kin. And she knew what it was like to be without a family. She had her mother, of course, but no one else. Only her grandmother Judith and her aunt Prudie, both of whom lived far away and seldom visited.

She'd found the Keeners' address in the phone book. They lived on one of the rural routes in Cement Town, as far in terms of grandeur from the neighborhood she lived in, with its elegant homes and tree-lined avenues, as Emory, Nebraska, was from Paris, France. When she arrived at the small, nondescript house not two blocks from the Keeners' store and within sight of the cement factory's belching stacks, Sally Keener answered the door wearing a worn print housedress, looking as faded as an old, rolled-up newspaper that had sat uncollected on the porch.

“AJ? How would I know where he is? I ain't seen him in years,” she scoffed in answer to Elizabeth's inquiry. The old woman eyed her narrowly. “Whaddya want with him? You ain't in trouble, is you?”

“No, nothing like that,” Elizabeth hastened to assure her, her face warming at the notion. “I … I'm an old friend. I was hoping to get in touch with him is all.”