You're Gone (Finding Solid Ground) (19 page)

John and Lenore looked at one another, speechless. Not knowing what to say, they turned to look at Charleigh.

“I can’t listen to the excuses and explanations anymore. I don’t really care who’s responsible. I wish I knew
how
and
why,
but it won’t change a thing. There was no good reason for all of those innocent people to have died the way they did. None.” Charleigh’s voice remained steady. She wasn’t screaming, though she felt like it. Still, she was sure her point was getting across to the two old people. “And I don’t understand how you can think I’m being overly emotional.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” John whispered, ashamed of himself. The old man hung his head.

“Me, too.” Lenore patted Charleigh on the thigh. Charleigh couldn’t tell if the old woman really understood where she was coming from. “Why don’t you take a soak in the tub for a while? I’ll fix you something to eat when you get ready.”

“I’m not hungry.” She didn’t think she’d ever be hungry again.

“Couldn’t you at least try, Char? You need some nourishment,” John coaxed.

Charleigh thought about it for a moment. With only a nod, she climbed off the bed. She felt like she needed to say something, but not exactly knowing what, she remained quiet.

***

Forlorn, she sat in the bubble-filled, claw-foot tub. Lenore had unnecessarily drawn the
water for her before going downstairs to the kitchen to heat up some chicken noodle soup. If she’d been given the chance, Charleigh was sure the old lady would have undressed and washed her as well.

With her head leaned against the side, she stared at her feet that were perched on the rim at the other end. The pink polish was chipped and her toenails might have needed to be trimmed,
but Charleigh didn’t give it a second thought. Any other time, she’d have gone off to the salon to have them done— it was her one excessively superfluous indulgence — but it wasn’t like the world would end if Charleigh Randall didn’t get her precious pedicure.

There was a knock on the door. Lenore. Charleigh didn’t bother to say anything because she knew the woman would come in whether or not she was turned away. Just as Charleigh predicted, the door inched open.

“How’re you doin’, honey?” Lenore asked, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel.

The younger woman only grunted. She watched as Lenore went over to sit down on the closed toilet lid. Looking back down at the bathwater, Charleigh rolled her eyes. She was naked and still couldn’t escape the Spanish inquisition.

“I know you don’t want to hear it, but I’m not as heartless as you think I am,” Lenore began. “I admit that I didn’t like Jamie before, but after he came to stay with Sister and me, I became very fond of him. He was like the son— grandson— I never had.”

“You still think I’m being extreme about losing him, or am I blowing the situation out of proportion?”

Lenore shrugged, sniffled as she looked down at the floor. “Madie and I were taught to hamper our emotions. In our father’s house, sentiment was a sign of weakness.”

Charleigh wasn’t sure. She thought she saw tears on the old lady’s cheeks. A crack in the old stone wall? Was it almost possible that Lenore Martin was crying?

Lenore reached over to tear some toilet paper from the dispenser. She was just about to bring it up to her face, but something stopped her. Her eyes were on something in the floor beside where she sat. Charleigh had no idea what the other woman could possibly be looking at until she leaned over and pulled one of the pregnancy tests from the wastebasket. Dazed, she turned to look at Charleigh.

“Could you please leave so I can get out and get dressed?” The younger woman huffed.

“You’re… you’re…” Lenore couldn’t seem to form complete sentences.

             
When she didn’t move, Charleigh felt she had no other choice. She stood up and reached for a towel. “I’m not going to discuss it with you.”

“But you’re…”

“Yes, I am.” With her back to Lenore, she wrapped the towel around her body.

Now, there was one more thing for this woman to nag at Charleigh about. Lenore wouldn’t be letting up anytime soon, wanting to talk about how she felt about Jamie, but now she’d want to know every last juicy detail of how Charleigh became pregnant.
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The woman was notorious for butting into other people’s business. She thought everything involved her. No matter what it was, Lenore considered it
her
business.

She’s in for a rude awakening
, Charleigh thought slipping on her bathrobe.

“You’re pregnant?” Lenore spoke slowly. “It’s wonderful news.”

“I won’t be for long.” The younger woman looked at her in the mirror as she began to towel dry her hair.

“You can’t possibly be thinking about terminating it.”

“I don’t have any other choice.”

“You’re not thinking straight. Of course there’s the obvious choice.”

“I know you pride yourself in giving advice. It’s your favorite pass time, but
I
don’t need you telling me what to do,” Charleigh shouted, dropping the comb that she was using to work the tangles from her damp mane. She bent down to retrieve it. “It’s none of your business, as far as I’m concerned.”

“You’re not in your right mind right now, darling. I think you need to calm yourself and really think about the situation…” The old woman continued to nag, but she blocked it out.

Situation?
Charleigh thought with a humph! What situation? It wasn’t a situation! It was her life, her body, and nobody— especially not Lenore— had the right to tell her what to do with it or how to feel about what was going on inside it.

“What do you think Jamie would feel about this? He wouldn’t want you to behave hastily.”

Here we go again!
Charleigh balled her hands up in to tight fists, digging her nails into her palm. She felt like punching the old woman. Instead she went over and grabbed the pregnancy test out of Lenore’s hand. “How do
you
know what Jamie would want? As far as I know, Lenore, you’re no medium. So, don’t tell me what Jamie would want!”

“I know how he felt after the miscarriage all those months ago.”

Screw it!
Not wanting to hear anymore, she dropped the test in one of her robe pockets and stomped out the door. She hoped Lenore wouldn’t follow. No such luck! Hot on Charleigh’s tail, the old bag continued doing what she did best.

“Where’s Madie? Why didn’t she come over here instead of you? She doesn’t harass or push her opinions on me.”

“She’s driving Jenna home,” Lenore replied, coming over to where the younger woman had plopped down bedroom chair.

“She’s taken Jenna home? All the way back to New York? I—” Charleigh forgot what she was going to say because something behind Lenore caught her attention.

Something was not right with… the bed. And she eyed it indecisively. The bedcovers were made for the first time in more than two weeks, but there was still something amiss. It was…

“What did you do to my bed?” She cried, jumping to her feet.

“I changed your linens. They were beginning to smell. This whole room is musty.” Lenore fanned her face. She barely had time to finish her sentence because Charleigh went rushing from the room.

Charleigh took the stairs two at a time as she rushed downstairs toward the laundry room. Maybe she wasn’t too late to save Jamie’s pillowcase from the washing machine. Maybe if she was lucky
, Lenore had put the comforter in first.

John was sitting on the love seat with the newspaper. Seeing Charleigh run by like a crazy person, followed by Lenore a few paces behind, he stood up and went to see what the commotion was all about. Coming into the laundry room, he found his granddaughter lying in a heap of dirty clothes on the floor.

She hugged the dirty pillowcase to her chest, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“What’s going on here?” He asked no one in particular.

Lenore shrugged. “I just… I…”

“She was trying to get rid of the last thing I have left of Jamie,” Charleigh cried hysterically. “It’s the last thing that keeps him alive.”

“No, I… I just wanted to wash the dirty bed sheets. I had no idea…” Lenore held her hands out in front of her. She had no idea what to say to make Charleigh feel better.

“Go away! Granddad, please!
Please
, make her go away,” Charleigh cried, burrowing deeper into the covers.

Sadly, John turned to look at Lenore. He put a hand on one of the old lady’s shoulder. “Go sit in the living room while I try to calm her down. It’s gonna be okay.”

With downcast eyes, Lenore only nodded, looking down at Charleigh before she walked out. John sat down on the floor beside his granddaughter. It was one of his good days; he could bend his knees without much pain. Taking Charleigh in his arms, he tried his best to console her.

“Charleigh, there’s nothing I can say to make this better for you. I wish I could.”

“Then don’t try. I don’t want to hear it,” she told him, trying to wipe moisture away from her cheeks. The tears were flowing faster than Charleigh could get rid of them.

He watched as Charleigh cried, not knowing what to do to console her. She had always been a tough one to figure out. She was like a chameleon. Charleigh was so
unpredictable, you never knew what she might say or do. You never knew what she was thinking unless she told you.

She could be horribly timid, especially around strangers. Still she had
an enthusiasm for life like he’d never seen in anyone else. She was amazingly kind and humble. Charleigh could be rough and tumble, and she always stood up for herself and what she believed in. It didn’t matter what it was about.

And she was miraculously resilient, always had been.

John gently squeezed Charleigh’s shoulder. She turned over to look at her grandfather, and he saw the soul-shattering pain radiating through those green eyes.

Because of Gavin’s dishonesty, Charleigh had thought her life was over. It seemed like she was about to give up on living.

Then, Jamie came to town. Their relationship had started out rocky— continued that way for some time— but it had turned into something near as wonderful as what Mike had had with Amanda. What John himself had had with Eliza, and never experienced again. It might have been even better, John thought, if the two of them had had a little more time together.

Her daddy had been her rock. Mike had always been there to dry her tears, for whatever reason. He was the one person who could talk to Charleigh, and help her make sense of what she was feeling. Mike could make the most gruesome incident in his daughter’s world seem nil.

When he died, it was as if a part of Charleigh’s soul had died right along with him. Again, Jamie was there to draw her out of the darkness. He breathed life back into her.

Now that he was gone too, John wasn’t sure that the darling girl would be able to bounce back from the darkness. He hated to admit it, but he wasn’t sure if there was anyone who could.

“I miss him
so
much, Granddad,” Charleigh said after a long while.

“I know you don’t think it’ll help to talk about it, but I bet it has somethin’ to do with this thing here,” John said, tugging on the pillowcase. He noticed how Charleigh’s grip tightened on it. “Why don’t you tell me what you were fighting with Lenore about?”

“She’s evil, Granddad. She’s trying to erase Jamie from my life like he never existed.”

“By doing the laundry?”

“It is the last thing that I have left of Jamie,” Charleigh said, sniffling.

John looked down to see something shaped like an ink pen sticking out of her pocket. He knew very well that it was no ink pen, though. Taking it from Charleigh’s pocket, he only had to glance at it to see the double pink lines.

“No, darlin’. I don’t think that’s the
last
thing you have left of Jamie.”

Despondently, Charleigh stared out the window as she sat in Doctor Emerson’s office, not so patiently waiting for her name to be called. Madie, who came along for moral support, sat silently in the seat next to her, flipping through the latest issue of
Parenting
magazine. She arrived home the previous day to the oh-so-obvious rants and raves of Lenore, who demanded she make Charleigh listen to reason. It didn’t turn out the way the old woman had hoped, though, because Madie immediately told her sister to butt out of situations that didn’t involve her.

The whole waiting room was packed with children and pregnant women with bumps of all sizes. Just being around them made Charleigh feel sad for what she was about to give up. She tried to tell herself that it was the best choice.

Impatiently, Charleigh looked down at her wristwatch.
3:27
. Her appointment had been scheduled for two o’clock, but the receptionist announced a few minutes before that time that Doctor Emerson had been called to the hospital for an emergency C-section. With nervousness, she started to shake her leg. Madie put her hand on Charleigh’s leg, patting gently as a sign that it was bugging her.

She began to tap on the arm of her chair. This was the last place in the whole universe that she wanted to be. Charleigh would’ve rather been at home, asleep in bed. It was the one emotion-free zone where nobody would try to press their personal opinions on her. Several people fidgeted in their chairs, sending Charleigh unhappy glances out of the corners of their eyes. A cheerfully pregnant woman, who sat in a chair a few feet away, gave her a friendly smile. Charleigh immediately realized that the tapping was annoying them and stopped. She gave the woman an apologetic smile and began biting her bottom lip. Hopefully that wouldn’t get on anyone’s nerves.

“Charleigh?” She looked up as her name was called. Della, one of the nurses, was standing in the open doorway. Charleigh raised an eyebrow. “Doctor Em is back.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Madie asked as she stood up.

Charleigh shook her head, taking the first step. “I think I’ll be okay.” The old woman nodded and continued to flip through the magazine.

Della showed Charleigh through the familiar doorway. She’d been there doing the same routine— well, not exactly the same routine— almost six months before. She was weighed, and her blood pressure and temperature were taken. A blood sample was also taken at the nurse’s station before being led down a hallway toward an exam room. Pictures of babies lined each wall
. Charleigh tried to ignore them.

“
Put this on, and we’ll be back in a few minutes,” Della told her, holding out a pink, paper gown.

After doing as she was told, Charleigh sat down on the examination table. She looked down at the plush Gerber carpeting that was the rich reddish color of wine.
God, forgive her for what she was about to do. She knew it was wrong. She knew it was a sin, and yet there didn’t seem like any other choice.

This child would never want for a single material thing in the world if Charleigh had decided to go through with the pregnancy, but
possessions
weren’t a necessity in life. There was love, the most important of all, and Charleigh just didn’t have any.

How could she love another person when she barely loved herself right now?

“Hello, Charleigh,” Doctor Emerson said, from the opened doorway. Observantly, he looked her over closely as he came inside the room, with Doctor Cahill on his heels.

“Hi, Docs.” 

Doctor Emerson leaned against the cabinet. Doctor Cahill sat down on a nearby stool. They exchanged a look before he spoke, “I’m not sure whether to express my condolences or congratulate you.”

“Neither is necessary. I know my options, and I know what needs to be done.”

“Yes, I saw that in your chart. Is this procedure what you really want to do?” Doctor Cahill asked, concerned that the patient might be acting impulsively.

Biting her bottom lip to keep it from trembling, Charleigh shrugged. “I’m going to be straightforward with you as two people I’ve known for a really long time. You know my circumstances, and I’m admitting that I’m a mess. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Doctor Emerson sighed. “Being as it is that I’m pro-life, I’m telling you, Charleigh, that, as both your friend and your doctor, I don’t think this is what you really want.”

She felt the tears rising in her throat. Unable to control them, the first one fell. “What I want is to be able to raise this baby with Jamie. Even though that’s not possible, I still don’t just want to throw it away like yesterday’s newspaper; I’m not that kind of person. But being logical, I realize it would be a mistake to give life to a child that I could irreversibly screw up with my emotional problems. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”

“Have you thought about the psychological effects it could have on you
afterward
? An abortion is an irreversible action.”

“It’s what needs to be done,” Charleigh said with a shrug.

“Okay, I have just a few questions then.” Shaking his head, Doctor Emerson opened her chart. “Last day of your last period?”

Charleigh knew it was the twenty-seventh of August, but she pulled her day planner out of her bag, just to be sure.

“It was only spotting for a few days, though,” Charleigh whispered. “I just figured it was stress from the wedding preparations.”

“Spotting is normal in the first trimester,” Doctor Cahill explained. “So, you could’ve been pregnant, then.”

Doctor Emerson wrote a few notes on the chart. “We’re going to have to do a few tests just to make sure of the approximate conception date.”

“Fine. Whatever you have to do.”

After a physical examination, Doctor Emerson brought in a sonogram machine. Not wanting to see, Charleigh kept her eyes closed during the entire process. The last thing she wanted was to see the tiny figure on-screen and instantly become attached. She’d done that the last time, but not now.

When they were finished, the two doctors left so Charleigh could put her clothes back on. Waiting for them to come back in, she sat like she had earlier.

“Well, we still have some time. About a one-month window if this is still what you want,” Doctor Cahill explained.

“It is.”

“I want to give you some time to think about this. Come back a week from today. If you haven’t changed your mind, then we’ll make arrangements to have the procedure the next day.”

“Fine,” Charleigh said. Eyes on the floor, she slipped off the table.

“Okay,” Doctor Cahill took her hand as she passed by. “Having an abortion isn’t the last resort, Charleigh. Give it some time. If you’re still convinced that you can’t keep the baby, I hope you’ll at least consider adoption.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Charleigh pulled her hand away and made her way toward the exit as quickly as she could. The last thing she wanted was for somebody else to see her cry. She’d already made enough of a fool out of herself today.