Page 71 of The Wilder Widows

“Yes, Alice. This would be him.”

“He sounds delicious.”

Closing my eyes, I pressed my lips together, remembering the taste of his kiss and the smell of his sweaty skin as it slid against mine. “Absolutely delicious. I was irrevocably in love with him in a matter of hours.”

“So, what happened? Why did you marry Bruce if you fell in love with someone else?”

“Tom and I spent the whole week together, most of it in bed. I told him I was engaged, and he begged me to break it off. The feelings for each other were mutual, and I can’t explain it, but I just knew... knew this was the man I was supposed to spend my life with. So, I agreed. I would end my engagement and be with him.”

“So, what happened?” Marge asked, pressing her elbows into her knees while she leaned forward.

“He was a Marine.”

“Ah. A military man. My kind of guy.” Marge slapped her knee.

“And he was on leave, but that Monday, he got called back in for some conflict.”

“What conflict?” Marge asked.

“He didn’t say. All he said was that he loved me, to end my engagement, and as soon as he got back, he would find me.”

“But you married Bruce anyway?” Doris asked, sadness pulling her eyes down. “But Tom loved you. And you loved him.”

With a deep sigh, I admitted the one thing I never told another soul. “A couple months after he’d left, I still struggled for the strength to end it with Bruce. I hadn’t heard from Tom at all, and I had started to wonder if I was just some fling he had no intentions of returning to. That maybe the feelings between us were one-sided, and he was already shacked up with some other gullible girl. Even though I lost hope he was coming back to me, I still decided I couldn’t marry Bruce. I was going to end it anyway. It was then I found out I was pregnant.” I paused, searching for the strength to say it. “And it was Tom’s.”

Three gasps conjoined and ripped through the crisp air.

“Wait. So, Rachel isn’t Bruce’s child?”

Biting my lip, I shook my head.

“Did Bruce know?”

I shook my head harder.

“Does Rachel know?”

“No. Not a soul in the world besides you three knows that truth. Rachel is Tom’s daughter.”

“Holy shit,” Alice breathed.

“Holy cripes.”

“Heavens to Betsy.”

I nodded, agreeing with their sentiments. “Holy shit, cripes, and Heavens to Betsy is right. I can’t believe I just told all of you that.”

“And you never told Tom? Or Bruce? What happened?” Alice stared at me with wide eyes.

“I found out I was pregnant and panicked. And I mean panicked. I knew it was Tom’s. There was no doubt in my mind with the timing after I had talked to the doctor. Not to mention Bruce and I were always careful, and Tom and I had been anything but. When I sat there in that doctor’s office, I couldn’t even fathom what to do. My wedding was less than a month away, I was knocked up, and Tom was nowhere to be found. So instead of calling off the engagement and ending up pregnant and alone, I made a choice right then and there to pretend Tom never existed, my baby was Bruce’s, and I was going to march down that aisle no matter how much I already hated him.”

Doris scooped my hand in hers. “Oh Sylvie, you must have been so scared.”

“Sad. Scared. Guilty. So many emotions. But I swallowed them down and did what I needed to do to make sure my child would be cared for and raised in a family. I married Bruce and let him think Rachel was his. And, of course, he never questioned it.”

“And you never saw Tom again?”

The most painful memory of my life resurfaced, ripping me back open as it did each time it broke free and crept up inside my mind.