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"Are we gonna say prayers tonight?" Katie asked quietly.
Tess forced a comforting smile. "Not tonight, sweetie. I need to ... talk to your daddy."
"T-Tell him we love him," Savannah whispered.
The softly spoken words, whispered by a child but filled with adult fear, was almost more than Tess could bear. It was all she could do to nod.
"Good night, girls."
Turning away, she closed the door behind her and headed toward the barn. It took her a moment to regroup, then she strode purposefully down the dirt road, her chin forced up.
She wouldn't let Jack retreat again. They'd come too far to go back now.
But her good intentions wavered as she neared the barn. Indecision slowed her step. At the door, she paused. Light slid through the darkened slit of the partially open door, crossing her skirt in a snakelike golden streak. From inside came the ragged strains of Jack's labored breathing.
The sound cut through her indecision and revitalized her. Jack was in there, alone, and he was hurting. Tilting her chin again, she slipped inside.
"Help me, God." Jack's prayer was a harsh, anguished moan. "Please ..."
Sadness settled like a hard lump in Tess's heart. He looked so sad and lonely and afraid, standing there at the workbench. His back was to her, but she didn't need to see his face to see the fear in his eyes. The emotion was in every muscle and fiber of his body, in the rigid way he stood, and the thickened rasp of his voice. Even from this distance, she could see the wrinkled red fabric stretched out in front of him. The dried blood was a black splotch across the buttons. Next to the long Johns was a muddy pair of work boots. Tess knew they were size seven.
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Jack had gathered the evidence, thin as it was, and convicted himself.
"Please," he whispered again. "Please ..."
Tess's heart twisted painfully in her chest. Tears stung her eyes.
She understood the formless, aching prayer so well, remembered the tone of voice?harsh with need and low with longing. She'd said the words a thousand times herself, only no one had ever heard them. To the rest of the world, Tess's prayer had been nothing more than the futile movements of a deaf girl's lips. No one had ever heard. No one except God.
She knew how Jack felt, knew it with a certainty that no longer surprised her. Somehow they were linked, she and Jack, and she knew parts of him as well as she knew herself. She knew and understood. He was scared, desperate, lonely.
Loneliness, she knew, was the worst. It made everything more terrifying and overwhelming. She came up beside him without making a sound and touched his arm. "Jack?"
He straightened suddenly, spinning away from her. "What in the hell are you doing here?"
Tess looked in his eyes and saw her worst fear. He was ready to throw it all away again. Ready to run. "Damn it, Jack, don't do this. Don't go backwards again. We've come so far."
He paled. "Go away."
"Jack, you can't shut me out again. I won't let?"
He grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her toward him. She slammed into his chest so hard, the breath blasted from her lungs in a painful wheeze. Her head snapped back. Gasping, she stared up at him.
"It's over, Lissa." Pain glazed his eyes and turned his voice into something scratchy and harsh. "Let it go."
Tess stared at him in horror. The inevitability of this
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moment slipped around her neck like a noose, tightening slowly. Irrevocably. "No," she said in a shaking, desperate voice she hardly recognized. "I won't let you do this."
"You don't have any choice."
Tears blurred her eyes at his calm, quiet words. She squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to cry. "I love you, Jack."
"And I love you." His words were spoken quietly, and with such an aching sadness, Tess felt as if she'd been punched in the stomach.
