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He told her how sorry he was. How desperately he’d wanted to live so he could come back to her and their daughter. He asked her to find it in her heart to forgive him for ever having left her.
Then soon, so much sooner than she wanted, Zane was gone. He left before he could answer her questions, before she could say all the things that crowded her heart.
Suddenly, without warning, the room grew cold and dark once again.
Lesley curled into a tight ball, wrapping his love around her and their baby as tightly as she could, and waited.
Twenty-eight hours later Carl arrived with Candy Hoffman to tell her what she already knew. Both seemed surprised by how well Lesley received the news that Zane was gone.
How gentle Carl had been. His and Candy’s tender concern touched her heart. Lesley was grateful for the way Candy sat by her side and held her hand. But it was Candy Hoffman who wept, not Lesley. It was Candy who asked a long list of questions. Candy who demanded answers.
Not Lesley. Not then.
Lesley sat and listened stoically. The words barely penetrated the dense fog of her grief. The details weren’t important. In time she’d ask Carl and learn what she needed to know. All that her heart could bear, all that her mind could assimilate in those first few weeks was the confirmation that Zane had been killed.
* * *
The months passed. One day tumbled into the next with her barely aware of time passing. She had no appetite. She slept only when her physical body caved in to the demand for rest.
She took a leave of absence from her job, and faced each day with bleak loneliness. She alternated between loving and missing Zane to the point of insanity, to swearing she hated him for the way he’d used and left her. An emotional medium had yet to be found.
The one surprise in all this was the friendship she struck with Candy Hoffman. With Carl, too, but on a different level.
Those first few weeks, Candy made a number of excuses to stop off at the house to visit Lesley. With Mrs. Applegate’s encouragement, her newfound friend forced Lesley out of the dark library, urged her to stand and soak up the sunlight. Encouraged her to talk about Zane.
The progress was slow, but eventually Lesley began to look forward to Candy’s visits. If for nothing else, Lesley would forever be grateful that Candy helped her take her eyes off her loss enough to recognize the one truly amazing gift Zane had given her: their child.
Because Candy was pregnant and alone, because the new lives their bodies nurtured thrilled them, they shared a deep and abiding bond.
Carl, whom Lesley had always considered brusque and impatient, displayed another side of his personality with her. He made a point of checking up on her often and helped her in numerous ways.
The leaves on the huge maple trees turned several shades of autumn. Burnt orange, gold and bronze leaves covered the yard. The days were much cooler now. The nights longer.
By some unspoken agreement, Carl never stopped off at the house when Candy was there. It amazed Lesley how adept they were at missing one another. She never asked either one about their relationship, or lack of one. But even in her grief, Lesley couldn’t help notice how much in love Candy and Carl were.
One afternoon, when the sun shone and the day was crisp and cold, Lesley sat at her favorite spot on the concrete bench where she could view the water. She sat here often, enjoyed breathing in the fresh air. Enjoyed talking to her unborn child.
Over the past several months, Lesley had made friends with Eddie and Dennis, the two young boys Zane had found on the beach that one summer’s day. They sometimes came and fed apples to Arabesque, Zane’s gelding. Lesley was sure it wasn’t her company they found stimulating, but the goodies Mrs. Applegate took delight in feeding them afterward.
Lesley’s thoughts were occupied with the boys’ visit when she made her way back toward the house. Her musings were interrupted by the sight of Carl’s truck barreling down the driveway.
Lesley waited for him.
“Hello, Carl.”
“Lesley.” He eyed her rounding tummy. Unable to button several pairs of pants now, she’d taken to wearing ones with stretch waistbands. The smock was new and cheerful.
Lesley laughed and pressed her hands over her abdomen. “I’m starting to show, aren’t I?”
“You’re five months?”
She nodded.
“Candy?”
Lesley understood the question without him having to voice it. “Our due dates are within a week of one another.”
He looked away as though he were embarrassed to be asking her about Candy. “How’s she feeling?”
