Page 89 of Perfectly Matched: Harbor Falls Romance Collection

Jack felt the blood drain from his face.

“Pregnant?”

He watched Jasmine’s head dip and nod. “Yes.”

Unable to sit, he jerked back and up off the couch, raking his fingers through his hair, and paced in front of the fireplace.

He’d not been angry at Jasmine—not for a long time. Oh, when she didn’t show up that night after graduation, and when he’d stopped by Ms. Leinie’s the next day and had learned she’d run off to go live with her aunt in Atlanta, leaving a note behind for Ms. Leinie on her bed—nothing for him—he’d been plenty angry for weeks.

And sad. Depressed.

But pregnant?

He whirled back. Jasmine’s face looked a mess, eyes swollen, cheeks red and damp.

“Why? Jasmine, why didn’t you tell me?”

A million questions circled his brain.

“I would have helped. Taken care of you. I deserved to know.”

“I know, Jack. I know. But—”

“But what? There is no ‘but’ Jazzy. We were pregnant. Not just you. We. I had a right to know. To raise…”

He stopped short.

“God, Jasmine. Where is the baby? Child?”

She stood.

“Jack, I haven’t thought about this in years. I—I am feeling all kinds of things I’ve pushed deep inside me. Suddenly it’s all…”

She hiccupped a little and swiped at her eyes.

“I feel like I’m coming apart at the seams…and I don’t know how to—”

“Jazzy. The baby. Tell me.”

She gulped.

“How— How do I tell…?”

Pain and anguish ripped through Jack’s chest. He rushed forward and grasped each of her biceps.

“Hell, Jasmine. What did you do? Where is our child?”

“Dead!”

The word burst from her mouth and Jack bolted backwards. Jasmine turned, stumbled toward the table where she’d left her purse and keys earlier, and snatched them up. Spinning back, she faced Jack for a moment, breathing in and out quick, sharp breaths.

“He was stillborn. Our baby somehow died inside of me, Jack. I lived with my aunt, but she could barely take care of herself, let alone a pregnant teenage girl. I didn’t get the proper pre-natal care, and there was a problem. I gave birth to a dead baby. Something about his heart. And it was the hardest thing I have ever had to go through in all of my life.”

She turned then and headed for the front door. All Jack could do was stand there and watch her go, until sudden grief for a lost child he would never know overtook him, and he dropped to his knees.

****

Jasmine got in her car and drove. No destination in mind, she just needed to get away. Think. Pull herself together. What she hated about leaving, more than anything, was that she was leaving Jack. Again. But she hadn’t been prepared to have that full discussion. And the emotion that had welled up inside of her took her totally by surprise.

Pull yourself together, Jasmine.

The steady drone of tires on pavement slowed the racing cadence of her heart. Calmed her. Somewhat. Inside, she was a mess, and that was something she was not used to.

Cool, calm and collected. That’s her.

“Not today,”

she muttered.

She drove straight through Harbor Falls, the few stoplights and lower speed limits forcing her to pace herself. She kept going until she crossed the railroad tracks and turned off Main Street, and realized she knew exactly where she was going.

Her foot eased off the accelerator and her car slowed as she approached 102 East Court Street. Once there, she pulled over and parked. For several long moments, she stared at the decaying front porch, the rotting steps, and the tattered screen door leading inside. A gray cat stretched and stalked across the porch. Its presence made her wonder if her original assumption, that the house was abandoned, was indeed correct.

In her mind’s eye, she saw the screen door ease open and her father step out on the porch, white T-shirt, jeans, taking a drag off a cigarette. He leaned against the porch baluster and exhaled a stream of smoke. His gaze surveyed his surroundings.

****

Jasmine, 1989

I was sitting in the back of a police cruiser. By myself. Sitting up straight on the cold, hard bench seat, studying the pieces of metal that separated the back seat from the front. The doors were locked, and I couldn’t get out. I’d tried. Blue and red lights swirled above the car, casting their reflection against the dirty, gray shingles of my house. I’d stopped crying, but my eyes were still blurry, my cheeks tight from drying tears and snot.

My daddy was on the porch. Drunk. Arguing with the policeman. Then I watched him sit on the steps, hang his head in his hands.

I’d been roused from my bed by a stranger. A woman. She was outside the car now, standing right beside the door where I was sitting, talking to another policeman. I didn’t know where Mommy was.

She’d tucked me in with a story and a song hours earlier. Daddy wasn’t home from work yet. But sometimes Daddy didn’t come home from work at all until the next morning, when he’d stumble in about the time I was eating breakfast, getting ready for school. I knew I had to hurry to get out of the bathroom on those days, when he wasn’t there yet, because he’d want the shower as soon as he stepped in the door. He’d clean up, drink a couple of cups of coffee that Mommy had made for him, and then head out to work again.

I was used to it.

But it didn’t happen that way today. Something was wrong.

A man in a black, long car pulled up, got out, and went to the porch. He talked to my daddy and the police, and then went inside. He looked important. I just wanted to know where Mommy was.

The woman outside tapped on the window.

“You okay, honey?” she said.

I nodded. Wanted to cry again. Didn’t.

I held it in. Be strong, Jasmine. Be a strong girl. Mommy had said those words tonight. I love you.

The man from the black car came out and stood on the porch. He crooked his finger to some other men. They pulled a long bed thing out of the back of the black car and rolled it into the house. My heart kicked inside my chest. I didn’t know why, it just did. And over the next few minutes, my life went into slow motion. The things happening in front me moved in reverse time-warp speed. And a small, but growing voice inside of me said.

“There is nothing you can do about this, Jasmine.”

Be strong, girl. Be strong.

The bed and the men came out the front door. They lifted it down the porch steps. And my mommy’s arm slipped out from under the sheet and hung off the side.

I screamed and beat at the metal between the seats until my palm was bloody.

****

Jack turned the corner from Main and Court and immediately spotted Jasmine’s car. He’d driven all over town and hadn’t found her—finally giving up, assuming she’d headed back to Atlanta—and then decided to stop by the construction site to check on a few things.

The last person he expected to see in this part of town was Jasmine.

His heart heavy, feeling the same sort of confusion he’d felt years earlier, he parked in front of the old Belk’s Bar. He was relieved to have found her, and his heart lightened a bit. But was she ready to see him, after the scene at his house? As he crossed the street, he watched her sitting on the steps of an old house, leaning against a post, staring out into space.

Slowly, he approached. She turned and looked his way. She’d been crying but wasn’t now. That was good. Still, he moved with caution, carefully navigating both the deteriorating steps and their rickety relationship.

Her gaze followed him as he settled in facing her. A small span of silence separated them.

“I lived here for eleven years,”

she started, glancing toward the partially open door.

“I was relatively happy. I didn’t know anything else but what our life was. I thought it was normal. It wasn’t. I didn’t know any better until I got to Ms. Leinie’s, and that was a change, for sure.”

She stopped and Jack let the silence between them add to the conversation.

She heaved a sigh.

“Mommy killed herself. She took a lot of pills and went to sleep. I guess she knew our life wasn’t normal. I wish she had been stronger.”

She looked at him.

“That’s why I had to be strong, you know? I didn’t want to end up like my mommy.”

He nodded. Understanding.

“The next three years went downhill. I tried to take care of the house, go to school, make the coffee for Daddy. I tried. We hid it well that he wasn’t there most of the time, and I was way too young to be taking on all of that responsibility. I even made sure the electric bill was paid because Daddy often forgot. I’d sneak money out of his wallet, a few dollars at a time, and stash them away until I had enough to walk down to the bank and pay the bill. It got so they knew I was coming, eventually, and it was enough to keep the lights and heat turned on. I think they took pity on me.”

She looked at Jack, her gaze playing over his face. He felt her need for him to understand, because they’d never gone this deep into Jasmine’s past, before this. And it explained so much.

“But when I turned eleven, it wasn’t enough. One week in January, Daddy didn’t come home. I went to school and back every day, and he wasn’t there. Seven days. Groceries were almost gone. I didn’t have any money. And they turned off the heat. I told my teacher, finally, when she asked why I was so tired. How can you sleep when you are freezing and hungry? The next day I went to Ms. Leinie’s.”

“Oh, Jazzy.”

“And two years after that, my dad when to prison. To tell you the truth, I’m not even sure why. No one really talked to me about it. I visited him once. Ms. Leinie took me on a family day. It didn’t go well, and I never wanted to go back. I think he got out a few years ago. I haven’t heard from him.”

“You don’t know where he is?”

“I don’t. And it is okay.”

Her life had been hard. So much harder than his. He’d always known that, but as kids, what do you really comprehend? Now, his soul ached for her.

He studied her face. Her demeanor. She looked at ease, comfortable, sitting there. A mixture, perhaps, of feeling defeated, and resolved at the same time. He wasn’t sure which. She just appeared calm.

Acceptance. That was it. Perhaps.

“I went to law school to help the children. I lived what they live. Thank God for Ms. Leinie. And to think, I left and never talked to her again. And now she’s left me all of this money and I need to figure out what to do—”

“She knew you loved her.”

Jasmine peered into his eyes. “Oh?”

He nodded.

“We’d talk about you from time to time.”

Her face screwed into a small puzzle.

“I had no clue.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.”

She closed her eyes. “Touche.”

An expectant silence fell between then, then Jasmine added.

“Ms. Leinie was right.”

“About what?”

She shifted, angling toward him.

“I guess your parents probably knew about my family. I guess the whole town did. It was more than that I was a bi-racial child, it was that my daddy was white trash and in prison, and my mommy was a black woman who must have had something really wrong with her to kill herself. Why would your parents want you to be married to me?”

“Jazzy…”

Jack eased closer.

She shook her head and put a hand up. Jack sat still.

“It’s okay. I understand it all now. I probably would have done the same thing, if I were in their shoes. But when you are eighteen and in love, and someone tells you that you are living a pipe dream, you don’t hear what they are actually saying. All you hear are the rumblings of your past spurting up to hurt your heart. The snickers from kids in the lunch line. The sad looks from parents as they herded their kids away. It all came back when Ms. Leinie was trying to talk candidly with me. I shouldn’t have said the awful things I said to her.”

Jack exhaled and reached for her hand.

“She was just trying to warn me, protect my heart. And I had to go get all bitchy on her. And then when I did, I knew I had to leave there as soon as possible because I felt so bad.”

“You never apologized?”

“No.”

“But she never forgot you, did she? And evidently she forgave you. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here today.”

She nodded, glancing off. Eyes closed.

Jack eased out a long breath.

“Jasmine, I’m sorry I yelled at you earlier. My God, I was in shock.”

Her eyes flashed open. For the longest moment she held his gaze, and then whispered.

“Jack, I pushed that pain away fifteen years ago. I had to, so I could move on and do what I had to do. I didn’t keep it from you on purpose. The baby dying part, anyway. When I left, I figured I’d write or call you and tell you about the baby when I was settled in with my aunt. I thought, maybe, me getting out of Harbor Falls would be the best thing. Especially after Ms. Leinie…”

She paused and didn’t finish.

“But one thing led to another and by the time the problem happened with the baby it was too late. So, I just did it all. Alone. And then I let it go.”

Oh, Jazzy. If I could only turn back time.

“I wish I had been there for you.”

“I wish that too.”

An awkward pause settled between them.

“He was a boy, Jack,”

she added softly.

Something gripped his throat. A son. Oh, God.

“Jasmine, I don’t want to bring back any pain for you but…did you see him? Hold him?”

She sniffled and nodded.

“For a while. They let me hold him. He had the darkest hair. I couldn’t stop touching it, fiddling with it. He was a beautiful child, Jack. And then I had to give him back, let him go.”

“Did you? Really? Let it go?”

Her eyes welled up; tears spilled over. “No,”

she said softly. “No.”

Jack’s eyes stung. He scooted across the porch step and pulled her into his arms. She rested her head on his shoulder and sighed, then sobbed a little.

“Sh... I have you now, Jazzy. I’m here now.”

She clutched at his back and held him tight.

“Thank you, Jack. I’m glad you know now. I’m so sorry about everything.”

After a moment, she pulled away, closed her eyes, and distanced herself from him. She leaned her head back against the post, her face pointing skyward. She breathed deep and Jack watched her chest expand, and her shoulders relax a little as she exhaled. They sat there for a while in silence.

Finally, she sat up.

“How did you find me? I never told you where I lived before I came to Ms. Leinie’s.”

“By accident, actually. Not that I wasn’t looking for you. I was. But I was on my way to check on the construction site—Ms. Leinie’s project.”

Her gaze narrowed.

“Ms. Leinie’s project?”

He nodded.

“Yes. Would you like to see?”