Page 147 of Shame the Devil

“I have one more thing to ask,” he said. “Was she pregnant?”

He didn’t want to know. It was the last thing he wanted to know. But he had to know.

Their father said, “No. Why would you think that?”

The relief nearly sent Harlan to his knees. He said, “I think we’re done. Are we done?’

“Yes.” It was Alison, her voice shaking.

“You don’t get it,” their father said. “You don’t understand what it’s like. The pressure. The kids. The bills. You don’t know what it does to a man.”

“You’re wrong,” Harlan said. “We all get it. Alison has kids. I’m going to have a son. We all have pressure. But we were raised by a woman who loved us. That’s why we know how to do it right. And that’s how she wins. She’s stronger even in death than you’ll ever be. Because love wins.”

* * *

Jennifer hadn’t beenable to sit. She’d paced the room for half an hour while Dyma watched her and didn’t say anything, and then they’d gone to the lobby and she’d paced there. She was sure she looked half-crazy, and she didn’t care.

She should have gone with them. She could have waited in the car.

Alison’s husband had the kids in the pool, but after a while, they came out to wait, too. He didn’t say much, but at least he looked like he got it. Finally.

Jennifer sensed them before she saw them. She didn’t even know how, but she was out the hissing double doors and into the humidity, feeling the heat rise off the sidewalk and into her body.

Harlan was holding Annabelle’s hand, striding through the parking lot with a look on his face that made Jennifer’s heart stop.

She didn’t stop to think. She just ran. When she got there, he grabbed her and held her tight. She reached out an arm, grabbed Annabelle, and pulled her in, too, and now, Annabelle started to cry.

Harlan still didn’t say a word. He just hung on.

61

Falling Like Rain

They buriedhis mom in Bismarck.

“It’s the right place,” Vanessa had said the night before, when they’d all been sitting around Harlan’s hotel suite, drained and exhausted, eating not-all-that-Chinese food and drinking wine. Their grandparents were there, too, their grandmother white and strained, their grandfather looking about ten years older.

Vanessa continued, “At least it seems that way to me. What do you think, Grandma?”

“She should be where her kids want her to be,” their grandmother answered. “She lived for the four of you. Let her lie where you decide.”

“I think she should be here.” That was Alison, who’d been the quietest of all of them today. She was still holding her daughter, Mattie, even though the two-year-old had long since fallen asleep, like the little girl was her comfort object and her shelter.

That should have been her husband.

Harlan was beginning to realize that what he’d thought of as withdrawal, as rejection, was the cry of a woman overwhelmed by her life, who literally felt like one more straw would break her. He was going to have a quiet talk with her before he left and let her know that if she needed him, he was here. He suspected that her marriage was failing, and that she knew it.

He needed to tell her that she had another chapter in her, and that he’d do what he could to help her write it, because Jennifer was right. That was the best of him, of all of them. The gift their mom had left them.

He asked Alison, “Why do you think so?” Keeping it neutral. Half of him wanted to protest, to say that he never wanted to see this town again, but he suspected there was more to the picture.

She said, “Because she loved the sunflowers. Because she loved the summers, when she’d take us to the river and we’d spend all day and have a picnic. She even loved the winters. Does anybody still have their ice skates?”

“She made the best hot chocolate,” Alison said. “And she’d let us toast marshmallows in the fireplace, even though Dad said it was too messy. She always said, ‘We’ll clean it up. Some things are worth a little mess.’”

They were all silent at that until Harlan said, “I was remembering, back this winter. The day I met you,” he told Jennifer. “I heard a great horned owl, that lonesome sound, and I remembered Mom standing outside on the porch in the freezing cold, telling me about them. About how they mated for life, and that was beautiful.” He took Jennifer’s hand where she sat beside him on the floor, their backs against the wall, because her back was hurting and the couch was too soft.Massage later,he thought, and told her, “At the time, I thought, ‘That’s not all that beautiful,’ but I think she was right. It can be beautiful.”

She smiled at him with all her warmth, and he kissed her head and said, “Yeah. I think so. And I think you guys are right, too. This is where our memories are. Maybe where her best times were.” He looked at his grandparents. “I’m not discounting her childhood. Just …”