Page 36 of Summer Weddings

T he first snowfall of the year came in the third week of September.

Thick flurries drifted down throughout the day, covering the ground and obscuring familiar outlines.

Mitch thought he should’ve been accustomed to winter’s debut by now, but he wasn’t.

However beautiful, however serene, this soft-looking white blanket was only a foretaste of the bitter cold to follow.

He looked at his watch. In a few minutes he’d walk over to the school to meet Chrissie. He’d gotten into the habit of picking up his daughter on Friday afternoons.

Not because she needed him or had asked him to come. No, he wryly suspected that going to the school was rooted in some masochistic need to see Bethany.

He rationalized that he was giving Chrissie this extra attention because he worked longer hours on Friday evenings, when Diane Hestead, a high school student, stayed with her.

That was the only night of the week Ben served alcohol.

Before the women had arrived, a few of the pilots and maybe a trapper or two wandered into the Hard Luck Café.

But with the news of women coming to town, Ben’s place had begun to fill up, not only with pilots but pipeline workers and other men.

For the past three Friday nights, John Henderson and Bethany had dined at the café. They came and left before eight, when Ben opened the bar.

From the gossip circulating around town, Mitch learned they’d become something of an item, although both insisted they were “only friends.”

Mitch knew otherwise. On Bethany’s first date with John, he’d happened upon them kissing. Friends indeed! Even now, his gut tightened at the memory.

For the thousandth time he reminded himself that he’d been the one to encourage her to see John. He couldn’t very well reveal his discontent with that situation when she’d done nothing more than follow his advice.

He’d tried to convince himself that discovering John and Bethany together—kissing—had been sheer coincidence. But it hadn’t been.

As the public safety officer, Mitch routinely checked the streets on Friday nights.

He’d seen them leave Ben’s place on foot that first evening and had discreetly followed them.

On subsequent Fridays he’d continued his spy tactics, always making sure he was out of sight.

He wasn’t particularly proud of himself, but he found it impossible to resist the compulsion.

Except for their first date, when he’d seen them kissing outside her house, she’d invited John in. The pilot never stayed more than a few minutes, but of course Mitch knew what the two of them were doing.

He kept telling himself he should be pleased she was dating John; Henderson was a decent sort.

But Mitch wasn’t pleased. At night he lay awake staring at the four shrinking walls of his bedroom.

Still, he knew it wasn’t the walls that locked him in, that kept him from building a relationship with Bethany.

It was his guilt, his own doubts and fears, that came between him and Bethany. This was Lori’s legacy to him. She’d died and in that moment made certain he’d never be free of her memory.

Mitch checked his watch a second time and decided to head over to the school. The phone rang as he closed and locked the door, but he resisted the temptation to answer it. The machine would pick up the message, and he’d deal with the call when he returned to the office.

Mitch could hear excited laughter in the distance as the children frolicked in the snow. Chrissie loved playing outside, although there’d be precious little of that over the next few months.

By the time Christmas came, Hard Luck would be in total darkness. But with the holidays to occupy people’s minds and lift their spirits, the dark days didn’t seem nearly as depressing as they might have.

Mitch had just rounded the corner to the school when he saw Bethany. She was half trotting with her head bowed against the wind, her steps filled with frantic purpose. She glanced up and saw him and stopped abruptly.

“Mitch.” Her hand pushed a stray lock of hair away from her face, and he noticed for the first time how pale she was. “It’s Chrissie. She’s been hurt.”

The words hit Mitch like a fist. He ran toward her and gripped her by the elbows. “What happened?”

“She fell on the ice and cut herself. The school tried to call you, but you’d already left the office.”

“Where is she?”

“At the clinic…” Bethany’s voice quavered precariously. “I knew you were probably on your way to the school. Oh, Mitch, I’m so afraid.”

It was bad. It had to be, otherwise Bethany wouldn’t be this pale, this frightened.

Panic galvanized him and he began run ning toward the clinic.

He’d gone half a block before he realized that Bethany was behind him, her feet slipping and sliding on the snow.

Fearing she might stumble and fall, he turned back and stretched out a hand to her.

She grasped his fingers with surprising strength.

Together they hurried toward the clinic.

It couldn’t have taken them more than two or three minutes to reach the building, but it felt like a lifetime to Mitch.

He couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to Chrissie.

His daughter, his joy. She’d given his life purpose after Lori’s death. She’d given him a reason to live.

He jerked open the clinic door, and the first thing he saw was blood. Crimson droplets on the floor. Chrissie’s blood. He stopped cold as icy fingers crept along his backbone.

Dotty Harlow, the nurse who’d replaced Pearl Inman, was nowhere in sight; neither was Angie Hughes.

“Dotty!” he called urgently.

“Daddy.” Chrissie moaned his name, and the sound of her pain pierced his heart.

Dotty stepped out of a cubicle in the back. Her soothing voice calmed his panic as she explained that Chrissie had required a couple of stitches, which she was qualified to do.

Angie, who’d been talking to Chrissie, stepped aside when he came into the room. Chrissie sniffled loudly and her small arms circled his neck; when she spoke, her words came in a staccato hiccupping voice. “I…fell…and cut my leg real…bad.”

“You’re going to be fine, pumpkin.” He pressed his hand to the side of her sweet face and laid his cheek on her hair.

“I want Ms. Ross.”

“I’m here,” Bethany whispered from behind Mitch.

Chrissie stretched out her arms and Bethany hugged her close. Watching the two of them together threatened his re solve, as nothing else could have, to guard his heart against this woman.

“You were very brave,” Dotty told Chrissie, as she put away the medical supplies, and Bethany helped his daughter back into her torn jeans.

“I tried not to cry,” Chrissie said, tears glistening in her eyes, “but it hurt too bad.”

“She’s going to need to take this medication,” Dotty said, distracting Mitch. The nurse rattled off a list of complicated-sounding instructions. Possibly because he looked confused and uncertain, Dotty wrote everything down and reviewed it with him a second time.

“I can take her home?” he asked.

“Sure,” Dotty said. “If you have any questions, feel free to call me or Angie.”

“Thanks, I will.”

“Can I go home now?” Chrissie asked.

“We’re on our way, pumpkin.”

“I want Ms. Ross to come with us. Please, Daddy, I want Ms. Ross.”

Any argument he might have offered died at the pleading note in Chrissie’s voice. There was very little he could have denied his daughter in that moment.

When they arrived at the house and went inside, Chrissie climbed on Bethany’s lap, and soon her eyelids drifted shut.

“How’d it happen?” Mitch asked tersely, sitting across from Bethany.

Even now, the thought of losing his child made him go cold with the worst fear he’d ever experienced.

When he’d found Lori dead, he hadn’t felt the panic that overcame him when a terrified Bethany had told him his daughter was hurt.

“I’m not sure,” Bethany said. “As she always does on Fridays, Chrissie offered to clean the boards and erasers. My guess is that she took them outside and slipped. She must have cut her leg on the side of the Dumpster. One of the other children came running to get me.”

“Thank God you were close at hand.”

Bethany squeezed her eyes shut and nodded. When she opened them again, he noticed how warm and gentle they were as she looked down at Chrissie. “I don’t mind telling you, it shook me, finding her like that,” Bethany admitted. “You have a very special child, Mitch.”

“I know.” And he did. He felt a strange and unfamiliar blend of emotions as he gazed at the two of them together.

One he loved beyond life itself. The other he wanted to love, and couldn’t.

He had nothing to offer her—not his heart, not marriage.

And it was because he’d failed Lori, just as she’d failed herself.

And failed him, failed her daughter. Day in and day out, his wife had grown more desperate, more unhappy.

After Chrissie’s birth, she’d fallen into depression.

Nothing he said or did seemed to help, and he realized now that he hadn’t paid enough attention, hadn’t understood the reality of her despair.

Mitch blamed himself; his lack of awareness had cost Lori her life.

“She’s fast asleep,” Bethany whispered, smoothing Chrissie’s hair away from her temple. Her words freed him from his bitter memories and returned him to the present.

Mitch stood, lifting his daughter from Bethany’s arms. He carried her into her room while Bethany went ahead to turn down the covers, then placed his daughter in her bed.

As soundlessly as possible they left the room, keeping the door half-open.

There was no excuse for Bethany to linger. She had a date with another man—but Mitch didn’t want her to leave.

“I suppose you have to get ready for your dinner with John?” he said, tucking his hands in his back pockets.

“No.” Her eyes held his and she slowly shook her head.