“M-mum w-wants you to s-stay for dinner,” she chattered blankly, still staring forward out into the dark rainy night.
But what about you, Elaina?
“I’m sorry for screaming at you,” I said softly.
I wished she’d look at me, but she wouldn’t…or couldn’t after our terrible shouting match.
And so, I just sat there and watched her, the heater inside the car working overtime, making the air warmer by the minute.
“It’s okay,” she said finally, wiping one side of her face with her fingers. Was she crying?
“Elaina…look at me, please.” I waited while time seemed to slow down to a crawl.
She turned her head toward me, her chin up and trembling like she was guarding herself from falling apart.
“I didn’t know you worked there. I wouldn’t have taken the job if I’d known. They tricked me into applying, and I just don’t want you to think I did this on purpose—”
I cut her emotional ramble off with two fingers to her lips. “I know. I know it was them and not you. Don’t you worry about it.”
She froze when I touched her, looking fragile enough to shatter at any second.
I dropped my hand away, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to run it around the back of her neck and draw her up against me. I still wanted her. Despite everything that had happened between us, all of the betrayal and abandonment—my heart just didn’t care about any of it. She was here. My Cherry Girl was here right beside me.
18
Neil drove me home. I was numb and it wasn’t from the cold rain. Subdued was a good word to describe how we both were after that blow up on the pavement. I’d never seen Neil lose his temper like that. So angry. He’d driven his car up onto the pavement for Christ’s sake.
He pulled into the drive of my house and I found the courage to ask him.
“Are you coming in? Mum wants you to stay.”
He turned and met me head on, his big hands still gripping the steering wheel. “What about you, Elaina? Do you want me to stay?”
“Well, is it—is it all right for you to be here?”
He looked puzzled by my question.
“What?”
He wasn’t going to make this easy on me apparently. I swallowed and went for it.
“Are you married?”
His eyes widened for an instant. “Come again?”
“Don’t make me ask that again, please.”
He paused for a minute before responding, as if he really needed to choose the right words. “I’m going to chalk that one up to the fact you’re not yourself right now. You’re soaked through to the skin, and we’ve had a row that’s upset both of us—but did you just ask me if I’m married?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
He scoffed and shook his head, looking away from me now and out the window. “No. I’m not married.”
“So you and Cora didn’t stay together?”
He flipped back toward me. “Umm, no,” he said slowly, shaking his head again, his lips slightly parted.
“Why didn’t you, Neil?”
“I didn’t want to, Elaina.”
Fear had started to bloom in the pit of my stomach and I suddenly felt ice cold again. “But the b-baby…I saw Cora after you left. She was pregnant and showing. I saw with my own eyes.” While Neil sat glaring at me, a thought rushed through my mind. Oh no. “Did she lose it?”
“No, she didn’t lose it. She had a son.” Neil had turned away again, as if he couldn’t stand the sight of me. He was answering my questions while speaking to the window and looking out at the rain.
“Oh. What’s his name?”
“I don’t know. I only saw him one time and she didn’t tell me.”
“You don’t—you don’t see your son?” This wasn’t the man that I knew. I didn’t understand any of this. Why didn’t he see his son or even know his name?
He turned back to me once more and told me why, his eyes full of sadness I could read clearly even from the dim light inside his car. “I don’t see him because he is not mine.”
I shuddered as a chill rushed through my whole body and froze me. I was speechless for a moment, unable to speak, afraid to look at him. Terrified for what else I’d see in his eyes.
I don’t see him because he is not mine.
“But—but she said—I saw you with the doctor scan…You never denied it…
I don’t see him because he is not mine.
“I wrote you a letter. I told you I understood why you had to be with Cora…”
Neil didn’t react at first. He just looked at me, his expression growing darker and darker as understanding dawned for both of us. I realized why he was so angry.
I don’t see him because he is not mine.
“Oh, God.” I slammed a hand over my mouth, trying to quiet the rising panic flooding me.
As if that would work.
Involuntary reactions, nothing more.
He still hadn’t said anything. Neil was letting me do all the talking, giving me plenty of rope to hang myself on.
“If he wasn’t your baby, then why…why didn’t you say something? You let me go and didn’t tell me…Neil—please say this wasn’t all for nothing.”
I could feel the hysteria letting loose. The truth dawning on me with such brutal force I could barely breathe.
I don’t see him because he is not mine.
He leaned in very close and grabbed me by the shoulders, forcing me to own up to my horrifying mistake, gripping tightly and shaking me a little with every sharp bite of each word he spoke.
“Why did you leave without ever giving me a chance to tell you anything? You just left me there on the eve of my deployment. You let me go. Didn’t you love me enough to even listen at all, Elaina? Was I not worth even that much to you?”
I closed my eyes as my heart collapsed in on itself. My tragically grievous error now apparent, I had nowhere to escape. What had I done? I’d been the cause of so much needless pain for the both of us, all because I’d been afraid to listen and to share any part of him with anyone else.
Silent tears poured out of me as I tried to find the words. “No, no, noooo.” I sobbed, “I saw her pregnant—we all believed it was your baby…even you believed it…” I lost the ability to say any more. What could I say to him, anyway? What words were there to offer?