He said, “What about graduation? Does Ellen need a ride there or is she meeting us?”
Roger was confused. He was the least likely person I knew who’d ever be confused, but this time there was plenty of reason. I had to explain this to him.
“I won’t be attending.”
Roger started to argue and I raised my hand to still his voice.
“Let me tell you why. Ellen and I had a talk. She heard some nonsense from her friends, and the parents of her friends, that Spencer Bell was her father.”
“I remember him from the night of the accident.”
“Yes, him.”
“You’ve never been willing to talk about Ellen’s father. Not that you seemed particularly stricken about the loss—it was long ago, and you’re a very practical, levelheaded person. But you didn’t want to discuss it, and I didn’t think it was my business unless you wanted it to be.”
“Spencer isn’t Ellen’s father.” Poor Roger’s world was about to change, too, through no fault of his own, but because he cared about Ellen and me. Roger was yet one more person I’d wronged, at least by omission. It hurt so much that I felt numb, thank goodness. Otherwise, how could I bear it?
“Spencer was the father of the first Ellen. We, Gran and me, I mean . . . we lost her when she was still an infant.” I watched his face. He was speechless now. “Ellen, the present Ellen, turned up on my front porch when she was two years old or a little more, courtesy of old George Bridger.”
He pulled his hand away. He moved back and sat straighter.
“I didn’t intend to keep her, but Gran . . . Anyway, one thing followed another, and before long . . . we had our Ellen back.” I clenched my fingers together. “When all this came up with Spencer Bell, I told Ellen the truth. It was time. I didn’t want her to derail her life, her future, because of my choices, my lies.”
Roger was all about integrity. The woman he knew as Hannah Cooper had lived a well-constructed life. Practical and levelheaded, he’d called me. But herbs and vegetables—good things—started life in the mud. Why should people be different? The messiness of it, the lies, would trouble Roger, and I knew that. Perhaps that was part of the reason I’d always kept him at arm’s length emotionally.
“I’m sorry, Roger. I don’t know what will come of this. I understand you might not want to be my friend, but please finish my house.”
He blinked. His jaw moved, but it was a long moment before he got out the words. “All this, and you’re worried about the house?”
“I need the house. Regardless of whatever else happens, a half-built house does me no good at all.”
Did I sound too practical? Every trait had a good and bad aspect. The same was true for Roger, though likely his sins had been less heinous than mine. He frowned, trying to process what he’d learned. I wished I could smooth those lines away, but I was busy growing my own, and to touch him would be like making promises, perhaps suggesting bargains that would hurt him.
Roger stood. Without a word, he went to the door, opened it, but then he paused. He faced me, the light behind him throwing his own face into shadow, and asked, “The first baby. What happened to her? Where is she?”
A familiar darkness closed in. It shielded me and allowed me to speak. “She went to sleep and didn’t wake up. I buried her in the cemetery.”
He closed the door behind him as he left.
I started shaking. Whole-body shaking. An earthquake that I alone felt. I gripped the blanket, holding it tightly around me, but I wasn’t cold. The blanket was for holding me together lest the many parts of me go flying, scattering into the world to be lost. My body wouldn’t need a burial. That was a good thing, as there’d be no one left on this earth who cared enough to dig the hole.
I’d shattered once before—that night in the cemetery. Suddenly, my fingers began stinging again. I held out my hands. They were clean, and yet the dirt was still there, staining my flesh for all to see—all who knew the truth. Now there were more who knew. Word would get around. Soon others would ask.
If I was lucky, I would lose my daughter for the second time, but I’d still have the Hollow. It was a strange world in which I could consider such a loss to be “lucky.” But if Ellen was safe and well and moving forward with her plans, I could accept it. I could live an acceptable life alone with minimal interaction with the world. In fact, it might be a nice change to live without my heart being torn between hiding the past and wanting to live and love in the present.
Once upon a time, I’d dreamed about the future. For years, I’d imagined how my life would be after Ellen left for college. Accordingly, I built my plans. Now I tucked them away forever. The best I could hope for was a completed house and that the law would allow me to stay in Cooper’s Hollow.
I remembered the broken pot. Later, after all the workers had left, I crept out of the cabin and into the house to retrieve the pieces. They were all gone. Swept away, and gone with the trash. Not one tiny piece remained.
Days had passed since I’d told Ellen the truth. The windows and exterior doors were installed and the remaining drywall was hung, taped, and mudded. Each day, after the workers left, I emerged from my cabin and walked through the emptiness.
These looked like rooms now. I could see how the furniture would lay out and the colors I might choose for the walls. There was a part of me that still cared. Still hoped. I hated and loved that part all at the same time and didn’t try to do otherwise. I was in limbo, and I was content with that because I knew it could change for the worse at any moment. As of now, Ellen could return to me. Liam might forgive me. Roger would build my house. I was home again in Cooper’s Hollow. So long as I was here, there was a sliver, a tiny window of hope, that things would come right again.
I paused and looked across Cub Creek to the cemetery. It remained untouched by the changes in the Hollow or the recent events in my life. None of the construction crew had been near it, not for a shady lunch spot or to recline on the wall. Why had I ever thought they might? People did vandalize old cemeteries, but what was I protecting? I’d been protecting Ellen from the truth, but the cemetery? Gran and Grand were gone. Ensuring respect? Yes, that was part of it. But not of the empty graves. They’d served their purpose. But of Ellen, the first Ellen, my precious baby Ellen . . .
I hadn’t seen the figure on the stone wall again. After all the years of tender care I’d given the cemetery, now I wanted to avoid it. I was almost afraid of it.
I was also clearheaded. I’d slept myself out despite the awkwardness of the chair. First and foremost, I needed food and a shower. I would pick up fresh clay at the shop, then return to Rose Lane after dark. Clay—I needed to dig my fingers back into it.