Dearest Vincent,
This letter is so hard for me to write. I’m afraid I need to break off our engagement. I met someone else while you’ve been away and I fell deeply in love with him and plan to marry him. You worried that I seemed different when you were home for Christmas and you were right. I was struggling with my feelings as I tried to figure out what to do about loving two wonderful men. Now I’ve made my decision. I’m sure it seems terribly sudden to you and you’re probably worried about my sanity, but you needn’t be. I’m fine, just heartsick at the thought of hurting you as well as your dear parents and my mother, who is terribly disappointed in me. Please don’t try to find me. Instead, move on with your life. I know it will be splendid. You are a wonderful person, dear Vincent. I will always care about you, and I pray you quickly find someone worthy of you.
With love and admiration,
Tess
It was a letter full of lies and omissions, but it was the only way.
14
“She still won’t answer the phone?” Gina asked from beneath the pink and white quilt on her bed. She was already tucked in for the night.
I shook my head as I sat down on the spare twin bed in her room, still in my dungarees and cardigan. I’d been at Gina’s house for two full days and nights, trying to call my mother every few hours, but she refused to answer the phone. I was hurt and angry and scared. I’d certainly known my mother would be upset. I’d known she’d be furious with me. But I never thought she would actually kick me out.
“She’ll come around,” Gina assured me with a yawn. “She’s your mother.”
“I don’t think she will come around, Gina.” I remembered my mother’s words: I don’t know you anymore. “I think I’ve lost her,” I said. “I’ve lost everyone I love.”
“You still have me, honey.” She propped herself up on her elbow, her nightgown slipping over one shoulder as she leaned across the space between the beds to touch my denim-covered knee. “You’ll always have me,” she said. “I understand how she feels, though. I don’t want you to leave either, but I know you don’t have much choice. If you get lonely or scared when you’re down in North Carolina, I’m a phone call away.”
I barely heard her, I was so lost in my gloom. “I think she actually loves Vincent more than she loves me,” I said. “Maybe she always has. She kept calling him ‘my Vincent.’ She adores him.” I leaned back against the headboard and lit my fourth or fifth cigarette of the evening. I remembered the obstetrician telling me ten cigarettes a day was fine. I seemed determined to smoke them all in a row tonight. “Are you sure it’s okay for me to stay here a while longer?” I asked.
“It’s fine,” she said, stifling another yawn. She had to get up early to go to work in the morning and I felt guilty I was keeping her awake with my chatter. “My mother loves you,” she added, “though if it turns out you’re here for a long time, we’ll have to make up some good reason you can’t go home.”
“I don’t know if Henry’s going to call me in four days or four weeks,” I said. “Or if he’s changed his mind altogether,” I added, giving voice to my latest worry.
“He’ll call,” she said, as though she knew him better than I did. The truth was, neither of us knew Henry Kraft at all.
The Monday after I’d arrived at Gina’s, I’d called the factory in Hickory and asked for him. I needed to let him know where he could reach me—that I was no longer at home—but the switchboard operator told me he wasn’t in. I left Gina’s number with the operator, then began to worry. Maybe he was having second thoughts. He’d certainly been impulsive, asking me to marry him. Had he been leading me on, humoring me while he waited for the train to take me away from Hickory? Away from him? The twenty-four hours I’d spent in Hickory were taking on an unreal quality in my mind and the craziness of his proposal was setting in. It was probably setting in for him as well. And there was that Violet Dare girl. The one who fancied herself his fiancée. Who was she? Did Henry tell her about me? How he asked me to marry him? Were they both laughing about me now?
“Get some sleep, honey,” Gina said with a yawn. “You need it. Your baby needs it. You can resume worrying in the morning.”
I stubbed out my cigarette and stood up from the bed, heading for the bathroom where I’d left my nightgown and toothbrush. I would go to bed as Gina had advised, but I doubted very much that I’d be able to sleep.
*
A phone rang. In the darkness, I lifted the receiver to my ear.
“Hello?” I said.
“This is Violet Dare,” a woman hissed in an angry whisper. “What the hell do you think you’re doing with Henry?”
“Tess?”
I opened my eyes, groggy and confused. I looked over at Gina, thinking she’d spoken, but she was burrowed under her covers sound asleep.
“Tess, wake up.”
I sat up and saw Gina’s mother standing in the doorway, illuminated by the streetlight outside the bedroom window. Her hair was tied up in rags beneath a hairnet. I stared at her blankly, still lost in my dream.
“Your fiancé is on the phone,” Mrs. Farinola said, then added, “He says it’s urgent, honey.”
Vincent? Calling me at Gina’s in the middle of the night? My mother must have gotten in touch with him. Talk some sense into her, she’d tell him. I only hoped she hadn’t told him about the baby.
I got out of bed, pulling on my robe and stepping into my slippers, and followed Mrs. Farinola to the kitchen. My brain still felt muddy with sleep and I half expected Violet Dare to be on the line when I lifted the receiver to my ear.
“Vincent?”
“Thank God you’re there,” he said. I hadn’t heard his voice in a week and a half and the sound of it filled me with heartbreaking love. “We didn’t know where you were,” he said, “and it finally occurred to me to try Gina’s.”
I was confused. If he’d called my house, wouldn’t my mother have told him I was at Gina’s? “I’ve been here a couple of—”
“It’s your mother, Tess,” he interrupted. “Mom hadn’t heard from her in a few days and she went over there and found her on the floor in the living room.”
My mind snapped into focus, my heartbeat suddenly pounding in my throat. “Oh no,” I said. “She fell?”
He hesitated. “She passed away, honey,” he said finally. “I’m so—”
“What?” I nearly screamed the word. I felt Mrs. Farinola’s hand on my shoulder as if to hold me up, and I knew Vincent must have already told her why he was calling. “How could she … pass away?”