“I sometimes thought you might be having an affair,” I said, as he pulled onto the empty street, “but Honor?”
“I know it must be a shock,” he said, “but—”
“You’ve been using me.” I tightened my fists around the strap of my handbag. “No one would suspect you of a relationship with Honor if you were married.”
He looked through the windshield into the darkness ahead of us. “I also wanted to give your baby … our baby … a name,” he said. “I admit it though. When you walked into my office that day, I felt like my prayers had been answered.”
“How does Violet fit into the picture?” I asked.
He concentrated on turning the corner and I thought he was glad to be able to put off answering the question for a moment. “I would have married her if you hadn’t come along,” he admitted finally. “I was getting up the nerve to propose to her, although I was frankly dreading it. I knew she’d want a big wedding. All the hoopla that went with getting married. It would have been such a charade.”
“She would have been your cover then instead of me.”
He drew in a breath. Let it out. “Yes,” he said finally.
“That was always your intention,” I snapped. “To marry someone—anyone—to prevent people from knowing about you and Honor.”
“I suppose.” He turned another corner. “But also, I needed a wife,” he said. “It’s hard to get by in this town as a single man. It looks … odd. And the woman I love, I could never marry.”
“I’m a human being, Henry,” I said. “You can’t use someone this way because you happen to need a wife. It’s just wrong.”
He didn’t respond. His eyes were fixed on the road.
“How long have you and Honor…?” I let the sentence trail off.
“Nearly my whole life,” he said. “I told you that she and Zeke and I were good friends when we were children, and then when we got to be teenagers, I started seeing her differently. I thought she was so beautiful.” He looked ahead of us into the dark night again and his voice had taken on an almost dreamy quality. “We always knew we were playing with fire, but … I love her, Tess.” He glanced at me. “The way you love that doctor. I love her and I can’t have her.”
His comparison to my relationship with Vincent made my heart contract. “What about the man who fathered her children? Del?” I asked.
He seemed to focus hard on the street ahead of us. “Del is Honor’s cover,” he said finally. “And she’s his. Del is not interested in women.”
“You mean, women other than Honor? Or do you mean…” I began to understand. “Is he a homosexual?”
He nodded.
“But he had children with her!”
“No,” he said. “He didn’t.”
I frowned, then suddenly remembered Henry sitting with Jilly in the hospital. I thought it was so kind of him, his tender interaction with Honor’s daughter. I pressed my hands to my cheeks, stunned. “Jilly is yours?” I whispered.
He nodded. “Yes,” he said softly.
“Both of them? Butchie too?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes. He was my son,” he said, his voice breaking on the word “son.” “Though of course I could never acknowledge him as such.”
For a moment, I forgot my own pain, his was so palpable. I felt the depth of his dilemma. To love someone you couldn’t possibly marry. To have children you could never acknowledge. Children you could never safely love except in private. To lose one of those children and be unable to publicly grieve for him. I touched his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I said. In the soft light from a street lamp, I saw the glistening of tears on his cheeks.
“Butchie’s real name was Walter,” he said.
A chill ran up my spine. “My God,” I said.
“It has to be a coincidence.”
“Not a coincidence,” I said. “Reverend Sam has a gift. I don’t understand it, but you can’t deny it.”
“It was such a shock when he said his name.”
“Who knows about you and Honor?” I asked. “I assume Zeke knows. Where was he tonight?”
“Asleep on the couch in my office.” He turned onto the dark, rutted road that would take us through the woods to the hospital. “And yes, he knows,” he said. “Lucy knew, and Del, of course.”
I thought of how loving Lucy had been to that whole family. The children were her niece and nephew.
“Gaston.” Henry sighed. “He knew. And Adora. Poor Adora.”
We bounced over something—a rut or a tree root—and I put my hand on the dashboard to steady myself. “What about your mother?” I asked.
“Good Lord, no,” he said, as he pulled into the clearing near the ever-expanding hospital. He parked between a couple of other cars, but didn’t turn off the engine. “My mother thinks I’m queer, Tess,” he said, turning toward me. “Haven’t you figured that out? That’s why she insists we stay married. She can prove to all her friends that I’m some sort of he-man if I’m married. Of course, she was hoping I’d marry Violet, but I’m twenty-eight years old. She’d accept anyone as my wife at this point.”
“My God,” I said. This was all too much to take in.
Henry nodded toward the hospital. “Go on in,” he said. “I need to get back to the factory. I just ran out on Honor. She’s got to be terrified.”
And well she should be, I thought, as I got out of the car. For the first time in my miserable marriage, I had the upper hand. I had the power to ruin Henry’s life. Honor’s life. And Ruth’s. I would do whatever it took to get out of this marriage. Would Vincent still want me once I was a divorcee? I wasn’t sure. Right then, all I knew was that I wanted my life back.
75
The new patients at the hospital absorbed all my time and attention for the next few hours, and I was glad of the distraction from my own life. I spent most of the night in the damp and musty basement ward that had been opened for the colored patients, and I was glad once again that Jilly had been able to go home. Jilly. Henry’s daughter. She would probably never be able to know who her real father was. I put the thought out of my mind and focused on my work.
I didn’t get home until dawn. Henry’s bed was still neatly made and I knew he hadn’t come home at all during the night. Exhausted, I climbed into my own bed and fell into a deep sleep. I woke up around noon, glad to discover that Ruth was out and I wouldn’t have to make conversation with her over lunch. I had no appetite, but forced myself to eat the grilled cheese sandwich Hattie made for me before I called a taxi to take me back to the hospital.
When the taxi dropped me off near one of the new wards that were under construction, I spotted Henry installing a screen in one of the windows. He walked quickly toward the taxi, pulling his wallet from his pants pocket, and he paid for the taxi before I even had my handbag open. I had the feeling he was going to do all he could to keep me happy and my mouth shut.