“I was jogging one day when a man tried to drag me off the path. Timothy stopped him. He helped me home and stayed with me until my aunt could come home.” She ran a graceful hand over the picture; love in every brush of her fingers. “I became infatuated with him. I saw him several times when I went out jogging, and he would stop to talk to me. He would walk me home”—she looked up from the picture, blushing—“and I invited him inside.
“I didn’t know he was still married then. Truthfully, I was so in love with him I don’t think it would have mattered, anyway. He told me he was separated from his wife. Then, when he was selected to become one of the president’s pilots, he admitted he was getting back together with her, that the president wouldn’t allow any unmarried men on his team. That’s what he told me.”
Peyton had been a sixteen-year-old who had been taken advantage of by a man Train and others had respected. If the gossip had gotten out, his career would have been destroyed.
“I still remember that day. I’m ashamed to admit I begged him not to leave me. I told him I was pregnant and didn’t know what I would do. My aunt and uncle didn’t know about our affair. They didn’t want me there, much less help me raise a baby.” She flipped over another page.
“He bought the trailer and the land to put it on. Timothy promised, when he could, we would be able to see us more. He was worried about anyone finding out. I didn’t care, as long as I didn’t lose him. I was willing to do anything he wanted.
“When he came to Jamestown, I thought we could go places and do things together, but Timothy was always worried about someone finding out, especially when Rae grew older and started calling him daddy. He would smack her hand every time she did and make her call him Timothy.”
She lifted her lashes. “You can’t hate me any more than I hate myself. I can’t justify to myself why I let that happen. I had no friends or family by then—my aunt and uncle had died from cancer. I was so afraid Timothy would turn his back on me and Rae that I tolerated things I never would have done now that I’m older.
“Other than when he smacked her hand, he never touched her in anger … or affection. Rae adored him. She would stare out the window when I told her he was coming and wait until he got here. As she grew older, his visits came fewer and fewer.
“One day, when Rae was in school, Hammer and Jonas came with Timothy. He told me he wouldn’t be coming back anymore, and Hammer and Jonas would help us move into a small apartment. I broke down. I didn’t want to leave my home.
“The next day, Hammer and Jonas told me that Timothy had changed his mind, and we could stay. After that, we saw Timothy even less—maybe twice a year—while Hammer or Jonas were here every other weekend.”
She flicked through page after page filled with pictures of Rae as a young girl. “She was an outstanding student. She would show Timothy her grades when he came, doing everything she could to make him proud. It was never enough. When she was little, she even told Timothy she wanted to go into the military like him when she grew up. He talked her out of it, saying she didn’t have what it took to be a soldier.
“She was in sixth grade when the school band was asked to the inauguration. She kept saying the new president wouldn’t care if Timothy was married. She kept believing that we would be a family. I tried to tell her it wasn’t going to happen, but she just kept telling me, ‘You just have to believe, Mama. I do.’
“When she came home from that band trip, the little girl who had left came back a young woman I didn’t know.” Suddenly, sobs tore from her lips. She pressed a hand to her mouth from crying aloud again. Train put an arm around her shoulder as Peyton gathered herself to continue. “She never told me what happened. Jonas did—they were there also. He said the students had filed in line to shake the president’s hand, and Timothy was standing where they had to pass him. When Rae tried to take his arm and talk to him, he moved away as if he had never seen her before.”
“The bastard is lucky he’s dead.” Train’s harsh voice had Peyton crying harder.
“You want to know the sickest part? I didn’t tell him to go take a flying leap the next time he came. We just pretended it didn’t happen. Except, Killyama would find a friend or go to Hammer’s to stay the night or whole day when he came, and she wouldn’t come back until he left.
“The day he was killed by his wife, she laughed. She laughed so long and hard that Hammer had to take her to emergency room. They said it was hysteria. They had to give her a sedative to calm her down.”
“I remembered when he was killed,” Train said. “It made all the papers. He was coming home from a mission, and his wife was sitting on the steps when he came through the door. She shot him six times.”