The Caregiver - By Shelley Shepard Gray Page 0,49
fear you are right about that.” Her hand still clasped between his two, she watched him raise it slightly. Almost to his lips.
Her breath hitched, startling them both.
Looking perturbed, he dropped his hands.
Lucy felt his absence immediately—even deep inside her. In the place she wished was filled with more than just bad memories and aches.
When Calvin looked her way again, his expression was bare and honest. “Lucy, what thoughts have claimed you so completely? What is it that you wish you didn’t remember?”
Her mouth went dry as she stared. A full minute passed, but Calvin didn’t push. Instead, he merely stood right next to her. Waiting.
And so she took a chance. “I wish that I could forget about my husband,” she whispered.
“Ah,” he said quietly.
Lucy noticed he didn’t seem all that surprised. “He passed away.”
If anything, Calvin looked even more worried. “Lucy . . . how did he die?”
“He fell from a ladder and broke his neck.”
He swallowed. “Was he . . . was that Paul?”
She nodded, then stared at him in confusion. “How did you know his name?”
A second passed. Two. Finally he lifted his chin. “I, um. I read about him.”
What he said made no sense. “Read? What are you talking about?”
“I . . . I saw his name in your diary, Lucy.” While her world shifted and dimmed, he continued. “On the train, I found your journal. I was going to give it right back to you—”
He’d found her journal? He’d read it?
He knew?
“B-but you didn’t,” she said—well, stuttered. Pure shame and embarrassment coursed through her as she remembered some of the things she’d written. Some of the awful, awful things she’d written. The anger and hurt and relief she’d felt. Not a bit of it meant for another person to see.
“We argued, and I was afraid you wouldn’t understand that I had just been trying to be helpful.” The skin around his lips paled, showing how hard he was striving for control. “So I decided to give the journal to you here in Jacob’s Crossing.”
“But you haven’t.”
“Things were going better. And I was confused. The words I read in your diary, they didn’t seem to go with the woman I knew.”
Despair sank in. The words he’d read. Doing her best to reclaim her voice, Lucy said, “So you read my diary. Without asking. Calvin, when were you planning to give it back?”
He raised his hands in surrender. “I know what I did was wrong. I shouldn’t have opened the book. Once I knew what you’d written . . . I shouldn’t have read a word.”
“But you did.” She shook her head. “Calvin, I can’t believe it. I almost trusted you. I almost thought you were different.”
“Different from Paul?” Stepping forward, he reached for her hand. She yanked her fingers away, but he tightened his grip. Forcing her to stay next to him. To listen to him. “Lucy, why did you want him dead? That’s such a sin. Your hate, your anger . . . it’s stunning. Why?”
As his words hit her hard, an almost eerie feeling of calm filled her soul. All of a sudden, telling him the truth didn’t seem so hard. “Because he beat me, Calvin. Because every single day that I lived with him, I lived in fear.” She shook her head. “Because in so many ways, he took everything I had to give, and twisted it. Made me feel unworthy. Dirty.”
Tears entered his eyes as his grip relaxed. Dropped her hand. “Lucy, I don’t know what to say. I’m so—”
“Don’t say it, Calvin. Whatever you do . . . don’t say another word to me ever again.”
And then, like a child, she ran.
Ran back the way she came, along the windy, uneven trail. Alone, toward Mattie, and to her past.
And realized too late that she’d left her aunt’s pail on the ground at Calvin’s feet. Filled to the brim with ripe blackberries, warm from the sun.
Chapter 18
Calvin let her go. Of course, he didn’t think he would’ve been able to follow Lucy even if he’d been of the mind to. His feet felt planted to the ground, stunned by what had just happened.
She now knew he’d kept her diary.
No, it was more than that, he pushed himself to admit. She now knew he’d read her diary—because he’d told her in the clumsiest way imaginable.
Mind spinning, Calvin watched her pale gray dress fade into the distance as she scrambled through the path. Within seconds, she disappeared behind the Scotch pine that had sprung