The Stone Family Heart - Taylor Hart Page 0,52

on his, and he saw torture and pain within them. “The night I started miscarrying, I knew something wasn’t right. I had cramping and then, of course, there was the blood.” She frowned and looked down. “Jeff was too drunk to drive me to the hospital, so I ended up passing out on the bathroom floor. When I woke up, I drove myself.” Her eyes moved back to his, and she smiled sadly. “I don’t know why I didn’t just call 911. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

Tim couldn’t have answered, even if that wasn’t a rhetorical question. His blood boiled just thinking of the arrogant city slicker of a braggart her ex was. He wanted to throttle the man.

“I didn’t tell Mama I was by myself. I couldn’t put that on her; it would have broken her heart.”

It was breaking his heart. Emotion clogged his throat. “I’m so sorry.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want your sympathy, but I do want you to know that I understand what it’s like to feel like you killed someone.” When she looked back at him, her eyes were bloodshot. “I have always blamed myself.”

“Kens—”

She cut him off. “I knew what Jeff was. An addict. I’d known it for our whole marriage, and no matter how many times we fought about it, he would say he’d change and I would believe him.” More tears fell down her cheeks. “I was such a fool. I see that now, but … I grew up believing you don’t get divorced just because things are hard, you know?”

He nodded, remembering how stoic and intense and duty-bound her father had been. Often, Tim had been present when their father gave his lectures.

“I thought I was doing the right thing by not giving up. Plus, I was busy. I was slaving away at the law firm, trying to become something. Someone. Trying to live up to the Stone name.” She wiped beneath her eyes. “But the truth is, it got easier to just put up with Jeff than to divorce the man. Mama was sick, and all my brothers were deployed, and …”

Pain filled his chest, and this time he lightly touched her shoulder.

She shrugged him off. “No, I need to get this out. For so long, after I lost … her, I wondered what it would have been like if I had insisted Jeff get clean, or if I had been pregnant with another man’s baby, a man who would have been able to help me, to take me to the hospital. Would she have lived? I blamed myself. Of course, I blamed Jeff, too. But I took the blame because I was a mother.” She said the last word with emphasis and pointed to her chest. “And I shouldn’t have let myself be in that situation. That was on me. Marshall pointed out to me the other day that I might just be addicted to the drama of Jeff. But maybe it’s my drama, too.”

Tim didn’t know what to say.

“I think he might be right. Not just about Jeff, but about my constant need to go, go, go at the law firm. My need to help my mother so completely.” She bit her lip. “I feel so lost.”

He wanted to argue, to tell her she wasn’t right, to offer sympathy, but he knew all too well how much grief could eat at a person, how it could convince someone that it was their fault.

She lifted her chin. “I want you to know that I get it. I know what it is to feel responsible, solely responsible, for another’s life. A life that is gone.”

Unable to help himself, he pulled her into him. “Kens.”

She tried to pull back, but he tightened his hold.

“Please.”

She relaxed against him.

So many thoughts and feelings and emotions circled inside him. He knew she’d been right by her mother’s side through the cancer, but he hadn’t known … he couldn’t have known. It made sense. She had gone through struggles and pain, and she had been through her own war, too. Of course she had. He felt foolish for believing she couldn’t understand his loss.

Tim wanted to hold her for a long time, to somehow absorb her pain, obliterate it like he would obliterate a target. But he wasn’t naïve enough to think that pain would ever really leave her. He thought of his uncle’s words. “My uncle just told me the other day that I should pray and ask the Lord for help.”

Her eyelids fluttered, and