The Way Home (46 page)

Now she’d lost the baby, and he couldn’t shake the thought that it was his fault. If he’d brought her home sooner. Or maybe they should have stayed in California. Maybe the trip had been too much for her. If he hadn’t made love to her. Or if that wasn’t it, maybe he should have made sure she ate more.

He sat there, watching Meg sleep, his mind churning with possibilities — things he should have done, things he shouldn’t have. Somewhere, Ty heard Doc Corey’s slow voice saying that there was nothing anyone could have done, that what had happened was what was meant to be, but he couldn’t stop thinking that
he
could have — should have — done something.

His thoughts twisted and turned, looking for reasons where there weren’t any, handing out blame where there was none to be given. At some point, his mother came and tapped on the door, telling him to come and eat something. Ty told her that he wasn’t hungry. He expected her to insist and perhaps she would have, but he heard the low rumble of his father’s voice. Ty couldn’t hear what he was saying but, after a moment they both went away.

It was long after dark before Meg woke. Ty had been half dozing, his head propped on the side of the chair, but he came awake abruptly. He’d turned on the lamp beside the bed, tilting the shade so that the light wouldn’t shine directly on Meg’s face. He ran his hand over his face, blinking the tired fog from his eyes as she stirred.

“How are you feeling?” he asked softly.

She looked at him blankly for a moment, obviously not quite awake, not yet remembering. He’d have given anything if she didn’t have to remember, ever. He knew the exact instant that memory returned, saw the impact of it in her eyes, the quick flare of pain and loss.

“I’m so sorry, Meg,” he whispered, feeling her pain as if it were his own, which in a way it was. He’d lost a child, too.

She closed her eyes and turned her head away, and Ty knew that she blamed him just as he blamed himself. He deserved nothing more, but the knowledge didn’t lessen the impact of her rejection. He felt the pain of it like a stiletto in his heart.

“Are you in any pain?” he asked, his tone flat, offering her the distance she so clearly wanted.

“No. I’m fine.” The words were polite, emotionless. When she turned to look at him again, all the emotion had been washed from her eyes. They were dull blue, revealing nothing of what she was thinking, what she was feeling.

“Doc Corey left some pills, if you need them.”

“No. Thank you. I’m all right.”

If she’d screamed at him, railed against her loss, blamed him for what had happened, Ty would have known what to do. He could have offered her comfort, begged her forgiveness, promised her that they’d have other children or sworn that they’d never take the risk again. But she lay there, so self-possessed and still, looking at him with those eyes that revealed not even a whisper of her thoughts.

“Would you like something to eat?” he said finally, at a loss.

“No, thank you.”

Ty reached for her hand, taking it in his own. She allowed it to lie there and he looked down at her delicate fingers, so fragile compared to his. She had to be feeling something. She’d wanted that baby. He knew she had. It couldn’t be good for her to be bottling everything up inside the way she was.

“Would you like to … talk about things?” He lifted his eyes to her face, watching her.

“What is there to say? I lost the baby. I know you wanted it and I’m very sorry.”

“You don’t owe me any apologies, Meg.” He was appalled that she should think she did. “I just thought you might want to talk about … the baby.”

“There is no baby,” she said flatly. Ty thought he felt her fingers tremble against his, but then she withdrew her hand, as if even that small contact was unbearable.

Ty sat there, wondering how to reach her, wondering if she even
wanted
him to reach her. Was she hiding her pain because she thought it would upset him?

“It’s all right to cry, Meg,” he said quietly. He started to take her hand again, but she drew back before he touched her, rejecting the contact with quiet finality.

“I don’t feel like crying,” she said. Closing her eyes, she turned her head away. “I’ve very tired.”

The only way she could have made it more clear that she wanted to be left alone was if she’d come right out and asked him to leave. Ty felt himself flush and then the heat receded, leaving him drained. He was suddenly conscious of being exhausted in a way he’d never known before, tired all the way to his soul.

“Would you … would you rather I slept in my sister’s old room tonight?” he asked, and then waited, praying that she’d say no. If she’d just turn to him, let him hold her, let him tell her that it tore him apart to know they’d loss their baby, maybe they could heal each other.

“That might be best,” Meg said without looking at him. She was staring at the wall on the other side of the bed, and Ty wondered if she hated him so much, she couldn’t even bear to look at him.

“If you need me, I’m just next door,” he said finally, his flat tone concealing the pain in his gut.

She nodded, still without looking at him. He hesitated, feeling as if there were something more he should say or do. Something to breach the chasm that had opened between them. The seconds ticked by so slowly that Ty could count their passing. Maybe she just needed time, he thought finally. The loss was so recent.

Reluctantly he turned and went to the door. He paused there and looked back at Meg, hoping she’d give him some sign that she didn’t want him to go, that she’d allow him in to share her pain. But she kept her face turned away and, after a moment, Ty left, hoping that perhaps, once she was alone, she’d let herself cry, let herself start to heal.

But Meg didn’t cry. Not that night, nor the following day, nor any of the days after that. She listened to the doctor’s reassurances that she could have other children, that there was no reason not to try again as soon as she’d had time to heal. She nodded, thanked him for his time, and gave him a polite little smile that made him frown. He left, shaking his graying head.

She accepted her father-in-law’s genuine sympathy politely, no more moved by it than she was by his wife’s perfunctory words of regret. Meg knew her mother-in-law was just as glad that she’d lost the baby, that she saw it as one less tie binding her son to his unsuitable wife. But the knowledge didn’t mean anything.

For once Meg couldn’t find it in her to disagree with ly’s mother. He should never have married her. She’d disrupted his life, caused him to give up his dreams of flying, and now she couldn’t even manage to keep his baby safe.

Oh, she believed Doc Corey when he said that there was nothing she could have done to prevent the miscarriage. When she thought about it, she knew she’d done everything she could have to keep the baby. Even if she’d gone to him sooner, all he’d have been able to tell her was to stay in bed, to rest as much as possible. And to pray. She’d done all those things and it hadn’t been enough. Her baby was gone.

Meg mourned the child she’d never hold, but she might have been able to drag herself past that loss if she hadn’t been nearly suffocated by the weight of her own failure. Ty had wanted this child, wanted it enough to give up flying, to come back here and start a new life, one he believed would be better for his son or daughter. Only now there wasn’t going to be a child.

The fact that he was worried about her only made Meg feel her failure even more acutely. From the first, all she’d done was take from him. From buying her ice cream sundaes at Barnett’s to marrying her to keep her safe, even to moving back to Iowa, Ty had given to her at every turn. And she’d had little enough to offer in return. Only her love, and there was no reason to think he wanted that.

But the baby — that had been different. He’d wanted the baby. And it had seemed as if this was something she could give him — a child, the start of a new family. But she hadn’t been able to do even that much. Though he tried to hide it from her, Meg knew Ty was angry with her. How could he not be? He must see now what a terrible mistake he’d made in marrying her.

CHAPTER 20

Three days after the miscarriage, Meg was still lying in bed at almost noon. She thought vaguely that she should get up, brush her hair, perhaps go downstairs. Physically, she was certainly well enough to be up and about. But she didn’t move and she didn’t bother to open her eyes, not because she was tired but because there just didn’t seem to be any reason to do either one. She didn’t feel like reading or quilting or even looking out the window at the gray square of sky that was all she could see from the bed.

She didn’t bother to open her eyes when she heard the door open. It was probably Ty, coming to check on her. Though she’d assured him that there was no need for him to stay at home on her account, he hadn’t gone back to the farm since she’d lost the baby. Perhaps tomorrow, he’d said, his dark eyes worried as he looked at her. Meg found herself vaguely resenting his worry. It seemed like one more gift from him, one more debt she owed with no hope of repayment.

So now she kept her eyes closed, hoping he’d think she was asleep so that he’d go away and leave her alone.

“Meggy? Are you awake?” Patsy’s voice was a whisper, too soft to disturb even a light sleeper.

For a moment, Meg considered pretending to be asleep. She didn’t want to hear another word of sympathy, didn’t want to hear one more person tell her that there’d be other babies, as if the child she’d lost was a broken knickknack that could be replaced. But since Patsy didn’t have a car, she must have been worried to have made the effort to get someone to drive her here from Hemdale. Reluctantly Meg opened her eyes.

“Patsy.” Her voice came out flat and emotionless, as dead as she felt inside.

“Ty called yesterday and told me what had happened. Eldin’s in Kansas this week so Jack came and got me.” She crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed beside Meg, reaching out to take her hands. Patsy’s eyes filled with quick tears. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry about the baby.”

“Thank you.” Meg let her hands lie in Patsy’s, not because she needed the comfort but because it wasn’t worth the effort to move them. “I’m young. There’ll be other babies,” she said, repeating what she’d been told, offering it to her sister as if Patsy were the one who needed comforting.

“That doesn’t make this one hurt any less,” Patsy said fiercely. “Don’t you let anyone tell you not to grieve, Meg.”

“No one’s told me not to grieve.” Restless under her sister’s questioning look, Meg drew her hands away from Patsy’s and pulled herself a little higher against the pillows.

“I saw Ty downstairs,” Patsy said after a moment. “He’s worried about you.”

“Well, he shouldn’t be.” Meg had herself under control again, all her emotions neatly tucked away where she didn’t have to look at them. “I’m fine.” She smiled to show just how fine she was.

“Oh, Meggy. No woman’s fine three days after losing a baby she wanted. And saying it doesn’t make it so.” Patsy’s voice was soft with understanding, and Meg felt a twinge of pain in her chest, so sharp it took her breath away. But she shoved it aside, determined to ignore it.

“I really am fine,” she insisted in a brittle tone. “A little tired, but Doc Corey says that’s normal. I’m just a little tired, that’s all.”

There was a short silence. Meg avoided her sister’s eyes, concentrating instead on the restless movements of her fingers as they plucked at a tuft of thread in the candlewick bedspread. She wished Patsy would go away. Obviously Patsy had come prepared to offer her shoulder for crying. But Meg didn’t have any tears, not for herself, not for Ty. Not even for the baby she’d lost.

Patsy would probably think she was heartless, and maybe she was. Certainly it felt as if there was an empty place where her heart had been.

“I had a baby. She died.”

If Patsy had been hoping that her abrupt announcement would get her sister’s attention, she succeeded. Meg’s eyes jerked upward, and she was jolted out of her self-absorption by the stark pain in Patsy’s face.

“I didn’t know,” she whispered.

“No, you wouldn’t have. It was the first year Eldin and I were married.”

“What happened?” This time it was Meg who reached out to take Patsy’s hand.

“I don’t know. I put her to bed one night and when I went to get her in the morning, she was dead.” Patsy’s voice was even, but her fingers gripped Meg’s painfully tight. “The doctor said it was a crib death and that it just … happens sometimes.”

“I’m sorry.” There was nothing Meg could offer beyond the same hopelessly inadequate words she’d been given.

“I’ve learned to live with it,” Patsy said with a painful smile. “I don’t forget, but I learned that life goes on. No matter how sure you are that it won’t, it always does. I know how much you must be hurting inside, Meggy. I don’t want you to think you’re alone.”

Meg nodded, her eyes dropping to their linked hands. She wished she could call up a few tears, just to make Patsy feel better. But her eyes remained dry.

“When we were growing up,” Patsy said, “I sometimes thought that Mama had made a mistake and that you were really the older.” Meg smiled, as she was meant to. “I know I haven’t always been there for you, Meggy,” Patsy continued. “But I’m here now.”