Truths Unveiled Page 6

  Hearing his words, Pam decided to abandon all pretense. It wouldn’t matter anyway. “I missed you more than I ever thought possible,” she told him. “My parents were great. They still are. My dad kept reminding me that God must have kept me alive for something. Presumably to be a doctor. So I had to keep going.” Then, without warning, her eyes filled again. “But I still haven’t figured out why Megan had to die.”

  “Oh, Pam.”

  Again, she allowed him to hold her. She couldn’t bear to tell him there was more. Hopefully, she would never have to. Pushing away those thoughts, she wiped her eyes. “Now I’m sorry. I feel like an idiot.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he told her. “I know how close the two of you were. It’s natural to still miss your friend. And it’s probably natural to blame yourself. But please don’t. Please put it all behind you and take the job, Pam. Give us a chance.”

  It took a minute for Tom’s words to sink in. Slowly, she moved away, but he held on.

  “I’m serious,” he insisted, giving her a shy grin. “Eddie was right. Haven’t we wasting enough time already? I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I’d been trying to figure out an excuse to contact you, but I wasn’t sure you’d ever want to see me again. Then, when I heard the hospital needed an ED doctor, I immediately thought of you. I considered tracking you down, but then Marlene mentioned your name.” Tom gave her an amazed look. “Talk about a sign from God! I just knew the timing was right.”

  Pam felt a giggle escape.

  “Excuse me?”

  Casting him an apologetic grin, she laughed. “It’s nothing. Really.”

  “Somehow I think it’s something.”

  “No. It’s just that while you were thinking the timing was right, I was thinking just the opposite. There I was, positively elated to be personally invited to work with Dr. Everett, and then it turned out to be at a hospital located in the very town I intended to avoid for the rest of my life!”

  Now it was Tom’s turn to chuckle. “I can see your point.” Then his serious tone returned. “So what about now?”

  Still taken by surprise, Pam didn’t know what to say. She’d just told him she killed Megan, and he still wanted her? This was really turning into a very unexpected series of events. Without thinking, she blurted out, “I need to use the bathroom.” With that, she tore down the hall in search of her room.

  Truths Unveiled

  Truths Unveiled

  Chapter Eleven

  A brilliant moon illuminated Tom’s route to the stone-covered driveway leading to his house. Rusty, his golden retriever, and Delilah, the black lab, met him at the door, barking and jumping hello.

  “Hey, guys,” he greeted, allowing them to lick his face. He rubbed each of them behind the ears. “How’s it going? Ready for one last run before hitting the hay?”

  Happily they trotted after him and out the sliding glass doors to the large backyard.

  “Pam likes animals,” Tom shouted, watching them stretch their limbs. “That’s a good thing!”

  He felt himself utter a sigh. As if content. How strange. Pondering the new sensation, he leaned against the fence and deeply inhaled the familiar aromas of cattle and crops sharing thousands of acres of fertile land. His land. His family’s land.

  Off in the distance, he could see row after row of cornstalks and wheat, dancing in the shadows. If he turned around, he knew he’d find a different sight not too far off in the distance: The silhouettes of huge, expensive homes, built on property once belonging to his ex-wife.

  Just turn the page, Tom told himself. No reason to go there and get his gut all tied up in a knot. Not after the night he’d just had. No, he switched back to consider life’s irony.

  He recalled many times when he seriously resented the constant commitment this working farm required. It weighed him down, like a huge chain around his neck, prohibiting him from leaving it alone for more than a day or two. He’d felt trapped. Like a prisoner, serving a life sentence. During high school, it didn’t matter how big a hangover he suffered from the night before, partying with his friends. He’d better be out in the barn milking the cows with his dad and brother by dawn. Otherwise, there’d be heck to pay. Sub-zero temperatures, knee-high snow, or even hundred-and-two fevers provided no excuse.

  “A successful farm is like a woman,” his father told him more than once. “It needs constant and loving tending to. And appreciation for what it provides. Ignore it, even briefly, and you’ve got a disaster on your hands.”

  “That’s for sure,” Tom whispered into the distance.

  It became harder after high school, when a few of his friends abandoned their family farms to go to college out of state. None of them came back afterward, except for short visits with their new wives. Then they’d tell their stories of making big money, living in the large cities and determined to stay there. The thought of returning permanently to Middleton was tantamount to failure. They spent their entire lives trying to escape. They’d move back only if there was no other alternative.

  Many times they urged Tom to join them. “You got a brother. Let him and your old man run the place,” they’d say.

  But Tom’s younger brother thought like them. He’d be gone soon, and Tom couldn’t leave his father in the lurch. It just wouldn’t be right. Still, there were many times when Tom considered breaking out. The strongest pull came when Pam and her parents moved back to Boston after the accident. Man, how he detested the trapped feeling that hovered over him. The imaginary chains tightened to the point where, at times, he could hardly catch a breath.

  Strangely, it wasn’t his sense of duty and obligation to his parents that kept him that time. It was the baby. His baby. He and Susan arranged to get married to provide the child with a family. By that time, he knew Pam would always be the love of his life. But his child needed a father. And for better or worse, he needed to fill those shoes. Unfortunately, Susan always brought out the worst in him.

  With seven years between him and Pam, they’d had few mutual friends except Eddie and Megan. Though he doubted Pam knew Susan personally, Susan knew her. Probably because of Tom’s obvious interest in the cute, city girl.

  “She’s an outsider,” Susan often snarled, her voice laced with acid over the telephone. She became angry when Tom stopped asking her out and then turned down her suggestions that they get together. When he didn’t return her calls, she’d call his house late at night. Many times he suspected she’d been drinking. She’d heard about Pam through the proverbial grapevine gossip that ran rampant around town. “What’s this about little miss fancy pants?” she’d demand, accusingly. “Always going around, trying to prove how smart she is. What would you want with her? Better yet, what would she want with you?”

  Tom tended to ignore the constant little feuds that took place between women. The pettiness, the envy or jealousy. If anything, he found those types of scenes comical. He had no idea how threatened Susan felt, even after they married. Nor did he take seriously her plan to merge the Jarrod and Murphy land holdings to form a great dynasty, as she called it, and subdivide it to sell to a developer.

  If you asked Tom, Susan watched too much television. What she was describing sounded like the 1980s evening soap opera, Dynasty, with her playing the Joan Collins role. He didn’t understand, until too late, that Susan meant every word she said. And she was determined to get her way.

  So, although the noose tightened, he stayed. He called and wrote Pam for nearly a year. Then gave up. Years later, when he became convinced his marriage was doomed, he thought about taking off again. Then, one day his father showed up at the city house where Tom and Susan lived. It had been a wedding present from her father.

  “There’s a few cows looking like they got through the fence. They’re straying onto Parson’s place. I need a hand.”

  “Sure, Dad,” Tom answered. He hoped the physical labor would take his mind off his problems.

  John Jarrod stayed silent during the entire t
en-minute trip. Which was fine with Tom. He wasn’t sure he could control himself to utter anything other than obscenities at the time. When they got to the farm, he noticed two of their five horses were saddled up, looking like they were waiting for them.

  “Let’s go for a ride,” his father said, not waiting for a reply. Silent again, they rode to the top of the highest point of their property, overlooking their land for miles around.

  His father slowed the horse. “No matter what, Son,” he began. “This land belongs to you. Sometimes, it doesn’t yield as much as we want. And most times, I know, it seems like just one big pain in the butt. But it will always be here for you.”

  Tom and his father never shared what one could call a really close relationship. Sure they got along, but John Jarrod was a quiet man. He came and went as he pleased, he worked hard and long, and he held a lot close to the chest. This was the first time Tom could remember him using so many words at one time. And, to Tom’s surprise, he wasn’t finished.

  “I guess it was the way I was raised, but I always figured you, me, and your brother would always live here and work the land and the animals together. Sure, you’d get married, have some kids, but we’d always be together.” He shrugged. “It sort of threw me when Ted said he wanted to go to college. It shocked me more when he didn’t move back after graduating. I don’t like it, but I’ve tried to understand and accept it. The same way I’ve tried to understand you marrying Susan and moving into that big, fancy house in town.” He paused to adjust the Phillies baseball cap shadowing the midday sun from his face. Then sighed.

  “I guess I really can’t blame you. People just don’t stay put the way they used to. And there are so many choices now. So many opportunities that weren’t available in my younger days. It wasn’t that way for me growing up. My life, like your grandfather’s, even your mom’s, was already mapped out for me.

  “I got to tell you. After you moved out of the house, I gave it only a couple of weeks before you didn’t turn up one morning to work the cows. It’s tough enough dragging ourselves out of bed at those awful hours, just to walk a few yards to the barn. A twelve-mile trip each day, two times a day, was asking a bit much I figured.”

  Tom realized his father was now looking at him. “Maybe I’m talking too soon, but it hasn’t happened yet. You’ve showed up every day, even more on time than when we lived under the same roof. I want to thank you for that.”

  To Tom, this entire conversation was unimaginable. He swallowed the lump forming in his throat.

  “Sure, Dad.”

  “I guess the reason I brought you out here today was because I wanted you to know that Mom and I understand if you want out. For a while or for however long you need. We can sell a bunch of acres and give you the cash. Sort of like part of your inheritance in advance, if that’s what you want. You got to live your life. This business with Susan is…” he shook his head. “I can’t tell you the right thing to do.” He shrugged.

  “I don’t know what the right thing is, Son. Just, just do what you got to do. And know that no matter what, no matter how long you take, remember this…” He pointed out to the horizon, “All this, for good or bad, will always be waiting for you.”

  Tom couldn’t remember the last time he cried in front of his father. Or when he last cried, period. Looking out into the distance, he blinked back the tears.

  “And when I die,” his dad continued, this time with a lighter tone, “if you want to sell the whole thing to one of those big developers Susan’s always harping about, do it with my blessings. Just be sure to take good care of Mom and those boys of yours.”

  Tom couldn’t believe those words came out of his father’s mouth. Amazed, he could only stare.

  “You heard me right,” the old man grinned. “If something causes you misery, and you’ve done your absolute best to put things right, but it just ain’t working, you move on, Man! Life ain’t no dress rehearsal. This is the real show!” With that, he turned the horse around. “Race you back!”

  That conversation created a turning point in Tom’s life. No longer did he feel the need to flee his family’s legacy. Instead, it became his haven. He would not divorce Susan, he decided. If she wanted out, she could start the proceedings. In the meantime, while they remained man and wife, he would not cheat, and he would always be civil toward her, even friendly, if she’d allow it. With one stipulation. She could forget any of her real estate plans involving the Jarrod property. That topic was not up for discussion.

  But Susan refused to let it rest. Numerous times, too many to count, she brought it up, over and over again. She even got her real estate license. And each time, Tom’s answer remained the same. He would not be part of any type of two-family merger. Nor would he meet with the land developer she’d been pestering him about to parcel off a large chunk and build half-million-dollar homes. Being the exclusive broker for the project, she could earn a hefty sum, but Tom wasn’t willing to hear any of it. She could do what she wanted with her family’s land. And leave his family’s land alone.

  Stretching, Tom shrugged off the old memories, like someone removing an old, rain-soaked slicker. He looked up at the stars decorating the sky. Even now, it never ceased to amaze him how easily he could connect the dots to the Big Dipper and other constellations. And the planet Jupiter still continued to burn bright, slightly below the moon. Tonight it looked like they were winking specifically at him.

  Tom’s thoughts turned back to Pam. There he was, resolved to cast aside the romantic images he’d been conjuring up to protect her from Susan’s wrath.

  Then poof! Once in her presence, her eyes pouring into his, all his concerns vaporized. Of course Pam’s feelings mattered too, but at least she didn’t call him names or forbid him to come near her. In fact, unless he read her wrong, she seemed pleased to see him once the shock wore off.

  “I like her, Lord,” he voiced aloud. “I always have. I know she’s got some concerns about being back here. And a lot of bad memories. I didn’t know she blamed herself. I feel awful about that. I should have been there for her. I’ve got so much making up to do. I’d just like for her to give me the chance. And if she does, please help out in the Susan department. Pam is totally innocent there. I don’t want her or the boys subjected to any more crap.”

  Tom paused a moment, hoping his message reached its destination. Raised Christian, he grew up believing in God. His personal faith, however, had developed and deepened through his experience with his failed marriage. It began that afternoon when he and his dad took that ride together. Since then, though not overtly religious, he became convinced life held no coincidences.

  Once Tom opened his heart and his mind, the numerous events that followed taught him that lesson. Life was no longer a shoot-from-the-hip kind of adventure, or a trial-and-error, see-as-you-go kind of thing. He knew better now. He also knew that God operated according to His own timetable. In fact, sometimes it felt like He was on vacation, so to speak. Yes, some prayers were better left unanswered. But hopefully that would not be the case where Pam was concerned.

  “Come on in, guys,” he called to the dogs. He felt lighter than he’d felt in years. “Let’s try to get some shuteye. Today’s already here!”

  Closing up the house for the night, Tom heard his cell phone ring.

  “Okay, where is it?” he muttered, scanning the counters and tabletops. At the same time, he wondered who would call now. The factory fire entered his thoughts. He hoped it hadn’t reignited.

  Finally, he spotted the phone on top of the refrigerator.

  “Jarrod here,” he answered, without checking the caller ID.

  “You’d better tell Eddie Cartwright to watch his mouth!”

  Tom’s subconscious recognized the voice before he did, causing his entire body to tense into a huge knot. “Tell him yourself, Susan.”

  Truths Unveiled

  Truths Unveiled

  Chapter Twelve

  Pam slowed the Explorer for a cattle cros
sing. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one of these,” she said aloud. Inhaling the aroma of freshly mowed fields, she shifted the SUV into park and settled back, drinking in the vast farmland of multicolored greens and browns and gold.

  What a beautiful morning. She marveled at how the sun’s rays sparkled off the numerous silver silos that dotted the surrounding countryside. And how she had forgotten how truly beautiful it could be here. Then again, to be fair, it was the same in the city. In those quiet, still, early hours, she enjoyed walking through the streets. She liked watching the sun peek between the various skyscrapers, waiting for the countless numbers of residents, commuters and tourists to arrive. She knew she could handle a new city. Chicago, for instance. But could she handle living here again?