Yesterday's Embers Read online

  Dad and Mickey came home the Monday after that. She counted on her fingers. Exactly four days.

  She clicked a link that gave instructions for using e.p.t. There was some gross stuff about peeing on the stick. She looked down at the thing sticking out of her pocket. Yuck. She’d been touching it with her bare hands. Wrinkling her nose, she wiped her hands on her pajama pants before she touched the keyboard again.

  She scrolled down the screen and read about how to read the little plus and minus signs in the window. She was right. The plus sign meant yes, you were pregnant. Her breath came faster. Mickey had to be pregnant.

  What if Dad didn’t know? A thought struck her: what if he did know, and that was why he and Mickey barely talked to each other anymore? She couldn’t handle all the ideas and images that were coming into her head.

  She heard a noise downstairs and froze. She checked to be sure the sound was turned off and slowly reached for the off button. The computer powered down and she sat there, staring into the darkness, listening for the sound she’d heard moments before. It never came.

  Finally she tiptoed back to her room. But before she crawled into bed, she wrapped the e.p.t. in a tissue—a clean one, not the one with Mom’s lipstick on it—and hid it in the back of her underwear drawer. She straightened the clothes in the drawer, separating her things from Harley’s so nobody would have to dig on her side of the drawer.

  When she finally crawled back into bed beside Harley, the clock said 1:12. But sleep wouldn’t come, and she lay there, with her hand over her heart, feeling it beat so fast and so hard she was afraid it would burst through her skin.

  He shot up a desperate query—words that composed a lament more than a prayer: What have I done? Oh, Father in heaven, what have I done?

  Chapter Forty-one

  Doug smelled supper the minute he opened the door. Spaghetti, if his nose was accurate at all.

  “Is that you?” Mickey’s voice drifted from the front of the house.

  He hung his cap on the hook labeled with his name and walked through the kitchen. He stood in the doorway between the kitchen and living room, waiting for her to notice him.

  She looked up from the book she was reading the little girls. Even Harley, from her perch on Sadie’s lap, was enrapt with the story. At Mickey’s silence they all glanced up and threw him an impatient “Hi, Daddy,” as if he were an annoying intrusion.

  “Hi to you, too,” he said to whoever would listen.

  Harley put her hands on either side of Mickey’s face. “Read, Miss Mickey. Come on…read book.”

  “Wait a minute, sweetie.” Mickey moved Harley’s hands off her face and marked the page in the book with her hand. “Are you ready for dinner, Doug?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not in for good. I just need to check the weather.” He nodded toward the stairway and took the steps two at a time, hoping she wouldn’t chide him for not taking his boots off.

  But she only called after him, “There’s spaghetti whenever you’re ready. Let me know and I’ll heat you up a plate.”

  “Okay, thanks,” he hollered down. He turned on the computer and waited for it to boot up, composing a parts list for the local dealer in his mind. He should have ordered parts days ago, but he’d been trying to get caught up in the pressroom so he could use his vacation days for harvest. He couldn’t afford to have the combine broken down for even a day if he was going to get the wheat in before the forecasted storms hit.

  Finally the screen came to life, and he opened the browser. He posed clumsy fingers over the keyboard and tried to remember that new weather site he’d heard about. Hunt-and-peck style—the only way he knew to type—he keyed in the name. That didn’t look right. He backed the delete key over the words to try another spelling. He hadn’t typed four letters when an old URL from the history popped up in the address bar. He aimed for the M and got the space bar instead, backed up, and started to retype it. But when he looked up to check his spelling, he noticed an old address there again. He looked at it, then did a double take. What was this?

  The first part of the address was drugs. But that wasn’t the part that made him look twice. The words that followed drugs said e.p.t.-pregnancy-test.

  Whoa. He must have mistyped something. He deleted and started to type in the weather site URL again, but something made him stop.

  He opened up the drug/pregnancy page and an ad for one of those in-home pregnancy tests appeared on the screen. Kaye had used one of those each time she suspected she was pregnant. The memories hit him hard.

  He started to scroll down the page, then looked behind him, half expecting to see Landon or Kayeleigh standing there with a million and one questions. But just then he heard them arguing downstairs, and Mickey in the background, shushing them, and still reading to the little girls.

  He looked at the address again. He didn’t have time for this. He needed to get off the computer and get a parts order placed and over-nighted. But something compelled him to pull down the browser’s history and investigate further.

  According to the history log, he was the first one to use the computer today. The most recent address before that was the pregnancy test site. He checked the date. June 18. Two days ago. He thought they had the pop-up blocker turned on, and security set so the kids wouldn’t come across anything inappropriate. But sometimes stuff got through anyway. Or Mickey had turned off the parental controls…. A look at the rest of the history and the Google search history for that same day sent ice through his veins. Someone had purposefully typed in e.p.t., then looked at half a dozen sites about pregnancy and pregnancy test kits.

  He heard Mickey’s laughter downstairs, heard the twins giggling as she acted out the Tickle Monster from the book.

  His heart turned to lead. Mickey must suspect that she was preg—He couldn’t let himself finish the thought. He tugged a rumpled handkerchief out of his back pocket and swabbed his forehead, fighting for breath, struggling to think straight.

  Somehow he found the parts site and ordered what he needed, but he couldn’t push the image of that larger-than-life purple and white plastic stick out of his mind.

  For the millionth time in two months, he shot up a desperate query—words that composed a lament more than a prayer: What have I done? Oh, Father in heaven, what have I done?

  He puttered around out in the shed, biding his time until he could be sure the kids were in bed. His belly protested with hunger pangs, but he ignored them. He had no right to even think about being hungry with such a weight pressing on him. On Mickey.

  A new thought came over him. Maybe she wasn’t actually pregnant. Maybe she’d just thought she was. Nothing he’d seen on the computer screen was about babies. It was all about the test itself. That had to be a good sign, right? He hadn’t looked further back into the Internet history. That was only yesterday’s search. Maybe there was more. He should have checked. If Mickey even suspected she was pregnant, it was serious. She was at least as crazy about kids as Kaye was, and he knew how Kaye had been every time she was a few days late.

  They’d had more than one argument because she’d spent money on one of those stupid tests just because she ate too much pizza the night before and woke up sick. Those things weren’t cheap, but Kaye always wanted to know at the first possible minute.

  And the five times it had turned out positive she’d glowed with the news and found creative ways to announce it, then wanted to celebrate by making his favorite dinner, baking a cake, and making love again for good measure. He had loved it when she was carrying one of their babies.

  He didn’t even care about the razzing he got at work when one of the guys got wind that the DeVores were having another kid. Let ’em make fun. It didn’t matter.

  He and Kaye had decided when the twins were born that they didn’t care what other people thought. They loved their kids. They’d always wanted a big family, both of them. And though money was scarce, they’d provided for their family plenty well.

  He’d
seen the articles in Kaye’s parenting magazines that said it cost two hundred thousand dollars to raise a child to adulthood. Hogwash. The food always stretched to feed the next mouth. Kaye had always breastfed the babies, so there was no formula to buy, and she’d kept a big vegetable garden that the kids took turns weeding. Shoot, they usually ended up with enough tomatoes and squash to share with the neighbors and the community pantry at the Clayburn Public Library. The kids handed their clothes down, and Kaye’s bumper sticker—i brake for garage sales—wasn’t just for show. Her mother was generous at Christmas and birthdays. And the money Kaye made as a secretary at the school—what little was left over after they paid the daycare bill—filled in around the edges. Bottom line, the kids had never wanted for anything that was truly important.

  He caught his breath. His children had never wanted because they had love. And parents who were crazy about each other. But if Mickey was pregnant—? How would the emptiness between them affect a child? He was afraid to imagine.

  A shadow fell across the patch of light the yard lamp cast, and Doug looked up to see Mickey standing in the doorway.

  “Do you want me to bring you out a plate? You must be starving.”

  His hands started trembling, and he shoved them in his pockets. “I’m okay,” he lied.

  “Are you sure? I don’t mind heating you up a plate. It’s spaghetti. Turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.”

  “I’m okay.”

  He didn’t realize he’d snapped at her until her smile abruptly disappeared. She turned and started back for the house.

  “Mickey!”

  She turned around and stood in the open door, waiting. Her face was in shadow, but something about her demeanor made him think she was crying. Oh, Father. Help me find the words.

  He took a step toward her, looked into her brimming eyes. “Mickey…are you pregnant?”

  She reeled as if he’d struck her. “Wh-what?”

  “Are you going to have a baby?”

  She gave a humorless laugh. “I know what pregnant means.”

  “Are you?”

  “No. No…of course not. Why would you even ask something like that?”

  The relief he expected at her denial didn’t come. Confusion clouded his mind. “But…I thought…I saw the search. On the computer.”

  She frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  He rubbed a hand over his face, felt the grime and sweat bead under his calloused hands. “You didn’t search—on the computer?”

  “Search for what?”

  He shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs. He didn’t think she was playing dumb. “When I ordered the parts—earlier tonight—there were several pages of Web sites in the history…sites about pregnancy tests…you know, those kits you can use to find out if you’re pregnant?”

  “I know what a pregnancy test is, Doug.” She gave another dry laugh, and the sound pained him for reasons he couldn’t put his finger on.

  “So it wasn’t you?”

  She wagged her head. “No.”

  “Then who?”

  She shrugged. “Are you sure it wasn’t just an ad—one of those pop-up things that sometimes sneak through?”

  “No. It was in the history. Several Web sites in a row. It looked like somebody was searching for information about pregnancy tests. I think e.p.t. was in the title of one page.”

  She nodded. “Yes, it’s a brand name.” She brought a hand to her mouth, and even in the dim circle of light the yard lamp cast, he could see her face turn ashen.

  “What is it?”

  “Oh, Doug, what if Kayeleigh—?”

  “What?” He took another step toward her. He didn’t like the look on her face. Surely she couldn’t be thinking what her words implied.

  “Kayeleigh was on the computer Sunday afternoon. She said she was looking up words from that library book she’s reading. But you don’t think…?”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “What are you saying? Why would Kayeleigh be looking up stuff like that? Besides, this was from just a couple of days ago.” He hadn’t checked the history before that, but he intended to, the minute he got inside the house.

  “Doug?” Mickey still looked stricken. “You don’t think she…thinks she’s pregnant?”

  He reared back the way she had when he’d asked her if she was pregnant a few minutes ago. “Kayeleigh? You can’t be serious? I don’t think she’s even got her period yet, has she? She’s never even had a boyfriend. Why would you even say something like that?”

  “Doug, I think Kayeleigh’s a little more…experienced…than you might think.”

  “Experienced? What’s that supposed to mean?” She was exaggerating.

  “I told you about her being at Seth Berger’s that day she ran off from Wren’s.”

  “So?”

  “She was in that house alone with Seth and his brother. His older brother.”

  He stared at her, knowing his mouth must be hanging open. But Mickey was talking crazy. Assuming things that simply could not be true. Seth was trouble, no doubt about that. But Mickey didn’t know Kayeleigh. “You surely don’t think they were—?” He couldn’t finish the sentence. This was his little girl they were talking about. His innocent little girl. How could Mickey even think such disgusting things about her and that kid?

  “You didn’t see her with Seth, Doug. They were—all over each other.”

  He snorted. Funny that Mickey used the same words Harriet had used in reference to the two of them at the wedding dance that afternoon. “How exactly do you mean?”

  “Seth’s brother answered the door—”

  “Ben?”

  “Yes. Kayeleigh and Seth were in the basement—and I could see down the stairs…it was dark down there. When they came up, she looked…I guess disheveled is the best way to describe it. They stood there, right in front of me, and he had his arms around her waist and she was leaning back against him.” She swallowed hard. “They looked pretty comfortable together that way.”

  “Oh, come on, Mickey.”

  Now it was her turn to stare at him open-mouthed. “You think I’m making that up?”

  He took his cap off and slapped it against his knee. A little cloud of dust rose up like smoke in the glow from the yard light. “No. I’m not saying that. But…she’s a child. I think you misunderstood what you saw.”

  “I assure you I did not. Is that—” She cut off her words and bent her head.

  “What?”

  She looked up and gazed at him beneath hooded eyes. “Is that what you would have said to Kayeleigh that day she caught us making out in my kitchen? That she misunderstood what she saw?”

  The words were like a blow to his gut. He blew out a hard breath and kicked at a rusty nail on the shed’s concrete floor. “That’s different.” But an image of Kayeleigh and the Berger kid dancing together at that wedding last spring kept nudging into his brain.

  “I don’t think so, Doug.”

  “You don’t really think she—?”

  “I don’t know. But I think you need to talk with her.”

  He clenched and unclenched his fists at his side. “How can I do that? I don’t want to put ideas in her head.”

  “Oh, Doug.” She shook her head. “I’m afraid the ideas may already be there.”

  His eyes burned and his stomach did somersaults. “You don’t honestly think Kayeleigh could be—pregnant?” He spit the word out, his voice breaking.

  “I hope not. I hope it’s just curiosity…the stuff she was searching online. But you need to talk to her. Before it becomes something else. Do you—do you want me to talk to her with you?”

  “I don’t want you to talk to her with me. I want you to talk to her.” He mimicked the dry laugh she’d offered earlier.

  She shook her head. “I don’t think she much cares what I have to say. But I can help you with…the female stuff.”

  “Thank you.” He let his shoulders slump, when what he really wanted to do
was fall to his knees on the concrete. “Do you think we should wake her up?”

  “Let’s…wait. Do it first thing in the morning, okay?”

  He nodded as tears clogged his throat. He’d thought he’d lived through the worst that life could possibly throw at him. But maybe there were worse things than losing your wife and daughter on Thanksgiving Day.

  The realization humbled him. Or maybe humiliated was the better word.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Kayeleigh pulled the blankets around her and sought out the pleasant dream again. Another nudge threatened to ruin any chance of finishing it. “Stop it, Harley,” she mumbled.

  “Kayeleigh. Get up,” a voice whispered.

  No. It was Dad. Go away. Go away. Don’t ruin my dream. Seth was there, holding her hand, looking at her like he thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world.

  “Kayeleigh.”

  Go away! Too late.

  It was gone. She couldn’t even remember half of what had been playing out in the sweet world of slumberland.

  What time was it anyway? She peeked out from the covers at the clock. Six o’clock? Rubbing her eyes, she tried to make Dad come into focus.

  Mickey was standing beside him. Huh? That brought her fully awake. She sat up in bed and stared at them, her heart pounding. “What’s wrong?”

  “Maybe nothing,” Dad said, his voice low. “But we need to talk to you.”

  “What’d I do?”

  “Come downstairs and we’ll talk. And don’t wake Harley up.”

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed. What was the deal?

  “I gotta pee first.”

  “Okay.” Dad stood with one hand on the stair rail, Mickey right beside him. “But come right down then. And make it speedy. I’ve got to get in the field.”

  “What did I do?” She racked her brain, trying to think why she’d be in trouble. He’d said last night that they’d probably start harvesting today. It must be pretty serious for him to get her up before he went to the field. Probably some Mickey-the-Neatfreak thing. Maybe she left a piece of lint on the sofa. Or a crumb on the kitchen counter. Or maybe she didn’t arrange the stuff on her shelf in alphabetical order.