All the Pretty Poses (Pretty 2)

“Does it still hurt you to see this place?”

She worries her lip as she thinks. “No, it doesn’t hurt. I just think of how much Hank changed after Hillary died, how he went from a loving husband and a good foster dad to a man who would want to put his hands on a child. It turns my stomach.”

I reach for her hand. “I’m so sorry that I never looked deep enough to see what you were going through.” It makes my guts twist into knots just thinking of what he did to her, even more so when I think that he cost her the life of her baby, of our baby.

She laces her fingers through mine. “You weren’t supposed to see. I didn’t want you to see. Although I desperately wanted someone to save me, I loved you too much to let you carry that responsibility. That’s why I hid it so well.”

“But I would’ve done things differently. I would’ve—”

She leans over to put her finger across my lips, shushing me. “I know you would’ve. I didn’t want you to stay because you had to or because I needed you to. I wanted you to stay because you wanted to.”

“I did, you know. I wanted to stay. I was just so weak. My father knew all the right things to say to get me to go along with him. I just… I hate that I’ve let him go this far. I hate that I didn’t put a stop to this long, long ago.”

“But you’re doing it now. Not all is lost, Reese. There is still so much life out there for you.”

I bring her hand to my lips and turn it over, kissing the palm. “For us,” I clarify.

She smiles. “For us,” she agrees before she reaches for her door handle. “Come on. Let’s go meet your daughter.”

Kennedy leads me around the house and into the woods to the left. We walk along a barely-there path until it just stops, just disappears into the dense undergrowth. She strikes out to the left again, weaving through the trees and stepping over a hollow log until she comes to a little patch of yarrow that completely covers the ground. She doesn’t have to tell me that we’ve arrived. The spot rests in sunshine and I can see the arrangement of rocks on the ground. They’re shaped like angel wings.

Slowly, I walk to where the wings meet and I kneel. Instinctively, I know I’m directly over the final resting place of the daughter that I’ll never get to see this side of heaven.

I feel Kennedy as she drops to her knees beside me. I feel the pitter pat of her tears as they coat the back of our joined hands with warm salt water. I feel them on my left hand, too. Only those aren’t Kennedy’s tears. They’re mine.

We stay like that for a long time, spending quiet time with our daughter, neither of us saying a word. It’s when we’re finally making our way back to the car that I find myself unable to hold back another thought.

“Do you ever think about having more children?”

From the corner of my eye, I see Kennedy look at me, but I keep my gaze trained forward. I don’t want to influence her answer one way or the other.

“Of course. But you don’t, do you?” she asks, a tinge of sadness in her voice.

“I didn’t used to. I’ve never wanted to have a baby with anyone else. But with you it’s different. I don’t think I’ve ever stopped thinking somewhere in the back of my mind that maybe one day we’d be together.” I stop, taking Kennedy’s other hand and tugging her toward me so that I can put my arms around her. “When I got the vasectomy, I talked to the doctor about the possibility of having it reversed someday. How would you feel about that? Would you want to have another baby with me, Kennedy?”

“Oh, Reese,” she says, tucking her head against my chest, but not before I see tears fill her eyes again. I feel a pang of guilt that I seem to make her cry so often.

“Don’t cry, baby. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

I hear her sniff several times before she looks back up at me. “These aren’t sad tears. These are my ‘happy as hell’ tears. There’s a difference.”

I smile at that. “Well, in that case…”

I bend my head to kiss her. Fire sparks between us quickly. With all the skeletons out of the way, it seems that we are closer. And the closer we are, the hotter that flames burn.

“I love you,” she says when I finally release her. “Thank you for loving me even though I’m not rich and I didn’t finish high school and I—”

“Wait, what?” I interrupt. “You didn’t finish high school? How did you—”

“I got my GED. When Hank took me out of school, I got too far behind to catch up, and after the baby died, I guess he saw me as soiled goods. He didn’t try to touch me anymore, but he wasn’t the least bit afraid of hitting me or kicking me if he felt like I needed it. So after he died, the first thing I did was go get my GED. That’s where I met Gena Lamareau. She was the teacher, but she also owned a little dance studio in town. Once she found out that I wanted to dance, she started letting me come by and participate in her lessons for free. Those were my first steps toward leaving my past behind and becoming someone that I wanted to be, to have something that no one could take away from me.”

As I stare into her eyes, eyes that seek no pity, I know for a fact that one of the first things I’ll do when I move in to Bellano, just a few hundred yards away, is to burn down the groundskeeper’s cottage. Right after I give our daughter the kind of grave site she deserves.

For Kennedy’s sake, I push back my anger in favor of something more constructive. I raise my hands to stroke her cheeks, soft as silk and twice as fine. “You are the strongest, most beautiful creature I’ve ever known. Every day you amaze me in some new way.”

She shrugs, but her cheeks pinken with my compliment. “Life either crushes us or polishes us. I’m just glad that we both held up under the pressure, that we made it to here. To now. I wouldn’t trade a million happy childhoods for ending up here with you. I have regrets and heartaches just like everybody else, but I can’t let them define me. I choose to leave them in the past where they belong and only bring along the good things that matter. Like you. Our summer. The baby we made. Those are the only things worth saving.”

“And you. You were worth saving. Then. Now. Forever.”

I love the sound of that when I’m talking to Kennedy—forever.

It’s time to focus on that, to put the deeds of my father and the ways that he influenced us behind me forever. Some things are unforgiveable. There’s no point in wasting any more of my life trying to find a redeeming quality in my dad. It’s time to move on, move on to the kind of life that I want for myself. One with Kennedy. With Kennedy and our happiness and our children.

And one without Henslow Spencer.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR - Kennedy

I watch the familiar landscape whiz by. Reese is taking me to Bellano for the arrival of the furniture he ordered. He asked me to help him pick it out, and I know he wants me to live there with him, but today he seems particularly excited to make the short trip.

The furniture truck is already there when we arrive. Tanny is bundled in a thick sweater to keep her warm against the cold winter air that’s gushing through the wide-open front doors as the movers haul in heavy bed frames and sturdy dressers.

I give her a hug and a kiss as I pass. Reese does the same. As always, Tanny strokes his cheek and smiles into his eyes. “My two favorite people,” she says, turning her twinkling blue eyes to me.

“Is it ready?” he asks.

Her smile is angelic and happier than I think I’ve ever seen it. “It is.”

“Is what ready?” I ask.

They look at each other and smile, but neither answers me. Reese simply takes my hand and says, “Come on. I’ll show you.”

We walk down the hall, discussing the new additions of art and rugs and knick knacks here and there. Reese didn’t want to get rid of his uncle’s things, so much as rearrange them or add to them. We both love all the antiques and history-rich pieces in the house. We both grew up seeing them and feeling like this was our “true” home, so neither of us wanted to change much.

It’s when we get to the room that has always been Tanny’s that Reese stops just outside the door.

“I ordered a few extra things for this room,” he says, his lips hinting at a smile.

“For Tanny’s room?”

“Errr, not really. Tanny is taking one of the big suites in the other wing.”

“Then what’s going in here?” I ask.

“Why don’t you go see for yourself?” I see satisfied mischief in his eyes and it makes my stomach twitter in anticipation.

I push open the door and I can’t stop the gasp that bubbles up in my throat any more than I can stop the wash of tears that fills my eyes.

Before me, Tanny’s room is nowhere to be found. This room looks like it’s ready for the arrival of a baby. The walls are painted a cheery yellow and the floors have been re-stained to look like warm honey. There are fluffy white rugs scattered about and a white crib sits at the bay window, flanked by two brand-new, padded rocking chairs.

“It’s a nursery,” I whisper, my heart fluttering in my chest. “Oh, Reese,” I exclaim, turning into his always-waiting, open arms. He curls them around me, tucking me warmly and safely against his wide chest. “Just when I think I can’t be any happier…”

“You might as well expect things like this. As long as I’m alive, I’ll always want to make you happier.”

“The only thing that could make this more perfect would be having some family here to share it with. I hate that Malcolm couldn’t see this.”

“I do, too. He would’ve approved one hundred percent. But at least we still have Tanny.”

I turn shining eyes up to his. “I bet she was giddy with excitement, wasn’t she?”

Reese grins. “Yeah, she was pretty damn happy.”

“Why don’t you go get her?”

I walk around the room, ooo-ing and ahh-ing over all the tiny details until Reese returns with Tanny. She stands in the doorway with shining eyes and looks around what used to be her room.

“Think you’ll mind having a little one around here, Tanny?”

“I can’t think of one single thing I’d love more.”

“I was just telling Reese that everything is perfect. Just perfect. And we get to share it with you.”

Tanny covers her trembling lips with one hand as she struggles to compose herself. After a few moments, she pulls something from behind her back. It’s a wooden box, about the size of a shoe box, covered with beautiful carvings.

“This is for you,” she says, handing it to me. “And for you, Harrison.”

I raise the heavy lid and there, lying in the pale pink velvet interior, are the birth records for Mary Elizabeth that Hank had told me were lost. I take out the white paper with her tiny foot print on it and I stroke it, my thumb so large beside it, even through my blurry vision.

“Where did you find these?”

“After Hank died, I cleaned out the groundskeeper’s cottage and found them hidden under a loose board in the floor.”

I don’t try to stop the tears that spill down my cheeks. “I named her after the only people that I’ve ever cared about. Mary for Malcolm’s wife. He loved her so much. Elizabeth for you. You were like the mother that I never had. And Spencer. Because…she was. She’ll always be.”

Reese walks around behind me and wraps his arms across my chest, setting his chin on top of my head. Just showing me his love and support, letting me feel his presence.

“I’m sorry I never told you, Tanny.”

She waves me off. “It was none of my business.”

“It’s not that I didn’t want you to know. It’s that I felt like I couldn’t.”

“Why?”

I turn my head to glance up at Reese. He nods, agreeing that we should tell Tanny the whole story. She’s like family, even more so than actual family.

I’m calmer now as I revisit the events that took place all those years ago. I’m not surprised when Tanny cries. She cries for me and for Reese and for the baby that never had a chance to live and fight.

Tanny comes to fold her arms around us, giving us all the comfort that she’s capable of. It’s when she leans away that I suspect her tears run much deeper than just our story.

“You two have been through so much, but you finally have each other. You’re finally healing and moving on from the past. That’s why I want to tell you something. Because I know that you’re strong together, stronger than your father, Harrison, and stronger than your past, Kennedy.”

Reese still holds me as Tanny walks through the room, stroking the baby bed and the rockers, letting her fingers trail over the letters on the wall that spell “baby.”

“I was just a few years older than you were when you met Harrison, Kennedy when I met him. I met a man who was just as handsome and dashing, just as charming. It didn’t take me long to fall head over heels in love with him. But like most of the men in his family, he had a drive in him, an ambition that couldn’t be stopped. Not for anyone or anything.

“I got pregnant and it wasn’t until I told him about the baby that he told me he was set to marry a girl from better stock, one that could bring good blood into the family line. I was heartbroken, of course, but as long as I had my baby, I knew I’d be all right. It wasn’t until I, too, gave birth that I got my last visit from Henslow Spencer.”

I drown my gasp with a hand to cover my lips, but nothing drowns Reese’s. I feel it as much as I hear it. He stiffens all around me, hugging me tighter to him.