She smiled at me. "My girl—still taking care of me." Her smile turned sad. "You won't have to forever, I promise you. The thing is, Tenleigh, sweetheart, it wasn't always so bad. When your father first brought me to Appalachia, I loved it there, even despite the fact that we lived in a trailer in the woods. I loved the mountains and the streams and the sunsets. And I loved the people—there are characters there unlike any you'll ever meet, with the biggest hearts." She smiled and so did I. She was right about that. "And I was so in love." She looked down. "I know he didn't love me back, at least not in the way I loved him, but I want you to know, my baby, that I loved your father. I loved him with all my heart. When I look at you, you and Marlo, I remember that and sometimes it makes me sad, but mostly it makes me thankful."
Oh, Mama. I felt like my heart was bleeding.
I nodded, swallowing down the lump in my throat. Could I do that, too? Could I be thankful one day for the love I'd had with Kyland, despite the fact that it had ended in heartbreak?
"All these years, I had it in my head that the only thing I'd done worth any value at all was winning that stupid pageant." She shook her head sadly. "But I was so wrong. You, you and Marlo. You're the most beautiful things I ever did."
"Mama," I croaked out, gathering her in my arms and hugging her.
We strolled the grounds for a while after that, Mama, Marlo, and I catching up and chatting like girls for the first time in my life. Joy filled me and I found myself wanting to pinch myself every three minutes. Mama asked me all about San Diego, my classes, the school, and I found myself chatting animatedly in a way I'd never done before with her. It was wonderful. And for the first time in years, I remembered how sweet and shy and delicate my mama was when it was really her. She was so beautiful.
When we'd kissed Mama goodbye and got in the car, I sat there in joyous shock, finally laughing like a loon, and looking at Marlo like I knew I had lost it. She laughed, too. "I know!" she said, hugging me. "I did the same thing the first time I saw her months ago. I did the same thing."
I knew this hospital had given my mama herself back, first and foremost. But we'd gotten her back, too, and we'd also been given a part of ourselves as well, a part of ourselves we'd only experienced rarely: the role of daughter. I'd be forever grateful to Sam for this incredible, life-changing gift.
**********
The construction crew broke ground that week. The school was really and truly underway. I allowed myself a moment of pride. There was still so much work to do, but despite the despair I still felt regarding Kyland, I was filled with hope when it came to all the hard work I'd done for the town. There was every reason to believe this project would be a success, that I had done something that would make a real difference.
I still had the rest of the small library to pack up—a few more boxes and it'd be done. I'd avoided it—going in there was particularly painful—but it needed to get done. The building was set to be torn down in the next few days.
I was down on my knees clearing a bottom shelf when I heard the door open behind me. I glanced back, and was shocked to see Shelly walking in. She gave me a small smile and I furrowed my brows, my heart picking up in speed as I stood up quickly.
"Hi, Shelly," I said warily. Why was she here?
"Hey, Tenleigh. I don't think we've ever actually met." She gave another small smile.
I released a breath and smiled back. "No, I guess you're right. Well, nice to officially meet you." I couldn't help that it came out like a question. She had to be here about the other night. So why was she smiling in a friendly way?
She nodded, her smile disappearing. "You, too."
We were both silent for a second before I nodded to the table. "Do you want to sit?"
"Sure." She walked over and scooted herself up on the small table I'd always used as a desk. I leaned back against the bookshelf, taking her in. She was very pretty with her petite body and thick blonde hair.
"So," she said, "I'm sure you're wondering why I'm here."
I nodded, tensed to hear what she was about to say. Was she going to tell me nicely to get out of Dennville, too? To leave her and her little family alone? To stop making scenes with her boyfriend in public bars? Would I actually blame her if that was exactly her reason for this visit?
"Have you seen Joey?"
I blinked. "Joey?"
"My son."
"Oh," I breathed. Kyland's son. "Only from afar." So she's going to use him to make me realize why me being here isn't productive for anyone.
She nodded. "He looks exactly like his father."
Hurt speared through me as Shelly referred to Kyland as Joey's dad. Yet, there was also a sudden sense of ownership, too. I straightened my spine. Stupid, stupid Tenleigh. You don't own any part of Kyland—not one single part. If that isn't clear to you in this moment, then your ability to reason is seriously defective. It didn't feel reasonable, so why did it still feel so instinctual?
"Which is difficult sometimes since he forced himself on me."
Whoa. Whoa. What? Kyland would never, ever, not in a million . . . Oh. Oh my God. I felt like I was reeling. Her words rocked me to my core. I reached behind myself to brace my hand against the solid bookcase.
"Kyland's not Joey's father?" I breathed. And for some reason that could only have been born of idiocy, my eyes filled up with tears.
She shook her head. "He couldn't be. We didn't sleep together. I mean . . ." She looked up at me. "We had . . . in the past." She shook her head. "Stupid teenage fumbling." She laughed softly. "He never loved me. He doesn't love me now—not more than a friend anyway." She was quiet for a minute. "He was the first one I went to—after it happened . . . after I found out I was pregnant. I don't even know why exactly. Maybe I loved him a little. Maybe I hoped he'd want me in some way—I guess I always had. I realize that now—but I didn't then." She shrugged.
I went and sat down next to her on the table. "He lied to me," I said. I still felt like I was reeling even though I was sitting down.
She turned to me and nodded. "I know."
"Why, Shelly? Why would he do that?"
She shrugged. "I don't know exactly. He said he'd help me. He said he was going to stay in Dennville, that he had to stay in Dennville for some reason, and that he'd help me if I needed some money. And then he asked if I'd help him, too, and back up his lie if you said anything to me. I didn't understand why, but," she let out a breath, "at the time I was so messed up, I was almost happy to pretend it was his. But," she shrugged, "you never confronted me anyway so I didn't have to lie."
"No," I said, staring straight ahead. "I left town as quickly as possible after he told me he'd gotten you pregnant." Had he actually said that? Or had he just told me she was pregnant and I deduced the rest myself? Either way, he'd let me come to the incorrect assumption. He'd wanted me to.
She nodded. "I kinda thought that was probably the reason, but he's never said. He helps with Joey when he can—my father and my brothers, they," she took a shuddery breath and it looked like she was going to cry, "said I brought it upon myself by spreading my legs for every guy who came along. For a while, I guess I believed it was true. They refused to help me."
I reached over and put my hand on top of hers and she smiled sadly at me. "How did it happen?" I asked gently.
"I met him at Al's. I went to the hotel on the highway with him," she said. "I went willingly. I even intended on having sex with him. Obviously." She was quiet for a minute. "When we got there, he started getting weird, he wanted to tie me up. I wasn't into it. I started to leave and he threw me down on the bed and started calling me a cock tease. I said no, but I didn't struggle. I never struggled." She shook her head again. "Sometimes I wonder if I had . . . but, well, what's the use in that, right? He had sex with me and afterward, he said, 'Thank you,'" A tear trickled down her cheek. "He thanked me and I still hear it in my head sometimes. And I don't know why that was the worst part of it, the part that stays with me, you know?"
; Because you hadn't given him anything—he had taken. I nodded even though I didn't know how that felt. I could only imagine. An ache formed in my chest.
"Anyway, I found out I was pregnant and you know the rest."
"Did you try to . . . contact him?" I asked.
"I didn't even get his last name." She laughed a small, quick laugh, but looked embarrassed. "He was a trucker. I was barely eighteen, hanging out in a bar, and I picked up a stranger and went back to a cheap hotel room with him. I don't exactly look like the picture of chastity."
"You don't have to look like anything to be raped, Shelly. Everyone has the right to say no." I spoke softly.
She nodded and wiped her cheek, running her fingers under her eyes to wipe away the black mascara she was wearing. I looked around to see if there was anything that could be used as a tissue, but there wasn't. "I know that now," she said. "I mean, intellectually, I know that. And Ian, my boyfriend, he's helped me a lot."
"You have a boyfriend?"
"Yeah. He's great. He wants to marry me, adopt Joey." She smiled, a genuine one.
"That's great, Shelly."
"Yeah." She sighed. After a second she turned to face me again. "The other night at the bar, Kyland actually came with me because Ian was working. They work down in the mine together. Ian, he trusts Kyland. Anyway, I hadn't been back to Al's since . . . well, since that night. I thought it'd be the last piece of closure I needed, you know, to put it in my past—to focus on the future. And then you and Kyland started fighting and I almost said something, but you were working . . . and I thought Kyland should be the one to tell you. But I don't know when he'll do that. Maybe he even thinks it's not his story to tell. But I thought, if I were you, I'd want to know. I didn't understand that fully until I saw you two together. I didn't know that you still love him."
My eyes flew to hers. "I don't love him anymore."
She looked at me dubiously, but didn't say anything. "Well anyway, it's still good to have all the facts. And I could provide at least a few, so there you go."
"Thank you, Shelly. And if I had known why you were at Al's the other night, I never would have made it worse for you."
She shook her head. "It actually made it better for me—I was so distracted, I didn't think to feel any anxiety being there." She laughed softly and so did I.
"I really appreciate you coming here. And I'm sorry we never got to know each other before this."
Her returning smile was warm and kind. "It wouldn't have worked before this. I'd have been jealous of you. But now . . . well, if you realize that you do still have some feelings left for Kyland, I think he'd be real happy about that."
. . . Because Shelly's pregnant. The words still haunted me, still wounded me, still echoed in my mind.
I nodded at Shelly, but I didn't know what to think. This was all such a shock. "I saw you that day," I said, distractedly, "walking on Main Street. Joey was on Kyland's shoulders . . ." God, that had hurt. I still felt the pain of it, even knowing the truth now. Shelly had been pregnant, with another man's baby. And Kyland had known that and had used it.
She nodded. "He's real nice to him—like an uncle. Since he was a baby, he's bought him shoes, diapers, you know, he's helped me out. Especially when my brothers still weren't talking to me. That's just how Kyland is."
Before I could respond, she hopped up. "Listen, I gotta get going. Joey's with my friend and she has to leave for work soon."
I stood up, too. "Thank you again, Shelly. Truly. You didn't have to do this and I just . . . thanks."
She nodded and smiled. "Good luck, Tenleigh." She walked out of the library, closing the door behind her. I leaned back against the bookshelf again and released a loud whoosh of air.
"Thanks," I said to the empty room. "I need it."
What the hell was going on? And what the hell had really happened four years ago? Why on earth had Kyland chosen to shatter my heart with a cruel lie?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Tenleigh
I went back to the trailer later that evening, exhausted and dusty. I still hadn't wrapped my mind around what Shelly had told me. Initially, I had been unable to help the low current of joy and relief that had flowed through my body. But now . . . now I was angry and hurt again. If he hadn't really gotten Shelly pregnant, if he hadn't even slept with her, why would he hurt me like that? He had shattered me, obliterated me—my heart, my trust. It had taken me years to get over what he'd done to me—truth be told, I still wasn't completely over it. And why? Just so I'd take the scholarship and leave? Just because I'd suggested I'd give it all up for him? Was that why he'd done that to me? Did he really want me to get out of town that badly? Was he that worried I'd attempt to make a life with him here in Dennville, Kentucky rather than take the opportunity I'd been given? Clearly, what he'd done had worked. I'd practically left town the day he'd broken my heart. Could I forgive him for that part of it? For the pain that still lived just below my skin at the betrayal . . . the betrayal that didn't even exist? And if it didn't exist, then why did it still hurt? Because he'd wanted me to go—he hadn't loved me enough to try anything to come with me.
I got in the small, cracking, plastic shower and attempted to cleanse the day away. Then I put on a nightshirt and settled myself on the couch. I didn't think I'd be able to sleep, but I must have been even more tired than I thought because I was asleep in minutes.
The next thing I knew, I heard yelling outside my trailer. I bolted up, trying to orient myself. The trailer was utterly dark, but outside something glowed brightly and I smelled smoke. Oh God! Something was on fire. I flung the door to the trailer open and looked around wildly. There was a fire blazing in the front part of the trailer across the road where Ginny Neil lived with her two kids. I ran out the door to join the other people standing in the road in front of the trailer.
"Did someone call the fire department?" I yelled. "Is everyone out?"
"Said they were on their way!" someone answered. Holy shit, this was the worst nightmare for folks like us who lived up in the mountains. The roads were narrow and steep and the nearest fire department was eight miles away. A shack or a small trailer could burn down in a fourth of the time it'd take for them to get here.
"MaryJane! Where's MaryJane?" I heard a woman shriek.
MaryJane? My mind scrambled to place MaryJane, but I couldn't.
I saw Buster standing among the others and ran over to him. "Buster, who's MaryJane?" I called.
"Little two-year-old girl belongs to Ginny Neil and Billy Wilkes," he answered, pointing over to them, his eyes widening. "She's out, right?"
I looked around wildly, my eyes landing on Kyland as he ran up to the group, breathing hard. "Is everyone out safe?" he asked over the voices of the crowd, as shouts for MaryJane started to fill the air.
"Kyland, there might be a two-year-old girl in there," I yelled, racing over to him.
Billy Wilkes started back toward the fire, but Billy Wilkes was on crutches, lord knew why. Kyland ran behind him. They conversed briefly as they moved toward the smoky trailer, flames licking out the front.
My heart raced and I brought my hands up to cover my mouth as Kyland flung the door open and smoke poured out. He and Billy both leaned back and Kyland took off his sweatshirt and put it over his mouth while Billy pulled his T-shirt up over his face. Kyland disappeared inside, Billy standing vigil by the door. I could see him shouting inside, but I couldn't hear what he was saying over the loud roar of the flames and the peoples’ voices next to me.
Impossibly, my heart started pounding even harder. I moved back with my distressed neighbors as the smoke in the air became thicker. Time seemed to stand still as I imagined what was going on in that trailer. The flames seemed only to be in the front where the kitchen was, but the smoke was so thick in the rest of it. Could anyone survive in that? And for how long? Ky.
I gripped my fists tightly down by my sides, helpless to do anything other than pray.
Suddenly, a figure
came bursting through the smoke, holding something large and covered in a blanket. I sucked in a huge smoky breath and moved forward. It was Kyland. Billy Wilkes hurried beside him as fast as he could move on crutches and when they were a safe distance away, Kyland handed the blanketed item over to Billy and bent over, heaving in big gulps of air and coughing. The blanket in Billy's arms fell back to expose a small blonde head.
Billy laid his daughter down on the grass and went down on his knees beside her. We all rushed forward.
"Is she breathing," her mother sobbed, kneeling down on the grass beside her.
"Someone go get some water!" I yelled, and Buster answered, "Be right back!"
"She has a heartbeat," someone else said. "I think she's breathing."
The next few minutes were a frenzy of her parents crying, Buster returning with water and washing her face of the soot, and people yelling.
Finally, finally, we heard a siren coming up the mountain. A few minutes later when the fire trucks got there, they were able to put the fire out with a large extinguisher. It was mostly contained to the front of the trailer, but with the smoke damage, the trailer was ruined. Every possession that family had was gone—and I knew better than anyone that they hadn't had much to start with. Now they had nothing. Despair filled me, for them, for all of us. I sucked back a sob, feeling like I might shatter at any second.
They loaded MaryJane into an ambulance. She was breathing and crying, which had to be a good sign. Apparently, from what I could gather of the conversations, she'd been sleeping in the back of the trailer and each parent thought the other had gotten her. In the fear and mayhem of Billy trying to put the fire out in the kitchen and both of them getting the other two children up and out, little MaryJane had been left behind. I hadn't even known Ginny was living with Billy Wilkes or that they had a little girl between them. Ginny's husband had been one of the men who died at the mine eight years before. I was glad to know she'd found some happiness. And now this. Suddenly, I felt badly for not getting more updates on what was happening on the mountain from Marlo while I'd been away. But it had just been less painful not to talk about home at all.