“You mean more to me than anything or anyone else in this world, young lady,” she said in a tone she seldom used with her daughter. “You come first. Always.”
Mary Jane’s eyes filled with tears and Juliet pulled the little girl into her arms, holding on for a long time. They’d been happy and contented for eight years. Why did it seem as if the world was trying to pull them apart now, when they needed each other most?
Or was it because they needed each other that circumstances seemed to be pulling them apart?
Something Mrs. Cummings had said back in March after the spitting episode came to mind, making Juliet uneasy. The woman had implied that her relationship with Mary Jane was too adult. Too open and equal to be natural. Juliet had completely dismissed her concerns at the time.
But could there possibly be truth to them?
Was that why everything seemed so hard? Because she expected more from a child than she should? Did she, because of Mary Jane’s ability to understand beyond her years, expect too much from the little girl emotionally?
Or was it as with everything else of great value—the better it was, the harder you had to work to keep it?
She didn’t know.
And that panicked her.
A lot.
BLAKE HAD NEVER DONE so much socializing. That last month before the trial, he accepted every invitation and hint of an invitation that came his way. Maybe, at least in part, he was driven by panic to get as much living in as he possibly could. Just in case.
However, he also wanted to see everyone he could, talk to everyone he could and meet everyone he could who might have known his father and Eaton James. Juliet had spoken to every single person on his list, turning up nothing of any substance, and he just didn’t know who else might hold the elusive piece of evidence that would gain him his freedom.
As he sat at the hospital Tuesday evening, enveloped by dread while he waited with a young woman he’d never met to find out if her husband was going to live or die, he wondered whether no one could point to that missing piece. What if his father and Eaton James were the only two people who’d ever known what had really happened between them? What if Blake would never know the whole story? What if there was no possible way to prove his innocence?
What if the father of the unborn child across from him didn’t live through the night?
“Do you have family in the area?” he asked the beautiful young Hispanic woman who hadn’t said a word since the doctor had left them to take her husband in for emergency neck surgery.
She shook her head, her features striking even though her face was stiff with tension. “They’re all still in Mexico. So far, Juan is the only one who got a visa to work here. They’re all trying, though.”
“Have you called them?”
With her hands slowly rubbing her belly, almost as though she didn’t even know what she was doing, she shook her head a second time. “If I call my mama, she’ll call his and I don’t want them to know when there’s no way for them to get here. No money.”
“How about friends?”
“We really don’t know many people yet. We haven’t been here that long, and with getting ready for the baby and all…”
He glanced at her belly and away. “How long before you’re due?”
“A month.”
That was how long he had left to wait, too.
But while he had to wait alone, young Maria Gomez might not have to. Blake excused himself, made some telephone calls, and within the hour was able to tell Maria that her mother, as well as Juan’s, had been wired money and—as was often the case in emergency situations—had been granted permission to spend a week in the United States. They’d be with her by the time Juan was coming out of recovery.
That was when the young woman started to cry. And as Blake sat there, holding a very frightened expectant mother, he prayed to a God he’d quit relying on sometime during his travels. He prayed for Juan and Maria Gomez. For their little baby. And for himself—a man ten years older than Juan Gomez, who’d never fathered a child and might never have a chance to do so.
Might the next month somehow find miracles for all of them.
Because, God knew, only a miracle or two would get any of them through the weeks ahead.
IF JULIET HAD ANY DOUBTS left about Mary Jane’s story, they were gone by the time the child finally fell asleep half an hour after her bedtime. Marcie had yet to leave her room.
“You going to hide in here forever?” Juliet pushed open the door to her daughter’s former playroom.
“No.” Marcie sat on the floor, leaning back against the wall, a tissue in her fist. Her eyes were red and swollen.
“You want to tell me about the conversation Mary Jane interrupted?”
Marcie did, immediately, confirming what Mary Jane had already told her and more.
“I’d like to be able to tell you I understand why you lied to me, and that I’m not hurt,” Juliet said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “But I can’t. I don’t understand why, if you really wanted to talk to Hank, you didn’t tell me. The decision is yours to make. We’ve both always known that. And I am hurt. Really hurt.”
Her twin’s lips parted, trembled. Tears slowly filled her eyes. The sides of Marcie’s hair were damp. She’d long since cried away any makeup she’d had on.
“I know.”
The admission didn’t heal the hole in Juliet’s heart. She’d accepted many challenges in her life—met most of them head-on—and come through stronger. She was prepared to face whatever else life decided to hand her. She’d just never expected Marcie to be the one doing the handing.
They’d come through everything together. Everything.
“Why?”
“I—” Marcie broke off. And that, more than anything, scared Juliet. Even now, face-to-face, there was a wall between her and her sister. She had no idea what to do with it.
“What, I’ve imagined the bond between us all these years? Imagined the trust?”
“No.”
She glanced at her sister’s bent head and wanted to scream. Or cry. “Then what?”
“I’m not like you, Jules, so sure of everything all the time.”
Juliet slid down to the floor, her knees up to her chest. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m not sure of anything.”
“Sure you are.” Marcie smiled, but the expression held as much sadness as anything else. “You got pregnant, and you knew just what to do. Oh sure,” she added when Juliet had been ready to interrupt. “You were scared, but you knew you couldn’t marry Blake, knew you shouldn’t tell him, knew you had to take the bar exam, and you knew that, eventually, you’d get what you wanted out of life.”
Okay. Maybe. She supposed. So why, looking back, did she remember a different kind of feeling—the feeling that she was losing the opportunity to ever have what she really wanted?
“I’m not sure, Jules.” Marcie’s soft, teary voice brought Juliet’s thoughts back to the bedroom.
And the fact that she was looking at the broken trust between her and the other half of herself. She and Marcie had always been able to talk to each other about anything. What had happened to change that?
“Okay, you’re not sure. That’s no reason to lie to me about talking to Hank. I didn’t ask you not to. Or even ask you if you were talking to him. You’re the