Page 50 of The Lucky Heart (Jamison Valley 3)
“Well, I’d better get out of your hair,” I said, standing from the couch. I’d kept the smile on my face during our conversation, but I couldn’t take much more without my real feelings starting to show and I didn’t want Annie’s sympathy. Not when I was to blame. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“I’m so glad you stopped by. And thank you for the gifts.”
“My pleasure.”
She walked me to the door and gave me another hug. I turned to leave but hesitated when my hand touched the doorknob.
“Annie?” I turned around. “I’m so sorry about Wes.”
“Thank you.”
“No. I mean I’m sorry because it’s my fault. When we were younger, I asked him to . . . he was . . .”
I tried to tell her what had happened all those years ago but I couldn’t get the words out. Annie and Jack deserved to know the truth, but I was terrified that after my confession, she’d never look at me the same way again.
“Felicity.” I stopped stuttering and met her gaze. Her eyes were full of pain. “I’m sure there were things that happened, but it’s just too much. Jack and I, we’ve come to terms with what happened with Wes. Let’s leave it alone.”
“All right.” I wouldn’t push. I wouldn’t put this woman through more pain.
“I don’t mean to shut you out, it’s just—”
“I get it, Annie.” I carried guilt, but so did she. I didn’t have to have kids to know that mothers felt guilty when bad things happened to their children, no matter how old those children were.
Her whole body sagged with relief. “Thank you.”
“You guys have a merry Christmas.” I turned to the door and stepped outside, but before I could get off the front porch, Annie called my name.
“If you have things to say, you should say them to Wes. Tell him and get it off your chest. It always helps me cope.”
I nodded and waved again, walking down the sidewalk to my car. Should I go to Wes’s grave? Could I?
I set my purse inside my car, then set out along the gravel road toward the oak tree in the distance. In the middle of a wheat field, under its towering limbs, was Wes’s grave.
The air was fresh and smelled of the rich dirt from the fields. We’d gotten an unseasonable Chinook wind this last week and most of the snow had melted. It would come again but, for the time being, the breeze was warm and the ground dry.
The oak tree’s leaves had long since blown away and the wheat in the fields had long since been cut, leaving behind short, yellow straws that contrasted with the dark evergreens in the distance. The setting for Wes’s resting place was beautiful, even in the dead of winter. In the spring, when everything was green and bright, it would be spectacular.
“Hi, Wes,” I said to his tombstone. A simple square slab of charcoal granite stood tall above the earth. His name had been engraved in large block letters.
I stared at his name for minutes, unsure of where to start. There was so much to say but the only words that seemed to come out were “I’m sorry.”
A flood of tears followed my apology. Regret and guilt poured down my face. Sadness and longing too. The hairs blowing in my face stuck to the wetness on my cheeks.
“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I ever had that horrible, dumb idea. Why didn’t you just tell me no? Why didn’t you stop? You promised.”
My sadness morphed to anger and I bent down and picked up a handful of rocks lodged between the grasses. One by one, I started throwing them at Wes’s name.
“I’m sorry but I am so fucking mad at you!”
Throw.
“You left us. How could you do this to all of us?”
Throw.
“You almost got my brother killed in that goddamn explosion. How could you be so reckless?”
Throw.
