“Now you’ve come home.” She walked over to put the cookies on the table. “Why?”
He could be evasive with anyone else. He could even lie to himself. But with her there could only be the truth. “Faith.”
“It always was.” Back at the stove, she stirred the chocolate.He’d been a troubled boy, now he was a troubled man. “You heard she married Tom.”
And with her, he didn’t have to hide the bitterness. “Six months after I left I called. I’d landed a job withToday’s News.They were sending me to a hole in the wall in Chicago, but it was something. I called Faith, but I got her mother. She was very kind, even sympathetic when she told me that Faith was married, had been married for three months and was going to have a baby. I hung up, I got drunk. In the morning I went to Chicago.” He plucked a cookie from the plate and shrugged. “Life goes on, right?”
“It does, whether it tows us along with it or rolls right over us. And now that you know she’s divorced?”
“We promised each other something. She married someone else.”
She made a sound like steam escaping from a kettle. “You’re a man now from the looks of you, not a bullheaded boy. Faith Kirkpatrick—”
“Faith Monroe,” he reminded her.
“All right then.” Patiently, she poured heated chocolate into mugs. After she set them on the table, she seated herself with a quiet wheeze. “Faith is a strong, beautiful woman inside and out. She’s raising that little girl all alone and doing a good job of it. She’s started a business and she’s making it work. Alone. I know something about being alone.”
“If she’d waited—”
“Well, she didn’t. Whatever thoughts I have about her reasons I’m keeping to myself.”
“Why did she divorce Tom?”
The old woman sat back, resting her elbows on the worn arms of her chair. “He left her and the baby when Clara was six months old.”
His fingers tightened around the handle of the mug. “What do you mean, he left her?”
“You should know the meaning. You did so yourself.” She picked up her chocolate and held it in both hands. “I mean he packed his bags and left. She had the house—and the bills. He cleaned out the bank account and headed west.”
“But he has a daughter.”
“He hasn’t laid eyes on the girl since she was in diapers. Faith pulled herself out. She had the child to think of after all if not herself. Her parents stood behind her. They’re good people. She took a loan and started the doll business. We’re proud to have her here.”
He stared out the window to where the boughs of an old sycamore spread, dripping with snow and ice. “So I left, she married Tom, then he left. Seems Faith has a habit of picking the wrong men.”
“Think so?”
He’d forgotten how dry her voice could be and nearly smiled. “Clara looks like Faith.”
“Hmm. She favors her mother.” The widow smiled into her mug. “I’ve always been able to see her father in her. Your chocolate’s getting cold, Jason.”
Absently, he sipped. With the taste came floods of memories. “I hadn’t expected to feel at home here again. It’s funny. I don’t think I felt at home when I lived here, but now…”
“You haven’t been by your old place yet?”
“No.”
“There’s a nice couple in there now. They put a porch on the back.”
It meant nothing to him. “It was never home.” He set the chocolate down and took her hand. “This was. I never knew any mother but you.”
Her hand, thin, dry as paper, gripped his. “Your father was a hard man, harder maybe because he lost your mother so young.”
“I only felt relief when he died. I can’t even be sorry forit. Maybe that’s why I left when I did. With him gone, the house gone, it seemed the time was right.”
“Maybe it was, for you. Maybe the time’s right to come back again. You weren’t a good boy, Jason. But you weren’t so bad either. Give yourself some of that time you were always so desperate to beat ten years ago.”
“And Faith?”
