Glory, Glory

Two

The next morning, after a breakfast of grapefruit, toast and coffee, Glory drove along the snow-packed streets of Pearl River, remembering. She went to the old covered bridge, which looked as though it might tumble into the river at any moment, and found the place where Jesse had carved their initials in the weathered wood.

A wistful smile curved Glory’s lips as she used one finger to trace the outline of the heart Jesse had shaped around the letters. Underneath, he’d added the word, Forever.

“Forever’s a long time, Jesse,” she said out loud, her breath making a white plume in the frosty air. The sun was shining brightly that day, though the temperature wasn’t high enough to melt the snow and ice, and the weatherman was predicting that another storm would hit before midnight.

A sheriff’s-department patrol car pulled up just as Glory was about to slip behind the wheel of her own vehicle and go back to town. She was relieved to see that the driver wasn’t Jesse.

The deputy bent over to roll down the window on the passenger side, and Glory thought she remembered him as one of the boys who used to orchestrate food fights in the cafeteria at Pearl River High. “Glory?” His pleasant if distinctly ordinary face beamed. “I heard you were back in town. That’s great about your mom getting married and everything.”

Glory nodded. She couldn’t quite make out the letters on his identification pin. She rubbed her mittened hands together and stomped her feet against the biting cold. “Thanks.”

“You weren’t planning to drive across the bridge or anything, were you?” the deputy asked. “It’s been condemned for a long time. Somebody keeps taking down the sign.”

“I just came to look,” Glory answered, hoping he wouldn’t put two and two together. This had always been the place where young lovers etched their initials for posterity, and she and Jesse had been quite an item back in high school.

The lawman climbed out of his car and began searching around in the deep snow for the “condemned” sign. Glory got into her sports car, started the engine, tooted the horn in a companionable farewell, and drove away.

She stopped in at the library after that, and then the five-and-dime, where she and Dylan used to buy Christmas and birthday presents for Delphine. She smiled to recall how graciously their mother had accepted bottles of cheap cologne and gauzy handkerchiefs with stylized D’s embroidered on them.

At lunch time, she returned to the apartment, where she ate a simple green salad and half a tuna sandwich. The phone rang while she was watching a game show.

Eager to talk to anyone besides Alan or Jesse, Glory snatched up the receiver. “Hello?”

The answering voice, much to her relief, was female. “Glory? Hi, it’s Jill Wilson—your former confidante and cheerleading buddy.”

Jill hadn’t actually been Glory’s best friend—that place had belonged to Jesse—but the two had been close in school, and Glory was delighted at the prospect of a reunion. “Jill! It’s wonderful to hear your voice. How are you?”

In the years since Dylan’s funeral, Glory and Jill had exchanged Christmas cards and occasional phone calls, and once they’d gotten together in Portland for lunch. Time and distance seemed to drop away as they talked. “I’m fine—still teaching at Pearl River Elementary. Listen, is there any chance we could get together at my place for dinner tonight? I’ve got a rehearsal at the church at six, and I was hoping you could meet me there afterward. Say seven?”

“Sounds great,” Glory agreed, looking forward to the evening. “What shall I bring?”

“Just yourself,” Jill answered promptly. “I’ll see you at First Lutheran tonight, then?”

“Definitely,” Glory promised.

She took a nap that afternoon, since she and Jill would probably be up late talking, then indulged in a long, leisurely bubble bath. She was wearing tailored wool slacks in winter white, along with a matching sweater, when Delphine looked her up and down from the bedroom doorway and whistled in exclamation.

“So Jesse finally broke down and asked for a date, huh?”

Glory, who had been putting the finishing touches on her makeup in front of the mirror over Delphine’s dresser, grimaced. “No. And even if he did, I’d refuse.”

Delphine, clad in jeans and a flannel shirt for a visit to a Christmas-tree farm with Harold, folded her arms and assembled her features into an indulgent expression. “Save it,” she said. “When Jesse came into the diner yesterday, there was so much electricity I thought the wiring was going to short out.”

Glory fiddled with a gold earring and frowned. “Really? I didn’t notice,” she said, but she was hearing that song playing on the jukebox, and remembering the way her skin had heated as she relived every touch of Jesse’s hands and lips.

“Of course you didn’t,” agreed Delphine, sounding sly. She’d raised one eyebrow now.

“Mother,” Glory sighed, “I know you’ve been watching Christmas movies from the forties and you’re in the mood for a good, old-fashioned miracle, but it isn’t going to happen with Jesse and me. The most we can hope for, from him, is that he won’t have me arrested on some trumped-up charge and run out of town.”

Delphine shook her head. “Pitiful,” she said.

Glory grinned at her. “This from the woman who kept a man dangling for five years before she agreed to a wedding.”

Delphine sighed and studied her flawlessly manicured fingernails. “With my romantic history,” she said, “I can’t be too careful.”

The two women exchanged a brief hug. “You’ve found the right guy this time, Mama,” Glory said softly. “It’s your turn to be happy.”

“When does your turn come, honey?” Delphine asked, her brow puckered with a frown. “How long is it going to be before I look into your eyes and see something besides grief for your brother and that baby you had to give up?”

Glory’s throat felt tight, and she turned her head. “I don’t know, Mama,” she answered, thinking of the word Jesse had carved in the wall of the covered bridge. Forever. “I just don’t know.”

Five minutes later, Glory left the apartment, her hands stuffed into the pockets of her long cloth coat. Since the First Lutheran Church was only four blocks away, she decided to walk the distance.

Even taking the long way, through the park, and lingering a while next to the big gazebo where the firemen’s band gave concerts on summer nights, Glory was early. She stood on the sidewalk outside the church as a light snow began to waft toward earth, the sound of children’s voices greeting her as warmly as the golden light in the windows.

Silent night, holy night

All is calm, all is bright…

Glory drew a breath cold enough to make her lungs ache and climbed the church steps. Inside, the music was louder, sweeter.

Holy Infant, so tender and mild…

Without taking off her coat, Glory slipped into the sanctuary and settled into a rear pew. On the stage, Mary and Joseph knelt, incognito in their twentieth-century clothes, surrounded by undercover shepherds, wise men and angels.

Jill, wearing a pretty plaid skirt in blues and grays, along with a blouse and sweater in complimentary shades, stood in front of the cast, her long brown hair wound into a single, glistening braid.

“That was fabulous!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “But let’s try it once more. Angels, you need to sing a little louder this time.”

Glory smiled, brushing snow off her coat as Jill hurried to the piano and struck up an encore of “Silent Night.”

The children, ranging in age from five or so to around twelve, fascinated Glory. Sometimes she regretted studying finance instead of education; as a teacher, she might have been able to make up, at least in a small way, for one of the two major losses in her life—she would have gotten to spend time around little ones. As it was, she didn’t even know any kids—they just didn’t apply for fixed-rate mortgages or car loans.

Joseph and Mary looked enough alike to be brother and sister, with their copper-bright hair and enormous brown eyes. Two of the wise men were sporting braces, and the third had a cast on his right arm.

Glory was trying to decide who was an angel and who was a shepherd when her gaze came to rest on a particular little girl. Suddenly she scooted forward in her seat and gripped the back of the next pew in both hands.

Looking back at her from beneath flyaway auburn bangs was the pretty, pragmatic face of Bridget McVerdy, Glory’s great-grandmother.

For a moment the pews seemed to undulate wildly, like images in a fun-house mirror, and Glory rested her forehead against her hands. Almost a minute passed before she could be certain she wasn’t going to faint.

“Glory?” A hand came to rest with gentle firmness on her shoulder. “Glory, are you all right?”

She looked up and saw Jill standing over her, green eyes filled with concern. Her gaze darted back to the child, and the interior of the church started to sway again. Unless Dylan had fathered a baby without ever knowing, or telling his mother and sister…

“Glory,” Jill repeated, sounding really worried now.

“I—I’m fine,” Glory stammered. She tried to smile, but her face trembled with the effort. “I just need some water—”

“You sit right there,” Jill said in a tone of authority. “I’ll get you a drink.”

By the time she returned with a paper cup filled with cold water, Glory had managed to get back in sync with the earth’s orbit, and the feeling of queasy shock in her stomach had subsided.

Talk about your forties movies and Christmas miracles, she thought, her eyes following the child that had to be her own.

Jill excused herself and looked at her watch as she walked up the aisle. Parents were starting to arrive, peering through the sanctuary doors and congregating in the back pews.

“All right, showstoppers,” Jill said, “it’s a wrap, for tonight, at least. Angels, practice your songs. You were a little rusty on ‘It came upon a Midnight Clear.’”

Glory wondered if she’d be able to stand without her knees buckling. She fumbled through her purse for aspirin and took two tablets with what remained of her water.

Just then, the little girl on the stage broke away from the other angels and shepherds and came running down the aisle, grinning.

Glory’s eyes widened as her daughter drew nearer and nearer, turned slightly in her seat to see her fling her arms around a man clad in blue jeans, boots and a sheepskin coat.

Jesse.

“Hi’ya, Munchkin,” he said, bending to kiss the child where her rich, red-brown hair was parted.

Glory’s mouth dropped open. He knew, she thought frantically. Then she shook her head.

He couldn’t know; fate couldn’t be that cruel. His grandfather wouldn’t have told him, Dylan hadn’t known the truth, though he might have guessed, and Delphine had been sworn to secrecy.

At that moment Jesse’s maple-colored eyes found Glory’s face. They immediately narrowed.

Glory felt no more welcome in the First Lutheran Church than she had in the cemetery the day before. She sat up a little straighter, despite the fact that she was in a state of shock, and maintained her dignity. Jesse might be sheriff, but that didn’t give him the right to intimidate people.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. After raising the collar of his macho coat, he turned his attention back to the child, ignoring Glory completely.

“Come on, Liza,” he said, his voice sounding husky and faraway to Glory even though she could have reached out and touched the both of them. “Let’s go.”

Liza. Glory savored the name. Unable to speak, she watched Jesse and the child go out with the others. When she turned around again, Jill was kneeling backward in the pew in front of Glory’s, looking down into her face.

“Feeling better?”

Glory nodded. Now that the initial shock had passed, a sort of euphoria had overtaken her. “I’ll be fine.”

Jill stood, shrugged into her plaid coat and reached for her purse. “Jesse’s looking good, isn’t he?”

“I didn’t notice,” Glory replied as the two women made their way out of the church. Jill turned out the lights and locked the front doors.

Her expression was wry when she looked into Glory’s eyes again. “You were always a lousy liar, my friend. Some things never change.”

Glory started to protest, then stopped herself. “Okay,” she conceded, spreading her hands wide, as Jill led the way to a later-model compact car parked at the curb. She was too shaken to offer an argument, friendly or otherwise. “He looks terrific.”

“They say he’s never gotten over you.”

Glory got into the car and snapped her seat belt in place. Strange, she’d spent the past eight years thinking about Jesse, but now a gangly child with auburn hair and green eyes was upstaging him in her mind. “The little girl—Liza. Where did she come from?”

Jill started the engine and smiled sadly before pulling out into traffic. “You remember Jesse’s big brother, Gresham, don’t you? He married Sandy Piper, from down at Fawn Creek. They couldn’t have children, I guess, so they adopted Liza.”

Glory let her head fall back against the headrest, feeling dizzy again. The car and Jill and even the snowy night all fell away like pages torn from a book, and suddenly Glory was eighteen years old again, standing in Judge Seth Bainbridge’s imposing study….

She was pregnant, and she was scared sick.

The judge didn’t invite her to take a chair. He didn’t even look at her. He sat at his desk and cleaned out his pipe with a scraping motion of his penknife, speaking thoughtfully. “I guess you thought you and your mama and that brother of yours could live pretty high on the hog if you could just trap Jesse, didn’t you?”

Glory clenched her fists at her sides. She hadn’t even told Jesse about the baby yet, and she figured the judge only knew because he and Dr. Cupples were poker buddies. “I love Jesse,” she said.

“So does every other girl between here and Mexico.” At last, Jesse’s grandfather raised sharp, sky-blue eyes to her face. “Jesse’s eighteen years old. His whole life is ahead of him, and I won’t see him saddled to some social-climbing little chippie with a bastard growing in her belly. Is that clear?”

The words burned Glory, distorted her soul like some intangible acid. She retreated a step, stunned by the pain. She couldn’t speak, because her throat wouldn’t open.

The judge sighed and began filling his pipe with fresh tobacco. The fire danced on the hearth, its blaze reflected in the supple leather of the furniture. “I believe I asked you if I’d made myself clear, young lady.”

Glory swallowed hard. “Clear enough,” she got out.

The defiance he’d heard in her tone brought the judge’s gaze slicing to Glory’s face again. He and Jesse had a tempestuous relationship, but he obviously regarded himself as his grandson’s protector. “You’ll go away to Portland and have that baby,” he said. He waved one hand. “For all I know, it could belong to any man in the county, but I’m taking you at your word that Jesse’s the father. I’ll meet all your expenses, of course, but you’ve got to do something in return for that. You’ve got to swear you’ll never come back here to Pearl River and bother my grandson again.”

She was trembling from head to foot, though the room was suffocatingly warm. “When I tell Jesse about the baby,” she dared to say, “he’ll want our child. And he’ll want me, too.”

Judge Bainbridge sighed with all the pathos of Job. “He’s young and foolish, so you’re probably right,” the bitter old man concluded. He shook his head mournfully. “You leave me no choice but to drive a hard bargain, Missy. A very hard bargain, indeed.”

Glory felt afraid, and she wished she hadn’t been scared to tell Dylan about her pregnancy. He would have gotten mad all right, but then he’d probably have come with her to answer Judge Bainbridge’s imperious summons. “What are you talking about?”

The most powerful man in all of Pearl River County smiled up at Glory from his soft leather chair. “Your brother—Dylan, isn’t it? He’s had a couple of minor scrapes with the law in recent months.”

Glory’s heart pounded to a stop, then banged into motion again. “It wasn’t anything serious,” she said, wetting her lips with a nervous tongue. “Just speeding. And he did tip over that outhouse on Halloween night, but there were others…”

Since Jesse had been one of those others, she left the sentence unfinished.

The judge lit his pipe and drew on the rich, aromatic smoke. He looked like the devil sitting there, presiding over hell, with the fire outlining his harsh features. “Dylan’s about to go off to the air force and make something of himself,” he reflected, as though speaking to himself. “But I guess they wouldn’t want him if he were to be caught trying to break into a store or a house.”

Glory felt the color drain from her face. Everybody knew Judge Bainbridge owned the sheriff and the mayor and the whole town council. If he wanted to, he could frame Dylan for anything short of murder and make it stick. “You wouldn’t—Judge Bainbridge, sir, my brother doesn’t have anything to do with—”

He chuckled and clamped down on the pipe stem with sharks’ teeth. “So now I’m ‘sir,’ am I? That’s interesting.”

Glory closed her eyes and counted methodically, not trusting herself to speak. She was afraid she’d either become hysterical or drop to her knees and beg Jesse’s grandfather not to ruin Dylan’s chance to be somebody.

“You will leave town tomorrow morning on the ten o’clock bus,” the judge went on, taking his wallet from the inside pocket of his coat and removing two twenty-dollar bills. “If you stay, or tell Jesse about this baby, your brother will be in jail, charged with a felony, before the week is out.”

Glory could only shake her head.

Seth Bainbridge took up a pen, fumbled through a small metal file box for a card, and copied words and numbers onto the back of an envelope. “When you arrive in Portland, I want you to take a taxi to this address. My attorneys will take care of everything from there.”

She was going to have to leave Jesse with no explanation, and the knowledge beat through the universe like a giant heartbeat. Just that day, out by the lake, they’d talked about getting married in late summer. They’d made plans to get a little apartment in Portland in the fall and start college together. Jesse had said his grandfather wouldn’t like the idea, but he expected the old man to come around eventually.

All that had been before Glory’s appointment with Dr. Cupples and the summons to Judge Bainbridge’s study in the fancy house on Bayberry Road.

“I won’t get rid of my baby,” she said, lifting her chin. Tears were burning behind her eyes, but she would have died before shedding them while this monster of a man could see her.

Bainbridge’s gaze ran over her once, from the top of her head to the toes of her sandals. “My lawyers will see that he or she is adopted by suitable people,” he said. And with that he dismissed her.

“Glory?”

She was jerked back to the here and now as the car came to a lurching stop in Jill’s slippery driveway. She peered through the windshield at a row of Georgian condominiums she’d seen that morning, while driving around and reacquainting herself with the town. There had been lots of changes in Pearl River over the last eight years; the sawmill was going at full tilt and the place was prosperous.

Jill strained to get her briefcase from the back seat and then opened the car door to climb out. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “You’re wondering how I could afford a condo on a teacher’s salary, aren’t you?”

Actually Glory hadn’t been wondering anything of the sort, but before she could say so, Jill went rushing on.

“Carl and I bought the place when we were married,” she said, slamming her door as Glory got out to follow her inside. “When we got divorced, I kept the condo in lieu of alimony.”