The One She Left Behind

They meaning her father. She couldn’t disregard the dagger he’d thrust right into the heart of her guilt. Obviously he wanted to hurt her again, and he was doing a fairly good job. “I did what I had to do to make a life for myself, Sam. Maybe you never understood it, but my dad always did.”

“You’re probably right about that,” he said. “But you might want to ask yourself if it was really worth it.”

With that, Sam spun around and strode away, leaving Savannah alone to ponder his words and the questions whirling around in her mind. Questions she didn’t dare ask him…or herself.

HE’D NEVER SEEN A SWEETER sight—except for maybe the one he’d seen earlier on the bridge. Sam immediately pushed thoughts of Savannah from his mind to concentrate on his daughter dressed in a pink polka-dot gown curled up in his dad’s lap, her thumb stuck in her mouth, her eyes closed against the overhead light. Her hair was as dark as his dad’s was gray.

Sam raked the baseball cap off his head and dropped down in the chair across from his dad. “How long has she been asleep?” he asked in a near-whisper.

Jamie’s eyes popped open and she raised her head. “I’m not asleep, Daddy. I’m just restin’ my eyes.”

Exactly what he’d told her several times when he’d drifted off in front of the TV during one of her favorite cartoons. “You looked pretty asleep to me, Joe. If you didn’t have your thumb in your mouth, you would’ve been snoring like your grandpa.”

She looked more than a little perturbed. “I don’t snore, Daddy.”

“Neither do I,” his dad added.

“Oh, yes, you do, Jamison McBriar,” came from the direction of the kitchen. “Like a steam engine about to blow.”

Sam chuckled. “Guess Gracie would know.”

Jamie worked her way off Jim’s lap and climbed into Sam’s. “Did you see Ruthie?” she asked.

Lying was out of the question, but he’d have hell to pay if he told the truth. Vague would probably work best. “No, sweetheart,” he said as he pushed a curl from her forehead. “I just dropped off the pie and left.”

“Did you see Ruthie’s daughter, Daddy?”

So much for avoiding the truth. “Yeah, I saw her. I gave her the pie.”

She grinned and said, “Papaw says she used to be your girlfriend,” followed by a giggle.

Sam sent Jim a nasty look. “That was a long time ago.”

Jamie yawned and rested her head against his shoulder. “I’m gonna miss Floyd. He used to let me ride on the tractor.”

Sam had always felt that Floyd considered Jamie the granddaughter he’d never had. “We’re all going to miss him, kiddo. He was a good man.”

“The best,” Jim said. “He would’ve given you his last pair of jeans if you needed ’em.”

Jamie raised her head and looked at Sam straight on. “Is Ruthie sad?”

“Yeah, I imagine she is.”

“Kind of hard to tell with Ruth,” Jim added. “She’s as strong as a barbed-wire fence.”

Jamie glanced at her grandfather before turning back to Sam. “I want to see Ruthie in the morning, Daddy. I want to tell her I’m sad, too.”

He could think of several reasons why that might not be such a good idea. “Maybe we’ll see her in a couple of days.”

Jamie shook her head. “I want to see her tomorrow. We can go after we feed the cows.”

She looked so determined, Sam couldn’t refuse. “Okay, but we’ll only stay for a little while.” Otherwise, Savannah might decide to boot him off the premises.

Jamie put on her “old soul” face, as Darlene always called it. “Why do people have to die, Daddy?”

A question he wasn’t sure how to answer. “It’s just a part of life, sweetheart.”

Fortunately, Sam’s stepmother entered the room with a book in hand before he had to offer a more lengthy explanation. As far as he was concerned, Gracie hadn’t changed much since the day she’d become their housekeeper. Maybe her hair was a little grayer. Maybe she had a few more wrinkles. But overall, she was still Gracie, the godsend. “You don’t need to worry your pretty head about that, sugar pie,” she said as she tossed her braid back off her shoulder. “Now let’s get you to bed so we can finish reading the penguin story.”

Seemingly satisfied to leave the question be for now, Jamie slid her feet onto the floor and started toward the hall. Sam halted her progress when he asked, “Are you forgetting something, Joe?”

She ran back to him and kissed his cheek. “’Night, Daddy.”

“’Night, sweetheart. Watch out for those bitin’ bedbugs.”

Jamie flashed him a dimpled grin. “There ain’t no bedbugs, Daddy.”

Sam started to correct her bad grammar, but he’d save that for later—right before he gave her back to her mother.

After Jamie kissed her granddad good-night, she took Gracie’s hand and tugged her toward the bedroom, chatting all the way down the hall about visiting Ruth and meeting “Daddy’s old girlfriend.”

Sam tilted his head back against the sofa and momentarily closed his eyes. He opened them to his father’s “you’re in trouble, boy” stare, reminding him of other times when he’d had to face Jim McBriar’s wrath for something he’d done wrong. For the life of him, he had no idea what he’d done now. He imagined he was about to find out.

Jim stretched his legs out before him and rested his palms on his slightly bulging belly. “Did you have a nice talk with Savannah when you went to the Greers’?”

He should’ve seen this coming. “I didn’t go to the house. I met her on the bridge, handed over the pie and had a two-minute conversation with her. End of story.”

“Was there water under the bridge?”

Sam knew exactly what his father was getting at, and he refused to take the bait. “That gully’s been dried up for years.”

“That’s too bad because a bridge without water can be pretty useless.”

A few more moments of silent scrutiny passed before Jim added, “You know, the word grudge rhymes with smudge. And that’s exactly what a grudge is—an ugly smudge on the soul that needs to be cleaned away.”

If there was one thing Sam couldn’t stand, it was beating around the bush. “What’s your point, Dad?”

“My point is that at one time, you and Savannah meant the world to each other. A little forgiveness goes a long way.”

“I have forgiven her.” But he sure as hell hadn’t forgotten the way she’d left, or why.

Jim leaned forward, hands clasped between his parted knees. “No, you haven’t forgiven her, just like you never forgave your mother. And let me tell you something, son. Savannah isn’t your mother. Your mother was running to something—a new life. Savannah was running away.”

Man, he didn’t want to hear this. “You mean from me.”

His dad released a rough sigh. “It was never about you, boy. There was a lot of hurt going on in that house.”

“Yeah, and Ruth was doling out most of it.”