"Once I went into the army, we wrote. That had to be sneaked, too. Our go-between was Jeannette Adducci, Tony's aunt. She was the next-to-the youngest of ten, so her parents didn't watch her so closely that she couldn't mail Pat's letters for her or pick up mine to deliver to Pat. I'd rented a box at the post office in my name, so I addressed the letters to myself. And the end of that year, '64, when she turned eighteen, Pat picked up her courage and caught the bus for Leavenworth."
Dennis got up. "I should have married her then, but I couldn't bring myself to sign those promises to have any kids we had brought up Catholic. I'm sorry if that bothers you, since she brought you up Catholic, but it's the truth. And she didn't think that being married except by a priest was different from not being married at all. You pretty much know the rest of it by now."
"I suppose so." Noelle put the lid back on the butter dish.
"Except, maybe, that I loved her so much that it hurt. After I'd gotten to know her a little, not just look at her, she was so sweet. She still is. She can't stand the thought of hurting her worst enemy. That's what Bernadette says. That her sins have almost all been of omission rather than of commission, the way the Catholics put it. Not being able to bring herself to do what she needed to."
"She tried," Noelle picked up the butter and put it back in the refrigerator. "Most of the time, anyway."
Dennis looked down. "Sometimes, they weren't her sins. I sinned against her, too, the way the Lord's Prayer says. Not the sex thing. I don't regret that for a minute. More important things. When she did try, not having the person listen who should have listened. That first time she came over to Clarksburg, after I got back from 'Nam, I should have kept her there. Or if not the first time she came, the second. Or third, or fourth, or fifth, or sixth. I'll never get over blaming myself that I didn't. She tried to tell me what was going on. I let her down bad. I should never have let her go back to Grantville that spring of '68. I knew in my heart how much she was afraid of them.
"But I thought it would play out the way she promised the last time she left. That on the morning she was supposed to marry Francis, she would get in her car and go over to her classes in Fairmont and call me to say that everything was all right."
"Okay. I got the testimony from the hearing at St. Mary's. I know what happened then." Noelle turned around and looked at him, her gray eyes measuring. Evaluating. Assessing. "Were you as single-minded about Mom as Joe seems to be about Aura Lee or Harlan about Eden?"
Dennis looked back. Not a child. He was meeting this daughter as an adult. A daughter who would have to decide if she wanted to claim him.
"I would have been if I'd had the chance. I was while I was over in 'Nam and she was waiting. The way things turned out . . . While she was married to Francis, there were seven or eight years when I regularly saw, and slept with, a divorcee over in Clarksburg. Eventually she met a guy who was interested in marrying her, which was the end of that. After Pat wouldn't divorce Francis even though she was expecting you, I was so disillusioned that I slept around for a while. A couple of years. Until I figured out that there was nothing in it for me, so I stopped."
Noelle nodded.
"Nobody Pat ever knew. Nobody she ever heard of, I hope. I tried to make sure of that. Then I dated a couple of other women. Didn't live with either of them. Never wanted to. One moved to Indiana with a job transfer after four years. The other lasted quite a while. The Ring of Fire left her in Clarksburg. That's the chronicle of my misspent years. Abbreviated version more than unexpurgated, but the truth. Not that I'm particularly proud of what I did, either. Of the way I handled things. But if I'd spent all those years thinking about the fact that I couldn't have Pat, it would have driven me crazy."
"Thanks for being honest."
"You're welcome. I'd prefer that nobody ever rub her nose in that."
"Yeah. I guess I can understand where you're coming from. I'd never deliberately do anything to hurt Mom."
"Well," Dennis said a couple of days later. "You could think about it again. That is, since we're going to the bank and putting your name on the records, you could think about what name you want on the papers."
"Yeah. I'll do that. Well, not just think about it. Do it. I told Tony and Denise and Bernadette a couple of weeks ago that I had wanted to get rid of 'Murphy' for a long time. But I wouldn't have asked to use 'Stull' unless you all invited me. I didn't want to be pushy."
Dennis looked at her. It hadn't occurred to him that she might be a little afraid of offending them. Thinking that they were measuring and evaluating her. She always seemed so composed. Reserved. Collected.