The only element she could count on was the ease she would feel in Gene’s presence. This was the reason she had insisted he escort her to the courthouse. She knew she would need that comfort in order to carry on with the plan.
And for a brief while, it worked.
He stood at her door in his dashing dress uniform, his eyes glimmering beneath the bill of his hat. “Shall we?” he said with a smile, and offered the crook of his arm. He guided her to the waiting cab, carrying her suitcase for their hotel stay downtown. Packed among her clothing was a silken nightgown for what would be their first time together in that way.
What she had not figured into the equation, however, was the intrusion of her conscience. For the better part of a week, it had stalked her from a distance. But here, en route to the courthouse, it was squeezed in like a third passenger. She could not ignore its existence. From her heightened awareness, each kindness from Gene transformed into a punishment. His compliments over her appearance, on her wedding suit and Victory curls, were like lashes to her skin. He held her hand, and the sincerity of his touch burned through her thin ivory gloves.
Were the sensations but a warning of what was to come?
Months down the road, Gene would cradle the baby as Vivian lurked in the background, haunted by a secret. That was assuming, of course, the child’s birth would not have already exposed the truth-when gray-blue eyes, light-blond curls, and an early delivery shouted proof of another father.
The faster the thoughts spun in her mind, the thicker the air became. She leaned closer to the open window, but the August humidity blocked any reprieve. She sought an escape, a means to break free.
“Sir, could you pull over?” she said to the driver.
“Sweetheart,” Gene said, “we still have several blocks to go.”
“I need out. Now. Please.”
He looked at her, befuddled, but affirmed her request with the cabbie. The instant they halted at the curb, Vivian jumped out and headed to nowhere in particular. It was as though she had blinked and the golden path of her life had twisted and darkened into a merciless maze.
“Vivian, wait for me!” Gene called out. Travel bags in hand, he caught up to her near the fountain of a city park, where three children waded about, scavenging for pennies. When Gene turned her around, she jerked her eyes away.
“Doll, what is it? Tell me what’s going on.”
“I can’t. I can’t do it.” She cringed inside, disgusted by what she had almost done.
“It’s all right,” he said. “We’ll just wait. We don’t have to rush.”
“Gene, you don’t understand.”
He studied her face, searching for clues, until a splash from the fountain hit his sleeve.
“Come over here with me.” He guided her to a corner of the park and onto a shaded bench. He set their luggage down. As he sat beside her, a hot tear leaked down her cheek. She went to wipe it away, but he gently beat her to it.
“Folks get cold feet all the time. Nothing to worry about.”
“No,” she whispered. “That’s not it.”
He hesitated, looking afraid to ask. “What, then?”
If only he hadn’t surprised her with that proposal. She had been fully prepared to confess it all. After six weeks of his absence, trading only a handful of letters and phone calls, she could not have seen that coming. No girl in her right mind would have seen that coming.
“Why did you ask me?” she said. She was desperate for the road map that had delivered them here, to pinpoint the wrong turns they had taken.
His forehead creased, the pondering of a trick question. “Because I love you.”
“We were apart for more than a month, you never even mention marriage, and the minute you come back you get down on one knee. Why?”
He parted his lips to answer. Then he tucked them in, tight as wire. Gazing away from her, he sank into the bench.
Finally, he said, “I’d made a mistake before. Years ago. I loved a girl, and she believed we’d get hitched one day. Have kids. Live happily ever after. Everybody around us did.”
It was his old girlfriend, Helen. Vivian knew this without asking. The story of betrayal had never been more painfully significant.
“I wasn’t sure, though, that I ever wanted to get married,” he said. “When I told her that, after years together, she pulled away for a while. One thing led to another and ... it didn’t work out. I realized too late that I should’ve explained more to her, so she’d have understood.”
He shrugged a shoulder in a manner that was anything but nonchalant. “Thing of it is my old man was a decent guy-until he drank. Usually he’d just throw a fit, start breaking things. But one night my mom accidentally burnt a roast. Money was tight, and he exploded. I was at the table when he slapped her hard enough to knock her down. She caught the edge of the counter with the back of her head and wound up with four stitches. I was twelve. He never did it again, not that I know of anyway. But part of me never forgave myself for just sitting there, scared as hell in my seat, not defending her like I should have.”