The pond was as serene as it had been the last time Leigh had visited. She sat on the dock and skimmed the water with her toes while Jesse went inside to change clothes. Minnows schooled under her feet. She held still and let them nibble on her toes. The tickling sensation brought a smile to her face. If things had turned out differently earlier today, she wouldn’t be sitting here now. She wouldn’t be with this incredible man who surprised her more every day with his change of character.
Footsteps echoed behind her on the dock. Startled, she turned around then breathed a sigh of relief.
“Just me,” Jesse said. “Sorry, I should have said something to alert you.”
“It’s okay.”
He held a tray with two glasses of iced tea and two sandwiches with chips. Man, did that look good. Leigh’s stomach rumbled. Hunger hadn’t registered until now. He lowered himself carefully to sit beside her on the dock and set the tray between them.
“I hope you like bologna and cheese. That’s about all I have right now. I’d have gotten some groceries had I known…” His voice trailed off, probably because he didn’t want to remind her of the reason she was here.
“I’ll eat anything right now. I’m starving.” She picked up a sandwich and took a bite. “Thank you,” she added around her mouthful of bologna.
Jesse chuckled. “No problem.”
They ate in comfortable silence for a while until the sandwiches and chips were nothing but crumbs on their plates. Jo had always said you know it’s a good sign when you can simply sit quietly with a man and still enjoy each other’s company. Leigh hoped her mum was right. But as she finished her last drink of sweet tea, the ice cubes rattled in the glass. It signaled the end of silence and the need to strike up conversation.
Jesse went first. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you about the nightmare I used to have.” He propped his arm on one bent knee, still holding his half-empty glass of sweet tea.
“No, you didn’t. Can you tell me about it now?”
"Wait. Are you feeling up to hearing other people's problems right now? It can wait."
"No, please, I want to. It's what I do. Feels normal, and if anything, I need some normal today."
Jesse nodded. “Okay. The nightmare is always the same. I’m in the living room, playing with my brother Jack. He was maybe nine and me, eight. Anyway, we loved our Matchbox cars. Used to line them up, race them, build tracks for them.” He swallowed hard then took a drink of his tea.
Leigh wanted to keep him going, now that he’d planted another seed to let her further into his psyche. Less importantly, it was a good distraction from her own worries. “Sounds like you had fun with your brother back then. Go on. What happened next?”
Swirling the ice around in his watered-down drink, he focused on it and continued. “Yelling. Dad comes in drunk, which wasn’t unusual. Mom’s lying on the couch with a headache. Next thing we know, Dad’s wailing on her with a belt. Jack drags me down the hall and into their room. It’s the only one that locks. So, Jack locks the door, and we wait. As long as we were out of sight, Dad left us alone." He paused, staring at his glass.
"What happened after that? In your nightmare?" She prompted him, but had a strange suspicion that this was more than a dream.
"We wait for him to get tired of beating Mom. We expect him to head into the kitchen to raid the fridge, and figure he might pass out there on the floor in the middle of a spilled can of grape soda. It’s hard, though, when you hear your mom pleading for it to stop, and you’re just a kid. You can’t do anything."
Geese flew over them in a messy V formation, their shadows flicking across Jesse's face. Fear and anger clashed in his eyes.
She massaged his shoulder to help coax him into talking more. "Kids often feel helpless in an abusive home. What happens next in the dream?"
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly through pursed lips. “The noise doesn’t stop this time. Mom’s screaming, ‘No, don’t do it, think of our boys!’ and then there’s a gunshot. And another one. Heavy footsteps come down the hall. The doorknob to the bedroom rattles. I’m crying. Jack’s crying. We think we’re gonna die."
Jesse scrubbed a hand over his face. This was hard for him. Leigh moved the tray out of the way and scooted closer. She let her bare foot brush against his.
He gave her a little smile and continued. "Dad had a lot of guns. He left them all over the house, loaded, unloaded. He never bothered to put them in a gun safe. It’s a wonder we didn’t blow our own heads off. But he’s right outside the door, pounding on it with his fist, then something harder, which I assume is the gun. Those doors were the cheap kind, hollow. You can hear every sound through them. All he has to do is throw his weight against it, and me and Jack are sitting ducks. Jack tries to drag me to the closet, but I won’t let him, so he goes in and hides, begging me to get in there with him. A closet would buy us a few seconds at best. I pull out Dad’s nightstand drawer, and under the worn-out Playboys and Hustlers, is his .45. Most eight-year-olds wouldn’t know how to use it properly, but Dad had us shooting targets in the backyard from the time we could hold a gun. So, I pick it up, rack the slide, and point it at the door. He starts butting his shoulder up against it, yelling for us ‘little pricks’ to come out and face him like a man. I can’t see well, I’m crying so hard, but I flip off the safety and pull the trigger. The door explodes, with this huge hole and wood shrapnel flying everywhere. One of the shards hits my cheek. And through the hole, I see Dad slide down the wall. There's a trail of blood behind him.” He went quiet then, finishing his tea in one big gulp.
Leigh focused on the scar just below his right eye. “This wasn’t a dream, was it?”
Jesse shook his head.
This was beyond huge. The breakthrough she’d been waiting for with Jesse, that thing he’d kept just beyond her reach from the start. But it was a lot worse than she would have guessed.
Now that it was out in the open, she guided the conversation to the reality of the situation. “Why did she take the blame?”
“Because she knew how this town is. People don’t forget. She didn't want us suffering any more than we already had. It was easy enough for people to accept her story, considering her wounds. It was self-defense. She didn’t serve any time.”
“What about the evidence?”
“We owe that to the sheriff, who was the deputy then. He was first on the scene. He knew how messed up my folks were. Everybody knew. It wasn’t hard to make it look like Mom did it. And I didn’t understand how that all worked back then. I was scared. I thought I’d go to jail or that Mom would for lying, so I kept quiet.”
“What happened to your mom after that?”
“She used more drugs, went to rehab. Then she got out and got high again. Maybe she couldn’t stand the sight of us…of me, I guess, so she left us at Mamaw and Pa’s one day and never came back. I don’t know where she is. I tell people she moved to Cincinnati, because that’s the last place we knew that she'd been to. She could be dead, for all I know.”
Leigh's fears seemed miniscule now. Then again, she’d been just as terrified at that age, only for different reasons. Like it or not, they had a lot of pain in common. Slowly, she took his trembling hand in hers and interlaced her fingers with his. He stared at the water below their feet.
At that moment, his vulnerability was at its peak. His mental and emotional well-being rested on her response, so she considered her words carefully. “No wonder you weren’t sleeping. You’ve carried that secret around with you for so long, it’s like a millstone around your neck. Your guilt made you think you weren’t worth loving, though as a child, you couldn’t process that. You knew subconsciously that if you were bad enough, you’d be unlovable. You’re fortunate to have had grandparents and a sheriff who protected you and knew you were good at heart. And you are, Jesse. You’re one of the best men I’ve ever met.”
His jaw tightened. “But I killed my own father, Leigh. What kind of man does that make me?”
“A man who, as a child, had no other choice.”
“I did have a choice. I could have let him kill us.”
“But you didn’t. You chose to live. You protected your family the only way you knew how. It didn’t make you a bad boy, and it doesn’t make you a bad man. All that’s left is for you to believe that.”
His eyes glistened. A slight smile curved his mouth. His bottom lip trembled as did his voice. “I’m getting there. Thanks for not giving up on me.”
A few weeks ago, she’d have never wanted to be this close to him. For years, she’d hated a phantom, a version of Jesse that didn’t represent the man within.
Leigh got on her knees and wrapped her arms around him. “I can’t give up on you, Jesse. I love you too much.”
“You love me?” he whispered.
Leigh went still. Had she really just said that? Should she have been that open with her own feelings? He needed to process his emotions, not hers. But it was out now, and she couldn’t take it back. Might as well face the fallout.
“Yes,” she said and held her breath.
He squeezed her tight, but his body relaxed, his breaths steady. “Good, because I’ve been in love with you for quite a while now. I didn’t need another secret to keep.”
Leigh pulled back, smiling, her heart lighter than it had been in years. She searched his face, his gorgeous blue eyes and dimpled chin. But his real beauty lay within, and she was blessed to have discovered it.
“I have a great idea," she said. "How about we hang out for a while until the sun goes down, then we’ll watch The Princess Bride and pig out on popcorn and soda.”
“That’s the best idea I’ve heard today. But first…” He pulled her close again. His lips brushed hers then captured them, making her dizzy and giddy.
So, this is what love feels like. It was the best feeling ever.