The Night Mark(96)

“Do you wish you hadn’t come back here? Hadn’t seen me?”

“Not at all. Not for one second. Not for ninety-four years of seconds. But I do regret hurting you. I woke up in Faith’s body, in her life. And you were in love with her, not me. Do you love me because I look like her?”

“Faith,” Carrick said. “Before you...she...before she showed up here, she and I may have exchanged ten words. The day we met, and the day before the wedding when I saw her crying on the balcony of Marsh’s house.”

“They must have been ten damn good words.”

“Let’s see... It was ‘Well, hello there.’ That was me when she landed in front of me and I caught her. And she said—”

“‘My hero.’”

“And when I saw her crying on her wedding day, I said, ‘What’s wrong, love?’ She said, ‘I’ve made a mistake.’ And then I said, ‘If you ever need me...’”

“What else?” Faye asked.

“That was it,” Carrick said. “I said ‘If you ever need me...’ and Marshall’s sister walked into the room to fetch you. Faith. To fetch Faith. I didn’t even get to finish my last sentence. I was trying to say, ‘If you ever need me, I’ll help you. Find me. Write me. Come away with me.’ I shouldn’t have said that. You don’t say that to a woman about to marry the man who used to be your closest friend. But I said it. And she must have believed me.”

“She did. She came here because she believed you’d help her.”

“Or she thought Marshall would never bother to look for her here. I don’t fool myself for one second she was in love with me after those ten words.”

“She was, though.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she wrote you a letter. Hartwell found it, gave it to Marshall, and I read it. You want to know what it says?”

“It says she killed herself, didn’t it?”

Faye nodded. “She did.”

“Ah... I was afraid that was it.” He looked up at the sky, and when he closed his eyes for a second two tears fell from his face to the floor.

“She killed herself because after she came here, she realized she was pregnant with his baby. And she couldn’t be unmarried and living with you and pregnant if she was pretending to be your daughter. And she couldn’t go back to Marshall. And she couldn’t go anywhere else. In her letter she said she hoped she would be reborn in another life where you were her husband and it was your children she had.”

Carrick looked at her in surprise. “She really wrote that?”

“She did.”

Carrick leaned back against the porch post and crossed his arms over his chest.

“She’s gone, isn’t she?”

“Faith? Yes, she’s gone somewhere,” Faye said. “Who knows? Maybe she’s living my old life. But I’d like to think she’s with Will, wherever he is, since I’m with you.”

“And the baby? Gone, too?”

Faye took a long, slow breath, shook her head no.

“Mother of God, you’re pregnant,” Carrick said.

“I can’t say for certain. In 2015 we have these easy pregnancy tests. I’d know in ten minutes. But I think I am. Feels like I am.”

They were silent for a long time. Faye knew what she had to say but didn’t want to say it, but she loved Carrick enough to make the offer.

“I’ll go back,” Faye said. “I won’t stay if you don’t want me to. I’m not Faith, not really. I’m pregnant with another man’s child. And God knows I’m not the girl you fell in love with—”

“I’m in love with you,” Carrick said. His voice was stern and strong, unwavering, unflinching. He meant it. “I’m in love with the girl I pulled out of the water, the girl who kissed me and cried on my shoulder. I’m in love with the girl who can’t milk a goat to save her life. I’m in love with the girl who didn’t think to check for alligators before weeding her garden. I’m in love with the girl who put iodine on my cuts this morning. The girl who’s making me quit smoking. The girl who brings me coffee before she goes to bed. The girl who says things that I didn’t know girls knew how to say to a man. And I’m in love with the girl standing here, and Marshall’s dead and gone, and good riddance. The baby you’re carrying is yours, and since I love you, I love that baby. What I need to know is...are you really in love with me? Or are you in love with the man I happen to look like?”

Faye turned to Carrick, narrowed her eyes at him, smiled.

“Do you know what the infield fly rule is?” she asked.

Carrick shrugged and shook his head.

“Neither do I,” Faye said. “But Will knew. If there’s anything he knew, it was baseball. When Will was hanging out with his friends and they’d had one too many beers, they would fall all over themselves trying to explain it to me. One time they went into the backyard behind our apartment building and tried to act it out. I still didn’t get it. But, God, we laughed so hard that evening I pulled a muscle in my stomach. So if you don’t know what the infield fly rule is and you don’t feel an overwhelming urge to explain it to me when you’re drinking, then you aren’t William Jacob Fielding.”