Best Kept Secrets(100)
"Because it doesn't make any difference."
"Not now, but it did twenty-five years ago. She didn't
want to marry my father. She had to."
' 'Now that you know, what does it change? Not a goddamn
thing."
"Perhaps," she replied uncertainly. After another brief
silence, she said, "I was the quarrel, wasn't I?"
He looked at her sharply. "What?"
Letting her head fall back on the headrest, she sighed. "I
wondered why the two of you didn't kiss and make up when
she got back that summer. Knowing how much and how long
you had cared for each other, I wondered what could possibly
keep you apart after a silly lovers' spat. Now, I know. It
wasn't silly. It was more than a spat. It was me. I kept you
apart. I was the quarrel."
"It wasn't you."
"It was."
Grandma Graham had said it was her fault that Celina had
been killed. Everything Alex uncovered was bearing that out.
Had Celina, by having another man's child, driven her passionate,
jealous, possessive lover to kill her?
"Reede, did you murder my mother because of me?"
"Damn," he swore viciously. "I could strangle Sarah Jo
for telling you about that. My quarrel with Celina wasn't over
you--not originally, anyway."
"Then, what?"
"Sex!" Swiveling his head around, he glared at her.
"Okay?"
"Sex?"
"Yeah, sex."
"You were pressuring her to and she wouldn't?"
His jaw tensed. ' 'It was the other way around, Counselor.''
"What?" Alex exclaimed. "You expect me to believe--"
"I don't give a rat's ass what you believe. It's the truth.
Celina wanted to get a head start on our future, and I
wouldn't."
"Next, you're going to tell me that you had an unselfish,
noble reason," Alex said, tongue-in-cheek. "Right?"
"My own parents," he said without inflection. "My old
man got my mother pregnant when she was barely fifteen.
They had to get married. Look how great that turned out. I
wouldn't take a chance on the same thing happening to Celina
and me."
Alex's heart was thudding with gladness, disbelief and
emotions that were too complex to examine. "You mean that
you never--"
"No. We never."
She believed him. There was no mendacity in his expres-
sion, only bitterness, and perhaps a trace of regret. "Hadn't you heard of birth control?"
"I used rubbers with other girls, but--"
"So there were others?"
"I'm not a monk, for crissake. The Gail sisters," he said with a shrug, "lots of others. There were always willing girls
available."
"Especially to you." He shot her a hard look. "Why
weren't you concerned that you'd impregnate one of them?"
"They all slept around. I would be one of many."
"But Celina would have slept only with you."
"That's right."
"Until she went to El Paso and met Al Gaither," Alex
mused out loud. "He was just a means to make you jealous,
wasn't he?" On a humorless laugh, she added, "She overshot
her mark and manufactured me."
They lapsed into silence. Alex didn't even notice. She was
lost in her turbulent thoughts about her mother, Reede, and
their unconsummated love affair.
"It's really beautiful up here at night, isn't it?" she said
dreamily, unaware that almost half an hour had passed since
they had last spoke.
"I thought you'd fallen asleep."
"No." She watched a bank of clouds drift between them
and the moon. "Did you ever take my mother flying?"
"A few times."
"At night?"
He hesitated. ' 'Once.''
"Did she like it?"
"She was scared, as I recall."
"They gave her hell, didn't they?"
"Who?"
"Everybody. When word got out that Celina Graham was
pregnant, I'll bet the gossip spread like wildfire."
"You know how it is in a small town."
"I kept her from graduating high school."
"Look, Alex, you didn't keep her from doing anything,"
he argued angrily. "All right, she made a mistake. She got
too hot with a soldier boy, or he took advantage of her.
However the hell it happened, it happened."
With the edge of his hand, he chopped the air between
them in a gesture of finality. "You didn't have anything to
do with the act or the consequences of it. You said so yourself,
just a few hours ago. Remember?"