A Town Called Valentine(47)

“Thank you.”

“It feels like a part of my childhood is gone.” Cathy sighed.

“Did you keep in touch with my mother?”

Cathy took a deep breath and straightened her skirt over her knees. “Not for long although I sometimes like to think that if we had e-mail back then, we would have remained friends. Letters can be hard to write. Plus, I went to work right away as a secretary—I took business classes in high school—and your mom . . .” Her voice trailed away.

“Yes?” Emily didn’t know how to ask about the pregnancy without adding more gossip to Valentine’s rumor mill.

“Your mom felt . . . oppressed by small-town values and nosiness. I might have flirted with the idea of being a wild child, but when it came down to it, I just didn’t want to leave.”

“Did she ask you to go with her?”

Cathy frowned. “No, and perhaps that’s part of the reason we drifted apart.”

“But you said you didn’t want to leave.”

“I guess it would have been nice to know she wanted me to. And then she got pregnant and married so fast, and that new life really changed her.”

Emily withheld a sigh of frustration. It sounded like Cathy didn’t know that Delilah had gotten pregnant before leaving Valentine. “So she told you about me?”

“Oh, yes.” Cathy smiled. “She said she was grateful your father loved her enough to marry her even though they hadn’t planned on you so quickly.”

“Did she sound happy?” Emily asked wistfully. She shouldn’t ask—she knew how her mother felt. Her mother had confided her ambivalence about being a mother on the eve of Emily’s wedding.

“Happy? Don’t take this the wrong way, honey, but when you’re eighteen and pregnant, I can’t imagine you can be happy right away. She was scared for her future, but your dad supported her. The last letter I got from her was when your dad died. She didn’t want me to worry, said she was using the insurance money to begin her own business to support both of you. Imagine—a new age store. I thought it so appropriate. Sadly, she never answered my next letter. By then I was married and pregnant, and we both just got so busy with our lives.” She sighed, a small smile lingering on her mouth. “But look at you. Obviously, Delilah succeeded in raising a wonderful daughter.”

“That’s nice of you to say.” Emily leaned forward. “So tell me about you and my mom. I’d love to hear a couple stories. Were there other good friends I can talk to?”

“Good friends from high school? No. Delilah and I . . . well, we were different, but then you’ve seen the pictures.”

Cathy laughed, as if she’d long ago made peace with her past. Emily envied her.

“Delilah and I had each other, and that was fine for us.”

“She mentioned the 4-H club.”

“Oh, she did a few things with them for the fun of it, but always claimed no one else really understood the two of us. But then again, I’m kind of embarrassed just remembering how we used to behave.”

Cathy launched into several stories about how they rebelled against the music of the early eighties and wore bell-bottoms to the prom. It really did seem like Delilah and Cathy against the world. The two didn’t even date all that much, at least according to Cathy. By the time Emily left, she tried to tell herself that perhaps she wasn’t meant to know the complete truth. But now that she’d given in to her curiosity, she couldn’t just abandon the search.

Emily awoke in the morning and lay still, listening. She was alone in an apartment she owned, a rare, heady feeling. Valentine Valley might have been a small town, but she could still hear noises outside her window at dawn—cars heading off to work, the faintest sounds of voices as several people walked past. She wasn’t the only one who was an early riser.

But there wasn’t a single honking horn, just the distant, muted sounds of a new day. She could get used to this.

After her run, she went to take a shower, only to realize she hadn’t remembered a shower curtain. Laughing at herself, she took a quick bath, feeling awkward because it had been years since her last. The towels were soft, and had hand-sewn embroidery along one end. Those women were so thoughtful!

She spent part of the morning purchasing several sheets of drywall and all the accessories she’d need—including a shower curtain. She held back on the tools because of Nate’s offer. Was she simply supposed to call him up and remind him? But she didn’t have to. As if she’d summoned him, he marched into the restaurant, bearing a toolbox and other supplies, a man who worked with his hands and knew how to get things done. A little shiver of delight worked its way up her spine. How was she going to get any work done when she wanted to gape at him?