Always Dakota - Debbie Macomber [101]
Unable to deal with customers, Bob closed the bar and restaurant for the day and sealed himself inside his office. He sat dazed with shock and pain, unable to do more than stare at the wall. He didn’t know how long he remained there before the sound of someone knocking invaded his grief.
Reluctantly he went to check, and discovered Hassie standing outside the locked door, peering through the window.
“Let me in,” she demanded.
“I’m closed.”
“Well, open up. Folks are worried about you.”
Bob frowned. How could people already know—then again, maybe they didn’t. With no enthusiasm, he turned the lock and stepped away from the door.
Hassie didn’t wait for an invitation. She hurried inside and closed up after herself. “This is about Axel, isn’t it?”
Bob nodded, unable to meet her gaze. Eventually the town would discover the truth. He and Merrily couldn’t hide the fact that their son, the boy they loved, had been given to a different family.
“The judge awarded him to another couple,” Bob said, figuring that was explanation enough.
A look of sadness came over her, and she gave a deep sigh. “No wonder you’ve closed up shop. Where’s Merrily?”
“Upstairs.”
“Come on,” Hassie said, and led him into the kitchen as if she were steering a child. “I remember what it was like when those two young men from the Army came to tell me my son was dead. I couldn’t think, couldn’t eat, could barely function for days. Now listen, you sit down here and I’m going to make us all a pot of tea.”
“Tea?”
“I know it sounds ridiculous. You lost your son and I’m boiling water, but it will help. Trust me on this, there are few things more soothing to the spirit than a cup of tea.”
As soon as the kettle whistled, she had the tea leaves steeping. “Stay here, I’m going to check on Merrily.”
Grateful, he nodded. He hadn’t meant to abandon his wife, but he couldn’t help her, not when he was hurting so badly himself. His heart actually ached. The lump in his throat was so large, he found it difficult to swallow or breathe normally. The telephone conversation had hit him hard. Until that moment, he’d been living with expectation, with the hope and promise of joy. It felt as though a bomb had gone off, devastating their lives.
Reality was slowly sinking in. Axel would now look to another man and call him daddy. The boy Bob loved, who’d found his way into Bob’s heart, would belong to some other man, a stranger who had more to offer him than Bob did. A physician, a wealthy man who could give Axel material goods. Perhaps so, but no one—no one—would love Axel more than Bob and Merrily did. It wasn’t possible. They’d risked everything for the boy; surely that must prove something. Surely the courts had taken into account the courage it’d required to step forward, to risk losing their son.
The gamble, the giant gamble, hadn’t paid off.
It was a long time before Hassie came downstairs. Her eyes were red, and Bob knew she’d sat and wept with Merrily. Their friend had held and comforted Merrily when Bob couldn’t.
Silently, she poured him a cup of tea. “There isn’t any pain in this world worse than losing a child. I know this situation is different from mine. You aren’t going to stand there and watch Axel being lowered into the ground, the way I did my boy. But the pain is the same.”
“He might as well be dead. He’s dead to Merrily and me.”
“True enough. You had him for a short while and changed his life. You have a great deal to be proud of. You and Merrily gave that boy the love he desperately needed.”
“Merrily—is she all right?”
“No,” Hassie said as she set the steaming tea in front of him. “She needs you, but she won’t ask.”
He suspected his wife was waiting for a convenient moment to disappear. Come morning, he fully expected to wake and find her gone.
Bob sipped the sweetened tea. It was too hot and burned his throat, but he didn’t care. He tried not to think, tried to put Axel out of his mind. And couldn’t.
It