Just Take My Heart - Mary Higgins Clark [82]
It was unseasonably cold that day, Emily remembered as she got out of bed and reached for her robe. I wasn't dressed nearly warm enough. My date was so into the game he never noticed that my lips were blue. Mark took off his jacket and told me to put it on. When I tried to refuse, he said, “You must understand, I'm from North Da?kota. To me this weather is mild.”
It was only later that I found out he spent most of his growing-up years in California. His father, a West Point graduate, had been ca?reer army. Like him, Mark was an engineer and when he moved to Manhattan after graduate school had joined the Army Reserve. Mark's parents now lived in Arizona and kept in touch with her regularly.
We were married three years, and he's been gone three years, Emily thought, as she went downstairs for the familiar routine of let?ting Bess out and turning on the coffeepot. Is that part of the prob?lem, that I've been wanting to have that wonderful feeling of looking forward to the end of the day and being with someone who loves me and whom I love? She answered herself: Yes, it is.
Sunday morning. I haven't gone to church much lately, Emily thought. They had moved to an apartment in Fort Lee after they were married. Mark had volunteered as the leader of song at their church. He had a wonderful voice. That's one of the reasons I've gone so seldom, she acknowledged. When we went together, he was always up there on the altar.
“I will go unto the altar of God, the God who gave joy to my youth.”
She was on the verge of tears again.
No way, she thought, resolutely, no crying.
A little more than an hour later, she was at the ten thirty Mass at St. Catharine's. It made it easier that the leader of song was a young woman. The prayers and responses, familiar since she was a child, came back easily to Emily's lips.
It is right to give Him thanks and praise . . .
For Thine is the power and the glory . . .
During Mass she prayed not only for Mark but to him: I'm so glad we had that time together, we were both so blessed.
On the way home, she stopped and did some real shopping at the supermarket. Gladys, her weekly cleaning woman, had left a long list and added an impassioned plea: “Emily, I'm running out of everything.”
There's another job I've been putting off that I'm going to do today, Emily decided, as she paid at the checkout counter and then begged some empty boxes from a clerk. I'm going to pack Mark's clothes and give them away. It's wrong to have them go unused when they'd be a godsend to someone else.
Unable to part with anything that had been Mark's when she moved from Fort Lee to the house in Glen Rock, she had put his dresser in the small guest room and hung his suits and coats in the closet there. She thought of all the times that first year when she had buried her face in one of his jackets, trying to find a trace of the scent of his shaving lotion lingering in the fabric.
At home, she changed into jeans and a sweater and took the boxes to the guest room. As she was folding the jackets and suits she tried not to dwell on the special occasions when Mark had worn them.
When the closet and dresser drawers were emptied, she thought of something else that should not be kept any longer. She went into her own room, opened the bottom drawer, and scooped up the frilly nightgowns that had been her shower presents. She added them to the last box, then, anxious to get away from the sight of the packed clothes, she closed the door of the guest bedroom and went down?stairs.
An always-willing Bess jumped up and down when she saw Emily take the leash from the hook on the back porch. Before they went out, Emily took a quick side glance to make sure that Zach was not puttering in his backyard, but there was no sign of him. Even so she crossed the street immediately. A few steps later she was passing the house of Madeline Kirk, the reclusive old lady whom she had only glimpsed at her mailbox or sweeping