Holiday Wishes by Nora Roberts

understand.
    â€œTom would come by almost every night. We’d talk. He didn’t seem to mind me talking about you, and God knows I needed to. Then one night we were sitting on the porch and I just broke down. I was three months pregnant and my body was changing. That morning I hadn’t been able to snap my jeans.” With a shaky laugh, she ran a hand over her face. “It sounds so silly, but I hadn’t been able to snap my jeans and it was terrifying. It made me realize there was no going back. Everything just poured out while we sat there. He said he’d marry me. Of course I said no, but he began to reason it all out. You weren’t coming back and I was pregnant. He loved me and wanted to marry me. The baby would have a name, a home, a family. It sounded so right the way he said it and I wanted the baby to be safe. I wanted to be safe.”
    She drank now because her throat ached. “It was wrong, right from the beginning. He knew I didn’t love him, but he just wanted me, or thought he did. The first few months he tried, we both really tried. But after Clara came, he couldn’t handle it. I could see every time he looked at her he thought of you. There was nothing I could do to change the fact that she was yours.” She paused and found it easier to say it all. “There was nothing I would have done to change that. As long as I had her, I had part of you. Tom knew it, no matter how much I tried to be what he wanted. He started drinking, picking fights, staying out. It was as though he wanted me to ask for a divorce.”
    â€œBut you didn’t.”
    â€œI didn’t because I . . . well, I felt I owed him. Then one day I came home from taking Clara out and he was gone. Divorce papers came in the mail, and that was that.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you ever try to contact me, Faith, through one of the magazines or newspapers?”
    â€œAnd say what? Jason, remember me? By the way, you have a daughter back here in Quiet Valley. Drop in some time.”
    â€œOne word—one word from you and I’d have left everything and come back. I never stopped loving you.”
    She closed her eyes. “I watched you walk away from me. I watched you get on the bus and leave me without a trace. I stood there for hours, half believing you’d get off at the next stop and come back. I was the one who had to stay behind, Jason.”
    â€œI called. Damn it, Faith, it only took me six months to get something started.”
    She smiled. “And when you called I was seven months pregnant. My mother didn’t tell me for a long time, not until after Tom had left. She said you made her promise.”
    â€œI needed my pride.”
    â€œI know.”
    That she didn’t question. He saw the way she smiled as she said it, as if she’d always understood. “You must have been terrified.”
    Her smile softened. “There were moments.”
    â€œYou must have hated me.”
    â€œNever. How could I? You went away but you left me with the most beautiful thing in my life. Maybe you were right; maybe I was. Maybe we were both wrong, but there was Clara. Every time I looked at her, I could remember how much I loved you.”
    â€œHow do you feel now?”
    â€œShaky.” She laughed a little, then folded her hands, determined to do what was right. “Clara should be told. I’d prefer doing it myself.”
    The idea made him reach for the brandy again. “How do you think she’ll take it?”
    â€œShe’s learned to get along without a father. It doesn’t mean she hasn’t needed one.” She sat up straight and raised her chin. “You have a right, of course, to see her whenever you like, but I won’t have her bounced around. I also realize you can’t be here for her all the time because of your work, but don’t think you can just pop into her life and out again. You’ll have to make an effort