both Matt’s and Amy’s unspoken secrets. Torture, plain and simple. Thank goodness death by impatience wasn’t possible or Jenna would’ve succumbed years ago.
Amy handed her glass of champagne over. “Here. Take this with you into the bathroom and get a move on. Your shower travel kit’s in there already.”
The shower felt heavenly. Jenna hadn’t realized how grungy she felt until the hot water hit her skin. Stifling a moan of pleasure, she allowed herself to stand under the stream for a solid minute she probably couldn’t afford before beginning the arduous process of soaping, scrubbing, and shaving.
With Matt’s and Amy’s secrets nagging at her, as well as all the last-minute wedding prep she’d be doing in the next two hours until the ceremony, her mind whizzed with disparate thoughts. If only she had a waterproof pad of paper and pen to jot it all down so it wouldn’t crowd her mind.
She’d finished shaving her legs and was in the middle of a final rinse when curiosity about whether Rachel had brought Tommy’s tux led her train of thought in an entirely horrible direction that had slipped her mind in all the hubbub of the flower and best-man emergencies.
The Parrish family would be at the wedding. Every single one of them, save for Carson. And the secret she’d vowed to take to her grave was in imminent danger of exploding into public knowledge tonight—because Tommy was the spitting image of his father.
She sagged against the white tile wall, the bite of cold making her wince as much as the epiphany.
She’d known Carson her entire life, and when she looked at Tommy, she saw Carson’s essence through and through. For the longest time, she’d rationalized that maybe the image of Carson in her mind was wrong. Memories were faulty, the victims of time, distance, and experience. Besides that, a lot of people looked radically different as children than they did as adults and it was quite possible that Tommy and Carson looked nothing alike.
But the older Tommy got, the more obvious the resemblance. In March, Carson’s mother, Patricia, had cornered Jenna and Tommy at the church donut table after the service, remarking about how handsome a young man Tommy was and how familiar he looked, though she couldn’t place how.
That night, Jenna had stolen away in a panic to the storage cellar beneath the farm’s big house, rifling through Christmas decorations and old quilts until she’d found a bug and rodent-eaten cardboard box filled to the brim with yearbooks. She’d emptied the box until she found Catcher Creek Elementary School’s yearbook from her kindergarten year, then flipped to her class page to take a good look at Carson at Tommy’s age, hoping to quell her fear.
The photographs of the students in their kindergarten class were faded, but Carson’s picture was clear enough to make her stomach turn. Tommy looked exactly like his father at age five, from the goofy grin, sandy blond hair, and shape of his head to the layout of his features and his lanky body.
Sitting on the floor of the dusty, stuffy storage cellar, Jenna had allowed herself a good, long pity party, complete with tears, about her past and the unfairness of life. She’d cried until the hollowness of solitude had wrapped around her like creeping ivy. Then she’d continued to sit there, watching particles of dust whip in the air, until self-preservation won out over despair. She and Tommy would leave Catcher Creek, as had been her plan all along, and until that day arrived, they would keep far away from the Parrishes.
Yet, though she was painstakingly careful not to take Tommy to downtown Catcher Creek except when she couldn’t avoid it and though she’d never returned to First Methodist Church since that fateful Sunday in March, Jenna knew with fatalistic certainty that it was only a matter of time before Lou and Patricia Parrish or Carson’s sisters realized who Tommy resembled.
She hadn’t anticipated Amy’s
Amy handed her glass of champagne over. “Here. Take this with you into the bathroom and get a move on. Your shower travel kit’s in there already.”
The shower felt heavenly. Jenna hadn’t realized how grungy she felt until the hot water hit her skin. Stifling a moan of pleasure, she allowed herself to stand under the stream for a solid minute she probably couldn’t afford before beginning the arduous process of soaping, scrubbing, and shaving.
With Matt’s and Amy’s secrets nagging at her, as well as all the last-minute wedding prep she’d be doing in the next two hours until the ceremony, her mind whizzed with disparate thoughts. If only she had a waterproof pad of paper and pen to jot it all down so it wouldn’t crowd her mind.
She’d finished shaving her legs and was in the middle of a final rinse when curiosity about whether Rachel had brought Tommy’s tux led her train of thought in an entirely horrible direction that had slipped her mind in all the hubbub of the flower and best-man emergencies.
The Parrish family would be at the wedding. Every single one of them, save for Carson. And the secret she’d vowed to take to her grave was in imminent danger of exploding into public knowledge tonight—because Tommy was the spitting image of his father.
She sagged against the white tile wall, the bite of cold making her wince as much as the epiphany.
She’d known Carson her entire life, and when she looked at Tommy, she saw Carson’s essence through and through. For the longest time, she’d rationalized that maybe the image of Carson in her mind was wrong. Memories were faulty, the victims of time, distance, and experience. Besides that, a lot of people looked radically different as children than they did as adults and it was quite possible that Tommy and Carson looked nothing alike.
But the older Tommy got, the more obvious the resemblance. In March, Carson’s mother, Patricia, had cornered Jenna and Tommy at the church donut table after the service, remarking about how handsome a young man Tommy was and how familiar he looked, though she couldn’t place how.
That night, Jenna had stolen away in a panic to the storage cellar beneath the farm’s big house, rifling through Christmas decorations and old quilts until she’d found a bug and rodent-eaten cardboard box filled to the brim with yearbooks. She’d emptied the box until she found Catcher Creek Elementary School’s yearbook from her kindergarten year, then flipped to her class page to take a good look at Carson at Tommy’s age, hoping to quell her fear.
The photographs of the students in their kindergarten class were faded, but Carson’s picture was clear enough to make her stomach turn. Tommy looked exactly like his father at age five, from the goofy grin, sandy blond hair, and shape of his head to the layout of his features and his lanky body.
Sitting on the floor of the dusty, stuffy storage cellar, Jenna had allowed herself a good, long pity party, complete with tears, about her past and the unfairness of life. She’d cried until the hollowness of solitude had wrapped around her like creeping ivy. Then she’d continued to sit there, watching particles of dust whip in the air, until self-preservation won out over despair. She and Tommy would leave Catcher Creek, as had been her plan all along, and until that day arrived, they would keep far away from the Parrishes.
Yet, though she was painstakingly careful not to take Tommy to downtown Catcher Creek except when she couldn’t avoid it and though she’d never returned to First Methodist Church since that fateful Sunday in March, Jenna knew with fatalistic certainty that it was only a matter of time before Lou and Patricia Parrish or Carson’s sisters realized who Tommy resembled.
She hadn’t anticipated Amy’s
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