He stood, reached for his jacket, and headed out the door. Perhaps by the time he reached Blythe’s apartment he’d have dredged up some enthusiasm for this dinner party.
When he arrived at his fiancée’s, he was surprised to find that she hadn’t changed out of the business suit she’d worn to the office that afternoon.
He was even more surprised when she lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. It was all he could do not to ask her not to smoke when she was pregnant. Apparently she experienced a pang of guilt herself because she put out the cigarette after a single puff.
"I thought you’d given up smoking,” he said dryly.
"I had. After these last couple of weeks I might take it up again.”
"I hope you don’t mean that.”
She ignored the comment. "I had tea with your grandmother this afternoon.” She waited as if she expected him to make some statement.
"That’s nice.” A rather dull remark, but he hadn’t a clue what she wanted him to say.
"I take it your grandmother hasn’t spoken to you?”
"No,” he admitted, "should she?”
Blythe gave a cold, short laugh. Ted disliked the cynical, pessimistic moods she sometimes slipped into.
"If it had been me, I’d have been on the phone so fast it’d make your head spin.”
Ted was lost. He’d come to escort Blythe to a dinner party, and she was speaking in riddles. "I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
"I don’t expect you to,” she said, and slipped the diamond engagement ring from her finger. It came off with some difficulty. She stared at it a moment and then deposited it in his hand.
"Blythe?”
She sobbed once. It could have been a laugh, but with Blythe it was sometimes difficult to tell.
Ted stared at the diamond in the palm of his hand and frowned. "If this is because of—”
"You can have your precious Joy now,” she said bitterly.
"Blythe,” Ted said gently, not wanting to distress her, "we’ve already been through this once.”
She turned her back to him. "The baby isn’t yours.”
Ted reeled backward and sank onto the end of the sofa, sitting on the arm. "What do you mean?”
"Do you need me to spell it out for you?” She whirled around to face him. "You’re not the father of this child.”
"But—”
"I assumed it wouldn’t matter.” She brushed the hair from her face. "I thought that I could make you believe that a couple of weeks one way or the other in a pregnancy doesn’t mean anything. But I can’t marry you, Ted. I know that now.”
"What about you and the baby?”
"What about us? The way I figure it, this kid is stuck with me as a mother. Who knows? I might even enjoy this parenting business.”
Madge was gone. She’d died peacefully, surrounded by those who loved her. With the grace and composure that had marked her time on earth, the gentle old woman had slipped silently, serenely from one world to the next.
Paul looked to Bernard and knew the older man suffered from an overwhelming sense of unreality and profound loss. If it had been in his power, Bernard would have reached for his wife and pulled her back, and clung to her.
It was what Paul had wanted in Barbara’s final moments.
Desperately tired and emotionally exhausted, Paul returned to the house. He walked in the back door, to be greeted by dirty dishes soaking in the sink. They reminded him of the urgency with which he’d left.
He heated a single cup of coffee in the microwave and carried it into his office with him. He wanted to sit a spell and sort through the emotions Madge’s death had resurrected.
He knew that his own grief had been all-encompassing and severe for several months now. Only recently had it occurred to him that his capacity for pain was indicative of his capability to experience joy. He was ready for the pendulum to swing in that direction.
Other matters plagued him as well. Bernard had asked Paul to give the eulogy at Madge’s funeral. Paul had reluctantly agreed. Now wasn’t the time to tell the grieving man that he’d resigned from his ministerial duties at the church. Now wasn’t the time to inform the bereaved husband that Paul had turned his back on his congregation.
Paul stood in the doorway of his small den and stared at the book-lined shelves. Several volumes were spread about in a haphazard fashion. In times past, he had been fastidious about his library. Never a book out of place. Never an unfiled paper or an unanswered letter.
He hadn’t noticed that the room had gotten quite so disorganized and regretted that he’d neglected some of the most beloved volumes in his wide collection.
After tucking his books back in their proper places, he sat down at his desk. The surface was reasonably neat. Either Joe or Annie had made an effort to straighten up for him. Stacks of sermon notes and other slips of paper were piled onto one corner, held down by a white binder.
The binder resembled the one he’d kept for his notes on John’s Gospel, the one he planned to write a book from someday, but it couldn’t possibly be his notes. He’d tossed them in the garbage himself and then later made sure it was emptied into the Dumpster.
He regretted the action now, but it was done, and nothing could undo it.
He sat on the old mahogany chair, which moaned in protest. Curiosity made him reach for the tattered white binder. He flipped it open and read the first line.
He gasped and wheeled back from his desk as if burned. It was his sermon notes from the Gospel of John. It simply wasn’t possible.
With his very own eyes Paul had seen the sanitation worker empty the Dumpster no more than two or three minutes after he’d emptied his garbage.
Leta Johnson.
Somehow she must have discovered what he’d done and gone after the sanitation truck and convinced them to let her have the binder.