The Mammoth Book of Ghost Romance by Trisha Telep

Author:Trisha Telep
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780762442690
Publisher: Running Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Six

“I do not know what happened to Naomi,” Caleb said. “One day she was sick, the next she was dead.”

Relief surged through Hannah. “Dead from her illness, then.”

Caleb shook his head, leaned forward, elbows on knees, and covered his face with his hands. “I wish to God I knew what happened that night.”

Despite his muffled voice, Hannah caught both prayer and irreverence in his words, and her icy heart began to thaw. “Tell me what you do know, from the beginning,” she said. “Share your burden, lighten it. No one will treat it more gently than I.”

Caleb sighed but remained silent and, when Hannah prepared to give up and check on Susie, he sat back and cleared his throat. For a few silent minutes, he ran his thumb over her blunt, broken fingernails, and Hannah wished she had not defied the laws of nature to dig in the winter earth. How prideful to care about jagged fingernails at such a time.

“Naomi had been unhappy for a long while,” Caleb finally said. “Since before our marriage, worse after it, but worse still after Susie turned a year old, because there were no more babies. Not that I kept from—” He cleared his throat. “I mean, there should . . . could have been. I . . . loved her, you know?”

“I understand,” Hannah said. “You did not keep from her.”

He nodded. “Yes, no, I did not . . . keep from her.”

“How sad your wife must have been, if she chose to leave a man who loved her so much he could tell a stranger so.”

Caleb faced her. “Funny, I met you yesterday, but I do not think of you as a stranger.”

She squeezed his hand. “Danke,” she said. “Thank you.”

“A year ago, we thought she was carrying, maybe six months gone, but she was in pain, and she grew too big too fast.”

“Cancer,” Hannah whispered and saw the surprise in his eyes, wishing the moon was not so bright, because she could also see the tears he tried to blink away. “My mother,” she explained.

She read his sympathy. “Naomi died the night of the day we found out,” he said. “My fault.”

“No, that cannot be. She said goodbye to Susie. You did not know until just now in my kitchen. How could it be your fault? She did it herself.”

He raised an angry hand to stop her from speaking the vile word. Suicide. The only explanation possible, and yet she knew he would not accept it, not even to free himself of blame. “I knew she was afraid after we saw the doctor. I knew. And still, after she slept – or so I thought – I went to the barn to check on a mare about to foal and I stayed to deliver her.”

“Any responsible farmer would have done as much.”

“A good farmer maybe, but a selfish man for certain. I wanted to think about anything but the fact that my wife was dying. I wanted to pretend life was normal, not filled with the dread of a slow and painful death.

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