Chapter 18
Andrews Farm
Luna sat in the rocking chair Jerome had bought her the very day she told him she was pregnant. He’d been eyeing this gorgeous rocker since they decided to start a family right after getting married. It had been handmade by an Amish man in Ethridge. She loved it. It was perfect.
She wished Jerome were here now. But their bed was empty. Even in the near darkness of her room, the emptiness felt profound. It expanded and ached through her. Threatened her ability to maintain her composure.
The baby moved, and that incredible sensation—one like nothing she had ever felt—seared through her. Her hands came to rest on her belly. She smiled down at the baby bump that made her so very happy.
“Don’t you worry, baby,” she whispered. “Everything is going to be fine. Your Aunt Vee promised.”
Worry settled on Luna’s shoulders like an elephant straddling her neck. Why did this have to happen?
Tears burned her eyes. She had tolerated Jackie’s unkindness.
She had ignored her continuous slights and remarks.
Jerome often chastised his mother, but it never helped.
Luna had asked him once about the way Jackie treated Leonard, and he’d said that his father had learned to ignore her hurtful remarks.
Jackie had been petted and had her meanness overlooked since she was a child.
According to Leonard, Jackie had cancer as a little girl, and everyone had treated her differently from that time on.
No one dared to correct her, much less punish her.
She got away with murder, Mr. Andrews would jest. Then two years ago the cancer came back.
Luna and Jerome had only just started dating.
That last time the cancer almost took her.
But it hadn’t, and she’d lived on to torture Luna.
Not fair, Lu.
She sighed. Rubbed her belly. She didn’t even want to consider how Jackie would have twisted this child and tried to turn the baby against Luna.
That was Jackie’s way. When she didn’t like someone, she worked to turn others against that person.
She had been slowly but surely doing this with Jerome’s extended family.
The worst part was before this was over, she would have done exactly that—no matter that she was dead.
Luna stared at the bed where her sweet husband should be. This thing would turn him against her. But because of the baby, he would stay with her, just as his father had stayed with Jackie. And their life together would turn into that same sort of nightmare.
The horrible things Jackie had said that awful day before that harrowing fall echoed in Luna’s mind.
You are not worthy of my son. If not for the baby, he would have forgotten you already.
I wish he’d never laid eyes on you!
Luna had stood like a guilty child, taking her punishment.
But she wasn’t guilty. Jerome loved her.
She was a good person. A good woman and wife, and she would be a good mother.
The bad things that had happened in the Boyett family’s history had nothing to do with Luna.
Her own mother, God rest her soul, was someone Luna hadn’t even known. How could she possibly be like her?
But the trickle-down effect created by Jackie’s evil tongue had started with Geneva. She had turned against Luna. Several of the ladies from church had started to snub her. Luna wasn’t sure she could even bear to go to church this upcoming Sunday.
It was a nightmare. A total nightmare.
But it was done. Luna could not change what had happened. No matter how much she wanted to . . . she couldn’t.
The sound of Jackie calling out to her as Luna stormed out the door would haunt her forever.
She closed her eyes and battled the flood of tears. Jerome’s mother had been screaming for Luna to come back, but she had kept walking without a backward glance.
No one—not even Vera—could ever know that truth.