Chapter 17 Isadore #2
While she’d tried to savor the first three months of her marriage to Simon, even in this heap-of-a-house, Izzy could relate to moments of the character’s loneliness. To her desire to share her life with someone after her husband died.
Izzy was so caught up in the plot that she didn’t hear the Pierce-Arrow pull into the garage. Didn’t even hear the squeak of the cottage door.
“Izzy?” Simon called from the front room, and her heart felt like it might leap out of her chest.
Finally, her husband was home!
Simon walked into the bedroom, and she was ready to welcome him properly, as a wife welcomes her husband.
He scanned from her toes up to her neck, similar to what he’d done more than a year ago, not long after they’d met.
Back then, he’d made her feel like a woman just by the way he looked at her, but instead of desire in his gaze tonight, she saw something more like disdain. “Why are you lying around?”
She lowered the book. “I’m trapped in here, Simon.”
“No one’s stopping you from taking a walk.”
She closed the cover as a cry, barely audible, drifted from the den.
His frustration turned into surprise. “The baby’s here?”
“She’s been here for almost three weeks.”
He pressed his lips together, calm and cool, before speaking again. “You had a girl?”
“We had a daughter. Since you weren’t around, I named her Greta, after Greta Garbo.”
“The baby wasn’t supposed to come until April.”
“She surprised us.” Izzy couldn’t stop the tears from filling her eyes. “And I didn’t know where to find you.”
“I’ve been working in Clev—”
“Cleveland, I know.” She placed the novel on the nightstand. “Come meet her.”
Instead of moving, Simon glanced at the cover of Raven’s Nest. “Where did you get a Via Belle book?”
“I found it in the house. Your mom must have left—”
He stopped her. “I don’t want to talk about my mother.”
“Well, you asked, and I doubt it’s one of your father’s books.”
“You shouldn’t be reading such drivel.”
“You’re right. I should have someone here to help me with our daughter and a buggy so we can go on a walk. I should have a full cupboard and a dinner planned to meet your friends. And I should be living in that house across the yard instead of in this miserable heap.”
Words rolled out like a tidal wave, and she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She’d been cooped up in here too long with a baby when she was supposed to be thriving as Simon’s wife. She couldn’t even think straight.
He swiped one hand back over his thick hair, in need of a haircut, but oh, how handsome he looked. Like a leading man who’d stepped off the silver screen. When they went to California, he might find his own stardom there.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “You deserve all of that and more, Izzy. I’m trying to get those things for you, but the cash hasn’t come as quickly as I expected.”
“It’s more than the money.” She pulled her knees to her chest. “You keep leaving, and I don’t know where you are. Your father took me to the hospital, thank God, when my pains began, but he’s no help with a baby. It’s like he’s pretending we aren’t even here when this is supposed to be our home.”
Simon placed the fancy cuff links that his mother gave him, engraved with his name, on the nightstand. Then he unbuttoned his shirt and straightened it neatly on the back of a chair before sitting beside her. When he kissed her, she forgave all.
Every woman, her mother had written in a letter, had difficult emotions after giving birth. She and Simon would weather this trying time until his business deal came through, and then they’d renew their love on the Pacific beaches while her college friends took their final exams.
Following their honeymoon, she and Simon would return to their big house in Winfield and settle into their new life as husband and wife. She’d give Simon what he wanted, and he would take care of her.
“You’re right,” he said, caressing her leg. “You shouldn’t be alone when I’m gone. I have friends who can help us. I just have to head back tomor—”
“I love you, Simon, with all my heart, but I don’t much like your friends.”
He smiled like she was confused. “What friends of mine do you know?”
“Mainly a fella named Louie.”
The curse that should never fall from a gentleman’s lips shocked her.
“Don’t swear, Simon.”
He stood now, pacing the floor, and she regretted telling him about the visitor. She should have waited until morning.
“What was Louie doing here?” he demanded.
“Looking for you and he was quite persistent about it, but I didn’t know where you went.”
He swiped his shirt off the chair. “Pack up, Izzy.”
She didn’t move. “Where are we going?”
“To visit your parents.”
“What?”
“It’s time they helped us.”
If he’d said California, she would gladly pack her suitcase and take the next train heading west—and he could easily persuade her to spend the night with him in Cleveland at some swanky place—but she couldn’t take him to Elms tonight.
“Come meet your daughter,” she said, trying to steady her nerves.
Distract him, at the very least. She longed to go home, desperate to see her mother, but not before Simon’s cash fell their way.
Right now, he wouldn’t be pleased at all if he found out she’d stretched the truth about her family’s finances.
The Brooks family lived in a two-bedroom house not much bigger than where she and Simon found themselves.
And the stench. The paper mill in Elms reeked of rotting timber, its nasty fumes trickling into every corner of their town.
On the worst days, when the breeze refused to blow the odor beyond the canal, she’d wanted to rot away with the wood.
“I’ll carry . . .” He paused, searching for their daughter’s name.
“Greta.”
“Right,” he clipped. “I’ll carry Greta to the car.”
“We can’t just show up at my parents’ house in the middle of the night! We’ll scare them half to death.”
He looked at his Rolex, probably worth more than her parents’ Ford Deluxe. Why didn’t he just sell that if they were strapped for cash?
“We can be there before eleven.”
That wasn’t the kind of help she’d been wanting.
If he asked her parents for money, they’d think her destitute.
Tongues would start wagging across town, churning out rumors like they did pulp.
By tomorrow night, half the residents would think she’d married beneath her.
No matter what she said about Simon’s inheritance, that he owned one of the grandest homes in all of Winfield, that he was merely waiting for his property to sell, they’d never forget her husband asking for cash.
But what was she to do? Certainly not stay here alone. Simon would discover the truth about her family soon enough, and he’d be furious. At least they were already married. It wasn’t like he could unmarry her now.
Simon tossed a small suitcase onto the bed, presumably for her to pack. “Hurry up, Olivia.”
She froze. “Who’s Olivia?”
He pressed back his eyebrows as if they had wrinkles. “I said Izzy.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I’m tired, baby. Grab the kid or I will, but we need to rumble out of here.”
“Please, Simon—”
“Louie’s not my friend. He’s trying to force me into giving him a cut of our money.”
She shivered. “We should talk to the police then. Not my parents.”
“Either way, I don’t want to leave you here. He might show up again in the morning.”
“Then stay with me!”
“I’m going to Elms.” He swept into the den and returned with Greta awkwardly cradled in one arm. “And I’m taking her in case Louie gets shifty with us.”
She had no choice but to go with him, quickly preparing two bottles and a hastily packed bag of clothes and diapers. As she slid into the front seat, Greta secure in her lap, she tried to ignore the bobby pin that pricked her on the seat.
Who had been riding with Simon? And why wouldn’t he tell her exactly where he’d been?
The man she’d fallen in love with seemed to have disappeared, leaving behind a stranger who gritted his teeth while the baby—their baby—sobbed.
If only they could go to a movie tonight like regular newlyweds. Escape whatever was troubling him, and whoever had been in his car.
She fed Greta her bottle as they sped south, dreading, more than anything, what was to come.