“Maryellen.”
“Yes?” She knew she sounded impatient.
“About that night.”
She closed her eyes, not wanting to hear it. “Haven’t we already discussed it to death?”
“I didn’t plan what happened.”
“So you said.” She didn’t dare look at him.
“What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t protect you, if you know what I mean.” He shrugged when she failed to respond. “Do you really need me to spell it out?”
“No.” An explanation was the last thing she needed. Not when she knew better than he did exactly what the consequence of that night could be—what, in fact, it was.
“Will you be all right? I mean, is there a possibility that…you know.” His concern was evident in his anxious frown.
She forced a smile. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I am worried.” His eyes clouded. “I need to know—to be sure.”
For one terrifying moment, Maryellen was afraid he’d guessed. “I’m fine, Jon. I appreciate your concern but the situation’s under control.”
His relief was evident as the tension eased from his shoulders. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
He held her eyes a second or two longer, then abruptly turned away.
Now Maryellen could finally relax. She expelled her breath and hurried into the Tulips and Things Craft Store.
On Friday, five days before Christmas, Maryellen took her lunch break down at the Potbelly Deli, which served wonderful soups and inventive sandwiches. The restaurant was a local favorite, and she went there as often as she could. Enjoying a cup of the seafood chowder, Maryellen sat in the corner by herself, reading an art magazine, when her mother stepped inside.
“I thought I saw you in here,” Grace said. “Do you mind if I join you?”
“I’d love it.” Although they lived and worked in the same town, a week would slip past without the chance to talk or visit.
Her mother ordered a bowl of the tomato bisque soup and a cup of coffee, then sat in the chair across from her. “I had a visitor not long ago.”
It didn’t take Maryellen long to guess. “Cliff Harding?”
Blushing, Grace nodded. “He invited me and Buttercup to see his horse ranch. I went out there on Saturday.” She stirred her soup and didn’t look up. “Charlotte was going to come originally, but she wasn’t feeling well, so it was just Cliff, me, Buttercup and the horses. He has magnificent horses.” After a slight pause she continued, adding comments about the home, a two-story log house, and the acreage—pastures, woods and even a stream.
Maryellen couldn’t remember seeing her mother more animated about anything in quite a while. “That sounds wonderful.” It was a step in the right direction that her mother had agreed to this outing with Cliff.
Grace tasted the soup, crumbled a package of oyster crackers and dumped them in. When she glanced up, she stared at Maryellen for a moment, her eyes narrowed. “My goodness, you’re terribly pale,” she said. “Are you feeling sick?”
“I’m pale?” She tried to pretend this was news.
“You look anemic.”
“I’m fine, Mom.”
Her mother studied her, frowning slightly. “I want you to promise me you’ll make a doctor’s appointment.”
“I don’t need to see a doctor,” she said, wanting to laugh off her concern. “The next thing I know, you’ll be lecturing me about eating prunes the way Mrs. Jefferson always does.”
Grace swallowed another mouthful of soup. “If you don’t make the appointment, then I will. I don’t remember ever seeing you this pale. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were pregnant.”
The words shocked Maryellen so badly that she choked on her soup. She coughed and wheezed, tears springing to her eyes, and her mother leaped up and pounded her hard on the back.
“Are you all right?”
Maryellen reached for her water glass and sipped. “I’m fine…I think.”
A minute or more passed, and Maryellen could feel her mother’s scrutiny. When Grace finally spoke, her voice was low. “Your father was always closest to Kelly,” she said. “You were the one I identified with most. We’re quite a bit alike. You realize that, don’t you? My hair was once the exact shade of yours. My eyes are the same dark brown.”
Maryellen didn’t know where this conversation was leading, but she had her suspicions. “You’re my mother,” she said lightly. “Of course I look like you.”
Her mother’s voice fell to a whisper. “I was a senior in high school when I discovered I was pregnant with you.”
Maryellen swallowed hard. The details of her birth hadn’t ever been openly discussed, although she’d figured out in her early teens that her mother had gotten pregnant in high school.
“I told Dan, and we had no idea what we were going to do. It was important that we wait until after graduation before we told our parents, but my mother knew. I never had to tell her about you, and do you know why?”
Maryellen’s eyes filled with tears and she picked up her napkin, crumpling it in her hands. “Because you were so pale?”
Her mother nodded. “I was anemic, too. Young and healthy though I was, the pregnancy drained me and I looked deathly pale. It wasn’t a severe case, just enough for me to need a prescription for iron tablets.” She didn’t say anything else, didn’t press Maryellen or throw questions at her. Instead she waited.
“Then you know,” Maryellen said after a moment, fighting hard not to weep openly in public.
“The father?”
“Out of the picture,” she said, not wanting to mention Jon’s name.
“Oh, Maryellen…”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, putting on a brave front, “really I will. Mom, I’m almost thirty-six years old. I can take care of myself.”
“But…”
“It took some adjusting, but now that I’ve accepted this, I’m happy.” The joy was decidedly absent at the moment with tears making wet tracks down her cheeks.
“We always had this connection, Maryellen,” her mother said. “I knew. Somehow I knew.”
“We didn’t always, Mom.”
Grace looked up at her. “What do you mean?”
“If we had this special connection fifteen years ago, you would’ve known then, too.”
Her mother stared at her with wide, disbelieving eyes.
There, it was out—a piece of the truth that she’d assumed would remain forever buried. Her sin, her pain, the guilt she’d carried with her for all these years.
“You were pregnant before?”
The lump in her throat was so big, she could only answer with a nod.
“Leave it to you to wait until the last minute to put up a tree,” Olivia teased Jack as he took the first package of decorative balls from a shopping bag. Actually, Olivia thought it was rather a sweet gesture on Jack’s part. Eric had briefly moved out but was back, much to Jack’s relief. He’d bought the Christmas tree in an effort to lift his son’s spirits over the holidays and Olivia had agreed to help him decorate it. This had entailed buying lights and decorations, since Jack hadn’t bothered much with Christmas since his divorce.
Eric had grown progressively more depressed at the approach of Christmas. Jack had done what he could to pull his son out of his melancholy but to no avail. Two days before Christmas, he invited Olivia over to decorate a Christmas tree while Eric was out. They hoped the surprise would jolt him into a more cheerful frame of mind.
“I kind of like this pitiful tree,” Jack said, stepping back to examine it. The branches all seemed to be bunched on one side, while the other side was almost bare.
“It’s a Charlie Brown tree for sure.” In Olivia’s opinion, this was the sorriest-looking evergreen in the lot, but she agreed it held a certain appeal. She’d brought some leftover ornaments, along with a CD of Christmas music, and they were in business.
Andy Williams’s voice crooned as a small fire b
lazed in the fireplace. “So?” Jack asked, rearranging the string of twinkling white lights. “Are you doing anything special after this?”
“I was thinking I’d let you take me to dinner.”
“The Taco Shack?”
Olivia sighed. Nine times out of ten, that was the restaurant Jack chose. “Do they still owe you for advertising?”
“I can eat there for another twenty years.”
“I was afraid of that.”
Jack hung a plastic gingerbread man on a drooping tree limb. “You like Mexican food, don’t you?”
“Sure—but I enjoy the company more.”
Chuckling, Jack grabbed her around the waist, preparing to kiss her. Olivia certainly wasn’t objecting, but then the door opened and Jack stopped abruptly. He loosened his grip and Olivia nearly fell to the floor, catching herself just in time.
“Eric,” Jack said, sounding startled. “I didn’t expect you for a couple of hours.”
His son walked into the room, looking about as gloomy as a man can get. He didn’t appear to notice that Olivia and Jack had been in the middle of a kiss.
“You picked up the mail?”
Eric nodded.
“What happened?” Olivia asked. The boy seemed to be in shock.
Eric slouched forward and dropped the mail on the coffee table. “I heard from Shelly.”
“She wrote you?” Jack seemed encouraged by this development.
“No…” Eric covered his face with his hands. “She sent me a picture.”
“A picture?” Jack frowned. “Of what?”
“The baby,” Eric supplied. Then he straightened and looked them both full in the face. “Correction, babies. Shelly’s having twins.”
“Twins!” Jack fell back onto the sofa.
Eric reached for the top envelope and withdrew a folded paper. “See for yourself.”
Jack clambered to his feet. He took the paper and examined it, with Olivia glancing over his shoulder. Sure enough, the fuzzy photograph revealed two distinct fetuses. They were positioned in such a way that it was easy to detect the sex. “Both boys from the look of it,” Jack announced.
“Shelly didn’t include a note with the ultrasound results?”
“No,” Eric said, “but when I got this, I thought we should talk, so I drove over to the apartment…”
“And?” Jack pressed.
Eric ran his hand over his face and didn’t seem to know where to start. “The thing is, I love Shelly. These last few months have been hell, the two of us being separated like this.”
“They’ve been hell for me, too,” Jack muttered, and Olivia elbowed him in the ribs.
“Did you have the chance to talk to Shelly?” she asked sympathetically.
“I told her the truth,” Eric said. “I love her, I’ve always loved her. I don’t care if the baby—the babies are mine or not, I want to be with her.” He rubbed his face a second time and Olivia thought he might break into tears. “I can’t do any better than that, can I? I’ve already given her my heart. I offered her my forgiveness, too. What more can I do?”
Olivia groaned. “She doesn’t need your forgiveness, Eric.”
“They can’t be my babies,” Eric cried. “But I’m willing to make them mine, if she’d let me.”
“She refused?” Jack was clearly outraged. “The woman needs to see a shrink! You both do.”
“Jack!” His son didn’t need chastisement now; he was already depressed. It wouldn’t help to heap more blame and censure on his burdened shoulders.
“Shelly wouldn’t talk to me. She threw me out.”
“Of your own home?” Jack was practically growling. “The woman is a fruitcake!”
“Jack!” Olivia elbowed him again. He was making matters worse instead of better. “Let the boy tell us in his own way.”
“Sorry,” Jack said, although he didn’t sound it.
“I went to talk things over with Shelly. I wanted her to know that I don’t care who the father is. Me, this new guy she works with or some man on the street.” His face hardened, and while he might be saying the words, Olivia found it difficult to believe them.
“And she threw you out?” Again it was Jack whose voice rose in disbelief.
“Shelly was crying too hard for me to hear what she said, but she made one thing plain,” Eric murmured. “She wanted me out of there.”
“Women,” Jack muttered. “Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.”
“Would you stop,” Olivia demanded. “Cut the clichés and the unhelpful comments, okay?”
Jack cast her an apologetic look.
“Shelly said it would be best if I was completely out of her life.” Eric spoke in dull tones, and his misery was breaking Olivia’s heart.
“What about the babies?” she asked.
“She said…it’s too late.”
“Too late? What did she mean by that?” Jack shouted.
“She doesn’t want anything more to do with me.” He seemed even closer to tears. “At least, I think that’s what she said.”
“She might’ve been saying something else,” Jack said desperately. “Maybe you didn’t understand….”
“I understood the door she slammed in my face,” Eric told him. “It’s over for us, I know that now.”
“Let’s not be hasty,” Jack said. “Let’s—”
“Eric, sit down,” Olivia instructed, ignoring Jack. “I’m going to make a pot of coffee, and then the three of us are going to discuss this.”
“What’s there to discuss?” Eric asked, shrugging hopelessly.
“Quite a bit, actually, because those babies are going to need their daddy and—” she paused and stared pointedly at Jack “—their grandfather, too.”
“What more can I do?” Eric asked again, following Olivia into the kitchen.
“Don’t worry,” she said confidently, gathering him close. “Life has a way of turning out for the best. If your mother was here instead of in Kansas City, she’d tell you the same thing. It’s painful just now, but be patient. Shelly will eventually reach out to you. She needs you, Eric, and she wants you back in her life.”
“You think so?” His eagerness to believe, made his expression—so vulnerable and expectant—almost painful to watch.
“I do.” Olivia nodded, sincere in what she said to him. In her experience, a woman didn’t maintain as much contact as Shelly had—dinner with Jack, sending the ultrasound pictures—if she wanted to sever all relations with a man. The things she’d said to Jack, suggesting that she and Eric would see each other after the birth, struck Olivia as promising, too.
“Really?” Jack asked. “How long do you think it’ll take?”
“Yeah,” Eric echoed. “How long?”
“That I can’t answer,” she said and wanted to kick Jack for bringing it up.
“You’re a very wise person, aren’t you?” Eric said, looking at her in admiration. He finally seemed to relax a little.
“She’s great,” Jack agreed.
“Now, how about helping us decorate this Charlie Brown Christmas tree?” Olivia urged.
Eric hesitated and then gave her a huge grin. “Okay!”
In her heart of hearts, Olivia was convinced that everything would work out for Shelly, Eric and the twins—no matter who their father was.
Ten
Over the years, Olivia had given a number of speeches. She tended to shy away from accepting these engagements, but in her position as an elected official, they were unavoidable. This was the first time she’d been asked to speak at the Henry M. Jackson Senior Center, and she was admittedly nervous.
The senior potluck luncheons were held on the first Monday of each month. Last June, Mary Berger had asked Olivia to be the January speaker. Six months had never passed so quickly. Olivia had dutifully written the appointment in her date book and then promptly forgotten all about it. Not until she opened her appointment book for the New Year did the reminder jump out at her.
> Naturally, her mother was excited about having “my daughter, the judge,” come and speak to her friends. Knowing Charlotte, she’d gloat for a month. Olivia appreciated her mother’s support, but found her pride excessive and a little embarrassing. Charlotte took every opportunity to tell friends and strangers alike that her only daughter was a judge; worse, she was prone to detailing Olivia’s various judgments, complete with commentaries of her own.
As Olivia dressed for the luncheon, she paused, standing inside her walk-in closet, and frowned as she thought about her mother. Charlotte had overdone it this holiday season, baking for friends, visiting and supervising events at the Senior Center, writing the seniors’ column each week.
By Christmas Day, Charlotte was exhausted. It used to be that nothing slowed her down. For the first time, Olivia realized that her mother’s age had caught up with her. Charlotte just wasn’t her usual self, although she valiantly tried to hide how worn-out she was.
Christmas afternoon, when the family gathered at her mother’s house, Charlotte had looked pale and drawn. As soon as they’d finished dinner, Olivia insisted she rest. Charlotte had, of course, resisted. Olivia wondered how she was going to convince her mother to take on fewer commitments in the new year.
Choosing a soft suede dress in a pale tan color with a brown and gold scarf, Olivia arrived at the Senior Center a few minutes early. Charlotte and her best friend, Laura, were at the door waiting for her. Beaming with pride, her mother immediately hugged Olivia as though it’d been months—rather than a few days—since they were last together.
“You remember Laura, don’t you?” her mother asked unnecessarily, drawing Olivia into the large room, which was set up with tables seating eight, a buffet area and a slightly raised stage that held the speaker’s podium plus the head table.
“Of course I do,” Olivia said, smiling warmly at her mother’s knitting friend. Charlotte and Laura were the people responsible for inspiring the thriving seniors’ knitting group. The enthusiastic Laura was an accomplished knitter and Olivia had always suspected she could convince the whole world that peace was a possibility if everyone took up knitting needles instead of guns.
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