by Lisa Jackson
“Maybe it’s time for new ones,” Bianca offered up from the kitchen table, where she was supposed to be signing Christmas cards but was spending most of her time with her phone, texting.
Pescoli said, “New traditions?” as she’d lost the thread of the conversation while testing the sauce and musing about her complicated life.
“Mmm. Michelle’s even going to change the color of her tree this year.” Bianca, fingers still flying, glanced up and Pescoli was caught off guard, taken by how much her daughter looked like Luke. That was the way of it; both her kids resembled their fathers much more than they did her, which wasn’t a bad thing. Joe had been rugged, a real he-man, and Luke, damn him, was almost Hollywood handsome with a bad-boy, slightly off-center smile that could melt even the coldest heart. As evidenced by the fact that he’d convinced Regan Strand to marry him.
“No more pink-flocked tree?” Pescoli asked, trying to hide the sarcasm in her voice. Why Luke’s current wife bugged her, she didn’t know. Yes, Michelle was younger and prettier and made herself up like a Barbie doll, but she wasn’t as dumb as she acted and Pescoli certainly didn’t want her cheating ex back. Never. Luke was just no damned good. At least not for her. Handsome? Yes. Narcissistic? You betcha. And he and Michelle seemed to somehow get along.
Good.
Truth to tell, it was the whole stepmom thing that got to Pescoli. Michelle, barely a decade older than Bianca, was into pampering and fluff and fake fingernails and hair extensions, platform heels and the damned Kardashians and Jersey Shore, for God’s sake. All things Pescoli avoided like the plague. So the fact that she was influencing Bianca really got under Pescoli’s skin.
“Michelle is thinking of going retro with one of those aluminum trees with spinning, colored lights on it.” Bianca, as always, seemed in awe of the woman’s inspiration.
“Why doesn’t she really go retro and cut her own in the woods, you know a real tree with real needles and real pitch, one that smells of fir or pine and maybe isn’t perfectly shaped?”
Bianca rolled her eyes. “Because she’s not into that, Mom. What she’s planning to do with the house this year? It’s really kinda cool.”
Of course it is. “And your dad is okay with this? The retro thing?”
“He doesn’t care,” she said with a lift of her slim shoulder. “As long as it doesn’t block his view of his new TV.”
“Another one?” Oh, God why did she even bring Luke up?
“Yeah, it’s super thin. Three-D.”
“Cool!” Jeremy said and Pescoli’s skin crawled. She didn’t need to be reminded that there wasn’t yet one flat-screen television in her home. It just wasn’t a big priority and she didn’t have a lot of extra money to go throwing around on electronics. She needed to change the subject. “Those cards about done?” she asked Bianca.
“Almost.”
“Then it’ll be your turn, Jer.”
“Why? That’s so—”
“Lame, I know. But, again, it’s tradition and your aunts would like to hear from you.” She laid on the guilt a little thick as it had been a while since she’d even talked with any of her three sisters. “You know the ones who send you all those gifts you like?”
“Fine!” he grumbled as he yanked on the lights to straighten the cord and the plug-in fell out of the socket. All the lights immediately dimmed. “Fu—”
“It’s Christmas!” she cut in.
“Not yet!” he snapped, seeming to be angry at the world these days.
Pescoli was having none of his bad mood. “We don’t swear anyway.”
“What? Mom, you’re such a hypocrite. ‘We’ ”—he mockingly swept a hand toward her—“all swear.” His gaze centered on his sister, defying her to pull her goodie-two-shoes routine, one that Pescoli had quit buying once Bianca had turned ten or eleven and Pescoli had caught her trying to smoke. “They’re Carrie’s!” Bianca had cried when Pescoli had confiscated the Marlboro Lights and then dramatically flushed perfectly good cigarettes down the toilet when she’d really wanted to stuff the half-empty pack into her glove box for one of “those” days. She hadn’t. Her point was more effective watching the cigarettes deteriorate, bits of tobacco floating in a swirling pattern as the toilet flushed.
As far as she knew, the dramatic demonstration had been effective; Bianca, it seemed, was smoke free. With Jeremy she hadn’t been so lucky. Not only did he chew, he didn’t bother to hide it any longer. “I’m eighteen, it’s legal!” But he also, she knew, dabbled in marijuana. “Weed isn’t a problem. There’s nothing wrong with it.” Her arguments that marijuana wasn’t legal had fallen on deaf ears.
“Okay, I’m as guilty as anyone, but let’s all try to watch our tongues, shall we?”
No one answered, Bianca was still texting, her pile of signed cards not increasing, and Jeremy, still working with the lights, was watching the latest sports scores flash on the television.
Pescoli figured this was as good a family tradition as she was going to get.
Which was just kind of pathetic when you thought about it.
Chapter 12
Big mistake!
What were you thinking, asking O’Keefe over to your place? That’s only asking, no, make that begging, for trouble.
“He’s going to find out sooner or later,” she said aloud as she walked into her town house and tossed her keys onto a nearby table. She couldn’t keep her son’s birth a secret forever.
He may not be your son—
“Yeah, I know!” That argument had been playing in her head over and over again, but she figured it was just denial. Unwinding her scarf and hooking it over a curved arm of the hall tree, she told herself it would be better if O’Keefe heard the truth from her, if she owned her past.
It was important, if she wanted to find the boy, and she did.
And then what? He goes before a judge for his crime?
“Of course,” she said, and realized she was talking to herself. She believed in the justice system, trusted in it. Even if it seemed to have backfired in the case of Junior Green.
She had to find Gabriel Reeve and turn him in; let the system do its thing, but make damned sure he had a good lawyer.
Are you going to find him one? Is that before or after you have that mother-son talk and explain why you gave him up for adoption?
“Oh, hell,” she whispered as Jane Doe trotted down the stairs and became a puddle of fur in her hands when she lifted the cat off her white toes. “Life’s complicated,” she whispered and Jane rubbed the back of her head under Alvarez’s chin.
As she carried the cat into the kitchen, she walked through the living area, picked up the remote and clicked on the news. As expected, the station was running a clip of the recent statement to the press by the public information officer. The footage had been taken less than an hour before and Alvarez watched as Dan Grayson stood, ramrod straight, next to the woman at the mic. A handsome man, very cowboy-esque with his Stetson, boots and lean, long frame. She could envision him on the cattle trail, upon a horse, spending hours in the blistering sun. Rangy and tough, Grayson was a lawman with all the right morals and instincts, the first she’d been able to trust in a long, long time. Her throat constricted a little at the fantasy she’d wrapped around him, her boss.
The television picture switched to the Presbyterian church and the nativity scene. Behind the reporter, police were working, and as the camera panned over what had once been a pristine crèche, Alvarez was transported back in time to her own childhood and the nativity scenes of her youth while growing up in Woodburn, Oregon. She remembered the Christmas traditions, the gaiety, the sense of fun and breathless anticipation of her childhood. The house had been filled with the noise of her siblings, the rapid-fire Spanish of her grandmother and the scent of cinnamon for the traditional Mexican cookies that took days to prepare. There were garlands and lights, and on Christmas Eve, Grandma Rosarita’s homemade tamales steamed in corn husks lent a savory aroma to the big kitchen.
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br /> Later that night, all of the extended family had piled into cars and gone to the cathedral in the nearby town of Mount Angel for midnight mass. On the way, from the window of the old station wagon, Alvarez had viewed rolling fields and farmhouses decorated with colorful lights, cedar garlands and fir boughs. The old Ford had passed many nativity scenes as well, each elaborately displayed and always offering a sense of peace and serenity, reminding her of the story of the Christ child’s birth.
She’d always been in awe of the man-made re-creations of that holy night. Never, in her life, even as a somewhat jaded adult, would she have associated them with something as ugly and vile as murder.
Now, however, she felt as if everything good in the world was slammed right up against the bad. Black-and-white, no room for a slice of gray in between.
She raced to her bedroom and changed her clothes, all the time wondering what was keeping O’Keefe. He’d been following her as she’d pulled away from the station, but she’d lost him in the traffic and hadn’t worried about it.
Nor should she be concerned now. He knew his way here. In the bathroom, she turned on the tap and found that, gratefully, hot water had been restored. “There is a God,” she whispered, then grabbed her brush and swept her hair away from her face, snapped a rubber band in place and braided the strands. She’d just finished tying off the end with a second band when the doorbell rang.
“About time.” Hurrying down the stairs, she nearly tripped on Jane, who scurried up the steps to hide in the shadows of the upper landing.
At the door, she took a deep breath, and before she worried too much about how she was going to break the news that she was very possibly Gabriel Reeve’s birth mother, she checked the peephole, assured herself the man on the other side was O’Keefe, then pulled it open.
It’s now or never, she thought, determined to confide in him.
“I come bearing gifts.” O’Keefe stood under the lamp on her doorstep, a pizza box extended in front of him. “Figured you might be hungry.”
Not really; not with what we have to discuss. The last thing she wanted was food. “You figured right,” she said. “It’s been a long day.”
“I bet. Couldn’t help but hear about the body found in the church crèche. Figured you haven’t had much to eat today.”
“Unless you count day-old Christmas cookies,” she said, opening the door wider and standing aside, allowing him to enter. Though she hated to admit it, she was so nervous the pepperoni pizza he brandished and set on the table didn’t look the least bit appealing. Her stomach was already in knots and she didn’t see how tons of spicy tomato sauce, stringy cheese and greasy rounds of pepperoni would help the situation.
“And look. I brought my own.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a can of beer. “Got one for you, too.” He pulled a second can from his other jacket pocket.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass,” she said as she fished into one of her kitchen drawers and finally came up with a pizza slicer she’d had since college. “Let’s cut those pieces smaller.” She tossed him the slicer and tried not to notice how familiar this all felt. She took down a couple of small plates from the cupboard, found some sparkling water and, feeling a little bit like a nun for not accepting the beer, scraped her chair back and sat at the small table on the opposite side from him.
“You said you had something you wanted to talk about,” he said as he sliced the pizza and drew a piece away from the pie, long tendrils of mozzarella refusing to let go. After swiping them with the cutter, he dropped the piece onto her plate, then went after another for himself. “So what is it?”
Oh, God.
Now or never, Selena. Go for it.
“There’s a chance ... well, probably a good chance, that Gabriel Reeve is my son,” she said, forcing the words over her tongue and ignoring the buzzing in her head. “I, uh, I’m not certain, of course—I haven’t kept up with him—but I did have a baby boy about the same time as your cousin adopted Gabriel. The records are sealed, of course, until he’s eighteen or something, I’m not really sure, but, at the time I gave him up, I asked that neither he nor his adoptive parents try to contact me or even find me. It was a closed adoption and that’s the way I wanted it.”
She swallowed hard and the weight of sixteen years of not knowing seemed heavy upon her shoulders.
“There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by that I haven’t thought of him, but ...” Shaking her head, staring down at the rapidly cooling slice of pizza, she fought a rash of tears that she’d bottled up forever. “I always wondered what happened to him, how his life was, what he looked like ...” Clearing her throat, she glanced away and went to that mental place she’d found a lifetime ago, a haven that allowed her to push the pain into a corner of her mind that she kept locked.
She felt her chin start to wobble, then set her jaw. This was not the time for regret or recriminations and she refused to break down. Refused.
For a second the silence stretched between them and the house seemed empty aside from the soft rumble of the furnace. She felt unburdened, and yet, stupidly ashamed. Forcing her chin up, she met the questions in his eyes.
If she expected to see recriminations or silent accusations, she was disappointed. “You were just a kid,” he said softly.
“About his age now.”
“Jesus, Selena, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t I tell anyone?” She sniffed loudly and refused to let the tears in her eyes fall. “Because I didn’t want anyone to know. I ... I still don’t. But it looks like I don’t have much of a choice.”
Frowning, his jaw jutting a bit, he looked away, then said, “It’s gonna be okay.”
“Don’t patronize me, okay? It’s not going to be okay. It never has been and it never will be, but somehow, we’ll just deal with it. I’ll deal with it.” She was in control of her ragged emotions again, the tears no longer threatening, her emotions turned from regret to determination.
O’Keefe said, “Okay. Then time for the hard question: You think Reeve knows that you’re his mother and that’s why he ended up here?” Clearly, O’Keefe was skeptical.
“I don’t know. It seems unlikely and I don’t know how he would find me. But all this”—she gestured to the empty dog pen and swept her hand to include O’Keefe—“being just a big coincidence seems really unlikely.”
She felt the weight of O’Keefe’s gaze and noticed that he, too, hadn’t taken so much as a bite of his slice of pizza.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked.
“That you never mentioned him,” he finally said and she knew that he meant in the short time they were together.
“That’s right. I thought I just explained that: I never mention him. To anyone. Not even to myself, if I can avoid it. I am only confiding in you because you’re looking for him, the boy I assume is he. I would appreciate as much confidentiality as possible.” With as much weight as she could muster, she leveled her gaze at him. “It’s a very private thing for me.”
“What about the boy’s father?”
“Out of the picture.” She should have expected that question, but still it surprised her. Stung a bit.
“Would the father contact Gabe?”
“No.”
“You sure?” he asked.
She shook her head and glared at the man across the table. “He doesn’t know I had a child, okay? And that’s the way I want to keep it.”
“There is such a thing as paternal rights.”
“Not as far as I’m concerned. I gave my son up, I refused to list a father on the birth certificate and that’s the way it’s gonna stand.”
She saw the confusion in his gaze, but, thankfully, she couldn’t find a hint of disapproval. Good.
“Look,” he finally said as she plucked a piece of pepperoni from the top of her piece of pizza. “It doesn’t really matter to me if this kid’s your son or not; I just want to find him.”
“Me, too.”
�
�And your dog.”
She glanced at the empty pen and nodded as she chewed on the pepperoni. “Yeah. I miss him.” Leaning back in her chair, she watched as O’Keefe finally opened his beer, a hissing sound escaping the aluminum can. “And I did double check. As I said, I’m missing some jewelry, nothing valuable, mainly has sentimental value, and the cash. I looked around and couldn’t find any of it.”
“Twenty bucks won’t get him far.”
“Hardly out of town.”
“If that,” he thought aloud before taking a long swallow from his beer and motioning to her uneaten slice. “Eat. We’ll figure this out. One way or another.”
She wasn’t convinced and her stomach was still in knots, but she tried the pizza and eyed his beer. Not even looking up, he slid the second can across the table. “Live a little, would ya? You’re wound tighter than my granddad’s pocket watch.”
Reminded of another time and place, of cool drinks on a warm verandah and palm trees catching the midnight breezes of Southern California, she thought better of accepting the beer.
This was all business.
They’d had their shot at intimacy and it had backfired. Literally. She caught the shadow in his gaze and knew he, too, had thought of their brief, but passionate time together.
“I think I’ll pass,” she said, her voice a little raspier than usual. Dear God, what was wrong with her? “I’ve got a lot of work and ...” She shook her head. “It just wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“No?”
“No.”
His gaze drilled into hers. “What’re you afraid of, Selena?” he asked, and the sound of her name off his lips did strange things to her. The answers were simple:
Of the truth.
Of the lies.
Of what we’ll find.
Of what we won’t.
That Gabriel Reeve is my son.
That he isn’t.
And, most of all, I’m afraid of you, O’Keefe, and the way you twist me up inside.
