Patricia entered the restaurant soon after that and there was much rejoicing after she repeated the news. She was smiling outwardly but inside she barely felt anything. Her mind was occupied elsewhere. She was detached from the ensuing celebrations. She even whipped out the DNA test paper with little emotion and watched them look it over.
"I am going to tell the whole family," Patricia said happily.
"What about Miss Judd?" Casey asked. "What are you guys going to do to her?"
"I thought about it," Hazel said before Patricia answered. "Leave her alone. As bad as the situation was surrounding my birth is, you know, I wouldn't change my upbringing with you guys for the world. Besides, I grew up almost as well as any Benedict did, except that I had you guys for sisters and I had my aunt Patricia here looking out for me and insisting that I am her family."
Patricia teared up. "I can't believe it. I really can't."
"Does this mean that you are going to be preferring Hazel?" Brigid asked mock severely.
Patricia laughed. "Heavens no. I don't think I can love her anymore even though she is now blood family. I guess for me she always was my family. Just like the three of you, this really doesn't change much for me. Helen will be over the moon happy, though, and that more than anything else makes me feel extremely happy. "
Chapter Ten
Sir Felix Benedict announced that Hazel was his granddaughter in the middle of the church service after the special song was done. His discovery of their relation he likened to a miraculous gift from God.
Hazel had no idea he was going to do so. She hadn't had the chance to talk to any other Benedict besides Nick and Patricia. She should have realized that something was up, though. It seemed as if the entire Benedict tribe was in church. She even spotted several Benedicts that she didn't know were churchgoers.
She had crawled into church relatively late. She hadn't slept the night before; a kind of sick dread had settled in her stomach when she thought about being with Keith Decker, a married man thirty-four years her senior.
Had she gone a little crazy that summer? Had she lost her mind? Did she have whatever it was that made Helen loopy? After all, she was her birth mother. Maybe she had inherited something that made her go crazy.
She was sitting between Casey and Caitlin when Sir Felix made the announcement and Casey whispered in her ear, "He is asking you to stand."
Hazel sighed. She hadn't even met Helen yet and here she was being a spectacle to the congregation. She stood though; why not? The old man had requested it and he had tears in his eyes.
At the end of church she was grabbed and greeted by so many of them she was at a loss for words. Many of them had only passed her by before when she came to the church. Then she was just Patricia's little charity project but now things had changed. She found the hypocrisy a little unsettling.
"Want to come to the grandparents for lunch?" Nick asked. "Helen is dying to meet you. I told her last night and I must say it is the first time that I have ever seen my aunt so alive. So...so different. I can usually judge her moods by what medication she is on but this is something else."
"Can my sisters come too?" she had asked anxiously.
Nick nodded. "Of course."
Brigid was going to come anyway; she had lunch with Nick all the time. Caitlin begged off, saying that she was going to meet up with Todd's family and Casey said she was going with the Lawsons.
Hazel felt as if they were deserting her. She would have liked their support because she was nervous to meet Helen face to face.
But she probably should just get the meeting out of the way. She understood on some level what Helen was going through because tomorrow she was going to have to do the same thing with her son.
She didn't know what to expect when she drove up to the Benedict mansion. She had been at the main house only once. She was fourteen and Patricia had picked her up from school and had stopped by the house to talk to her parents.
She had played with Sir Felix's dogs then and had eaten cookies in the kitchen. It was amazing to her that her mother had been a stone’s throw away in the guesthouse.
She drove up to the main house right behind Nick. He came out of his vehicle first, followed by Brigid, who was grinning a mile wide.
"Hey, I am so excited for you," Brigid whispered.
"Uh huh." Hazel nodded. "As soon as I get over this feeling of apprehension I'll be excited too."
"No need," Nick said. "There she is."
Helen Benedict was standing at the entry way of the main house, her hand over her mouth and tears flowing down her cheeks. Hazel's first thought was that she didn't look crazy by any means. She looked so heartbreakingly happy. It gave Hazel the encouragement to walk right up to her without any nervousness and fall into her embrace like she had come home.
*****
Sir Felix gave a speech at dinner asking Helen to forgive him and Lady Bettina for not paying closer attention to her during those days. Helen just smiled. She was not a talkative person, Hazel realized. She was content to sit and hold her hand, holding on tighter when anybody tried to steer her away.
Patricia stood up and laughingly raised her glass. "Technically Hazel grew up a Benedict. By and large, she grew up with me. I loved her from when she was a little girl and I love her now."
"That's true," Lady Bettina said, her eyes twinkling, "and she grew up at Magnolia House. That's where Felix grew up."
"That's way different," Brigid pointed out. "When Sir Felix grew up there he was lord of the manor; when we grew up there we were rejects. Hazel could still be in the public system if it wasn't for Patricia."
"Well," Lady Bettina cleared her throat, looking a shade uncomfortable at that reminder, "I raised my children with the awareness that they should help. You know the Bible text that says ‘Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.’ In this case, Patricia was showing hospitality to family without even knowing it. For that we are very grateful, Patricia."
Patricia smiled. "Thanks Mother, but I just want to say that I love all my girls, whether they are family or not."
"Let’s go to my studio to talk," Helen whispered to Hazel after some time had lapsed and most of the family had remonstrated for their not seeing what was before their very eyes, as some of them had put it.
Hazel nodded. "Of course."
They left the main house together, hand in hand.
Helen opened her studio door and led Hazel inside. She turned to Hazel. "Come and sit."
Hazel sat down and watched her. She was so elegant and graceful, with long tapered fingers and dark brown, mysterious eyes.
"I am so happy I think I am going to burst." Helen put her hand on her heart. "I always knew you were alive and out there somewhere."
Hazel smiled. "I am happy that we found each other."
"I want to know everything about you," Helen said excitedly, "every single thing."
Hazel laughed. "Well that could take all day or year..."
"I don't care." Helen looked at her lovingly and then touched her cheek. "I can’t believe that you are here, we are here. You are so lovely."
"Thanks," Hazel said. "I don't look like you guys, though."
"That's because you look like my grandmother." Helen shook her head. "You look so much like her. I am surprised that Patricia didn't see it."
"Well, she wasn't looking for it." Hazel arranged herself better on the settee and looked around. There were paintings everywhere—gorgeous paintings of landscapes and people and things. Helen was seriously talented. The pictures that Caitlin had printed in Lux were nothing compared to what she was seeing now.
"I know what will prove it. I have pictures of Grandma when she was younger." Helen got up, went into a room, and came back with an album.
"This is an old album. I like to think of myself as the repository of the family memories even though they think I am crazy. Wait a second." Helen pinched herself. "I
am not hallucinating, am I?"
"No," Hazel said softly. "This is really happening. You don't seem crazy to me."
"Maybe I am a little." Helen chuckled. "I don't think it is genetic or contagious, though, so you don't have to worry. I am the only one in the family with my sort of issue. I have had my share of episodes. When I was younger I had varying degrees of obsessive tendencies. I would get fixated on things, like I couldn't stop washing my hands or I had fantasies that someone was watching me. I am also bi-polar but Miss Judd said that it was the medications that messed with the chemical workings of my brain."
"Miss Judd took me away from you," Hazel said. "She's not a good person."
"No, she is not." Helen shrugged. "But I wasn't in the best of shape when you were born. I guess she thought she was doing the right thing. I don't hate her. Right now I’m too happy to hate anyone."
Helen opened the album and pointed to a picture of a lady with ruffles at the neck of her blouse and a half smile. "See, she looks like you."
Hazel looked at the picture and squinted. She couldn't see it. They had this very same picture blown up in the hallway of the chapel with the caption, "Lady Benedict, founder of Magnolia House." She hadn't looked closely at the picture before.
Maybe they did have a resemblance but that was reaching. They had the same complexion and the same curly corkscrew hair.
"It's the eyes," Helen whispered. "You can always tell from the eyes."
Hazel looked at her and their eyes locked. She felt it, an inexplicable closeness. She had an honest-to-goodness mother. That felt good, so good.
Chapter Eleven
The next morning she couldn't wait to visit her own offspring. She wanted to get their relationship off the ground as soon as possible. She drove up to Curtis' house, knocked on the door and Sebastian pulled open the door. He had a dinosaur toy in one hand and a truck in the other.
"Hello." He opened the door, his inquisitive little face turned toward her.
"Hello." Hazel started to panic what should she say to him? "I am..."
"Dad, there is a lady at the door!"
He turned away as soon as she said hello. Well, that was a letdown.
Curtis came to the door and smiled. "Hey. Come on in."
"Hey." Hazel drank him in. As usual he looked scrumptious. He was in green patterned fatigues and a black t-shirt.
She had brought a gift with her, a jigsaw puzzle. It was Caitlin's suggestion. "Every kid loves jigsaw puzzles," she had said. Now Hazel wasn't so sure. Maybe she should have gone for something with wheels. She should have asked Curtis but since her dream about his father she had been reluctant to call him.
What must he think of her? He smiled at her. He even kissed her but what did he really think?
He was bringing up his father's child as his own. No wonder he had assumed that she didn't want to remember.
"We were in the kitchen," Curtis said. "Sebastian got gifts from his Trinidad trip."
Curtis headed for the kitchen; Sebastian was on the floor in the breakfast nook area with gift-wrapping paper all around him and a pile of toys. He was holding up a football jersey.
"Look Dad. It says Sebastian."
"That's really cool." Curtis glanced at Hazel. "Ready for the official introduction?"
"Yes." Hazel's hand trembled involuntarily on the jigsaw puzzle. The moment she had been waiting for since his birth was finally here.
"Sebastian," Curtis called to his son to get his attention from the myriad toys strewn about him, "remember we talked about your mom?"
"Yes." Sebastian looked up with anticipation in his eyes.
"Well, here she is," Curtis said it without fanfare or ceremony.
Sebastian looked at her his eyes wide. "You are my mom?"
"Yes," Hazel whispered. Her voice sounded husky. "I am your mom."
"Cool." Sebastian beamed. "Daddy and I pray for you every night. Are you going to come and live with us?"
"Well, I..." Hazel was stumped. She was not prepared for the directness of the question or even the enthusiasm with which it was asked.
Curtis looked at her, his eyebrows raised.
"Help me," Hazel whispered from the side of her mouth.
Curtis wriggled his eyebrows as if to ask, Why should I?
But he relented eventually and turned to an eager-faced Sebastian. "Son, give her some time to catch her breath. She lives just around the street. For now you can visit her whenever you want."
Sebastian got up eagerly. "Cool. Would you like a hug?"
Sweet, affectionate child. Hazel nodded with tears in her eyes. "Yes, I would. I'd like that very much."
*****
They decided to go to the beach. Sebastian was having a ball. He ran to the water's edge and started building a sand castle. Hazel helped him. And they talked. He was an inquisitive little boy who didn't mind chatting about anything, especially his grandparents. He called them Grandma and Grandpop.
They obviously doted on him. He enjoyed his time in Trinidad with them and his aunty Iris and his uncle Brent. They were the ones who had sent him back with several presents.
Hazel breathed a sigh of relief. At least the family didn't hate him.
If she were in Wendy Decker's shoes she had no idea how she would treat a child from her husband's affair.
She didn't know if she could act out the fiction that the child was not really her husband’s. The family was going along with the fiction, maybe for the benefit of their mom, or maybe they didn't know the true circumstances surrounding Sebastian's birth.
Hazel didn't want to think about that now. To think about it would be to face the fact that she was once a home wrecker, a girl who slept with a married man. She didn't know if she ever wanted to think about it again.
But how could she avoid it?
She looked back at Curtis, who was sprawled out on one of the loungers that he had carried with him. His glasses were shading his eyes and he had a half-opened book on his broad chest.
She wondered what was going through his mind. Did he secretly despise her? He didn't act it. To the contrary, Curtis acted as if he was waiting on her for something. Maybe he was waiting for her to remember what she had done?
Hazel looked back at her son, who was so intent on building his sandcastle he had tucked his tongue between his teeth and was concentrating on building a trench to the castle door.
She did the same thing when she was in deep concentration. It gave her a jolt to see that he did it too.
He looked up at her. "What do you think about doors?"
"That would be nice," She said, smiling at him, her heart feeling full. This little boy was hers. It gave her an emotional jolt every time she thought about it. She was the mother of this child. She didn't have to learn to love him; she already did, more than she could say or explain.
He got up and ran toward Curtis and she realized that he was just going to remove his tank shirt.
He came back and grinned. "I need more sand for the doors."
She nodded. "Yes, you do. This is going to be one grand castle.”
He turned his back to head for the water with the bucket. Just then she saw the livid heart-shaped mark on his lower back.
It was red. It was a deeper shade of red than Curtis' own. Sebastian was really a Decker.
She didn't know how long she sat there staring fixedly at the spot where he was, even after he ran to the water’s edge and came back with his little bucket full of sand.
"When I grow up I want to be an architect like Daddy," Sebastian said, "and I want my house to have a blue door like a cloud and I want long windows like this castle and I want a pool in my front yard just like this one."
Hazel nodded inanely. "That's very nice, Sebastian." Her voice sounded distracted, even to her.
She looked back at Curtis. He had his book up; obviously he had decided to get back into his reading. He had been serious when he said that he wanted her to spend some time with Sebastian without his interference, b
ut Hazel was finding it hard to concentrate on Sebastian's chatter, as amazing as she found it.
What she was thinking about were her lost months.
What had she done?
She was going to have to talk to Curtis about this.
She ran through all of their conversations since they first met. The very first time he approached her was at Rizzle. He had appeared out of nowhere, or so she had thought. She had been at dinner with Baron's lawyers and their accountants. Baron could barely speak but he had insisted on going to dinner.
She had found it extremely boring and she had gone outside on the balcony for some blessed relief from the group and he had walked out there and had just stared at her for the longest time, until she had asked him abruptly, "May I help you?"
He had shrugged, his broad shoulders moving slightly, his locks rippling with the movement.
"I am Curtis Decker."
She had straightened up. She had never met him before, though she had heard of him. What she had heard had not done him justice. He was male model, swoon-worthy material.
"I have your son. We need to talk."
"Yes. Er, yes." Hazel had found herself nodding like a bobble head doll, unable to drag her eyes from him, not because of what he had said but the sheer gloriousness of his looks, and then one lawyer had come outside and broken the tableau.
She hadn't seen him again until that time he visited her church and gave her his number.
She was jerked out of her reverie when a friendly voice greeted her.
"Hazel!"
It was Nadine Blake. She was clutching her son by the hands but headed straight for Sebastian's sandcastle when they drew near.
"How are you?" She sat beside her. "Hazel, where is Curtis?"
"Over there." Hazel smiled at Nadine. "Where is Brandon?"
"He took the girls to a function at their mother's husband's church. It is complicated." Nadine said, glancing at her. "We are a blended family. We have managed to get it together these last couple of years, though. I am here with my sister, Tara. Jacob wanted a walk on the beach and Tara is getting fish at the restaurant farther up the beach."
Just Like Yesterday Page 8
