The Secret of Joy

by Melissa Senate

  Sometimes she did think she still loved him. But lately, she wasn’t so sure. She knew only that she was content enough to live with him, to not break up with him. For the time being. That was a favorite phrase of Michael’s, actually. “It’s fine for the time being.” The problem was that Rebecca’s time being had lasted a long, long time.

  And now the time being felt interminable. After her gaffe with the Frittauers, Marcie had once again “written her up” by filing a memo with Michael and the partners detailing her continual errors:

  Rebecca is a paralegal, not a mediator or an attorney. She has overstepped her bounds on numerous occasions, this previous occasion almost resulting in the loss of a client and potential new business from the Frittauers’ friends and associates. It’s my experienced opinion that Rebecca take the refresher course in paralegal studies offered by several schools of continuing education.

  Michael had told her to forget about it, that it would blow over during Rebecca’s bereavement leave, but that Marcie wasn’t entirely wrong—“but don’t think about that now, honey.” Rebecca had stiffened; she knew Michael was trying to make a point, that she didn’t know it all, that she wasn’t the mediator here, and perhaps she should listen to his advice about chasing after a stranger who ran a matchmaking service out of a minibus. A stranger who could go after her father’s estate.

  “Want to know what I think he’s so afraid of?” Charlotte asked, taking out her compact and dusting her unshiny nose. Rebecca knew Charlotte really meant what her husband, a therapist, thought.

  Rebecca nodded. She’d never shared her ambivalence about Michael with Charlotte for fear that Peter would be full of why. Rebecca wasn’t ready for why.

  “I talked it over with Peter, and we think he’s afraid of losing control over you. Michael has a very strong personality. So now he’s afraid your sister will influence you.”

  Possibly, Rebecca thought. “But to do what?”

  Charlotte adjusted her pink and red scarf around her neck. “Not be such a devoted girlfriend, maybe. Break out. Maybe he’s worried she’ll convince you she deserves the entire estate. And since he knows about her business, maybe he’s even more worried she’ll have all sorts of men to fix you up with.”

  Rebecca laughed. “Michael Whitman, worried about a rugged Maine lobsterman? Doubt it.” Michael didn’t lack confidence.

  Charlotte smiled. “You never know.”

  Rebecca stared at the photo of Joy. “Should I call her first? I can’t decide which would be less shocking to the system—getting a call from a long-lost sister or a knock on the door. I mean, she’s going to hear that her father is dead. She very likely has held out hope that one day she’d get to meet him.”

  “I’d just go,” Charlotte said. “Especially because she still lives where the affair took place. That is where she was conceived and born, and just being there might help you come to terms with the affair.”

  “What terms?”

  Charlotte shrugged. “I’m just repeating what Peter said.”

  “Maybe I’ll just go right now,” Rebecca said, the idea not seeming so crazy. She needed to get out of the apartment, Michael’s apartment, with its black leather and chrome furniture, if only for a day or two. “Just up and rent a car and drive to Maine right now.”

  Charlotte smiled, then wrapped Rebecca in a hug. “You’d better. It’s Wednesday. She’s gone Friday through Sunday, remember.”

  And before Rebecca could even think of changing her mind, Charlotte was on the phone with Budget Rent A Car, booking a compact.

  She left a note for Michael, that she was driving to Maine and would be back on Friday. But Rebecca packed practically all her clothes, not that she had many. Instead of two days’ worth of clothes—a pair of jeans, her favorite green cashmere sweater, her old cowboy boots that Michael hated, and a pair of nice shoes, maybe some black pants and a dressier top—she’d packed it all. All her shoes, including both pairs of sneakers. Her red suede loafers, her black T-strap heels, brown ankle boots, tall black boots. A stack of sweaters and shirts and camisoles, several pairs of pants and jeans, and four dresses, one fancy. Piles of underwear and a tangle of bras went into another suitcase with all her toiletries.

  On her way out, she picked up a small framed photograph of her and Michael, one taken at last year’s firm holiday party. Rebecca in a red dress, Michael in his customary gray suit. Both with big smiles. She meant to put the picture back down on the hall table, but it went into her tote bag instead. Then off she drove in a silver Honda Civic.

  She should have flown. The drive was endless with pockets of traffic and construction and accidents and rubberneckers. Eight hours later, she passed the sign her half sister had leaned against: WELCOME TO MAINE: THE WAY LIFE SHOULD BE.

  The sign seemed like her fortune, her horoscope, her Magic 8 Ball answer. Her life was not the way it should be, and she knew it, had known it for a while. She liked the idea that simply passing the sign meant she was working on that.

  An hour later, she couldn’t bear another minute behind the wheel and ended up checking into a hotel in the tourist and outlet mecca of Freeport, forty minutes or so south of Wiscasset. The hotel was a bed-and-breakfast, a white clapboard New Englander on Main Street, just a couple of blocks from the famed L.L.Bean, which according to a brochure in the hallway was open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, Christmas included. As she headed back out to the small parking lot to lug in her suitcases, she took a deep breath and was surprised by how different the air felt and tasted. Clean, calm, with the scent of grass and flowers. Rebecca had expected to smell the ocean, especially because Freeport was right on the coast. But the grass, the flowers were good enough. It was barely seven o’clock and still light out, and both sides of narrow Main Street were packed with people swinging shopping bags. The streams of people, the cars, reminded her of home. Except there were no speeding taxis and, oddly, no noise. The quiet was like a soothing balm. It wasn’t Aruba, but it was good.

  In her cozy single room with its wide-planked wood floor and round braided rug and fluffy down comforter, Rebecca changed into yoga pants and a tank top and slipped into bed with her tote bag. She took out the leather box and a manila envelope of keepsakes she’d taken with her from home—pictures of her mother and father, a copy of their marriage license, a copy of her birth certificate, every report card she’d ever gotten. On her third-grade report card, her teacher had written: “Rebecca is a smart, sweet girl, but she needs to become more of a leader, less of a follower.” Rebecca had hated that critique. She’d always had just one best friend, a few different ones over the years due to moves or school changes, and she’d always been the less vocal, the less sure, the less everything. She liked that, though, felt safe within that. Like with Michael. Her mother’s response to the teacher’s scribbled line had been, “You are who you are, and I like you fine.”

  Rebecca’s heart squeezed at the thought of her mother, and again those doe eyes floated into her mind. “I don’t think you’ll mind my doing this,” she whispered to the ceiling. “I would like to be more of a leader of my own life, less of a follower. Michael is wrong about so many things.” She took the pack of letters from her father and pulled one out at random.

  Dear Joy,

  You’re five years old. I’ll bet you love kindergarten. Rebecca was so shy at five, but blossomed in kindergarten and made friends. In fact, she’s still friends with one of the girls, Charlotte is her name. I keep forgetting that I should focus on you in these letters, not Rebecca, but I suppose it’s natural for me to think you’re alike. You’re sisters, even if neither of you knows about the other. I’ve often wondered about nature versus nurture, and I think nature accounts for more than half. I’ll bet you like robots instead of princesses, like Rebecca. And I’ll bet you love chasing after frogs in muddy creeks, like Rebecca.

  You’re now at the age where you are likely wondering where your daddy is. I’ve never spoken to your mother since the phone call
she made alerting me to your existence. I made sure she’d never be able to track me down. I was afraid, afraid of what it would do to my wife, afraid she’d leave me and take Rebecca from me, too. I’m sorry for that. I had a big hand in bringing you into being and then I just—I don’t even know a word strong enough to write down. I’ve rationalized my absence by assuring myself that your beautiful, interesting, funny mother, with that raucous laugh and incredible face and figure, found a father to step in, someone deserving of her and a daughter. I didn’t know Pia Jayhawk very well; we only spent a couple of weeks together before I left for New York and told her it had to end and stay ended. But I know she was dignified and strong.

  I think of you swinging on a tire swing at a playground or sounding out words like Rebecca used to. She’s seven—almost eight—and reads at a middle-school level. Sharp like her own mom. I’m sure you’re every bit as wonderful as your mother, too, Joy. That’s one of the reasons I don’t worry about you.

  —Daniel Strand

  Rebecca didn’t think a cast-off daughter would appreciate that last line—or be able to read any of it, anyway. “… alerting me to your existence …?” To a five-year-old? Perhaps the letters were more for her father than for Joy. But most of the letter was kind. And tomorrow morning, the recipient would be reading them.

  She slipped out of bed to get her laptop and brought it back into bed with her. She wanted to see Joy’s picture again, to somehow prepare herself for tomorrow. But the inn had no Wi-Fi and she hadn’t saved the website with Joy’s photo to her desktop.

  She thought about calling Michael, but it bothered her that he hadn’t called her once today. To apologize for last night. To tell her he’d support her no matter what she decided. He was likely just getting home now, reading her note and muttering, “Fucking Rebecca” under his breath.

  What she should be thinking about was tomorrow. Showing up unannounced at Joy Jayhawk’s door. She wondered how Joy would react. With shock. With surprise. And then she’d throw open the door and pull Rebecca into a fierce hug. “I’ve always dreamed of meeting you, my long-lost half sister!” Joy would say, tears of happiness running down her cheeks. And they’d sit in the kitchen and talk for hours over coffee, then celebrate their reunion—if that was the right word—that night, over a bottle of wine. They’d talk and talk and talk, like sisters did.

  With a smile on her face, Rebecca pulled the blankets up to her chin and closed her eyes, drifting off to the very nice fantasy of sisterly bonding she’d concocted. Next thing she knew, the sun was streaming through the filmy white curtains.

  In the bright light of day, she imagined driving to Joy Jayhawk’s house, knocking on the door, and saying, “Uh, hi, you don’t know me, but I’m actually your half sister. We have the same father.” But she suddenly couldn’t imagine saying that and knew she wasn’t getting out of bed so fast.

  four

  According to the welcome sign at the town line, Wiscasset was the prettiest village in Maine, and Rebecca had to concur. Downtown was picture-postcard material, a small collection of charming shops and restaurants and cafés, with the Sheepscot River behind it with a beautiful, long, narrow bridge across it. The streets, so clean, were dotted with antique farmhouses, New Englanders, Victorians, and stately Colonials, mostly white, on lots big and small with manicured lawns and white picket fences. In one half-mile stretch, Rebecca passed four white clapboard churches. In another direction, at least ten antiques shops. Flowers, trees were everywhere. And the blue, blue water of Maine’s coast, which would suddenly appear behind a curve, through a thicket of evergreens. She felt like she was in Candy Land, minus the lollipops on the trees.

  She’d waited an extra day before leaving Freeport. She’d walked along Main Street, buying gifts—a red Shetland sweater for Charlotte from the J.Crew outlet, an army green messenger bag for Michael from the Timberland outlet. She’d bought herself a pair of ridiculous red and pink plaid rain boots, the kind that went up to your knees. She had thought about buying Joy Jayhawk something, but couldn’t think of the occasion. Welcome to the family? Or maybe just Hello? The leather box was for Joy. That was Rebecca’s offering.

  Her mind had been so blessedly blank as she’d shopped, as she’d had an organic veggie hot dog from a stand outside L.L.Bean, that she might have even waited another day. Another day to gear up, plan what to say and how to say it, but if she hadn’t gotten back in that little silver car this morning, she’d have lost the entire weekend. Rebecca knew from Joy’s website that she had a tour leaving tonight. It was today or else.

  She couldn’t find 52 Maple Lane and had to drive back to town to ask directions. She was given landmarks to turn at: a weeping willow, the pink gingerbread Victorian. She finally found the road; the sign, which she’d passed earlier, was completely obscured by the leaves of an oak.

  As she drove slowly down Maple Lane, which turned out to be over a mile long, looking for numbers on houses or mailboxes, she passed two sets of joggers and a mother wheeling a baby stroller. The quiet was startling. Birds chirped. A lawn mower whirred. There was a complete lack of car horns or car alarms.

  Number 52. There it was. The house, the last on the dead-end road, was tiny, a Wedgwood blue Cape Cod with a red door. It was the smallest house Rebecca had ever seen, yet had at least an acre of property. The road, which had no sidewalk on either side, was lined by several other little houses, all of them cute and welcoming with colorful doors. At number 52, JAYHAWK-JONES was in sticky-taped letters on the mailbox.

  Jayhawk-Jones. She was married, then. Or had a roommate. There was a green Subaru Outback in the driveway. And an orange minibus.

  She wondered if this house had been Pia Jayhawk’s, if her father had been here. If this was where they would have their little trysts. It didn’t look like a love nest.

  She glanced at the bay window of the house for signs of life, but couldn’t see through the curtains. Go, she told herself. And after pulling down the visor mirror to make sure she didn’t have sauerkraut in her teeth, she said, “Okay,” to her reflection and got out of the car with the leather box in her hands.

  The path was lined with purple and pink impatiens in small ceramic pots, a good sign.

  She took a deep, deep breath of the clean air, then rang the doorbell. No answer. She waited a minute, then rang again. Finally, the door opened, and there she was. Joy Jayhawk.

  Rebecca’s knees wobbled and she grabbed hold of the doorframe. Say something, she told herself. But for a moment, all Rebecca could do was stare. She saw her father’s face in this woman’s. In the shape, in the nuances, in the lips. She had the same color eyes as her father, that lovely driftwood brown.

  Joy looked exactly like her photograph, but prettier. She wore jeans and a white button-down shirt and red suede clogs. Rebecca stared down at the clogs for a second, then looked back up at Joy, who was clearly waiting for Rebecca to say something.

  She was clobbered in the stomach by something—fear? This person, this Joy Jayhawk, was a complete stranger. A stranger, like Michael had said.

  “Are you needing directions?” Joy Jayhawk asked, staring at Rebecca as though she were in need of psychological help.

  She had a nice voice. The voice of a kindergarten teacher. Kind, hopeful.

  The kind and hopeful steadied Rebecca. “My name is Rebecca Strand,” she finally said. She waited to see if the name meant anything, and in a moment, a slight change of expression, of guarded wariness, came over Joy’s face, but she didn’t say anything. “I’m very sorry to just barge in on you like this, but I didn’t know how to do this, so I just decided to drive up from New York City and knock on the door.”

  Still Joy said nothing. Her features tightened.

  Rebecca’s words came in a rush. “My father, Daniel Strand, passed away from cancer several days ago. The day before he died he told me that he had an af—a relationship with a woman named Pia Jayhawk and that Pia called to tell him she was pregnant with his child and—”
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  “Why are you here?” Joy interrupted.

  “Um, well, my father wanted you to know that he did care about you,” she said, feeling like an idiot. “He wrote you a letter every year.” She held out the box. “I have them here. Twenty-six of them.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, but—” Joy stared at Rebecca’s pointy high heels for a moment, then glanced back up. “I think you should just go. I’m sorry.” She began to close the door.

  “But—we’re …”

  Sisters, she finished silently as Joy closed the door in her face.

  • • •

  Rebecca couldn’t find her way back to a main road and drove in circles until she spotted a jogger, whose big smile and “Ooh, I see from your plates you’re from New York! We have tickets to Radio City for Christmas. I cannot wait!” almost made her cry.

  Did you really expect Joy Jayhawk to throw her arms around you with a “My long-lost sister!” and launch into her life story, ask all about yours, then announce you’d never be separated again?

  Maybe. If she were very honest.

  The jogger finally stopped talking long enough for Rebecca to ask directions to Route 1. Rebecca made her left, then right, then left at the pink Victorian, then right at the picket fence with the ornate trim, and found herself back in the center of town, the road out stretching in front of her.

  She had no idea where to go. She couldn’t leave, but she couldn’t stay, either. What was she supposed to do? And why hadn’t she considered that Joy Jayhawk might close the door in her face?