A Mother's Secret

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “What we just had was…amazing.”

  Sex. He was talking about sex. He couldn’t spit out the words, Making love. No, the best he could do was What we just had. That chilled her.

  “Yes, it was. So marrying me would be convenient and you’d get great sex.”

  “Damn it!” He scowled at her. “What do you want me to say?”

  Oh, God. She had to ask.

  Rebecca swallowed and said, in a voice that was just a little tremulous, “I can think of only one reason to get married. Do you love me, Daniel?”

  His face didn’t change expression. And yet, as surely as if she’d been touching him, she felt his entire body tighten and…retreat. “That’s…not a word I make a habit of using.”

  “I know,” she whispered.

  “I could lie to you.”

  “Don’t. Please don’t.”

  “I like you. I want to talk to you. Being inside you is…like going to heaven.” His voice became scratchier. “I need you.”

  “But you don’t love me.”

  “I don’t know!” He broke away to pace toward the kitchen, then swung back to face her. “Why does the word mean so much?”

  He’d just confirmed her worst fears about him. She kept her voice level.

  “It’s not the word that matters so much. It’s what lies behind it.” How sad, it occurred to her, that she had to explain love as a concept, as if he were an immigrant who didn’t grasp some uniquely American custom. “Liking doesn’t hold up the same way real love does. Friends drift away from each other. It’s love that makes someone family. Worth fighting for, even when things get hard.”

  He grunted. “You can say that, even after watching your parents in action?”

  “Their…love turned out to be destructive.” Yes, it had been love. “But, you see, they kept fighting because they didn’t want to let go. If they’d just liked each other, enjoyed sex, they’d have split up at the first hint of trouble.”

  “And you want that?”

  “Yes.” She lifted her chin. “Yes, I do. I want a man to love me enough that he’s never willing to let go.” Unlike you.

  He stared at her for the longest time. “I…don’t know how to give you that. How to be sure.”

  She would not cry in front of him. She hadn’t the last time; she wouldn’t this time.

  Rebecca nodded. Her voice emerged as barely better than a whisper. “I know.”

  “Damn it, Rebecca…!” His face twisting, he took a step toward her.

  “No.” She backed up until she bumped against the wall. “You need to leave now, Daniel.”

  “We could be happy,” he said, with something that sounded very like desperation. Desolation.

  “Would we? The need to be loved would eat at me, and you…You’d keep wondering how you’d let yourself get tied down. And Malcolm would be happy, until we broke up, when he’d be devastated. No.” She shook her head and kept shaking it, as though she’d forgotten how to stop. “Please go, Daniel.”

  “If you think you’re getting rid of me that easily…” he growled.

  It was all she could do not to crumple. “I know you want to keep seeing Malcolm. But…we need to find a better way for you to do it. You’re his father. We’re not a family. We shouldn’t be lying to him.”

  He swore and swiped his hand over his face. Could he, too, be near tears? But he seemed to have scrubbed away the emotion.

  Still, he sounded hoarse. “We weren’t lying. I wasn’t.”

  “Daniel—” Her voice broke.

  “I’m going.” He passed by her close enough to touch. Opened the door. Paused, his back to her. She stood still, waiting, but he walked out and closed the door without saying another word.

  She stood there until headlights bounced off the front window, and his car backed out of the driveway, then accelerated on the street. Only when she could no longer hear the engine did her knees give way. Rebecca slid down the wall, wrapped her arms around herself for comfort, and cried.

  THAT WEEK WAS ONE OF THE bleakest of Daniel’s life. He replayed the conversation so many times the spool would have broken if it had been film. He could think of a thousand alternatives to what he’d said.

  Maybe what I’m feeling is love.

  Maybe. Yeah, way to sweep a woman off her feet.

  And was it true? He didn’t know.

  I won’t let you go. Ever.

  That, he thought, could be truth. Was. Now that he’d had her back in his life, he couldn’t imagine not having her.

  But those weren’t the words she wanted to hear.

  Somewhere along the way, he got to wondering. She’d asked whether he loved her. But she had never said, “I can’t marry you because I don’t love you.” Which meant…God. He had to believe it meant she did love him.

  Agony could intertwine with happiness like cancer infiltrating healthy cells. Inseparable. Incurable, without cutting out the entire mass. How could he, a man who didn’t know the meaning of the word love, feel such inexplicable pleasure at the idea of one woman loving him?

  His mother must have loved Robert Carson the way Rebecca wanted to be loved. Nothing, including unhappiness and the loss of her only daughter, had shaken that love. What had the bastard ever done to deserve that kind of devotion? Nothing! Impregnated her three times. Stolen her baby girl while abandoning her to raise the boys alone. But he never really left her, not long enough for her to heal, for her to let go.

  I want a man to love me enough that he’s never willing to let go.

  The only love Daniel had known was hurtful, darkness that shadowed lives, stripped the joy out of them. Because of it, his mother couldn’t let go. Did that make it triumphant?

  He didn’t get it.

  He called her midweek. Coolly, she agreed that he could take Malcolm Sunday. To the zoo? Excellent idea.

  He’d see her at least. That was something. Maybe.

  This was a really lousy time to hear from his newly discovered sister, Jenny. But she called nonetheless, told him she and her husband were out here visiting Sue, and asked if she could come see him. She didn’t want to say why, and he had no choice but to agree.

  She arrived at the promised seven o’clock on Thursday evening. When Daniel opened his front door, he found her on the doorstep with her husband

  Jenny was now fifty-six. Adam would have barely been out of diapers when she was born, which was why he hadn’t remembered the existence of another baby. She was damn near a foot shorter than Daniel, maybe five foot three, if that, dark-haired, dark-eyed and stylish.

  “Daniel!” She beamed at him as if they were best friends. Before he could retreat, she reached out and gave him a quick hug. Then she said, “Of course, you know Luke.”

  The two men shook hands. Luke Bookman wasn’t quite Daniel’s height, but close. Sue was their only child, getting her blond hair from her dad and her brown eyes from her mother.

  “Come on in. Coffee?”

  They ended up following him to the kitchen, with Jenny oohing over his house. “It’s absolutely gorgeous! Did you restore it yourself?” She wanted to hear about everything he’d done, then said, “Please tell me you’ll host our next family gathering. Everyone is going to want to see this place. Why didn’t Joe ever say where you lived?”

  Not until the coffee was poured, sugar and creamer provided, did she settle back and study him. “We don’t look much alike.”

  “No, although given how dark Joe’s hair is…Your coloring might have come from our mother’s side of the family.”

  “Yes.” She became pensive. “Joe looks extraordinarily like Dad, you know. I’m surprised nobody ever noticed.”

  “Sue was the only one who’d known him long.” Daniel hesitated. “Do you have any pictures?”

  “Haven’t you seen one?” she said.

  “Joe showed me a couple. I was, uh, wondering more about Sarah.” He didn’t know why, but he’d been thinking about her lately.

  “Oh.” She bent
to pull her wallet out of her purse.

  “Big mistake to ask,” Luke said with mild amusement. “Jenny always has pictures. Lots of them.”

  He was right. She unfolded a regular accordion of clear plastic sleeves. A plump-cheeked baby, school pictures of a bright-faced blonde, the same girl grown, all whipped by as she searched. Finally she laid out two.

  The first was obviously a wedding photo of Sarah and Robert Carson gazing into each other’s eyes. Sarah was a pretty woman made beautiful by happiness.

  Happiness, Daniel thought, that had been transitory.

  The second photo had been taken years later. Both were white-haired. Once again, though, he had that sense of connection between the two of them, of gentle affection at the very least.

  A lump in his throat, he pushed them back to her. Jenny studied his face for a moment, then folded up the pictures and stowed her wallet away.

  “Joe tells me you’ve never been married?”

  He compressed his mouth, shook his head, then said, “I do have a son.”

  Of course she wanted to hear all about Malcolm. He told her, within reason. She listened with apparent delight, asking all the right questions.

  Funny thing, because once, as she leaned forward, lips parted, he saw his mother in her. Just a flicker, but distinct. That same expression, open, curious, the same curve of the mouth.

  “You look like her,” he said abruptly. “Not coloring, but…Your face.”

  “Really?” Vulnerability made her seem almost childlike. “Joe wasn’t so sure.”

  “I just had one of those moments. As if she was sitting here.” Daniel shook his head to clear it. “She wasn’t a happy woman. You appear to be.”

  “Yes.” She smiled at her husband, who took her hand. “I am.” Her smile died and her forehead puckered. “I wish I could have known her.”

  “Even though she gave you up?” he asked brutally.

  “She must have thought she was doing the right thing for me. It’s not like she gave me away to a stranger.”

  “No.” And Jenny likely had been better off, even if she’d grown up believing a lie—that she was adopted rather than being as much her father’s child as Sam was.

  Maybe, Daniel thought wryly, what he ought to regret was that his mother hadn’t given him away, too.

  “And Dad…I wish he’d told me himself, but at least I always knew he loved me.” Her face clouded. “What I can’t understand is how he could have given me everything, and you and Adam nothing.”

  There was a question.

  Daniel heard himself say, “I’m not sure he knew I was his son. I don’t think even Mom knew who my father was.”

  “Still, Adam…”

  She sounded so woeful, Luke let go of her hand to wrap an arm around her and give her a squeeze. She flashed him a grateful smile, the tenderness between them palpable, enough to make Daniel shift uncomfortably and transfer his gaze to his nearly untouched coffee cup.

  “You must wonder why I asked to see you,” she said.

  He met her eyes again. “I did.”

  “Well, you see, I have something for you.” She turned again to her husband, who reached into the pocket of his jacket and handed her a jeweler’s box.

  What in hell…?

  “We’ve talked. All of us in the family. You were the most left out. Well, and Adam, but he’s gone now. And we decided we want you to have this. To say, you’re a Carson, too. And…you’re entitled.” She pushed the small velvet jewelry box across the table to him.

  Daniel felt…distant. As if he was looking down on this tableau. Down, even, on himself. He saw his hand reach out and take the box. There was a pause before he snapped the lid open and stared at the extraordinary diamond necklace nestled inside.

  He’d heard about the Carson family heart-shaped diamond, passed down from eldest son to eldest son, supposedly a gift to an early Carson from his love, the daughter of a rich man. They would never be allowed to marry, and she’d given it to him so that he could afford to pay his passage to America. He’d worked his way instead, and kept the necklace. The necklace was worn only occasionally because it was so valuable. Somebody had, in all seriousness, called it the “heart of the family.” The diamond itself had to be several karats—it was certainly one of the biggest stones Daniel had ever seen and the most unusual shape—and the setting was old and lovely, crusted with sapphires. He imagined giving it to Rebecca, seeing it lying against the creamy skin at the base of her throat. He rarely felt lust for objects, but at that moment he did.

  In the next moment, he snapped the box shut and pushed it back across the table. “I can’t take this.”

  Jenny gazed at him. “Of course you can. Why shouldn’t you have it?”

  “He didn’t acknowledge me. I don’t want anything that was his.”

  “Joe was sure you’d say that.” She made no move to take back the velvet box. “I told him I’d persuade you.”

  He still felt as if he was having an out-of-body experience. “How do you plan to do that?”

  “Repeat that we all want you to have it.” She took a deep breath. “Mom left it to me, you know.”

  “I heard,” he said neutrally. What he’d heard was that Sam had thrown a monumental tantrum.

  “Sam wasn’t happy.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “He always manages to push me around. I made Sue take it, because she’s much better at ignoring him.”

  Daniel frowned. “If it means so damn much to him…”

  Her back straightened and she squared her shoulders. “Sam has always had his own way. The one thing we’re all agreed on is that this time he won’t get it, not after how he’s been acting. Especially after the way he’s treated Emily. As big a crud as he’s capable of being, who knows whether he’d even leave it to Belle?”

  “Then give it to her,” he suggested.

  She smiled even as she shook her head. “She doesn’t want it, either. Lately it’s become…oh…like a toy a bunch of children are squabbling over! By passing into your hands, it becomes a symbol of family pride again. Because you’re family, and you deserved to be a part of it much sooner.”

  God help him, he was going to be stuck with it. Daniel stared at it with all the enthusiasm he’d feel for a pet tarantula someone had entrusted to him. He detested the idea of accepting a family heirloom Robert Carson had prized. He knew damn well Adam hadn’t wanted it, either, any more than Joe did. Hell. Was he the third or fourth person she’d tried to bestow it on?

  He tried again. “It must be worth a small fortune. For God’s sake, sell it! Split the money. Get something positive out of it.”

  “Oh, no.” She gazed at him wide-eyed. “It has to stay in the family. Anyway, none of us need the money.”

  He muttered an obscenity. Jenny looked shocked, her husband amused. Why, Daniel wondered, was he getting the feeling she was nowhere near as innocent as she looked? She had him hooked, flopping on the dock, gasping for breath.

  “Leave it to your son. Oh, I can hardly wait to meet him! I love the idea of there being a next generation, don’t you?”

  He stared helplessly at her, outmaneuvered.

  “We’d better go now. We’re on our way to an airport hotel. Our flight out is in the morning.”

  Daniel recalled that they lived in Florida but visited often. Jenny had timed this perfectly—hand off the diamond to him, then flee to the other side of the country before he could react.

  “I’ll put it in the safe,” he conceded. “But this discussion isn’t over.”

  She only smiled.

  Damn, he thought with incredulity. She was his sister. If she’d known…If they’d both known…Somehow he suspected Jenny wasn’t the kind to have let him slip between her fingers. She and Luke had all but smothered Sue with love, from what Daniel had heard. He wondered how different his life would have been if he’d had a fiercely protective big sister when he needed her.

  He let her hug him again on the way out the
door and even kissed her cheek, still disorientated but definitely back in his body. When they were gone, he returned to the kitchen and opened the velvet box again to study the Carson family heirloom. “Crap!” Finally he took it upstairs to the safe that was in his bedroom. He wanted it out of sight as soon as possible. Out of mind.

  He should be so lucky.

  SATURDAY, REBECCA HAD the boy ready to go out the door when he arrived, gave him a vague smile without quite meeting his eyes, and pretty much shoved Malcolm out after a quick kiss and a, “You two have fun.” The door closed in their faces.

  The four-year-old gazed at it in perplexity. “I wish Mom was coming,” he said, with a wistful note.

  “She said she had things to do today,” Daniel lied. Like avoid me.

  Malcolm trudged to the car, waited while Daniel put the booster seat in, then accepted help buckling. “But Mom likes the zoo,” he said, once Daniel got in, too, and shut the door.

  “Do you two go often?”

  He shook his head. “Only on field trips. Mom always goes on field trips. Practically always,” he added, scrupulously.

  “Well, I’m betting we’ll have fun going by ourselves. I haven’t been in years. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I went to the zoo.”

  “Really?” Malcolm gazed at him in amazement. “But you live real close.”

  “I don’t go to the beach very often, either. Or to Fisherman’s Wharf. And they’re both close.”

  Malcolm talked most of the way. He told Daniel about his friends, about the goats at his preschool, about Aunt Noni’s Friday-night date.

  “I heard her tell Mom they had a big fight and she’s not so sure she likes him anymore.”

  She and Rebecca had probably spent the morning consoling each other, Daniel thought with a twist of his mouth.

  Once they arrived at the zoo, Daniel grabbed a map and set out, assuming they’d see the entire zoo. It didn’t take ten minutes to disabuse him of that notion. Malcolm was easily distracted, and slow. If an animal was sleeping and not visible, he wanted to wait, not move on. He would get tired long before they made the circle. For a while, Daniel hoisted him onto his shoulders so he could speed up the pace, but Malcolm had no problem expressing his dissatisfaction.