by Gail Cleare
Their eyes met, and Mary shook her head.
“Well, here we are. What’s done is done,” she said. “It’s right that our son should grow up with two parents who love him unconditionally. In fact, he will have three. I could never offer Adam that, even if I told Thomas the truth and he agreed to take the boy in. For that matter, our wedding day may never come. I have to allow for that possibility as well. We can’t predict the future. Anything could happen.” Mary sighed and reached for Jake’s hand to give it a squeeze. “Sorry I sounded so grouchy. It was really a lovely day. I enjoyed meeting your parents.”
“They like you too. Said you’ll be a wonderful godmother.”
“And indeed I will. I’ll be here for every birthday with a proper godmother gift. Something educational. I promise never to bring him a puppy or a squirt gun. Scout’s honor.”
“You’d better not.” He sent her a threatening glance.
They watched the fire for a while and drank their whiskey.
“Did we do the right thing, Jake?” Mary sniffed the aromatic wood smoke and felt the whiskey softening her tension. Upstairs, Adam let out a brief cry, quickly soothed. Mary curled up in the chair and tucked her feet underneath her.
“Sweet thing, the way things worked out, we didn’t have much choice.”
“This way, everyone can be happy, right?” She needed his assurance, his compliance.
Jake patted her on the shoulder. “I know how important that is to you. Don’t worry.”
“We’ll be friends forever, Jake.”
“Yes. And it will be our secret, just the three of us.” Jake squeezed her hand and smiled.
Chapter 38
Nell ~ 2014
While Bridget was still asleep the next morning, Nell made coffee and wandered into the living room. She was still in her bathrobe and considered lying down on the couch. How self-indulgent. That would never be allowed at home in New Jersey. Far too many early-morning chores to do.
But the new Nell kind of liked the idea. She put her mug on the coffee table.
This sofa was more formal and stiff than the comfy one in the TV room, so she and Bridget never sat on it. The morning sun streamed in through the side windows, and Nell could see the lake gleaming across the street, so she tucked a needlepoint pillow under her head and stretched out on her side.
Bridget had been going through some boxes and had left them on the floor. There was a big white one under the coffee table. Nell stared at it as her eyes fluttered shut.
She opened them again. That must be the box containing Dad’s uniform, the one Bridget had told her about. A photo of Mom and Dad’s engagement party was in there. Curious, Nell reached out and snagged the box, pulling it toward her across the carpet.
She found the photo and gently touched the crumbling rose tucked into the uniform lapel. She pulled the jacket out of the box and held it up. Ben might want it. The jacket looked as though it would fit him in a few years.
Nell stood up and slipped into the garment. Being surrounded by the fabric was like an embrace. It was enormous on her, the sleeves hanging down past her fingertips. The smooth lining felt cold at first, then it started to reflect back her body heat. The threads touching her had also touched his body many times. The very essence of her father was in that coat. She closed her eyes and tried to get a feeling of him, but the image wouldn’t focus. She sniffed the cuff and caught a hint of cedar.
She explored the pockets. They felt cavernous to her small hands, but she slid her fingers all the way down to the bottom. There was something slippery and metallic in one of them and what felt like an envelope in the other. She pulled out a chain with something dangling from it: Dad’s dog tags. There was his name.
Nell’s throat tightened as she thought of her father flying off to battle, putting himself in harm’s way for his country. Luckily, he had come home. Many others had not. And Mom had been waiting for him. How thrilling it must have been when they finally saw each other again. What a spectacular love story.
Then Nell remembered the envelope in the other pocket and took it out. The cream-colored paper looked old, discolored along the edges. The envelope was sealed and stamped, ready to be mailed. It was addressed to Thomas Reilly at their home in Amherst, written in Mom’s handwriting with a blue ballpoint pen, and the return address was 27 Lakeshore Drive, Hartland, VT.
Nell’s pulse beat faster as she stared at it.
Both of them were dead, so what harm could it do for her to intrude? All the answers she had been searching for might be contained inside. There was no way she could resist. Nell ripped the envelope open.
The one-page letter was scrawled in her mother’s handwriting. It was dated August 28, 1992. Mom must have written it when she’d first moved into the cottage.
Dear Thomas,
I’m sure this isn’t a complete surprise. Things between us have not been good for a long time. The girls are both away at school now, so I have decided to live on my own. Hopefully, we can continue to have a cordial relationship for their sake.
When the telephone is installed, I’ll send you my new number. My address is on the envelope.
~Mary
Nell sat on the couch with the letter in her hand. She felt as if she was dreaming. It was what she’d suspected all along, but seeing it spelled out like that was still a shocker.
Her suspicions had proven true. Mom was leaving Daddy. That was why she came up to Vermont and bought this cottage. Their fairy-tale romance hadn’t turned out so well after all.
Mom was going to leave her life behind, just as Nell had daydreamed about doing. Granted, she and Bridget had been in college then, but still, Mom had been ready to break up the family. And she never said a word about it to her daughters. Ever.
Nell wiped her tears on the sleeve of Daddy’s jacket. Mom had never mailed the letter. And obviously, she never left him. What had stopped her from going through with it?
Maybe she couldn’t bear to leave her family. She thought the girls still needed their mother. It was certainly the truth. That was just a couple of years after Bridget got pregnant and Daddy had such a fit. Bridget had miraculously made it through a few semesters at Wellesley and was running wild all over Boston with men she’d met in bars. Nell was a nervous freshman at Vassar in Poughkeepsie, shy and insecure, living away from home for the first time and uncomfortable in the elite socialite environment.
That was also when Thomas began to show the first symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Maybe Adam was right. Maybe Mom had noticed it before anyone else and knew what was to come.
“Do I smell coffee? Thanks for letting the dogs out.” Bridget came into the room, wearing flannel sleep pants and a Ben & Jerry’s T-shirt. Her look had definitely changed since moving to Vermont. “No offense, Nell, but that jacket is a little too long for you. It looks great over the bathrobe, though.”
“Read this. It was in the pocket.” Nell handed her the letter.
While Bridget read, Nell took off the jacket and folded it carefully.
“It was still sealed in the envelope,” Nell said. “Never sent.”
“So he didn’t know she was leaving?”
“It was another of Mom’s secrets. She kept it forever, even from him.” Wearily, Nell laid the jacket back in the box and closed the lid. “All this is getting to be too much for me, Bridget. I can’t feel okay with it. Did we ever really know our mother at all? Who was she, anyhow?”
Bridget put the letter on the coffee table, shaking her head in agreement. “My brain absolutely cannot cope without caffeine. I’ll be right back.” She took a step toward the kitchen and hooked her foot on the white box, flipping it over. A fold of tissue paper fell out along with something white and lacey.
“What’s that?” Bridget pointed.
Nell knelt down and pulled on t
he paper. A small gown of soft white lawn and fine lace, embellished with narrow white ribbons and seed pearls, slowly emerged from where it had been hidden under the tissue at the bottom of the box. She held it up. “It looks like a christening dress, doesn’t it? Haven’t seen this before. The kids both used mine, so this must be yours. Isn’t it pretty?”
Bridget squinted. “No, I have mine too. It’s the antique one passed down by the Reilly clan to the firstborn child. Came to me from Dad. Wishful thinking, I guess, but Mom gave it to me when she moved to Maplewood.”
“This dress looks old.” Nell touched the delicate embroidery with a gentle fingertip. “See how the fabric is discolored? I think it’s the one Mom got from Grandma, the Sullivan christening gown. She showed a picture of some baby wearing it to me once. I wondered what happened to it.”
Bridget shrugged. “Must be. Now, getting coffee.” She wandered off toward the kitchen.
Nell sat and examined the sweet little ruffled collar and cuffs. Then a lightning bolt of realization struck her, and she ran to retrieve Mom’s photo album from the den. She flipped quickly through to the end and pulled out several loose prints from where they were tucked inside the back cover. Then she sorted through them until she found the image she’d remembered.
A group of people were standing on the sidewalk in front of a church. There was snow on the ground. The photo had been shot in bright sunlight, and black shadows made splotches on their faces. Nell had glanced at it before and tossed it aside. Now she looked more closely because in the middle was a young woman holding a baby who wore a long white dress. By squinting and holding the photo up to the light from the window, Nell recognized the ruffles and embroidery she had just been admiring. It was the same gown. She flipped the print over, but there was no date stamped on the back.
Nell looked more carefully at the young woman. She was slender and petite, and she wore a stylish gray suit and matching wide-brimmed hat that obscured most of her face with the dark shadow it cast. Standing next to her were another young woman with masses of curly hair and a tall young man with short dark hair, a moustache, and a handsome white smile. Four older people were arranged on either side of this trio.
The kitchen door slammed, and Winston and Lulu came racing into the living room to demand Nell’s attention. She heard voices in the kitchen, threw the photo down on the coffee table, grabbed her empty cup, and went to see what was happening.
Bridget and Adam stood at the counter, filling two mugs with coffee.
“Howdy, neighbor. Please, make yourself right at home,” Nell said, smiling.
“Already have. Want a refill?” He filled her mug too. “Your dogs showed up at Dad’s door this morning, begging. They said you’re starving them to death, and I can see it’s true. You should be ashamed.”
Lulu and Winston had both buried their heads in their breakfast bowls of kibble enhanced with leftover chicken soup.
“Nell, make those yummy pancakes you do, the fluffy ones with whipped egg whites. Please? Pretty please?” Bridget yawned and collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table. “I need carbs and sugar to help my poor brain process all these new family secrets. I hardly recognize us anymore.”
“New?” Adam started to sit down across from Bridget, but Nell stopped him.
“Hey. Shoes off. No mud on my newly washed floor, please. We’re leaving our shoes at the door from now on. It’s the new rule.”
“Yes, master.”
“Nell is mean on clean, Adam. Better watch out because she will seriously hurt you if you disobey.”
He left his sneakers on the mat by the door and padded back to the table in his socks. “What did you mean, ‘new’ secrets?”
Bridget told him about finding the letter, and Nell made pancakes. She served three plates and delivered them to the table along with a jug of maple syrup. As she was getting the silverware, Bridget told him about the christening gown, and that reminded Nell. She went into the living room and brought back the photo, tossing it onto the kitchen table. Bridget and Adam were already devouring their food, but they both glanced over at the picture.
Adam swallowed and leaned in for a closer look. “Hey, that’s my parents. And me. Where’d you get this?” He wiped his hands on his napkin and picked the print up, holding it carefully by the corners.
Nell stared at him, mesmerized, as her mind raced. “It was in Mom’s den. That is the christening gown we found today.”
“This baby is you?” Bridget was very still, but she and Nell exchanged a gaze of deep knowing, shared intuition.
Adam pointed. “That’s my Grandpa James Bascomb and Grandma Caroline here on this side, and over here are my mother’s parents, Earle and Catherine Westerly. All deceased, unfortunately. In the middle, of course, are my parents and Ellie, holding me. Never understood why they make boys wear a dress to get christened. Doesn’t that seem weird to you?”
Nell reached out her hand to get his attention. “Adam, you’re saying that our mother was your godmother? You’ve known her since you were born?”
“Um… yeah, I guess so. I mean, I knew her when I was a kid. I don’t remember many details. And I never saw this picture before.” He put the photo down on the table between them. “But Ellie was definitely around. I sort of remember her being at a couple of my birthday parties too. I think she might have brought me a puppy, my old dog Shep. And a Super Soaker 5000 water gun, I remember that. Then she was here more and lived in this house.” He frowned, thinking.
Nell and Bridget exchanged glances again.
“Okay,” Bridget said as she stood up, getting the coffeepot to pour everyone a refill. “So when Mom bought this house and moved here, she already knew your family. She had friends in the neighborhood. That makes sense.”
Nell nodded. “Yes, it explains why she chose this town. But your christening was a long time ago, Adam. It would have been back around the time when our father came home from Vietnam, 1969. Was Jake in the military?”
Adam nodded. “Yes indeed. Sergeant Jake Bascomb. He was an ambulance driver with a medevac team, ’67 to ’68. They gave him a bronze star. His truck got blown up, and he was hurt pretty bad.”
“That’s got to be it, then. Mom and Jake must have known each other in Saigon. Maybe she was his nurse.” Bridget pointed at Nell and wagged her finger. “I told you there was a man at the heart of all this mystery.”
Adam leaned back in his chair, stretching out his long legs and crossing his feet at the ankles. He sipped his coffee. Nell noticed, not for the first time, that he wore one blue sock and one dark green. He needed someone to pair his socks for him.
Just like Ben and Grandad too, Mom’s father.
“Nice color coordination,” she said deliberately, various wild scenarios spinning in her brain. “In a hurry with the laundry?”
Adam actually blushed. “Oh, sorry. I get it wrong sometimes.” He frowned.
“Don’t worry, it happens to my son Ben all the time. I pair his socks for him when I do the laundry. It’s no big deal. Our grandfather had the same thing.”
Bridget looked at him oddly. “Adam, you’re colorblind?”
“Just for certain colors. Blue and green are the worst.”
“Anyone else in your family ever have that?” Nell asked him softly.
“No, I don’t think so. Why?”
Nell put her hand on his. “Because colorblindness is hereditary. My grandfather had it, so my mother was a carrier. She passed it to me. I carried it and passed it to Ben.”
“You mean…?”
Bridget took her cue from Nell and continued the explanation, excitement growing. “It skips the women and only shows up in the men. We know Mom had the gene because it came out in Ben. If she’d had a son, he would probably have been colorblind too.”
“Like you.” Nell raised
one eyebrow.
The three of them sat there and stared at one another for a good long moment.
“That’s crazy,” Adam burst out in a loud voice and scowled, pushing his chair back from the table. “You’re saying Ellie might have been my mother? That my parents adopted me? You’re out of your mind.”
“Adam, why else would she have dressed you up in the Sullivan family christening gown and then kept it packed away with her other secrets in the living-room cupboard? Why else would she have continued sneaking up here for all these years? To go to your birthday parties?” Nell thought it through, adding up the evidence.
“What’s your middle name, Adam?” Bridget looked over at Nell.
“Patrick. Why?”
Now Nell thought she knew for sure. “My mother’s brother, who died when he was three, was named Patrick Gerard Sullivan. I’d bet every mutual fund my husband owns that you were named after him.”
“Hey there, bro.” Bridget clapped him on the shoulder, grinning at his frozen expression.
“Maybe this is why we’ve been such great friends from the start,” Nell said, putting her hand on his arm. “I have to say that being with you is a lot like being with her.” She nodded toward her sister, who laughed. Nell thought about how lucky it was that she’d recognized that Adam belonged in her life and his comfort and advice were there to support her.
“Look, just because my socks don’t match and Ellie was at my christening, let’s not assume I’m your mother’s illegitimate love child,” Adam said, standing up to pace the floor. “I am the spitting image of my dad, in case you’ve forgotten. How do you explain that?”
Bridget looked at Nell then gazed at Adam thoughtfully. “Probably because he is, indeed, your dad. In the absence of blood tests, there’s only one way to find out, you know.”
“What? Oh, no. You’re not thinking…” He raised his hands as though warding off evil.
