The Real Mother
Page 47
“Yeah, but—”
“We wanted him gone,” Carrie pointed out.
“I know it! He was awful sometimes.”
“All the time, lately,” Carrie said.
Doug nodded dolefully. “I kept wanting it to be like it was. Like when he first got here.” He looked at Reuben. “Did you have somebody like that in your family?”
“No, I was lucky.”
“So who did you have in your family?”
Reuben told them about his parents and their bakeries, and his brothers, and the house they lived in and the games they played together.
“So you could go get a doughnut whenever you wanted?”
“Whenever my parents let us.”
“Doug,” Sara said, “did you get the point of anything Reuben said? Other than getting doughnuts any time of the day?”
“I got it,” Doug said impatiently. “I’m not dumb. He says we have to try to be nice to each other. I knew that: you say it all the time.” He looked at his hands. “So, what if he comes back and just, you know, moves in?”
Reuben refilled his coffee cup. “I’d ask him to tell us how the fire started.”
“Smoking in bed,” Carrie said, nodding wisely. She saw Sara and Reuben exchange another look. “What?”
“Nothing,” said Sara. “That would be a good question to ask him.”
Carrie’s eyes narrowed in thought. “And we could ask him about delivering drugs.”
Reuben looked at her quickly. “He said he delivered drugs?”
“He told Mom. And something about Pussy Corcoran, when she died.”
Sara frowned. “You did tell me that, something about…” She shook her head. “What was it, Carrie? Do you remember?”
“We prayed for Pussy, you know, before dinner one night? Because she killed herself and she was a nut and a…a pest, something like that. He said she was a lousy wife, too. It wasn’t nice, you know, because she was dead.”
“But how could he know about her—” Sara bit off her words as she and Reuben exchanged a quick glance, sharing the same thought. Don’t let them think he could be involved in a death. Let them keep some illusions.
“But could he, like, have dinner with us or something?” Doug asked. “I mean, if he asked nicely? And was nice to us?”
“If he wants to come to our house,” Sara said, “of course he can come. But he’d have to answer our questions.”
“But maybe we’ll never see him again. Or even know where he is.”
“I think people are looking for him,” said Reuben.
“The police are,” Carrie put in.
Reuben nodded. He glanced at Sara and knew she, too, was thinking the police definitely would be looking if he and Sara shared their suspicions that Mack had set the fire deliberately (which seemed bizarre, and he wondered if they ever would know what drove Mack to do the things he did). And he knew Sara was thinking, as he was, of Corcoran, a more fearful prospect for Mack: more dangerous and probably more persistent than the police, probably not giving up until he found Mack. He might even have a good idea of where he went. Wherever Mack might think he would find sanctuary.
“It’s awfully hard knowing what to think,” Carrie said. “I mean, did things used to be simpler? Or were they always so mixed up? It never seemed so complicated, before.”
“Before what?” Abby asked.
“Before now. Like, I guess…when I was little.”
“Life’s always simple when you’re little,” Abby said gravely. “Wait till you’re grown up, like me, then things really get complicated.”
Once again, Sara met Reuben’s glance (how wonderful to be able to share so much, so easily), and murmured, “Short childhoods.”
“What?” Carrie asked again, frustrated at being left out of silent adult communications.
“Short childhoods,” Sara said aloud. “You have so few years to think things are simple; I wish you could have more.”
“Life moves faster with the Internet,” Abby said.
“It moves faster period,” Doug declared.
“Probably,” said Sara. “Right now, though, for us, things really are complicated. Usually high drama gets spread out, so we have time to adjust, instead of having it all crammed into two or three days. I’d guess we’ll have simpler times ahead.”
Now there’s a prayer: give me simple times.
“I’m going to write about all this,” Carrie said, suddenly drowsy. “I mean, when I figure it out.”
In a moment, all three of them were drooping, their spurt of energy depleted. Abby felt as if she were sliding away from the table, away from the room, into a soft sinking space. But, then, in the midst of that warm drifting, she had a swift moment, like a camera flash, of feeling perfectly, absolutely wonderful. Life was wonderful, she thought. Full of wonders. She was alive, and her body was strong and resilient, and she was with people who loved her and would watch over her, and ahead of her lay college and discoveries, new friends and… life. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Emily said that, in Our Town, and now, for the first time, Abby knew exactly what Emily meant. She took a deep breath, smelling the fresh coffee Reuben was pouring into Sara’s cup, the pungent cinnamon of the coffee cake, and the spicy chrysanthemums on the kitchen counter; she saw through half-closed eyes tiny dust motes dancing in a beam of sunlight and heard the steady hum of the refrigerator; she was young and strong and loved. Her family was changing, but that was okay, because Reuben was nice and Sara was happy, and it was really depressing when Sara was unhappy, and now things would be more fun and exciting. In fact, the world was exciting again. She loved everyone, she loved school and—
“School,” she said aloud. She sat straight. “We should be in school.”
“Why? It’s… oh, it’s Wednesday.” Carrie jumped up. “It feels like Saturday.” But then she sat down. “We can’t. We don’t have any clothes. Or books. And …all my homework burned up! And I’m too sleepy anyway.”
“We’re going to get you to bed,” Sara said.
“No, wait,” Abby said. “We don’t know what we’re going to do. I mean, I don’t even know what’s happening tomorrow.”
“Then let’s make some plans. A quick list. Five minutes and then you’re going to bed.” Sara took a pencil and pad of paper from her shoulder bag and, sitting at Mrs. Pierce’s table, determinedly not looking at the ruined house next door, they told her what to write.
“Call the principal’s office and tell them why we can’t come in today.”
“Move into Reuben’s house.”
“Move what? We don’t have anything.”
“We have us.”
“And we’ll buy new clothes.”
“And new shoes, new books, new everything.”
“And draw our new house.”
“And take a vacation. Like Galena, only bigger and more different.”
“And Sara and Reuben getting married,” Abby said, struggling to stay upright. “We’re going to be part of it.”
“Cool,” said Doug. “Do I carry the ring or something?”
“Something.” Reuben smiled.
“We have to tell Mom,” Carrie said, rubbing her eyes. “She’d want to know.”
“Not about the fire,” Abby said. “That would be too much for her.”
“We’ll decide what to tell her and how to do it,” said Sara. “I don’t want all of us running over there with different stories.”
“She has to meet Reuben,” Carrie said. “And we can tell her you’re getting married and maybe having a baby.”
Sara and Reuben exchanged a swift glance, reminded yet again of how different their marriage would be from that of a young couple striding into the future with private, unedited plans. “Reuben and I will visit her,” she said with a smile. “You stay out of this one.”
“But we have to have something exciting to tell her,” Doug objected. Like Carrie, he was slumping lower in his seat. “She likes exciting things.
”
“We have plenty to tell her. We’ll just work out how we do it.” Sara stood up. Without the tension and suspense of the past hours to buoy them up, she, too, was exhausted. “Reuben, we should—”
“Reuben,” Abby said at the same time, “could we go to your house? I’m really sleepy.”
“Right now.” Reuben scooped up Doug, holding him upright. “I’ll take you there and let you get settled and take naps and showers, and then you can do some shopping for tomorrow.”
“But you’ll be with us.”
“For dinner. First I have to go to work. My bet is we’ll be breaking ground very soon for Carrano Village West.”
Doug fought to keep his eyes open. “Can I watch the bulldozer?”
“You can ride the bulldozer. As many times as you want.”
“Wow.”
Sara was caught between laughter and tears. A bulldozer for Doug: what more perfect beginning to their life together? Better than a gallery show for a ten-year-old, better and more understanding, at the moment, than anything else Reuben could have offered. “Thank you,” she murmured. And he said, quietly, “I thank you,” grateful to her for welcoming him into what he had not known for so long: family, sharing, belonging. And they both knew that that was the real wonder of it: that love was never the end of the story, only the beginning.
They stood together, Abby and Carrie leaning against them, Doug heavy on Reuben’s arm, almost asleep, and, over the heads of the children, they kissed. It was too soon to begin to absorb all that had happened and all that lay ahead; they still were shaken by the too-recent fears for the children, and then the destruction of Sara’s house.
The loss of a house, Sara thought, and the discovery of a family. So much that impacted their lives, that would somehow become part of what lay ahead of them: discoveries and adjustments, triumphs and joys, troubles and sadness. But it will be all right, she thought, it will be wonderful. Because we’ll all be together and we’ll control what we can in our lives, and what we can’t control we’ll try to understand.
Swift images came and went of the past six months, of the people and events that had seemed overwhelming, from Donna Soldana’s lies to the loss of their house. We do what we can, she thought again: control what we can, influence what we can, and try to incorporate the rest into our days and years in ways that make sense, or at least help us shape our lives.
She remembered that despairing moment when she had said to Reuben, There’s just too much…we can’t do anything about anything, and he had responded, I can’t believe that. Perhaps, together, as a family, they could help each other truly discover all they could do, all they could become, how to connect with what was best and right for them and be a part of the larger world, influencing it in their own ways.
Much easier to contemplate, she thought, and accomplish, if we aren’t alone.
“We have a lot to do,” Reuben said, echoing her thoughts. They kissed again, the children weighing on them. “But first,” he said as they turned toward the door, “it’s time to get our family home.”
About the Author
JUDITH MICHAEL is the pseudonym of husband-and-wife writing team Judith Barnard and Michael Fain. They live in Chicago, Illinois, and Aspen, Colorado.
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ALSO BY JUDITH MICHAEL
A Certain Smile
Acts of Love
A Tangled Web
Pot of Gold
Sleeping Beauty
A Ruling Passion
Inheritance
Private Affairs
Possessions
Deceptions
Credits
Cover design by Honi Werner
photograph by John Lewis
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE REAL MOTHER. Copyright © 2005 by JM Productions, Ltd. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © JANUARY 2005 ISBN: 9780061842443
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Michael, Judith.
The real mother / Judith Michael.—1st ed.
p. cm.
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