If Anything Should Happen

by Bonnie Hearn Hill

  ‘I did?’ He made a face, but he couldn’t conceal his pride.

  Rachel stood. ‘I need to go pack.’

  ‘You packed hours ago,’ Mick said.

  ‘You see?’ I told him.

  ‘Yeah, I see.’ He smiled and patted the place beside him again.

  I sat.

  I hadn’t yet found Kendra Trafton, and I had no idea when, if ever, I would know the identity of my biological father. But I knew now I would not give up. Just as important, after all these years, I had my dad back.

  ‘I’m going with you,’ he told me.

  ‘Later,’ I said, ‘and then you definitely will. I need to see Kendra alone first.’

  TWENTY

  The last person Rena expected to see that morning was the first one she saw. Debby Lynn Glover, big as life, snaking her way up the drive in her little Honda and stepping out in a pair of white cut-offs almost as tight as Bryn’s jeans.

  She left the car door open. Something about that ticked Rena off. How dare the past just march up her driveway like this, as if it owned her? Especially on the day she had to go with Kendra to Tucson and meet the contact for Kendra’s daughter. At least Leighton would be picking up the woman at the airport and driving her to her hotel. Later that afternoon, the four of them would meet up. Rena didn’t need Debby Lynn barging in like that, but she had no choice.

  Debby Lynn. Rena had envied her once. Not so much her beauty, but the way she wore it. Back in high school, it was Debby Lynn’s eyeliner Rena had really envied, her slithery clothes, the hair that fluffed above her narrow forehead. Today, though, that blond-streaked hair wouldn’t distract anyone for long from her stretched, tan face and the little lines around her mouth.

  Since she was already looking, she might as well try to see if Debby Lynn was still wearing a wedding ring. There was a big old rock flashing on her left hand, all right, but it didn’t look as if it had anything to do with marriage. Cocktail rings? Wasn’t that what they used to call them? Wonder if she stole it. The thought bubbled up before she could stop it, and then she almost laughed when she realized why.

  Debby Lynn had always been the high school klepto. Leighton used to joke that when Debby Lynn Glover walked down the aisle in Sears, the displays would disappear, everything from electric carving knives to portable TVs. Of course, that was before he married her, and before they had Bryn. Remembering that made Rena feel better about standing here in her church skirt while Debby Lynn slunk up in her cut-offs, cropped top, heels, and red shoulder-bag, the same color as her toenails.

  Why was she here now? It was as if Rena’s past had started to catch up with her present. Maybe overtake it. As she walked on to the porch and headed down toward Debby Lynn, she decided that, even though more than twenty-five years had passed between high school and now, she still didn’t want this woman in her house.

  Soon, they stood face-to-face. Whatever scent Debby Lynn was wearing hadn’t changed since high school. In it, Rena could smell the rain of her youth, the skirts and sweaters, the cool, anxious air of football games, her throat raw from cheering for Dale.

  ‘Well, hi there, Rena. How’re you doing?’

  ‘I’m on my way out to the garden,’ she said. ‘I’ve got chores to do.’

  ‘That’s the only greeting I get after all these years?’

  ‘Sorry, Debby Lynn,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you’re here to see Bryn, and you’re welcome to do that. You’ll find her back there in the store.’

  ‘I’ll get to Bryn soon enough. Right now, I want to talk to you.’

  ‘Sorry, but I’m too busy.’ Rena’s heart started to beat faster. ‘You should’ve called first. I’m trying to finish up my chores. Then I’ve got an appointment in Tucson.’

  ‘Don’t mind if I tag along, do you?’ As she moved closer, Rena realized she was about two parts perfume to one part woman. Something was driving her, though. Something had always been driving Debby Lynn. ‘You look good, Rena, a whole lot better than you did when we were young. Nice shoes, too.’

  Debby Lynn had spotted the ribbon in Rena’s hair right off, and her off-the-shoulder top and matching black sandals. Rena was embarrassed, knowing that she’d put them on because she’d be seeing Leighton. But at least the shoes weren’t gold. At least she didn’t have nail art on her toes the way Debby Lynn did.

  She stood by the decorative gazing ball Kendra had given her for the garden. Silvery green and calming, it balanced on the fence post. Some days, it looked like a cheap steel globe. Other days, it could reflect even the hottest, most hopeless moment into something cool and magical. Rena liked to look into it and imagine it was a crystal ball, even though she knew it was almost as tasteless as those elf statues and pink flamingoes some people had. Tacky was just fine in a garden, though, if it made you happy.

  ‘What’s this?’ Debby Lynn marched up to the ball, but she seemed to be looking at something else. She reached into the shallow basket on the ground next to it. ‘Have you been smudging, Rena Pace? You know that’s the work of the devil.’ She lifted out the bundle Rena had placed there.

  ‘Your mama doesn’t think so.’ Rena couldn’t help enjoying the way Debby Lynn’s eyebrows shot up. ‘From what I hear, she still buys her white sage at the shop.’

  ‘She buys candles, that’s all.’

  ‘If you say so. It’s a nice shop, though. Maybe you should go with your mama sometime.’

  ‘I’ve been there, and I won’t be going back any time soon. Everyone knows what they do there.’ She gave Rena a thin-lipped smile with no friendliness in it. ‘And everyone knows Kendra isn’t really an herbologist, or whatever they call it.’

  ‘Herbalist. And, Debby Lynn.’ She made her sigh heavy. ‘You’re here to see Bryn, not give me the third degree.’

  ‘It’s not your way to be snooty.’ Debby Lynn pushed her hair behind her ears and squinted so that her face looked narrow and mean. ‘You’re not still mad at me for marrying Leighton, are you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she said. The sun seemed to bear down on her. ‘What’s past is past. We were in high school.’

  ‘He’s a cold fish,’ Debby Lynn said, ‘and a spiteful bully. He lets Bryn stay with him for six lousy months, and all of a sudden, he’s trying to tell her she should be in community college. She’s not cut out for college. She’s already proved that.’

  ‘I guess it’s up to her to decide,’ Rena said.

  ‘You and I never went to college,’ she said, as if their lives were anything that Bryn or anyone else would want. ‘Barely got out of high school, did we?’

  ‘I went back for my GED,’ Rena said, embarrassed to be proud of it, but having to say it anyway. ‘Got a secretarial certificate from the JC, too.’

  ‘But you never had to use it. Dale didn’t make you work a single day.’

  ‘I work at the store.’

  ‘But you own it, you and Dale. That’s different.’ Debby Lynn sat down on a stump beside the tomatoes, her legs stretched out and so smooth looking that Rena figured she must have had them waxed. ‘Leighton still hates me for what happened when he was in law school, and he’s trying to get even by making Bryn think I didn’t raise her right.’

  Rena stayed standing. Easier to spot the snakes that way. ‘What happened when he was in law school?’ she asked.

  Debby Lynn chuckled. ‘You mean he didn’t tell you?’

  ‘We don’t talk,’ she said. ‘I mean, we didn’t talk until he called to ask if Bryn could work the summer here. I couldn’t see that it would do any harm. Wasn’t trying to start any trouble with you two.’

  ‘Trouble’s already there,’ Debby Lynn said. ‘As far as you and Leighton go, I don’t care what happens.’

  ‘Well, I do,’ Rena said. ‘I am a married woman.’

  ‘So was I.’ She winked at Rena. ‘Men,’ she said. ‘They think they can do anything, and then if we try it, they have a fit.’

  Rena bent down and pretended to check the tomato leaves for worms, trying
to figure out what Debby Lynn meant. Had Debby Lynn been playing around? Was that why she and Leighton got divorced? Had she fooled around on him when he was in law school? Rena couldn’t wonder and didn’t dare.

  ‘Will you be taking Bryn home, then?’ she asked, and looked up from the plants. Maybe something good could come from this visit after all.

  ‘Not yet,’ she said, a little too quickly. ‘Maybe working here is good for her. I always gave her too much. She thinks she can have anything she wants without doing anything for it.’ She stood and brushed the stump dust from the back of her pants. ‘So what’s Kendra doing back in town?’

  ‘She’s in Tucson,’ Rena said. She couldn’t look Debby Lynn in the eyes.

  ‘I wonder why she’d want to come back here after what happened. You think there’d only be bad memories, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘No telling. She seems happy enough.’

  ‘Divorced.’

  ‘A lot of people are,’ Rena said.

  ‘You aren’t.’

  ‘No.’ She looked down at her wedding ring, her hands. In the harsh sun, they looked older than she was.

  ‘It never changes,’ Debby Lynn said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘No matter how much time goes by. No matter who gets married or whose kid disappears, nothing around this place changes. We are just the way we were twenty-whatever years ago, all of us.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Rena said. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, Debby Lynn, but as I said, I have an appointment. Why don’t you go on in and spend some time with Bryn? That’s why you came by, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sure is,’ she said. ‘But I’ve got to run an errand first. I’ll be back in a little while, because, believe me, I’m not going to let that conniving ex-husband of mine turn my daughter against me.’

  Rena watched her make her way to her car with the same arrogant strut. She stood there as she heard Debby Lynn start the car and take off. They’d had Bryn together, Leighton and Debby Lynn, and all Debby Lynn could do was call Leighton names. No time to worry about that, though, or to wonder why, after all this time, they were all meeting up again, like it or not. All that mattered right now, today, was helping Kendra meet with the Californian woman who claimed to know where Kendra’s daughter was.

  She started back to the house, and then she stopped. What was different? The fence post stood there, dusty, cracked, and bare. The glass globe was gone. Rena moved closer. The white sage bundle of branches had disappeared as well. First, she was angry. Then, she couldn’t do more than shake her head. Debby Lynn was right – about herself, at any rate. Nothing had changed.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Friday arrived with a drop in temperature. Since I’d gotten the news about Kendra Trafton, and spoken to my private detective, I couldn’t sleep. All I could think was how lucky I was, how very, very lucky. I called Breckenridge, who told me to be careful. This woman might not be my mother. But I knew.

  I’d underestimated Mick and how much he had loved my mom, and my loss was deepened by the knowledge that I was part of the reason they hadn’t been able to share more of their lives together. I spent much of that night mourning all of the Micks, all of the Elaines, and, of course, all of their children.

  Somewhere, right now, Tamera was flying close to the town where Kendra Trafton lived, meeting the lawyer, Leighton Coulter, in Tucson, Arizona. Then Mr Coulter would bring her to Kendra. I couldn’t think about that, couldn’t wonder how my mother’s face would look when Tamera handed her my photo and the letter I’d written to her. She had wanted me enough to give birth to me. Surely, she would want to meet. My only regret was that I couldn’t be there with Tamera. Soon, though.

  The nameless rude woman trying to find her mother Edith Marie had phoned again twice that week. Even though she hung up on me both times, I couldn’t help relating to her. We were on the same journey, only she dealt with her pain differently than I did. It was still pain she didn’t deserve.

  Farley and I worked out at the gym and met back at the station. Although we usually talked between sets, we hadn’t done so today, and I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because I didn’t feel as close to him as I had before my separation. Maybe because it was Farley who’d come up with the brilliant idea that Scott could give Tamera a week off as long as I would agree to stay and work the Mother’s Day show.

  A compromise was better than nothing at all, and that’s what I’d done – compromised with Scott and Farley, taken up Tamera on her offer.

  So, Tamera went, and I remained. And leaving the gym, I had little to say to Farley.

  ‘I always knew,’ the female caller whispered into the studio that day. ‘Even though my parents didn’t tell me, I just had this feeling.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Farley turned to grin at me and pointed to the board full of blinking green lights. We were going to have a great hour. At that moment, I couldn’t help wondering how my own story would end.

  Before our caller could answer, I said, ‘I do know what you mean. The rest of them are together. You’re kind of apart.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘They’re part of a family. You aren’t. And you never can be.’

  As she spoke those words, I realized that I was mouthing them. You never can be. Regardless of how hard you try, you never can be. Was that true for me? I thought of Tamera again, who had put her own loss aside to try to help me. I’d had a good mom, a great and caring mom, but I’d been denied this very important part of my life.

  Farley took another call. Moving too fast, almost erratic. Just when this first woman was getting to her point, he cut her off. But now, he’d snared another woman, her voice strident. ‘I’m adopted like you, Kit, and I don’t spend a minute of my day worrying about who my biological mother is. You shouldn’t, either.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ I asked, realizing the pain I was feeling registered in my voice.

  ‘They gave me away, girl. She gave me away. Your mother gave you away, too. Why should we care about them? You just tell me that.’

  Sitting there next to Farley, in our cage of a studio, I wondered if she was right.

  Farley cleared his throat. ‘Because they’re your history and your future, too, if you have children,’ he put in.

  ‘Children?’ I could almost hear the caller gasp. ‘I’d never have children.’

  ‘And why is that?’ he said.

  She sounded stymied. ‘I just wouldn’t.’

  ‘I understand,’ I said.

  Farley gave me an odd look, part question, part answer. ‘Being adopted would make you not want to have children?’ he asked.

  ‘Not being adopted,’ the caller said. ‘Having no roots.’

  ‘But you have roots,’ I said. ‘You just don’t know where they are.’

  My being adopted wasn’t the reason I didn’t want children, at least right now. Long before my mom died, something uncertain in my life made me believe I didn’t know how to create a safe place for a family. Richard had taken my reluctance for something else, and that had been, as my dad said, the beginning of the end. But it wasn’t because of roots or lack of them.

  Before I could think more about it, another woman called in. She said she went by Jules and was from Florida.

  ‘I never had a problem the way you folks have,’ she said. ‘I was raised with the knowledge that I was adopted for as long as I can remember.’

  ‘You’re lucky,’ I told her. ‘Very lucky.’ I felt more than saw Farley’s scowl. I’d made a meek comment. Not great radio.

  ‘My biological mother was always extended family,’ she said. ‘Some people call it first mom, but I don’t like that because it would make my mom second, and she’s not.’

  I felt, as well as heard, her words, all the way through me. ‘I hope I can one day achieve even a little of your understanding,’ I said, close to losing it.

  ‘I hope so, too, Kit,’ she replied in a soft Southern voice that sounded as if she meant it.

  Before I could r
eply, Farley cut her off with a hasty goodbye and got a man on the line. Ratings, I realized. We’re in the book, as he had said. The Arbitron book. This was what he wanted. To demonstrate the wide audience; to show that men listened, too; to show that everyone listened to Gnarly Farley and sidekick Kit. I couldn’t blame him for it. I’d been where he was, with a contract floating toward me, so light and tenuous that it could sprout wings at any minute and fly away.

  ‘Tucson, Arizona,’ Farley said. ‘You’re on the air.’

  ‘You say Kendra Trafton is your mother?’ the new caller asked, in a voice made hoarse either by the connection or because the speaker – male, I’d presume – was trying to disguise it.

  The abruptness of it surprised me, but I managed to get out a: ‘Yes.’

  Farley gave me the raised-eyebrow look that was his way of asking me if I thought the caller might be a nut. In my current state, I couldn’t begin to know.

  The caller cleared his throat. ‘And you were adopted at birth, correct?’

  ‘Yes, I was,’ I said, my mouth so dry that I could barely speak. I reached for my bottle of water.

  ‘Well, that’s impossible,’ he said, his voice louder and harsher now, ‘and this is some kind of hoax you’re pulling.’

  I couldn’t reply. Farley leaned into the mic. ‘Kit was adopted,’ he shot back. ‘How can that be a hoax?’

  ‘Because of Kendra Trafton. Her daughter wasn’t adopted at all.’

  I suddenly felt uneasy, unsafe. Even in these familiar surroundings, with Farley an arm’s length from me, the beginnings of fear spread over my skin, as if someone were breathing down my neck.

  ‘What happened to Kendra’s daughter?’ Farley asked in the aggressive tone he used when we got crazies on the air. ‘Suppose you tell me.’

  ‘She wasn’t adopted,’ the man said. ‘Kendra’s daughter. She was kidnapped.’