by Lesley Crewe
One day Gertie brought over some of her clothes. When Tansy saw her she hugged Gertie for a good long time. Eventually Tansy made her a cup of tea.
“How is she?”
“She’s quiet,” Gertie said. “It was traumatic, but every day she’s getting better. Last night Merlin got his head caught in a plastic container and couldn’t get it off and Bay laughed out loud, so she’s coming along.”
“That’s good.”
“She even brought out some photo albums the other day and we sat on the living room floor remembering old times. It’s a journey, but we’re making progress.”
Tansy nodded.
“How are you?” Gertie asked.
“I’m better.”
“You could’ve told me about Dermot, you know.”
“How could I? Your loyalty belongs to Bay, as it should.”
“I would’ve listened.”
Tansy smiled. “You’re good at that.”
Gertie took a sip of tea. “I’m glad you’re here. You need a safe haven.”
“This is a gift I don’t deserve.”
Gertie put down the teacup. “The day you realize you do deserve this is the day you truly are better.”
Gertie took a total of three days off before the office called in a panic and said they needed her back. She got on the blower and called her man.
“Don’t worry about it,” Peter said. “I’m at the hospital during the day, Matt’s here in the evening, and you can come in when you can.”
“You’ve got this all figured out.”
“Yep.”
“So you don’t need me at all, do you?”
“Gertie, I’ll always need you.”
“I cannot wait to get you in my arms again, big guy.”
“Oh no, I can’t afford to fall out of bed a second time.”
“Then we’ll do it on the floor.”
“Deal.”
By this time, there was a stack of board games on the hospital window sill a couple of feet high. That’s how Peter and Ashley entertained themselves. Their favourite was Monopoly.
“You really are a real-estate czar,” Peter complained. “You make Stalin look good.”
“Quit your bellyaching and pay up. I’ve got three hotels on Park Place, so that’s…”
“…too much. You win again.”
Ashley rubbed her hands together with glee before she patted her belly. “You see, Fred. Your mother’s going to be a tycoon some day.”
Peter slowly got out of his chair and put the game pieces and money away in the box. “I hope you remember me when you’re rich and famous.”
“I’ll never forget you as long as I live.”
They smiled at each other before Peter reached over and put the Monopoly box on top of the pile, whereupon the entire thing came crashing down around his feet. Dice and money, game pieces and cards from every game they had littered the floor. The look of dismay on Peter’s face sent Ashley into gales of laughter.
“What’s so funny? Keep laughing and Fred will be here in no time to help me clean this up.”
At the end of two weeks the doctor reassured Gertie that it was safe for Ashley to go home. At thirty-six weeks, she was close enough to full term that there wouldn’t be any problem if she did go into labour. Good old Peter moved into Gertie’s apartment to be with her, so it was tight quarters. Jeffrey was mightily ticked.
“That cat is staring at me,” Ashley frowned.
“He could be hissing,” Gertie said, “so consider yourself fortunate. Don’t forget, you’re on his turf.”
“Sorry, Jeffrey.”
Gertie had it all figured out when they arrived. “Ashley, you sleep in my room, because you need to rest. Peter and I will sleep on the hide-a-bed in the living room.”
When Ashley went into Gertie’s room with her suitcase, Gertie hugged Peter. “I cannot wait to get you in my arms tonight.”
“We’ll have to be very quiet.”
“Quiet I can do.”
But quiet wasn’t in the cards. After an endless evening waiting for Ashley to stop watching television and finally go to bed, Gertie rushed over to the hide-a-bed and had it made up in a jiffy. Poor Jeffrey tried to make himself comfortable on the quilt, but he was unceremoniously dumped back on the floor. He took his wounded pride and sat with his back to them on a nearby armchair.
She and Peter took turns in the bathroom getting ready for the big night. They met on either side of the bed. Gertie pointed at his cast.
“You better come on this side. It’ll be easier for you to get in.”
“You’re right.”
They switched places.
“Be careful getting on. You go first and make yourself comfortable.”
Peter took his time sitting down on the bed. He put one leg up on the mattress and then swung his cast leg up as well before he lay back on the pillows.
“So far so good.”
Gertie eased herself into bed as well. She snuggled up beside him and sighed. “At last. This is what I’ve been waiting for.”
There was an enormous crash. The resounding bang sent furball Jeffrey flying out of the room.
“My God! What was that!?” Ashley leapt out of bed in a panic. She hurried to the living room holding her belly. Peter and Gertie were on the floor, sprawled on top of the mattress in a daze.
They looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“Stop!” Ashley cried. “I’m going to pee myself!” She crossed her legs and hopped up and down before rushing down the hall to the bathroom. When she got back, Peter and Gertie were still in hysterics.
Eventually Gertie dragged herself to her feet and held out her arms to Peter. “Let me help you.”
“I don’t think I can get up.” He turned this way and that, but wasn’t able to get enough leverage to get to his feet. “This is impossible.”
“You can’t stay on the floor all night.”
But after a good ten minutes of trying, they admitted they were defeated.
“I’m going to call Matt,” Ashley said.
“It’s too late,” Gertie replied.
“He’s young, he’ll get over it,” Peter said. “Call him.”
When Matt arrived, he did his best to keep a smirk off his face, but even he couldn’t get the big man and his cast off the floor.
“You can’t live on the floor,” Gertie worried. “What are we going to do?”
“Call Michael,” Peter said. “I’m desperate.”
Michael arrived with his camera. Peter pointed at him. “Don’t you dare.”
“Listen here, Peter. You drag me out of a warm bed in the middle of the night and make me drive an hour to come and pick you up off the floor. You owe me, buddy boy.”
Michael couldn’t stop laughing as he took a few shots, so the other three got down on the floor and joined Peter. They had their arms around the hapless victim and it turned out to be such a great picture they all wanted a copy.
Between them they managed to get Peter upright again. They looked at the mangled hide-a-bed.
“What do we do now?” Peter wondered.
“Why don’t you sleep in my room,” Gertie said, “and Ashley and I can sleep on the floor tonight.”
“I’ll go first thing in the morning and buy another hide-a-bed for you—a better one, obviously. They can deliver it in the afternoon,” Michael suggested.
“I can’t have you buying me furniture.”
Michael took Gertie by the shoulders. “That was the best laugh I’ve had in years. It’s worth every penny.”
In the end that’s how Gertie told Ashley the story of her two mothers and her father—late at night, in the dark, while she held her in her arms. There were tears, of course, and some nights when Ashley still couldn’t believe their betrayal. Knowing that her nana had been a party to it still rankled, until Gertie reminded her that her grandmother was an ordinary woman caught up in an extraordinary circumstance, doing the best she could for both her gi
rls. She said that everyone likes to think their grandmothers can do no wrong, but that’s not fair. Everyone makes mistakes, even nanas.
“But I’d never give Fred away,” she said. “When I feel him kick and move inside me it makes me so happy. Didn’t Tansy feel that?”
“Of course she did, but you need to remember something. Tansy and your mom were your age when this happened, like you and Maribeth. What if you fell in love with Matt and suddenly Maribeth came along and took him away from you? You watch as she picks out her wedding dress and fixes up their apartment, and pretend to be happy as you walk down the aisle, knowing Maribeth is his bride.
“And then the unthinkable happens. Matt is dead and you’re carrying his child. Your mother accuses you of stealing Maribeth’s baby, and wants you to give your baby up.
“When you’re in labour with this little bundle, I want you to think about what it must have been like for Tansy, knowing the minute you were born, you belonged to someone else. She had to love you more than life itself to hand you over and let someone else raise you. And then she had to stay away from the only family she has so that you could live in a happy and stable home. Now that’s what I call love.”
Ashley didn’t say anything after that.
One morning Bay got out of bed and called Dermot’s house. She knew he’d be at work and she also knew that Tansy wouldn’t answer the phone because it wasn’t her place. She’d let the answering machine pick up.
Bay left a message.
“Tansy, I’d like to see you. If you don’t feel you’re ready to talk then you don’t have to come. But if you do, I’ll have the tea poured at three this afternoon.”
She hung up.
Tansy sat there and wondered what she should do. In a way, she didn’t want to go. After that first horrible week, she was content within the walls of this old house, like she was wrapped in a bubble and the world outside didn’t exist. It was frightening to step back into the minefield that was her life.
But Tansy knew that she and her sister needed to come to terms with the rest of their lives and it needed to be done before Ashley had the baby. The thought of her going through labour and delivery while she was estranged from them didn’t bear thinking about.
So at three o’clock she rapped on the back door. Bay opened it and Merlin almost knocked Tansy over, he was that glad to see her.
“Hey, Merlin.” She gave him a couple of pats. “I think he missed me.”
“He did. Come in.”
Bay had the table set with their mother’s silver tea service. Tansy looked at her.
“You did oatmeal,” Bay reminded her. “I figured Mom better be in on this conversation too.”
So they sat down at the kitchen table and Bay poured the tea. She’d even made plate of sandwiches, though the squares were store-bought.
“Eat something,” Bay said. “You look like a skeleton.”
“Ditto.”
They each took a sandwich and ate while they sipped their tea. After they each ate one more, Bay cleared her throat. “I’m not sure where to start…”
“At the beginning is usually best.”
“I’m not sure where to start because in one sense I’ve only just met you, and in another sense, I finally know who you are.”
“I can understand why. You’ve looked at me through a haze of lies for twenty years.”
“I can’t believe you and Mom were able to pull the wool over my eyes for so long. I can’t believe one of you didn’t crack.”
“I did crack,” Tansy said. “The Christmas our daughter was three.”
“So you walked out that night knowing you might never see us again?”
“Yes.”
“What did that feel like?”
“Death.”
“How have you lived your life for the past fifteen years? You never talk about it.”
“I don’t talk about it because it was my false life. My real life was here.”
“Did you ever love another man?”
“No. I had a lot of men to keep me from being lonely, but their faces run together now. I don’t remember them. The final relationship lasted two years, but only because he was extremely wealthy and able to buy me luxurious distractions. He was a pig. He used to say, ‘Come give Daddy a kiss.’”
“God.”
“It turned my stomach when he said that—like the real me that was hidden inside would flare up in protest. I wanted to scream at him that he didn’t know how to behave like a real daddy. He wouldn’t know what it was to get up in the middle of the night and brave the elements for twelve hours a day, out on the rough seas in the freezing cold, just to keep food on the table for his family, or that a daddy would drive around in the dark and look for you so he could keep you from harm. That a daddy is someone who’d drag you out of a car and punch the boy who had his hands on you.”
Tansy fought to stay calm. “You know, it hit me the other day that I was Ashley’s age when all these decisions were being made. I look at her now and still see her as a baby. She is in a lot of ways. That was us. We were so young and missing our father and there’s Mom trying to do what was right without Dad to lean on. They always talked things over. I remember at night I’d hear them in their room, the low murmuring that told me we were safe because Mom and Dad would take care of it.”
Tansy picked up a napkin and dabbed her eyes. “I hope Mom knows that I love her and I’ve forgiven her.”
“She knows. Have you forgiven yourself?”
“No. Not until I hear it from you and I hear it from Ashley.”
“Well, that’s why I called this family meeting. I’m here to say that I forgive you and Bobby, but only if you forgive me.”
“But none of this was your fault, Bay. None of it.”
“I want you to forgive me for taking Dermot away from you.”
Tansy was still. “What do you mean?”
“I led you to believe that Dermot was someone I loved and that you ruined everything between us. That’s not true. There was nothing between us except friendship. We were drawn to each other out of loneliness. We loved the idea of being a couple, but every time we got together we’d argue or make the other person feel bad for one reason or another. If I loved him, I’d have been with him before Mom died. I knew deep down that he wasn’t for me but I didn’t want to tell him because he’s so darn nice.
“But the day I knew for sure was the day I saw the two of you through the diner window. I saw a man and a woman deeply in love with each other. I have no right to keep you from that kind of love. Bobby and I shared that happiness and I know how precious it is. You and Dermot belong together. I don’t want you to waste one more day without him.”
They rose from the table at the same time and met in the middle of the kitchen floor, where they held each other for a long time.
“Thank you for bringing Bobby back to me,” Bay whispered.
Eventually they sat down to finish their tea. All the sandwiches were eaten, even the dreary squares. And then Bay remembered something. “Just a sec.”
She went out into the living room and brought back a photo to show Tansy. It was the picture Ashley had found and put aside on the fateful day she’d rooted through old boxes, the one that showed the two of them up in the tree house, with their hair in braids and their grins gap-toothed.
“We looked happy, didn’t we?” Tansy smiled.
“We will be again.”
It was after six o’clock before Tansy left Bay’s house. She walked along the streets of Louisbourg and revelled in the cold north wind. She smiled at people as they passed by and thought how beautiful this little town was, perched on the Atlantic coast. Tansy felt sorry for anyone who wasn’t here at this particular moment.
Dermot’s house appeared in the distance. There was so much work to do. It really was an old barn of a place, but it was sturdy and welcoming. She knew she’d lost her mind when she wondered what sorts of flowers she might plant along the walkway in the spring.
Wouldn’t her mother get a kick out of that? She rounded the bend and saw the back of Dermot’s truck parked in the yard. That’s when she remembered she hadn’t left him a note and had unthinkingly erased Bay’s message off the machine.
Tansy ran up the porch steps just as he opened the back door. The look of panic in his eyes gave her a fright.
“It’s okay, Dermot. I’m home.”
He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to him. As they embraced, she felt his heart beating too fast beneath his jacket.
“I thought you left me.”
“I’ll never leave you.”
Dermot reached up and framed her face with his big hands. “I adore you. You must know that.”
“I do.”
He rubbed her cheek with his thumb. “We’ll take it slow.”
“I’ve been set free, Dermot. We have Bay’s blessing. I want you to take me upstairs and let me show you how much I love you.”
Dermot picked her up in his arms and carried her across the threshold.
It was only two days later when Fred decided he had had enough and couldn’t wait to join this whacked-out family. Naturally it was in the middle of the night, which always heightens the sense of urgency. He was still a few weeks early but the doctor said he was more than happy that Fred had stayed put for as long as he did. But he did warn Ashley that things could get serious in a hurry once it started, as she was already a bit dilated from her first scare.
When Ashley’s water broke, she panicked.
“Oh my God.”
Gertie sat straight up in bed from a sound sleep. “What? What?”
“My water broke.”
Gertie threw the quilt aside and leapt out of bed. “Nobody move. Everyone calm down. Where am I?”
“My water broke on Michael’s new mattress! What am I going to do?”
“Forget the fucking mattress.”
Ashley was shocked. “Gertie, you never swear.”
Gertie ran around in circles. “Of course I do, just not in front of you.” She took off like a missile and ran into her bedroom, where poor old Peter was snoring in peace. She shook him awake.
