by Unknown
When Michael and I returned to Blue Prairie in 1993 and set up our own house, I was a little overwhelmed with my new life as a wife with no other dreams to catch. It was actually Nicole who, after watching me mess around with cheap watercolors, encouraged me to take art classes at the state college an hour’s drive away.
I joined my mom and Nicole as a third partner in Tennyson’s Table two years later. We added a studio at the back of the shop for me to paint in and teach painting. We began to decorate the walls of Tennyson’s Table with my watercolor paintings and an occasional chalk or charcoal piece. As they sell, I paint more.
Olivia, our daughter, was born in 1996, followed by Bennett, our son, in 1999.
Sometimes on those nights when I was in awe of the enigmatic night sky, I felt a little guilty over feeling restless when I had so much. I seemed to already have more than I deserved. And then I’d think to myself, But there are no paintings of a starry night on the walls of Tennyson’s Table. Something is missing.
For a long time I thought I knew what it was, but I was wrong.
19
I’m not easily surprised.
I knew when I met Michael—even at the age of twelve— that I was going to marry him. I wasn’t surprised to realize this, but I was smart enough to know it would have certainly surprised everyone else, especially my parents, so I told no one. Naturally when Michael broke up with me that first year he went away to college, I honestly thought something terrible had rocked the universe. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was supposed to marry Michael.
Naturally everyone thought my initial shock was the visible sign of a typical, broken teenage heart. I didn’t feel like my heart was broken. It was more like something was wrong, not something was shattered. The way it appeared couldn’t possibly be the way it was.
Since I grew up keeping most of my thoughts and feelings to myself, I didn’t share this with anyone—certainly not with my mom, who liked to say I was moody. That was the exact word she used one day when she thought I wasn’t listening to her and my grandmother talking about me.
So while my family eyed me carefully and walked around on eggshells after Michael’s announcement, I eventually shook off the disappointment and just stepped wherever I pleased. I knew he would come back to me. And he did.
I am not easily surprised because I don’t participate in surprises. You’d be amazed how few surprises come your way when you choose not to take part in them.
I don’t participate in them because I don’t like not knowing what is reasonable for me to know. Surprises are surprises because you suddenly learn something you should have already known. You either should have been told it, or you should have guessed it. Surprises are fine for people who like toying with the unknown, but I don’t care for intrigue.
I thought it was rather silly that my doctor wanted to keep me from knowing the sexes of my unborn children, like I would love them more if I was surprised by their gender. Or that I would love them less, if that were possible. Either way, I resented the inference. Michael didn’t care, so we found out both times.
I don’t like being astonished. It makes me feel weak, and I don’t like feeling weak. Michael says it’s because I’m a typical, take-charge firstborn who must be in control of everything, which, he is always quick to add, he finds very alluring.
I don’t think I am a control freak. I don’t demand that I be the potter. I’m okay with being clay. I just don’t want to be molded into something in secret. I don’t want to be surprised by anything, least of all by who I am.
Which is precisely why I found myself disagreeably stunned by Rosemary’s letter in day’s mail.
Rosemary Prentiss, the adoptive mother of the half-sister I was supposed to have forgotten about. That Rosemary.
I shouldn’t have opened it. But I did.
My parents and in-laws had been gone for four days to an equine endoscopy conference in Atlanta. They were due back on the following day, and I had sole responsibility for the Table while they were gone. It had been a little chaotic on Monday, the first day. The cappuccino machines were acting up, and neither I nor our hired help, Trish, knew how to straighten them out. The pastries Nicole had made in advance took longer to thaw than we thought, and the man who was supposed to deliver our fruit juices at eight o’clock that first morning didn’t show up until noon.
But by the time Thursday rolled around, though, Trish and I had settled into a routine. I hadn’t painted a thing all week, but I expected that would happen.
That particular morning, I dropped Bennett off at our church’s daycare center and drove Olivia to school before going to the post office to get the mail for the shop as well as our personal mail and my parents’ as well.
There was a lot in all three boxes, and I struggled to get back out to my car without losing any of it. At the Table, the morning crowd was far bigger than usual, and Trish and Ellie, a morning-only worker, were struggling to fill all the orders. I dropped the mail into a box behind the cash register and then helped them until almost noon. I spent the rest of the afternoon looking on the Internet for books my mom was interested in and watching her eBay accounts where she acquired and sold most of her books. When school got out, I called Michael to remind him that Olivia had an after-school activity that day and wouldn’t be walking over to the high school side until four o’clock. I must have sounded a little frazzled, because he offered to pick up Bennett for me so I could stay a little later if I wanted to.
Just when I was about to take care of the mail, Seth, Michael’s seventeen-year-old cousin, walked into the shop with a look on his face that I had seen many times before. Seth, Nicole’s sister’s child, had been living with Wes and Nicole for several months as they attempted to redirect his life and get away from the destructive crowd he was running around with in Minneapolis. He was an alcoholic, among other things, and desperately in need of guidance. For some reason, though, he took to me and liked talking with me. He was staying with us while Wes and Nicole were gone, but I still didn’t expect to see him at the shop that afternoon. Most days I didn’t mind his spontaneous visits. But that day I was so busy, and yet he looked so dejected.
In spite of my workload, I mixed up two mochas, and we headed to the quietest corner of my studio where big south-facing windows let in the calming, afternoon sun. There were only two weeks left in the school year, and Seth was afraid he was going to fail all his classes, wouldn’t be able to pass the eleventh grade, and was going to be stuck in high school forever.
It was a conversation we’d had before.
It was close to five o’clock before he felt energized enough to go home to my house to work on his current assignments. I promised I would call the school to see if he could work on completing his junior requirements during the summer break. I would help him. I volunteered my mother’s time too. My mom had already told Seth on a number of occasions that she would help him with his English classes.
When he finally left, I told him to tell Michael I would be a little late, that I needed to finish a few things. The shop had already closed at four o’clock, and the place was calm and quiet when Seth left and I locked the door behind him. I finished tracking my mom’s eBay accounts for that day and counted the day’s receipts. I left a note upstairs for the Thursday-night book club leader to call me if they had any trouble with the cappuccino machines, adding that my mom and Nicole were still out of town.
Then I sat down on the floor of the main room with Dickens and Longfellow and Steinbeck all around me and sorted the mail. The three bundles had all merged together in the box under the register, so I began making three new piles on the floor—one for Michael and me, one for my parents, and one for Tennyson’s Table.
I was nearly done when I came across the letter in the pale blue envelope. It was addressed to my mother: Claire Holland, General Delivery, Blue Prairie. My eyes immediately traveled to the return address, and as they did, the room and everything around me seemed to start spinning. Or to
cease spinning. Everything seemed different.
In the left-hand corner, on a small, white, return-address label with a black monogrammed letter P, was a name I had not seen printed or heard with my ears in more than a dozen years:
Rosemary Prentiss
I probably looked quite strange, sitting there on the floor with three piles of mail around me, holding an envelope and staring at it as if I were willing it to speak to me. I can’t adequately describe how I felt. I certainly felt surprised, a feeling I hated. I also felt betrayed. If Rosemary was indeed breaking her vow of silence, she ought to have broken it with me. I was the only one who had ever tried to contact her, not my mother. At least I thought I was the only one. What if she and my mother had secretly been in contact all these years?
The letter had come from Two Harbors. I remembered suddenly that the Prentisses had family near Duluth, that they had stayed there when they were home from Ecuador the year Lara was born. Two Harbors was a twenty-five minute drive from Duluth.
Why was Rosemary writing my mother? She had been asked not to. Maybe she ought not to have. Maybe I was destined to intercept the letter so my mother would never have to see it. This was ridiculous, of course, but I was already trying to rationalize why I should open my mother’s letter and read what Rosemary had to say.
I stood up with the letter and walked into the dining room where we had several tables set up for customers. I sat down at one of them, placed the letter on the linen cloth, and stared at it.
I knew I would regret it, but I also knew my mother would forgive me.
I opened the letter.
May 12, 2002
Dear Claire,
I am writing to you after having prayed as earnestly as I have ever prayed about anything. I believe God has directed me to write to you, but if I have misunderstood His prompting, please forgive me. I would never intentionally hurt you, my dear sister.
I am dying, Claire. Ed has already been gone for four years. He had a heart attack in 1998 when we were still in Ecuador. He survived it, but when we came home a month later, he had another one. This one took him home to Jesus. Lara and I have been living in Ed’s mother’s house in Two Harbors since then.
I was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. I have had surgery twice, but it keeps coming back. The cancer has now settled into my bones, and no radiation or chemotherapy can stop it now. My doctor doesn’t expect I will live to see another autumn.
Claire, you gave Lara to me when your life was at its darkest moment. I am now giving her back to you at mine, if you will take her. She has just one year left of high school as she is a grade ahead of other kids her age. But besides needing a home for her last year of high school, she needs a family.
There are kind people here in Two Harbors who have offered to take her in, but when I go, I want her to have a family for the rest of her life, not just friends to see her through one phase of it. My brother in Florida, whom Lara has never met, said he would take her if need be, but he is unmarried, is not a man of faith, and has made it clear he is not thrilled with taking Lara. He is the only family I have left.
I know how hard it was for you to give Lara up those many years ago. I now feel the same way. It pains me to leave her. I know you loved her once. I pray that you still do, because I want her to be with you and Dan.
Again, please, please forgive me if I have erred in writing to you. If I have, you do not need to write me back. I will understand.
Your sister in Christ,
Rosemary
I read it a dozen times.
Then I picked up the letter and my own pile of mail and left.
I walked into our two-story farmhouse with our mail in my arms and Rosemary’s letter in my jeans pocket. Bennett, my three-year-old, had a bucket of plastic soldiers spread out over the kitchen floor, and six-year-old Olivia was yelling at him to pick them up. Seth had the television on in the family room, the volume up seemingly as high as it would go. A textbook and notepad sat untouched by his side. Michael was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Daddy?” I said, without even pretending to sound polite.
“In the barn with Muffy,” Olivia said. “He told me to tell Bennett to put these soldiers away, and he’s not doing it!”
“I’m not!” Bennett yelled. I have no idea what he meant by this. But I wasn’t going to try and figure it out.
“Bennett, take the soldiers into the family room instead. Olivia, you can help him.” I left the room before they could argue. I headed outside to the relative quiet of the yard. Bogart, our black Lab, followed me into the barn where I found Michael kneeling by his prized ewe.
“I think she’s better today,” he said, barely looking at me. “That stuff your dad came across is really making a difference.”
“That’s good,” I said absently.
He looked up then, with those blue-black eyes that I loved.
“Tough day at the shop?” he said.
“Yeah.” I said. “You could say that.”
“Something happen?” he continued.
I wanted to tell him then. I wanted to tell him about Rosemary’s letter, but I didn’t like admitting I opened my mom’s mail. Plus, it had been a long time since I had told Michael about Lara; we were both still teenagers back then. I wasn’t even sure he would remember her.
“I don’t know,” I said instead, which didn’t answer his question, but answered some of mine.
“Well, the folks get home tomorrow, love,” he said reassuringly. “You only have one more day flying solo.” He stood up then, brushed straw off his jeans, and stepped out of Muffy’s pen. “I’ll make you supper,” he said, slipping his arm around me.
“Hot dogs on the grill, right?” I said, easing into his side.
“My specialty,” he replied.
After supper I bathed Bennett, read to Olivia, and put them both to bed. Then I helped Seth with an American History assignment until well after ten o’clock. Exhausted, I climbed the stairs and got ready for bed. I dozed while Michael graded papers and was asleep when he turned off the light. At some point I snapped awake when all was quiet and dark in the house. I looked at the clock on my bedside table. Twelve thirty. I had been asleep for less than two hours, and I felt wide awake.
And I knew why.
Rising from the bed as quietly as I could, I grabbed a robe and Rosemary’s letter. I crept downstairs, past Seth, who had fallen asleep on the living room couch, and tiptoed into the kitchen. I stepped out onto the porch to let the familiar night sky envelope me. The moon was full and bright, and I probably could have read Rosemary’s letter again by its light if I had wanted to, but I practically had the thing memorized. One bit in particular kept replaying itself in my head: You gave Lara to me when your life was at its darkest moment. I am now giving her back to you at mine, if you will take her.
If you will take her.
This was something I never dreamed would happen. I had let go of Lara ages ago. In tears and in sorrow I had let her go. I never expected to see her or hear from her ever again. I never for a moment imagined that she would find her way back to me.
It came as a complete and utter surprise.
So of course, I didn’t like it.
20
It was a long while before I slipped back into bed, and I awoke the next morning groggy and in a bad mood. Michael, sensing I was having a rough start to my day, took the kids and Seth under his wing, leaving the house for school with all of them in tow. He even dropped Bennett off at daycare for me.
I arrived at Tennyson’s Table late. I had wanted to get there in time for the busiest hour of the day, from seven thirty to eight thirty, but it was a quarter to nine before I arrived. Trish said nothing, but I could tell she and Ellie had needed my help.
“I’m sorry,” I said as I rushed in.
“It’s all right,” Trish said, handing me a latte. “Go ahead. You look like you could use it.”
“That bad?” I said.
“You’ve
looked better.”
Leave it to Trish to be completely honest.
I took the latte into the little office by the main room and sat down to sip it and consider my options.
My parents would be arriving in Minneapolis later that morning. It would take them a little over two hours to drive home. Knowing my mother, she would want to come straight to the shop to see me even though we had communicated by e-mail every morning they had been away except that one.
That meant I had until three o’clock or so to decide what I was going to tell her.
I felt awkward praying about what to do since I had blown it so badly by being dishonest in the first place. God would certainly want me to tell the truth.
So what was the truth?
I wanted the truth to be that I was worried for my mother, that I was concerned that a letter from Rosemary—which would certainly be a letter about Lara—would be painful for her to read.
But, actually, the truth was that I was worried about me. I was concerned that something important regarding my forgotten sister was taking place and I was going to be in the dark about it. Just like I was when my parents decided to give her away.
That was the truth, even though we never spoke of it to one another. I had been left out of everything that had happened concerning Lara. I had to beg to see her before they gave her away. I wasn’t even given a picture of her.
If God wanted me to be truthful, so be it.
I had opened the letter because I didn’t trust my mother.
