This is foolish, Val told herself, and she turned on the light by her bed. It took her eyes a moment to adjust, but even though the light made her head throb, she kept it on. What difference did it make that Michelle was sticking to her ridiculous story, that Kit believed her, that Sister Gina Marie was concerned? Val knew herself. She knew her parents. She could hear the love in her father’s voice when he spoke to her on the phone. She could remember how she and her mother had giggled together when they snuck off to the movies. Caroline O’Mara’s mother never giggled. She just played golf.
If she had been adopted, Val decided, her mother would have told her. Maybe not when she was little, but at some point. Her mother wouldn’t have just died without telling her, or at least hinting. Her mother loved her too much not to have given her some warning.
Val got up and walked over to her closet. She pulled out the lavender-flowered hatbox she’d requested for her fifteenth birthday, and opened it. Inside were all her favorite, most secret possessions. With a sigh, she took out the notebook her mother’s nurse had given her three months before her mother’s death.
“Write things down,” the nurse had said. “You may find that helps.”
Nothing had helped during those months, and Val was never much of a writer anyway. But when a grownup told her to do something, she did it, so there were two months worth of entries. Val hadn’t touched the notebook since the day of the funeral. It wasn’t a period in her life she ever wanted to relive. But maybe her mother had said something, and she had been too young or too scared to realize what she’d meant.
The entries started out long and flowery, as though Val had expected the sisters to grade her work. But within a couple of weeks they were short, half-finished sentences. “Bad night.” “Mama very sick.” “Heard Daddy crying.”
It hurt Val to read those entries, but she skimmed through anyway. Close to the end of her notations, she found what she was hoping she wouldn’t.
“Mama says she wrote me letter.”
Val closed her eyes and tried to remember the conversation. Her mother had been given a lot of drugs, and she wasn’t always coherent, and Val had been a little scared of being alone with her. But this was one of the better days. “I wrote you a letter,” her mother had said. “But don’t open it now.”
Val had promised not to, then changed the subject. There had been so much she’d wanted to tell her mother in those last weeks, not important things, but the sorts of things they’d always talked about, friends and school and family. Her mother had loved those conversations, and Val had tried to come up with funny stories to entertain her and make her laugh. So Val knew then and now that the letter was something her mother judged serious. And Val knew the time had come to find the letter and read it.
She left her bedroom and went to her mother’s room. Her parents had shared a bedroom until the last few months of her mother’s illness, and then her father had moved into one of the guest rooms, and ended up staying there. So her parents’ room remained pretty much as it was during her mother’s life. Val couldn’t remember the last time her father had gone in there.
She walked to her mother’s closet, opened the door, and looked for the old shoe-box her mother had cherished. “My wedding shoes came in this box,” she’d told Val when Val was very little. “So I keep all my favorite, most secret things in it. Daddy just thinks it has shoes.” She and Val had giggled that Mama could put one over on Daddy, who was so smart about everything. Once or twice her mother had taken the box out to show Val her treasures. There were photographs of old boyfriends in there, and one of Val’s father looking very young and foolish in a bathing suit. There were letters Val’s uncle had written before he’d been killed, and a pressed corsage that gave everything in the box the faint scent of gardenias. There were a couple of pieces of junk jewelry, whose significance Val could only guess at, and a lock of baby hair she knew must have been hers. And there was an envelope that said, “To Val to Be Read on Her Eighteenth Birthday.”
Val took the letter out. She sat on the floor by the closet and thought about disobeying her mother. She couldn’t remember many times when she’d willfully disobeyed either of her parents. There had never seemed the need. Sure they had rules, and their rules could be strict, but they were her parents, and you always did what your parents told you. After her mother’s death, there seemed to be fewer rules. She didn’t have to be quiet anymore, and for a while her father didn’t even seem to care if she did her homework. She did it anyway. It gave her something else to think about.
There was over a year to go before her eighteenth birthday. Over a year where her whole life could change. Her mother hadn’t wanted her to know what was in that envelope for another whole year and more. To open it now would be to disobey the last request her mother had made of her. It would be an act of disobedience Val could never be forgiven for.
She opened the envelope carefully, as though leaving it in one piece would make what she was doing less wrong. She took out the sheets of paper and left them folded for a moment. She didn’t have to read what they said. She could wait until she was eighteen, or until morning, or burn them. She could call her father in Washington and tell him what Michelle had said. She could go back to Kit’s and talk with her about mothers. She opened the letter.
My Darling Valentina,
Today is a good day, and I can sit up in my chair. The sun is shining, and I can see the first daffodils blooming in the garden. I do not know how many more good days I will have, so although I dread writing this letter, I am making myself do it now.
Many times when I lie in my bed I think about you and what your future will be like. You are such a pretty girl, I know that many boys will fall in love with you. As you read this letter, you are eighteen. Perhaps you are already in love. Perhaps you are even married. I was engaged to your father when I was eighteen. We married when I was nineteen and two months old. Your father was twenty-six. He knew much more of the world than I did, but he was always a loving and gentle man, and I cannot picture my life without him. I pray that someday you will also know this sort of love.
I come from such a large family, two boys, four girls, and your father also comes from a family with brothers and sisters. Your father’s oldest brother took over their father’s business. His next brother died. And your father, with his father’s help, went into business for himself, and made his fortune building houses and apartments. I wish you had known your grandfather better. He was always so proud of Ricky.
My family and Ricky’s family had done business together, and everybody thought we would make a fine match. I had always thought him so handsome, and was thrilled when he asked me to marry him. We waited until after I graduated high school, and then there were some problems, so we were engaged a long time.
I know you’ve seen the pictures from our wedding, but it was even more beautiful than that. I had four flower girls and six bridesmaids and Terry was my matron of honor. I would have asked my sister Angie, but she was seven months pregnant with your cousin Mike. My friend Rose Vitelli caught my bouquet, and six months later she got married.
Your father and I were happy as newlyweds, although we were much teased about when we would have our first baby. But months turned into years, and no matter how we tried, I was never able to become pregnant. I am sure by now the sisters have taught you how babies are made, but sometimes no matter how much a husband and a wife love each other, they cannot create a life together. That was how it was for Ricky and me. After five years, we went to doctors and had tests done. What their results were, I don’t really know. My heart was breaking from not having babies. I would see my sisters and my cousins always with babies and my arms were empty and I was filled with sadness.
Your father knew how much I hurt, and he hurt too, since he dreamed of a son who would take over his business someday, the way his older brother had taken over their father’s. Sometimes I was afraid that Ricky would leave me for a new wife, one who could give him children
, but he always swore he loved me and would never leave me. I said many prayers. Only my cousin Connie, who was not barren, but could not bring a child to full term, knew the pain I felt.
Then one spring day your father placed a baby in my arms and said here is the daughter you’ve dreamed of for so long. I could not believe the gift. You were the most perfect baby I’d ever seen. Your father said that you were six weeks old and that I could name you whatever I wanted, since you were too young to know what your name was. Six weeks earlier had been Valentine’s Day, so I named you Valentina. My family teased me because it was such an old-fashioned name, so we called you Val. I loved you from the moment I first held you in my arms. It never mattered to me that you were not from my womb. You were my daughter, my precious Valentina.
At first your father didn’t seem to care much about you. I knew he was still sad that he could never have a son. But one day you crawled to him and lifted your arms up for a hug, and he picked you up and embraced you and from that day on, I know that he too loved you as much as if you’d been his own.
I never wanted you to know you were adopted, but now I am so sick and I worry that you will worry you’ll inherit cancer from me. They say it runs in families. Perhaps you wish to marry, but you are afraid to, because you know how much your father has suffered from my illness. And that is why I’m telling you this. Of course I do not know what your real family was like, but mine has always been sickly and two of my sisters died before they were sixteen. You have always had excellent health, and the doctors have told me there is nothing to worry about for you. They say you should live to be an old woman surrounded by your grandchildren, and they told me this even before I became sick, so it wasn’t just words to cheer a dying woman.
I wish I could be there on your wedding day. I wish I could see your children and grandchildren, hold them in my arms as I once held you. I know that you and your children will bring much joy to Ricky and that makes me glad when my heart is filled with such sorrow.
My darling Valentina, you have always been my daughter, and I will watch over you from heaven and protect you with my love.
With love and kisses,
Your mother
Val folded the letter and put it back in its envelope. She returned the envelope to the shoe-box, and the shoe-box to its rightful place in the closet. She closed the closet door, turned off the light in what had been her parents’ bedroom, and walked back to her own room. She crossed over to her bed, sat down on it, and before she began crying, she pictured plunging a knife into her mattress and ripping it and everything else she had once thought of as hers into shreds.
Chapter 4
It was hard eating breakfast the next morning under Connie’s watchful eye. It was hard reassuring her father over the telephone that the headache was gone. It was hard following the regular pattern of getting into the car with Bruno. But Val did all that, and everything else that was required of her, to escape the house on Tuesday.
She knew one slip and everyone would know something was wrong. She hadn’t eaten dinner the night before, so breakfast was a necessity. Otherwise Connie would call her father, and he’d come home early. She knew if she revealed anything through her voice or her manner on the phone, her father would know something was wrong, and come home early. She knew that Bruno was already troubled by her actions, and even the smallest sign of rebellion would alarm him sufficiently to tell Connie, if not her father. Knowing all that made it easier for Val to act as though everything were normal. She couldn’t bear the thought of Bruno and Connie, both of whom had known all along about the deception, but even more than she hated them, she dreaded the idea of seeing her father.
Rick, she thought to herself, as Bruno made the short drive to school. He isn’t my father at all. He’s just some man named Rick.
Unless he was her father, and he had foisted his bastard child on Val’s mother to raise. But wouldn’t her mother have guessed? There was nothing in the letter to suggest that possibility, just how much she loved her husband, how grateful she was that he hadn’t left her for someone who could give him children.
But if he wasn’t her father, how had he gotten her? Where did she come from?
Kit met Val at the car door. “You’d better be prepared,” she whispered as Bruno drove off. “Everyone’s talking about you.”
“About me?” Val asked. This was a nightmare she hadn’t anticipated.
“A couple of the girls must have heard Michelle yesterday,” Kit replied. “Five of them have already asked me if it’s true. About the adoption, I mean. Most of the others edged over to hear my answer.”
Val felt sick to her stomach. “I can’t go in,” she said.
“Do you want to go back home?” Kit asked.
Val shook her head. “I can’t go there either,” she said. “Give me a moment. I’ll be okay.” She stood absolutely still, then took a deep breath.
“They won’t bother you,” Kit said. “They won’t come up to you or anything. But you were bound to overhear, so I wanted you to be prepared.”
Val remembered what it had been like the days after her mother had died. Half the girls had been overly concerned, the other half had avoided her. Right then, she favored avoidance.
“What did you tell them?” she asked, suddenly curious about how Kit had handled things.
“I told them Michelle was jealous because Larry DeVito asked you out and not her,” Kit replied.
“But that’s a lie,” Val said. “He never asked either of us out.”
“I know,” Kit said, looking smug. “But they’re not about to run over to Sacred Heart to ask him. And it gets the gossip running in a whole different direction.”
“You are Jamey’s daughter,” Val said, and then those very words pained her. A spasm shook her body, and she buckled over.
Kit grabbed her fast and blocked her from the other girls’ view. “Can you go through with this?” she asked.
“I have to,” Val said, straightening up. “I’m sorry. I’m feeling kind of lost right now.”
“What happened?” Kit asked. “Did your father say something?”
“My mother,” Val whispered. “She left me a letter. It’s all true.”
The first bell rang. “I’m sorry,” Kit said. “I was hoping it wasn’t.”
“You and me both,” Val said. “Come on. I’ll talk to you later.”
Kit nodded. She and Val walked into the school building together. Val was aware of all the eyes on them, and that made her just angry enough to stand tall and walk at an appropriate pace. She spotted Michelle in the school yard as they approached the door, but neither one said anything. Michelle didn’t look so great herself. Val hoped she was being plagued with questions about Larry DeVito, a boy who Michelle had had a crush on for going on two years.
The morning wasn’t so bad. There was a trick Val had learned when her mother was dying of forgetting about everything except schoolwork, and concentrating completely on that. So she focused her mind on French irregular verbs and the molecular structure of water. If the teachers knew what was going on, if they knew more about Val’s life than Val did, they gave no indication. She was called on the appropriate number of times, ignored the rest. Which was fine with her.
She had dreaded study hall, but that turned out fairly well too. Val and Michelle had study hall at the same time, and the one person she knew she couldn’t deal with just then was her cousin. Her legal cousin. So she went to the library instead. Michelle never went to the library, and it was bound to be safe. Sister Rosemary, who ran the library, was strict about undue noise levels, so none of the other girls came over to her. She used the time to catch up with her math homework, which had gone undone the night before. Val smiled. She’d become undone herself the night before. The homework was merely symbolic.
Val was glad she had worked on it though when she went to math class the next period and faced her second surprise test of the week. She knew the reasons for the first one, and wondered if this
test also had ulterior motives behind it, but Miss Gloski, their math teacher, had a history of not knowing what was going on outside her math room, so the odds were it was just a coincidence. Val didn’t care. She liked having the math test, when the material was so fresh in her mind. The other girls groaned, but Val merely concentrated her thoughts on what she’d worked on a few minutes earlier and, to her own amusement, aced the quiz.
The bell rang for lunch, and all the self-assurance that Val had achieved in the morning vanished with the sound. I can do this, she told herself, and went to her locker to exchange her morning texts for the afternoon ones. Michelle was at her locker as well. The girls stared at each other for a moment.
“Are you okay?” Michelle asked.
“I’m fine,” Val said. “Any reason why I shouldn’t be?”
“I … it’s just … well, I didn’t think anybody else overheard us,” Michelle said. “Yesterday I mean.”
Val laughed. “You practically shouted it over the P.A. system,” she said. “Did you honestly think no one would overhear?”
“I didn’t think,” Michelle said. “I’m sorry, Val. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s too late now,” Val said. She slammed her locker shut, spun the combination lock around, then walked away to the school lunchroom. While there were no assigned seats, the girls always knew who sat with who. Val traditionally had lunch with Kit and Michelle. But that day, Michelle chose to sit with Theresa Martini, leaving the seat next to Val’s empty.
“How did you do on the quiz?” Kit asked Val, as they began eating their turkey lunches.
“Fine,” Val said. “I did my math homework in study hall right before.”
“I wish I had study halls,” Kit said. “Instead of two languages.”
Val nodded. Kit was smarter than she was, and Jamey pushed her harder. Val didn’t think her father really cared what kind of grades she got, as long as they were passing, and she didn’t cause any trouble at school. Jamey expected six academic subjects and A’s in all of them from Kit. On the other hand, Val suspected, he wouldn’t care if any of the teachers complained that Kit showed a lack of respect.
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