“Well, only time will tell.” Nora rose from her chair. “Right now, why don’t we go to the kitchen and have a cup of tea?”
30
“May I come in?”
Naomi looked up from the book she was reading. “Oh. Becca. Sure.” She was sitting on the bed in the Lupine Room, propped against two of the many pillows Julie provided for each of her guests. Becca thought that her mother was one of those women who put a little too much importance into sacks of synthetic down. The living room alone was strewn with no fewer than twelve pillows of various sizes, shapes, and comfort. A few of them had had tassels before Henry Le Mew had gotten to them.
“Thanks,” Becca said. She gestured toward the door behind her. “Do you mind if I—”
“No, go ahead.”
Becca shut the door and perched on a low bench, close to the bed, that had once been part of a vanity set. There was a pillow on the bench, too. Becca pushed it aside.
Naomi shut her book. “I guess you want to talk about—the situation,” she said.
Becca nodded. But oddly, she didn’t know quite where to begin. So much had already been said, some of it wrong. So much more was still to be said, none of it easy.
Maybe Naomi sensed her sister-in-law’s sudden confusion because she began the conversation. “You know,” she said, “I have to admit that there are times when I completely forget that I’m not Rain’s biological mother. There are times when I completely forget that I didn’t actually give birth to her. We’ve been—together—for so long. . . .”
Becca nodded. Naomi and Rain had been together since moments after Becca had delivered Rain into the world. Right from the start. Someone—who was it?—had suggested that it might be easier for Becca not to hold the baby, but to have her given directly to Naomi, who was waiting just yards away from the birthing room. Something about the prevention of bonding . . .
Becca hadn’t argued. At least, she didn’t remember protesting this suggestion. So much of that time was lost to memory—if it had been registered at all.
She did, though, sometimes wonder if not being the first to hold her baby was the cause of the delayed onset of love. No matter. In the end it certainly hadn’t prevented a bond from developing between Becca and Rain, a bond that had brought her to this place in her life where she felt the urgent need to reclaim what was rightfully hers.
“I do sympathize with you, Becca,” Naomi said now, her tone begging belief. “I do. I know what it’s like to give birth to a child. I know the bond that forms—it’s visceral and immediate. It can’t be replaced or imitated or ignored.”
Becca believed her sister-in-law, though she was surprised that Naomi, of all people, seemed to be the only one sympathetic to her cause. Or, at least, to some of what she was feeling. But why should she be surprised? Hadn’t Naomi always shown sympathy, as well as empathy, toward those around her? Yes, Becca had to admit. She had.
“But you think that what I want to do is wrong?” Becca asked now, sure that Naomi had more to say and, strangely, wanting to hear it.
Naomi moved to sit on the edge of the bed, her legs crossed at the knee. “Did you talk to anyone about this?” she asked, ignoring Becca’s question. “A friend, maybe, or a therapist?”
“No,” Becca said promptly. “No one.” There was no need to lie about it. No one but family knew the truth. She had no close friends, no friends at all really, if friends meant people you opened up to, people with whom you shared your secrets and dreams, your heartbreaks and your triumphs.
“Oh.” Naomi nodded. Her tone was gentle when she went on. “I was wondering what a friend might have advised. You know, talking through an important decision before acting on it can give you perspective you just didn’t have before.”
I don’t want perspective, Becca thought. I want my daughter. “No,” she repeated. “I haven’t spoken to anyone.”
Naomi seemed to be considering her next words carefully. Finally, she said, “I wonder if maybe you might want to talk to a professional. Maybe you could find a therapist or a counselor of some sort. What you’re suggesting seems so—disruptive—that I can’t help but wonder—”
“Are you saying I’m mentally ill?” Becca was aware of her defensive tone. “That if I get some medication in me, all this ‘nonsense’ about wanting Rain to know her real mother will just go away?”
Naomi moved closer to Becca; the two women were now sitting almost knee to knee. “Please don’t be angry with me, Becca. Please believe that I only want what’s right for you and for Rain. I’m not your enemy. I never was your enemy.”
Becca looked down at her hands. As much as she might have wanted to, she couldn’t deny the truth of that statement. And she couldn’t help but recall all that Naomi had done for her during the pregnancy. They had been close during those long months. With her brother’s wife, Becca had felt little of the embarrassment she had felt with her parents and grandmother. She’d never been close with Olivia, so with Naomi at her side she finally felt the comforting presence of an older sister, someone who could advise her as well as someone who could laugh with her.
And more than any other family member Naomi had admired Becca’s decision not to have an abortion. Not that an abortion would have been an “easy way out”; it would have carried emotional ramifications and it wouldn’t have erased the fact that Becca had been pregnant. It wouldn’t erase the fact that she had acted carelessly.
But the point was that Naomi had been there for Becca. She had even wanted to be with Becca for the birth, though at the last minute Becca had felt too shy. She’d asked to be alone, with only the medical team. Even her mother waited outside the birthing room. Not once had Becca cried out for her family. Later, the doctor had told Julie she’d never seen such a young woman handle the trials of childbirth with such courage.
And then . . . It had taken some time for Becca to feel comfortable with the baby. After all, she was desperate to go back to school and to graduate. . . . It confused her, to feel so awkward with someone she had carried in her own body for nine months. Again, as Becca sat with her sister-in-law in the Lupine Room, the haunting line from the poem by Anne Sexton came to mind. “Yours is the only face I recognize.”
On the contrary, Naomi had slipped easily into the role of new mother. The primary bonding between mother and child had occurred between Naomi and Rain. It had to be that way if the “plan” was going to work and Rain was going to be a happy child and eventually a well-adjusted adult.
Quickly, and perhaps inevitably, the women’s relationship changed from one of friends and coconspirators to one less companionable, to a relationship—in Becca’s mind—of inequality. One was powerful and the other was powerless; one was an insider and the other was an outsider; one was entitled and the other, not entitled. Naomi had the responsibility of ensuring another person’s well-being. Becca had only the responsibility of not screwing up again.
After what seemed like many long moments, Becca spoke. “I know you’re not my enemy,” she said, looking back up at her sister-in-law. “But please, Naomi. Please consider my feelings in this.”
And what exactly are those feelings? It was that small, annoying inner voice again. Loneliness? Guilt and the need to make atonement? And do those feelings really have anything to do with Rain? Or are they all about fixing your wretched life?
Naomi reached out and gave Becca’s hand a brief squeeze. “I’m trying to, Becca. I really am.”
“I just want to claim my daughter.”
Naomi sighed with impatience or frustration; Becca couldn’t tell which. “Oh, Becca,” she said, “a person isn’t something you can claim! She’s not a coat at a coat check. She’s an autonomous, independent, free being.”
“You know what I mean, Naomi. I want to—I want to acknowledge her as who she really is. My daughter.”
“She’s a lot more than that, Becca. She’s also my daughter. And David’s daughter. And Michael and Malcolm’s big sister. And a granddaughter and a fri
end and a student and . . . and her own person.” Tears began to stream from Naomi’s eyes. She got up and went to the bedside table for a tissue.
Just then the door to the Lupine Room opened roughly and David came stalking in.
“What the hell are you saying to my wife?” he demanded.
Becca looked up at him and wondered if he had been eavesdropping. “We’re just talking, David.”
“Then why is Naomi crying? Naomi, what the hell did she say to you?”
“This is not about you, David,” she answered calmly. “This is a private conversation.”
“But I want to know—”
“David!” Naomi pushed past him and ran out of the room.
“You’re a bully, David.” The words were out before Becca could consider the wisdom of speaking them.
David slammed the door shut and turned on his sister. “And you’re a troublemaker.”
“Lower your voice, David. Talking at the top of your lungs doesn’t make your argument any stronger. And it doesn’t intimidate me.”
David stood with his hands clenched at his sides. Becca wondered if her brother had ever thrown a punch, in anger or in self-defense. She suspected he had.
“Can’t you try to spare your daughter your own pain?” he said now, in a voice marginally softer than the one he’d used before. “She’ll stumble across her own traumas someday. She’ll create her own sadness. She doesn’t need to carry the burden of your sadness as well. Don’t make a victim of your daughter.”
“A victim! Don’t you think she’s a victim already? A victim of deception?”
“If she is a victim—and I’m not saying that she is—then you’re one of the victimizers. Don’t try to pass all the blame onto us. You were a part of the decision.”
“I was coerced.”
“You were counseled,” he corrected. “You’re revising history, Becca. You’re remaking the story so that it conveniently supports your current needs.”
Her brother’s words came very close to hitting their intended mark. Becca felt her insides squirm. She couldn’t help but think that there was a bit of truth in David’s accusation.
“You can’t cast off pain altogether,” he was saying now. “Some of it will always stick to you.”
Becca’s insides stopped squirming. “What are you talking about?” she said. “I’m not looking to cast off pain, whatever that means. I’m just trying—”
But David cut her off. “I swear I’ll never forgive you if you ruin my daughter’s life. And yes, I know what I just said. For all intents and purposes, Rain is my daughter and she always will be. And Naomi. You’ll destroy her, too. I’m sorry, Becca. I won’t let you do that. After all Naomi’s done for you—”
And there it was again. The old argument: Becca should be grateful. She should keep her mouth shut and her head down and just be glad the Rowan family hadn’t thrown her out into the big, bad world to fend for herself and her bastard baby.
“Oh, don’t start with that ‘my wife is a saint’ garbage, David,” Becca cried. “She only did what she promised to do, no more and no less.”
“A lot more, Becca. You don’t know what it’s like to raise a child day in and day out. The challenges that spring up, the unexpected crises, the times when you feel entirely depleted of energy but you just have to keep going no matter—”
“You’re right,” she interrupted. “I don’t know what it’s like to be a day-by-day parent. But it’s through no fault of my own.”
“No one’s been stopping you from getting married and having another baby.”
“That’s not the point and you know it, David.”
Even as she uttered those last words, Becca was dimly aware that she was continuing to fight with David for the sake of fighting itself. And she wondered how much she even believed in what she was saying, the arguments she was making, the accusations she was flinging. What had happened to her compassion for Naomi, the woman who had befriended her so thoroughly?
But she couldn’t seem to stop the flow of feelings and words. She didn’t know how to back down, to cry for help, to say, “I am so terribly lonely.”
Why was it so much easier to fight than to negotiate, to demand than to request?
Was she the bully, after all? Was she the one acting like a brute?
She became aware that David was ranting on. “If you tell Rain the truth, it’ll open a whole can of worms about her father. Do you really want that for her? You don’t even know where the guy is, though if Mom’s sources are right, it’s probably behind bars or dead drunk in some alley.”
“Oh, don’t be so self-righteous, David!”
David glared. “I’m not being self-righteous. I’m trying to prevent a young girl from coming into contact with a man even you have to admit she’s better off not knowing.”
“I promise I won’t let Rain go anywhere near her biological father,” Becca said. “And I won’t let him come anywhere near her.”
“That’s not a promise you can keep.”
“Maybe not,” she conceded after a moment. “But the fact remains that I have a lot more to offer Rain than you and Naomi.”
“Like what, money? Things? Designer clothes and whatever else it is those spoiled Hollywood kids can’t seem to live without?”
Really, Becca thought. He makes himself out to be a pillar of self-sacrifice and moral rectitude. Like he didn’t have a flat-screen television? “Yes, David,” she said, “money. And things. Things like vacations in Europe and the best colleges and . . .”
David laughed that bark of a laugh. “Oh, I get it now! You want to buy your daughter’s love! What makes you so sure she won’t throw the money in your face? What makes you so sure she won’t hate you for giving her up and for lying to her all these years?”
“What makes you so sure she won’t hate you and Naomi for lying to her?”
David couldn’t answer. The truth was that nothing made him feel sure that Rain wouldn’t hate him and Naomi and the whole Rowan clan for what they’d done sixteen years earlier.
“This conversation is going nowhere,” he said. His tone was clipped. “When you can talk calmly and dispassionately about your daughter’s welfare, let me know. Until then . . .”
As soon as David had left the room, Becca sank onto her brother and sister-in-law’s bed, head in her hands. She felt suddenly and utterly deflated. Nothing was going as she’d hoped. Everything, everything was going horribly wrong.
31
Later that afternoon, David lay on the bed in the Lupine Room. He was fully dressed and his shoes were on. He knew that he shouldn’t put his shoes on the clean bedspread; Naomi was always telling him that, just like his mother had told him until he’d left home for college. But he always seemed to forget their admonishments until it was too late and the damage had already been done.
The house was quiet, except for an occasional thump from the attic. Of course it was Olivia, on her never-ending, obsessive expedition into the past. Well, David thought, good luck to her. For himself, he could do without the past. In fact, there were great big chunks of the past he wished he could forget or, better yet, erase.
Like the adoption. Not that he wanted Rain to go away; he adored the girl and couldn’t imagine a life without her. It was just . . . Just the way in which she had come into the life of the family that was bothersome.
There was something else that was bothersome. David was beginning to suspect that his protectiveness involved more than a little self-interest. He didn’t want the girl he thought of as his daughter to think badly of him, to lose respect for him. He didn’t want her to stop loving him and if she learned the truth of her birth now, in Becca’s abrupt way, there seemed a pretty good chance that she would stop loving the man she’d always considered her father. There seemed a pretty good chance that she might even hate him. And David didn’t believe he could handle that. He was strong, even tough, but that was one thing he was dead sure would knock him down for good. He needed to be s
een as a good man, an honest person, and the idea of being shown for who he seemed after all to be, a deceiver though one with the best of intentions, was abhorent to him.
David kicked his legs against the mattress, aware that it was a childish way to show frustration. But yes, damn it, he did harbor feelings of guilt about his own role in the secret that had so largely defined the life of the family. Not terrible, debilitating guilt, but guilt all the same. Not that he was going to admit to those feelings publicly, not while Becca was on her insane campaign to destroy his life. David winced. He meant, on her insane campaign to destroy the life of his daughter.
There was a knock on the door. Before David could speak, it opened and Naomi slipped into the room.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he replied.
“Am I interrupting?”
“Of course not.”
Naomi stretched out next to her husband on the bed and kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, David,” she said.
“I’m sorry I was such a bully. That’s what Becca called me, anyway.”
“You were just concerned about me. I know that.”
“Yeah. I’m pretty concerned about us all, right now. I feel so powerless, like I’m a victim. Like we’re all victims.” David gave a wry laugh. “You know, if this were a movie or a novel, we’d all plot to silence Becca once and for all.”
“David!”
“What?” he said, his eyes wide in a look of feigned innocence. “It’s true. Here’s this person threatening to destroy our family by revealing a long-kept secret. She won’t listen to reason. She refuses to change her mind. And we’re all sitting here trembling, waiting for her to strike. If we were fictional characters and not decent human beings, we’d join forces like we did sixteen years ago and—make something happen.”
“But we’re not fictional characters,” Naomi pointed out. “So stop entertaining such crazy notions.”
David turned his head to look at his wife, the person he loved more than anyone else in the world. “You’re my best friend, you know,” he said. “Whom else could I talk to so honestly?”
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