“I’m fine, no thanks to Mr. McAdams, here. Ben, what in the world did you think you were doing?”
Because he couldn’t trust his leg muscles to hold him and not spasm, Ben stayed where he was. Looking up at her, he said, “I thought you needed help. I looked in the front doors and saw you running back and forth across the landing, waving your arms and yelling. What were you doing?”
Lisa glanced away as she smoothed her hair and then straightened the hem of her shirt. “I was working in the office, minding my own business, when two bats flew in out of nowhere.”
“Why didn’t you call for help?” Junior asked. “We’re right next door.”
“Have I ever been the kind of woman who needs to be rescued from a couple of bats? I tried to get them to fly out, but they seemed to fly straight at me and...I may...have overreacted a little bit. And the shrieking alarm only made the bats crazier.” She looked up. “Although they seem to be gone now.”
“Yeah, it’s not general knowledge, but we’ve had bats in this building for years,” the sheriff said, leaning back to peer up at the ceiling. “Can’t seem to get rid of them.”
“Well, I didn’t know that. I wish someone had told me.” Lisa shook her head in annoyance. “I can’t believe that in this town where everyone knows everything, that’s been kept quiet.”
Disgruntled, Ben said, “I thought you were under attack...or...or something. I broke the window in the back door. I didn’t know it would set off the downstairs alarm.” Avoiding her furious look, Ben stood and leaned against the stair railing, gritting his teeth against the pain that gripped his knee and made his thigh muscles seize. Pinpricks of light danced in front of his eyes. He shut them to hold the tears of pain back.
“Ben.” Lisa rushed to his side and grabbed his arm to support him. “You’re the one who needs the paramedics.”
“Nah. You do.” His head lolled. “You’re the one who’s pregnant.”
* * *
IF SHE COULD have tipped Ben McAdams over the railing at that moment, she would have done so happily and then danced down the stairs and out the door to jail. Instead she gripped his arm to keep him upright even as she gave him an outraged look.
The silence that filled the two-story foyer was as deafening as the sound of the alarm a few minutes before. Lisa looked around at the four openmouthed law-enforcement officers.
“Dude,” Junior finally said to Ben. “You tackled a pregnant lady.”
“Trying to help,” Ben said again, and sagged against the railing. “Besides, it’s my baby.”
Lisa moaned. “Oh, Ben!” Now she really was going to push him over the railing. Fortunately for him, two officers shook off their shock and leaped forward to support him.
Lisa gladly handed him over as she said, “Please take Mr. McAdams to the emergency room. You’ll find the key to the elevator in the maintenance office downstairs. I’ve had enough excitement for one day. I’m going home, where I will doctor my own elbow. And, Sheriff Held, please remember to reset the alarm.”
He opened his mouth but only a garbled sound came out. He cleared his throat and said, “Certainly, Mayor Thomas.”
Her face burning with anger and embarrassment, she ignored him and walked with as much dignity as she could back into the mayor’s office, where she gathered up the papers she needed and grabbed her purse. By the time she locked the office and went down the stairs, the cops had Ben in the elevator.
She hurried to her car and rushed toward home, her mind furiously replaying everything that had happened. The secret she’d tried to keep was out now and would probably be all over town within minutes. She could have asked the sheriff and deputies to keep her secret, but she didn’t want to ask for any special favors. Besides, her pregnancy was going to be quite obvious very soon. She could only hope that her news wouldn’t make certain members of the city council even harder to deal with.
It was fully dark by the time she reached home, and Maureen came out to meet her as soon as she pulled into the carport.
“You’re later than usual,” Maureen said, fretting. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”
When she reached in to take the briefcase, Lisa waved her off. “I’m fine, Maureen. Nothing’s wrong.” But when she started to close the car door, she winced at the stinging pain in her elbow.
“There is something wrong. I can tell.” Maureen stepped in front of her, looking her over to see what was wrong.
“I scraped my elbow, is all. I’ll clean it and put a bandage on it.” She started into the house, but Maureen was right on her heels.
“What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lisa said in desperation. “I’ll take care of it.”
“No, let me—”
“No.” Lisa rushed to her room and closed the door. As she doctored her elbow, she met her gaze in the bathroom mirror and then looked away in shame. Just because she was angry with Ben didn’t mean she should take it out on Maureen. Taking a deep breath, she returned to the kitchen.
“I’m sorry, Maureen. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
Her mother was taking a casserole from the oven. She set it on the stovetop and turned around. “I only want to take care of you.”
“But I don’t need you to. I thought you came here to get well, to recover from your illness.”
“I’m much better. I almost feel back to normal. Being here, seeing you, seeing that this place isn’t like I remember, has helped me get well. Besides, I can do both, can’t I?” Maureen asked with a shrug. She opened the refrigerator and removed a salad along with a bottle of fresh homemade dressing. “Take care of myself and take care of you?”
“But I don’t need... Oh, never mind.” Lisa sat and watched her mother put dinner on the table. She was afraid Maureen wouldn’t listen, so the best she could do was to try to smooth things over. “So, what did you do today?”
“Went into town. I needed a few things from the drugstore. Turned out that...they didn’t have what I needed.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. But it’s good that you got out. You’ve been holed up here since you came. I was afraid you were turning into a recluse. Did you...meet anyone you know?”
Maureen’s quick glance told her she’d touched a nerve, but instead of answering, her mother changed the subject.
“When I got back, I went for a walk, started a new book. I brought all the books with me that I haven’t had time to read. It feels strange to not be working. I’ll get a job soon, though, and get out of your hair.”
“There’s no rush, but...when you’re out walking around the place every day, are you looking for something?” She gestured toward the open field beyond the house.
“Looking for something?” Maureen shook her head. “Not really. At first, I was walking to build up my strength, but now I guess I can’t get used to seeing it empty, not full of hazards.” She paused, as if trying to come up with the right word, and finally said, “Normal, like a place that a family cares about. You made it like that, Lisa, and I’m proud of you for it.”
Lisa blinked and ducked her head in surprise. “Well, thank you.” She watched Maureen for a minute, then decided this might be a good moment to bring up what was troubling her most. “Besides needing to get well, there has to be another reason you came back to Reston. I mean why now? Why after thirty-three years? You never wanted to come before. Not to stay.”
Maureen didn’t meet her eyes as she filled a plate and handed it to her. Lisa didn’t even bother reminding her that she was capable of filling her own plate. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. I couldn’t. It was too hard. Being in this house...was too hard.”
Lisa began eating the chicken and rice casserole, savoring the creamy sauce, the crunch of almonds and the tang of citrus. She didn’t quite know how to respond to Maureen.
“There was another reason,” Maureen admitted when she had taken a few bites of food. “As I told you the night I came here, I promised Aunt Violet.”
“That you would come back here?”
“Yes. I didn’t think it would be this soon. I didn’t expect to get so sick. But I had promised her I would come and...get to know you.”
“I talked to her a few months before she died. She didn’t mention it then.”
“She always wanted me to do it and finally made me promise. You know that’s where I went when I...left, don’t you?”
Lisa nodded and took another bite of the delicious casserole. She thought it was ironic that she was enjoying this food so much while having such a hard conversation with its cook.
“I stayed with her, took any job I could find, finally got out on my own. I made a life for myself, made friends. I usually spent holidays working so that people with families could have the time off.”
“You had a family.”
“My cousins didn’t really like me. They didn’t approve of me, of what I’d done, so I didn’t want to always go to Aunt Violet’s and—”
“I meant me, and Grandma and Grandpa.” Lisa heard a tapping noise, looked down and realized the hand holding her fork had begun to shake. She put it down and folded her hands in her lap.
Maureen gave her a desperate look. “I couldn’t stay here. I just couldn’t. It was smothering. I knew I’d never have any kind of a life if I stayed here.”
“So you wanted a life of your own more than you wanted me.”
“Lisa, honey, I was sixteen!” Tears spurted into Maureen’s eyes. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“I understand that you weren’t ready to be a mother then, but later, why didn’t you come back?” Now that she had opened the door on the subject, Lisa wanted to know all she could.
“I couldn’t. I would have suffocated. It would have killed me. And...and I told myself that it would be too confusing for you if I showed up every once in a while, that it was better for you if I stayed away.”
She pushed her plate away. “It wasn’t that bad, was it? Living with them? Here?” She looked around the clean, uncluttered room, but then her face fell as if she was remembering what it had been like with nothing but a thin trail that gave access from the back door, and through the kitchen piled high with stacks of dusty old magazines and boxes of worthless junk that had teetered almost to the ceiling.
Her lips trembling, Lisa said, “I think it was probably as bad for me as it was for you.”
Maureen covered her eyes. Tears leaked from between her fingers. “I’m sorry.”
Lisa wiped away her own tears. For years she had dreamed of having this conversation with her mother, but she hadn’t known how much it would hurt. However, she had come this far and there was more she wanted to know.
“That’s...that’s in the past now. I have to look ahead to the future. So do you. I’ve got to think about my own child now, about family medical histories, among other things.”
Frowning in confusion, Maureen looked up. She wiped at her tears as she said, “What do you mean?”
“Maureen, who is my father? My birth certificate says John Jackson, and that he was from Ada, but who was John Jackson? I’ve looked at online directories and there are a ton of Jacksons in that area, but I don’t know which one he could be.”
“I don’t, either,” her mother admitted. “I’m not even sure that was his real name.”
“What?”
Maureen grabbed a paper napkin and dabbed at her eyes. “He was only...someone I met. He was a few years older than me. I had a job in Toncaville, at the Burger Barn. He came in there a lot, said his name was John Jackson. He never actually said where he was from, but he mentioned Ada a couple of times, so when I had to put down his birthplace, I chose Ada. Picked it out of the air.”
“You’re kidding.”
Maureen shook her head. “I was young, and stupid, and desperate. I believed everything he said, about how pretty I was, that he loved me the minute he saw me. Nobody had ever talked to me like that before, so I was flattered, overwhelmed, and since he wasn’t from around here, he knew nothing about my family.
“Then he told me he was married, even had a little boy, but by then, it was too late. I was pregnant. I didn’t tell my parents until I was six months along.” She glanced up with tear-filled eyes. “They never really looked at me, so they hadn’t noticed. When I told them, I was so ashamed.”
Lisa covered her belly, cradling her child, trying to imagine what it would be like to be so young and scared even as she realized how lucky she was to have the benefit of age and the financial security she needed. She couldn’t picture going off and leaving her baby, though, and she still didn’t have a good answer about why Maureen had left her behind.
“Did he know about me?”
Maureen shook her head and her voice caught as she said, “No. He gave me a phone number, but when I tried to call, it was for a gas station out on Highway 6. They didn’t know anyone named John Jackson.”
“So, there’s a chance I’ll never know about hereditary illnesses or other issues.”
“I’m afraid that’s true.” Maureen caught her lip under her teeth. “I didn’t intend for it to happen. It just...”
When her words trailed off, Lisa pointed to her own belly and said, “I know that better than anyone. I’m the last person who would judge you for getting unexpectedly pregnant.”
“I never wanted to stay here, in this house, in this town. I wanted something bigger and better. Even after you were born, I still had plans to get out of Reston. Have a good life, free of—”
“Me?”
Maureen didn’t answer. With a shake of her head, she took her plate and utensils to the sink and fled to her room.
Lisa sat, staring at her uneaten food, forcing back tears. Maybe their situations weren’t so different. She was having a child she hadn’t planned to have and she had no idea what kind of mother she would be.
There were things she still wanted to know, more questions she wanted to ask. Now that they had broken the ice, as painful as it had been, maybe she could learn more. She decided to ask Maureen in the morning, see if they could clear the air, start fresh.
But in the morning Maureen was gone.
* * *
“WHERE DO YOU think she went?” Carly asked when a distraught Lisa arrived on her doorstep during breakfast. She hustled her inside and got her some herbal tea and toast, which Lisa ate while Carly scrambled some eggs. Luke was already out in their gardens and Dustin had left for school.
“I don’t know. She just disappeared, because that’s what she does best. She disappears.”
“Did something happen?”
“Yes, she finally told me a little about why she left, why she stayed away, but not as much as I wanted to know.” She told Carly everything she’d learned from Maureen.
Carly handed Lisa a plate of eggs and sat opposite her, cup of coffee in hand. “Wow,” she said softly. “Just wow. She didn’t even know if that was the guy’s real name?”
“It was a big surprise, and not at all what I was expecting.”
Carly sipped her coffee. “The biggest thing you’ve always wondered about is why she left you behind, right?”
“Right.”
“Honestly, I think you may have the only answer you’re going to get. She just couldn’t stay. She was young and scared and thought she’d never escape, so she took the only way out.”
Lisa nodded. “I guess it’s not the answer I wanted to hear.”
“You want to hear her say she regrets it and to tell you why she didn’t take you with her.”
“Yes, I do.”
“She probably couldn’t. How did she get away?”
“I don’t
know. Maybe hitchhiked, rode a bus?”
“All the way from southeastern Oklahoma to Chicago, Illinois? That must have been tough enough on her own, much less with a baby.” Carly smiled sympathetically and gave a little shrug. “At some point, you’ll probably have to accept that you’ll never know all the details and let it go.”
Lisa thought about that as she finished eating. At last she said, “You’re right. I guess I’ll have to get used to that idea. I tried calling her cell this morning, but there was no answer. Maybe she’ll be in touch someday. Soon, I hope, so I can ask her to forgive me. She seemed excited about the baby so maybe she’ll want to see him or her.”
“I hope so. In the meantime you’ve got to deal with as much information as you got from her and live with it, at least for now.”
“You’re right about that, too. I have so many other things to think about.” She placed her elbow on the table and winced at the pain.
“What’s wrong?”
Lisa rolled up the sleeve of her white silk blouse and showed her the bandage. “Besides giving me a baby, Ben McAdams has made another mark on my life. This and a bruised hip from hitting his bathroom sink.” She told Carly about the happenings at city hall.
“I knew that building needed repair, but bats? Scary. It does explain the funky smell, though.”
“I should have recognized it. We had bats in the barn when I was a kid.” Lisa frowned. “I guess that’s why I overreacted. I remember when I was little the bats would fly down and I thought they were after me.”
“At least now, thanks to Ben, you don’t have to hide your pregnancy anymore. Might as well break out the big, puffy tops festooned with bows and ruffles.”
Horrified, Lisa said, “I will not. There have to be some professional-looking maternity clothes I can buy.”
“Well, of course there are. And I’m surprised you haven’t already been shopping. You have to give up the five-inch heels, though—for a while.” Carly pointed to the navy blue pumps that matched Lisa’s slacks.
“I know.”
Lisa finished her breakfast, hugged her friend and went to work, stopping by her real-estate office first. She quickly sorted through the mail, checked her email and then picked up her phone to call and check on Ben.
His Twin Baby Surprise Page 11
