All Our Summers

by Holly Chamberlin

  “No,” Scott said immediately. “It was not a lie. I was sick about it. Sick of her and sick about hurting you and Sophie.”

  “I’d like to believe you.”

  Scott nodded. “You can. It’s the truth.”

  “What else have you lied about?” Julie asked, not angrily.

  “Nothing. I haven’t lied to you about anything else, I swear.”

  Julie thought for a moment. She could continue to punish him, snap back with a reply on the order of: “And I’m supposed to believe that?” and then the cycle of blame and shame would continue. Or, she could let the comment go. She could choose to believe it or not, but either way she could keep her remarks to herself and listen.

  “All right,” she said. She turned to go.

  “Thank you for talking to me, Julie. Anything is better than your silence.”

  Julie looked back at her husband. “Even my anger?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Scott said, and there was a catch in his throat.

  Julie smiled and went back to the house. She wondered what Scott would think of her applying for the Ackroyd Institute’s scholarship. She thought he would be proud of her.

  And at that very moment Julie decided to finish the essay she had begun and reach for the prize. But not for Scott. Or for Sara.

  For herself.

  Chapter 105

  Carol had asked her sister to come to Ferndean as there was something important she had to say.

  Bonnie wondered. Could Carol be abandoning her plans to settle at Ferndean House? Judith would be there this afternoon as well; maybe Carol wanted to open negotiations again and hoped that Judith would act as mediator.

  Bonnie got into her car. Things were different now than they had been when Carol first came back to Yorktide weeks earlier. Not perfect but better. And she meant what she had said to Julie, that she was glad Carol had come home.

  In spite of everything, she meant it.

  Chapter 106

  Carol sat in her father’s armchair. Bonnie and Judith sat on the couch directly facing Carol. Bonnie looked decidedly nervous. Well, Carol thought, she wasn’t the only one. Judith’s expression betrayed nothing but her usual attitude of calm acceptance.

  “Thank you both for coming,” Carol began, aware she sounded as if she was opening a corporate meeting rather than a family discussion. But she was doing the best she could.

  Bonnie nodded.

  “What is it, Carol?” Judith said. “What’s been on your mind?”

  For a moment, Carol, who had rehearsed her story repeatedly, didn’t know how to begin.

  “From the beginning,” Judith said gently. “That’s your answer.”

  Carol smiled. She had been right to include her cousin in this moment.

  “I was in love once, a long time ago,” she began. “His name was Martin. He was a year older than me, had never been married, had no kids. He had just been made a partner in his law firm when I met him.” Carol shook her head. “I’m not making him sound particularly special, but he was, to me. I’d never felt about anyone the way I felt about Martin. It was love. At least, I believed that what I felt for him was love. And he loved me. That I’m sure of. We were together for about eight months when one evening over dinner at our favorite little Italian place in the Village he broke things off.”

  “Whoever thought that a public breakup was acceptable?” Judith asked. “I think it’s cruel.”

  “Cruel or not,” Carol said, “it took me utterly by surprise. I had no idea he was unhappy. He said I was incapable of really knowing another person, or of letting myself be known.”

  Judith frowned. “He might have been just a tad judgmental. Most men are.”

  Bonnie said nothing. Carol thought her sister looked puzzled.

  “He said he sensed that I wouldn’t make him a good wife,” she went on.

  Judith sniffed. “A bit presumptuous.”

  “Maybe. But then he listed several incidents as proof.” Carol smiled ruefully. “Like, the time he asked me to accompany him to an important dinner with his partners and their spouses. I really wanted to watch the latest episode of Law & Order, so I said I couldn’t make it.”

  “Did you tell him why?” Judith asked.

  “Yes, he didn’t understand why I couldn’t just have taped the show and watched it when I got home.”

  Bonnie shifted in her seat. “He had a point,” she said, but not unkindly. “If you cared enough about him, that’s what you would have done.”

  “Probably,” Carol said. “Not long after our relationship ended he got married and the last I heard, he and his wife and children were blissfully happy. And I’m happy for him. Now. Back then, I wasn’t really capable of a generous spirit.”

  “Not many people would have been,” Judith said. “I’ve been through my fair share of breakups. The one left behind is rarely pleased to hear about her ex’s newfound happiness.”

  Bonnie folded her hands in her lap and leaned forward. “I don’t understand,” she said. “What does all this have to do with today?”

  Carol took the requisite deep breath and began to tell her family about Alex Peters, Nicola’s conception via IVF, and finally, about Alex’s recent phone call.

  “Everything is unraveling,” she said finally, exhaustedly. “The structure I put into place twenty-five years ago is crumbling.”

  “All along you’ve known Nicola’s father?” Bonnie shook her head slowly.

  “Yes. Why I thought I’d ever make a good mother I’ll never know. I was angry about Martin leaving me. I wanted to prove to Martin, to everyone, that I was capable of love and sacrifice.”

  “You weren’t a bad mother. You weren’t,” Bonnie said firmly. “And I’m sorry if I ever made you feel that you were. Which might have been my intention at times.”

  “Bonnie is right,” Judith said firmly. “You’re a good mother, Carol. No one is a perfect mother. No one.”

  Carol was moved by her sister’s honesty and comforted by her cousin’s support. “Thank you both,” she said, her voice wobbly.

  “Would your friend Alex have married you if you wanted him to?” Bonnie asked.

  “Yes, I think he would have and it would have been a disaster. I made him unhappy enough in the end by asking what I did of him. I knew he would never refuse me.”

  Judith suddenly eyed Carol closely. “There’s something else, isn’t there?” she asked. “There’s something else you want to tell us.”

  Carol managed a small smile. “Yes,” she said. “There is. Fast forward to Nicola’s becoming an adolescent and starting to get into trouble. Things deteriorated rapidly. I was at my wit’s end. Nothing seemed to be helping, not therapy, not punishment. And then I had the surgery, the radical hysterectomy. The recovery was long and painful. I was completely unprepared for the harsh reality of healing. I was prescribed an opioid by my doctor. I took the pills I was given, as I was instructed to do. And I was hooked. It was that sudden. When my prescription had run out, I turned to someone I knew who could get hold of the pills illegally. I never asked for details.”

  Bonnie had put one hand to her heart, the other over her mouth. Her eyes were wide. Judith’s mouth was set in a grim line.

  “So, you see,” Carol went on, “one of the reasons I wanted Nicola to live with you all in Yorktide was that I knew she would then be safe from anything nasty that might happen as a result of my need for the drug.”

  There was a long silence during which Carol honestly didn’t know if she had managed to alienate her sister and her cousin forever.

  “But you’re all right now?” Bonnie asked finally, her voice low.

  “I haven’t touched opioids in over six years and I never will again.”

  “You must have been so lonely,” Judith said gently.

  I still am, Carol said to herself. To her cousin, she merely nodded. “So,” she asked, “do I tell Nicola the truth about her father?”

  Judith spoke first. “I’d encourage you t
o tell Nicola everything. She might freak out at first, but I believe she’ll come around and be grateful for the knowledge.”

  Carol turned to her sister. “Bonnie,” she said. “What do you think?”

  “I think Nicola needs to know the truth,” she said promptly. “It will be a shock. But she’s a strong young woman. She’ll be all right.”

  “Largely thanks to the good care you and Ken gave her,” Carol said feelingly. “Look, please don’t tell Julie any of this until I’ve worked things out with Nicola, assuming I can work things out. Julie is under so much strain at the moment I’m afraid she’ll let slip the news to Nicola and that would be a disaster.”

  “Agreed,” Judith said firmly.

  Bonnie nodded. “Agreed.”

  All three women stood and moved closer to one another. “Thank you. Thank you both,” Carol said. She took the hand of each woman. As if compelled to complete the circle, Bonnie and Judith reached for one another’s hand.

  United we stand, Carol thought, tears in her eyes.

  Chapter 107

  Nicola grinned and waved as her cousin drove past the crowd of people waiting at the crosswalk in the center of town. Judith didn’t see her. She was looking straight ahead, as she probably should have been, Nicola thought. But there had been a pained look on her face.

  The light turned green and Nicola joined the other pedestrians in stepping into the street. Very little got to her cousin. She hoped Judith hadn’t had bad news, like a friend’s illness or sudden death. When you got to Judith’s age, that kind of depressing thing seemed always to be happening.

  Nicola reached the sidewalk and headed toward the bookshop, her mother’s gift certificate tucked into her wallet. Maybe, she thought, she could find a good book on learning how to better access your intuition or, like Hermione had talked about, how to listen to the universe so that its messages were clear and instructive.

  Nicola opened the door to the bookshop. Or maybe she would just buy a big stack of mystery novels.

  Chapter 108

  “Keys, keys, wherefore art thou keys!”

  Julie dashed from the kitchen, glancing at every surface on her way through the living room. And there they were, for some reason on the mantel above the fireplace. Funny place for car keys to be hiding.

  With more speed than she had been able to muster for months, Julie hurried from the house and into her car. She didn’t want to be late for her appointment with Sara. Julie had completed the scholarship application; Sara would read it and make suggestions for improvement. A part of Julie dreaded to hear her principal’s criticisms. A larger part of her was eager for the feedback.

  Only when Julie was nearing Sara’s house did she remember her mother mentioning that she and Judith had been invited to Ferndean that day. Carol had something important to say to them. Julie wondered what it was.

  Oh, well, she thought as she pulled into Sara’s driveway. She would find out soon enough. Frankly, she had more important things on her mind. Like reviving her vocation.

  Chapter 109

  The moment Bonnie got back to her cottage she fairly collapsed into Ken’s lounger. She felt exhausted by what Carol had told her. Exhausted and overwhelmed and sad and thoroughly surprised.

  The pain her sister must have endured through the long years of her addiction! Bonnie had never known anyone addicted to drugs; she had known plenty of heavy drinkers but very few alcoholics. How sheltered she had been from the harsh realities so many others faced. And how fortunate that Ken had convinced her to take in their niece all those years ago. Carol had been right in not wanting her child to live in the vicinity of an addiction, especially to something that had to be acquired through illegal means.

  As for Nicola’s parentage, well, Bonnie had always been uncomfortable with the idea of anonymous sperm donation. Now that she knew the truth about Nicola’s father, she felt only slightly less troubled by the way in which Carol had chosen to bring a baby into the world. It seemed so cold to make a legal agreement with someone you considered a friend over such an emotionally charged event as having a baby.

  But a man with a name was better than a man with no name. Or something like that. It was all so confusing. But at least now Nicola would have the opportunity to know her father.

  And Bonnie firmly believed that was a good thing.

  Now, to remember not to let slip to Julie that the dynamics of the family were about to change drastically yet again!

  With a groan, Bonnie got up from the lounger and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. As she passed through the tiny living room, she was overcome by a wave of fondness for her lovely little house. Life would be just fine if she were to spend the next phase of it here in the home she and Ken had shared. Maybe, if it meant so much to Carol, she should relinquish her hold on Ferndean House....

  But that was easier said than done. Bonnie wasn’t sure it was in her to make a sacrifice that large, not for anyone but Ken. And he was gone.

  Bonnie put the kettle on the stove and yawned. Tea and a nap. That sounded good.

  Chapter 110

  “I’m going to tell Nicola the truth about you and me. She’s coming to the house in about an hour.”

  “Thank you, Carol,” Alex said. “I’m so relieved.”

  “I told my sister and my cousin the whole story,” Carol went on. “They were both more accepting than I’d imagined they might be.”

  “We did nothing wrong, Carol.”

  “You might be innocent, but . . .” Carol swallowed hard. “I’m not at all sorry that Nicola was born,” she went on, “but I am so very sorry that I asked you to be her father in the way that I did. It was unfair of me to expect such an enormous sacrifice for so little in return.”

  “I made the decision, Carol. You didn’t force me to agree. But thank you for acknowledging that it was a difficult decision for me to make and to honor. Staying out of our daughter’s life.”

  Both Alex and Carol were silent for a moment.

  “Have you considered the possibility that Nicola might not want to talk with you?” Carol asked gently then.

  “Of course.”

  “What will you do if that’s the case?”

  Alex laughed softly. “I’ll deal with it. There’s not much choice, is there?”

  “No, I guess there isn’t. Though she might come around in time.” The moment the words were out of her mouth, Carol cringed. Only there wasn’t time. Alex was dying.

  “You’ll let me know either way?” Alex asked.

  “Of course. Goodbye, Alex.”

  Carol put her phone down. The biggest challenge of her life lay before her. She truly had no idea how Nicola would take the news that her father was known to her mother, that he always had been, that if her mother had allowed it, her father might have been a part of her life for the past twenty-five years.

  But she was about to find out.

  * * *

  For one terrible moment, Carol thought that Nicola, her face flushed almost purple, was going to pick up one of the knickknacks on the closest side table and throw it against a wall. But Nicola didn’t have a temper like she had had in those bad times. Or maybe she did. What did Carol really know of her daughter?

  “Alex and I talked about all the possibilities at the beginning,” Carol went on quietly. She was sitting rigidly, her hands flat on each arm of her father’s chair. “About all that might possibly happen should one of us get too sick to care for you or even should one of us die. Our lawyers made sure of that.”

  “Is it really possible to talk about every imaginable possibility?” Nicola countered. “When a life is concerned?”

  “We did our best,” Carol said. “At least, we did what we thought was the best for you.”

  “And no one tried to talk you out of it?” Nicola asked, her tone incredulous.

  “No one knew.” Carol sighed. “Nicola, there was nothing unusual in choosing to have a child in the way I did. Nothing illegal or dangerous or immoral. How
many of your schoolmates had donor fathers?”

  “A few,” Nicola admitted.

  “And how did those kids seem to you? Normal? Well adjusted?”

  “I don’t know,” Nicola said with a shrug. “They were just like everyone else.”

  “You see?”

  “What I see is a lie,” Nicola snapped. She walked over to the couch facing her mother and sat on the very edge of the cushion, her hands on her knees. “Those other kids with donor fathers really did have donor fathers! I had a man with a name, someone who wanted a child enough to go ahead with a crazy idea . . .” Nicola shook her head. “No, he didn’t want a child. He wanted to give you what you wanted. It could have been a diamond necklace or a fur coat, but no, you wanted a baby so he gave you a baby.”

  Carol could say nothing. Her heart was beating painfully.

  “What would you have done if the IVF didn’t work?” Nicola went on. Her tone was challenging. “Would you have adopted a baby?”

  “No,” Carol answered. “I wanted a child I’d given birth to.”

  “That’s selfish. There are so many innocent little kids in need of good homes.”

  “I know that. And I also know that adoption was not what I was prepared to undertake. Would it have been better for me to lie to myself and let the child pay the price of my unhappiness?”

  Nicola was silent for a moment. Then, she said, “No, of course not. Still, you denied me the gift of knowing my own father.”

  Carol nodded. “I suppose I did. But now I’m trying to make up for that.”

  “When he’s dying!” Nicola cried. “When he has less than a year to live. You weren’t going to tell me any of this, were you? It was my father’s contacting you now, telling you he’s sick, that forced you to come clean.”

  “Yes,” Carol admitted. “That’s true.”

  “Does he know anything at all about me?”

  “Yes, from the beginning I’ve sent regular updates on your progress. School photos. Drawings you made as a little girl. Copies of awards you won at graduation. That sort of thing.”