Hagar's Mother (The Bridge Daughter Cycle Book 2)

by Jim Nelson

  “Your children have to be your priority,” her mother said. “You hear me? Those two babies are the only things that matter. You’ve come so far. Don’t give up now.”

  Hanna, too exhausted to protest, nodded.

  “I think you need a hug,” her mother said.

  They embraced for a long moment, her mother swaying left and right and stroking Hanna’s hair.

  “You need a hot bath,” her mother said when they released. Hanna had not bathed since Sunday.

  “Am I whiffy?”

  “It’s beyond whiffy,” her mother said. “What was it like in there?”

  Hanna shook her head. “It was hell. No exaggeration. It was bad enough, the conditions. But being kept away from Cynthia and Ruby—”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” her mother said.

  “I’ve never spent a day without them,” Hanna said softly. “Not one day have we been apart.”

  “Your father told me they offered you the chance to confess four or five times.”

  “My only concern was getting back Ruby,” Hanna said. “I wasn’t going to tell them anything until they assured me I could have Ruby back.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell them the truth?”

  “Because,” Hanna said, voice rising, “the truth is that Ruby wanted Piper to take her away. She wasn’t kidnapped. If the police knew that, they would keep Ruby.”

  Her mother nodded, now understanding. “They’d say she was a danger to the child she carried.”

  “So I told them Piper kidnapped Ruby,” Hanna said. “I don’t know what Ruby told them, but apparently it satisfied them. I thought we were clear. I thought we’d won. Then Vaughn outsmarted me.”

  Her mother frowned. “You look exhausted. Why don’t you lie down?”

  “What happened to Pint-sized?” Hanna asked.

  “Why in the world are you asking me that kitten.”

  “I had a lot of time to think.” The piercing scream of the infant in the San Francisco jail sounded in Hanna’s memory. “Why did she run away from me?”

  “You need some sleep,” Hanna’s mother said.

  “Do you think she ran back to her mother?” Hanna asked.

  “Whatever happened to her was beyond my control,” her mother said. “You’re asking about the realm of Nature.”

  Hanna, fading now, studied her mother for complicity. She detected none.

  “Did you kill Pint?” Hanna heard herself say.

  Cynthia knocked on the hotel room door. Hanna admitted her to the room.

  “I didn’t have to kill her,” Hanna’s mother said flatly. “Pint found her own way back to the barn. I saw her slip across the yard with a perky little bounce in her step. An hour later, I went over and found her. Her mother snapped her little neck. I buried her while you took a nap.”

  Cynthia glanced at each woman. “What are you talking about?”

  “Get ready for bed,” Hanna’s mother said. She said to Hanna, “I never told you because you would never understand.”

  “You’re right,” Hanna murmured, eyes heavy.

  “You never listen to me,” her mother said. “You need to start seeing things as an adult. You’re a mother of two.”

  Hanna lowered herself to the bed. While Hanna’s mother and Cynthia pulled back the cover and sheets, Hanna asked if she could watch some television. She blinked once at the dark television screen, blinked twice more. The here-and-now crumbled away and only the dark remained.

  —

  Hanna awoke in the dark. The room lights were off. The cool blue LED of the bedside clock read 1:33. The San Francisco skyline was outlined in lights beyond the window. She’d not had a chance to appreciate the view all evening. Through the window sheers she recognized the lights of the Bay Bridge. A police siren wailed from the street below. A second siren started. The alternating pitches of the sirens echoed down the canyon of buildings along Post Street.

  Hanna realized she was in her underwear. Her mother and Cynthia must have disrobed her while she slept. She did not remember it. She rose from the bed and padded barefoot to the window. She peered down, thinking she might see what was transpiring twelve stories below. She saw no emergency lights to match the sirens. Whatever tragedy was occurring, it was occurring elsewhere. The canyon of buildings carried the news from elsewhere.

  She turned and, in the darkness, found her father sleeping with her mother. A bolt of hope shot through her. She stifled a gasp.

  She’d not yearned for her parents to reconnect for decades, one of those childish hopes she abandoned before her ninth birthday. Now this family emergency had brought them together. She wondered if she should even return to bed. She feared she would wake them and in their embarrassment shatter the reconciliation. It felt fragile, this thing, and it was worth preserving.

  Her eyes adjusted to the darkness. The outline of her father’s face softened and rounded. Cynthia slept beside Hanna’s mother. The light snore from her open mouth mimicked her father’s. Hanna sighed, relieved and embarrassed with herself.

  I may not be a good mother, Hanna thought, but I have the best bridge daughters anyone could ask for. Cynthia would make a wonderful father and Ruby would be a beautiful mother. Together, Cynthia and Ruby would be better parents than Hanna could aspire to.

  Twenty-four

  Hanna emerged from the bathroom with a white cotton robe snug about her and her hair wrapped in a towel. Shower steam rolled out the open door behind her. For the first time in an eternity, she felt sanitized, clean, and crisp.

  Her mother held the hotel room’s phone in one hand. She muffled the voice piece with her other hand.

  “It’s Vaughn.” She offered the phone to Hanna. “He wants to talk to you.”

  —

  Vaughn stood at the breakfast bar’s omelet station wearing a baby-blue polo shirt and khaki slacks. As the chef whisked eggs in a stainless steel bowl, Vaughn peered left and right, the fingers of his right hand drumming the edge of his tray. An oval garnet was embedded in the thick platinum ring on his right hand. The ring made a dull click against the edge of the tray.

  As Hanna circled behind him, she also noted he wore woven-leather slip-ons without socks—He really does live in Southern California, she thought. Lacking the nerve to approach him, she discreetly went about the breakfast buffet, adding to her tray cold fruit slices, yogurt, and granola. The chef prepared Vaughn’s omelet with some pizzazz. It gave Hanna time to retreat to the dining area, accept a cup of coffee from the floating server, and mix together her breakfast in a cereal bowl she’d procured from the utensil station.

  “Miz Driscoll,” Vaughn said above her. It had worn thin, but it was like Vaughn to beat a joke into the ground. He slid into the chair across from her.

  “Where’s Ruby?” Hanna said.

  “She says hello,” Vaughn said. He dropped the cloth napkin at his setting on his lap. “You don’t worry about her. She’s in good care.”

  “You didn’t bring her?”

  He looked around. “You didn’t bring Cynthia.”

  With his knife and fork in reversed hands, he cut into his omelet British-style, using his knife to push the egg on his upside-down fork tines. He took two noisy bites, then reached for the ketchup. Hanna predicted the dollop he’d pour between the eggs and fried potatoes, centrally placed so he could scoop a bit of ketchup onto both foods before bringing them to his mouth. She also predicted the way he’d salt his potatoes, sprinkling some on the palm of his hand and shaking the crystals over his plate, then slapping off the unwanted amount and letting them fall to the carpet. He breathed through his nose while he ate. He chewed with the right side of his mouth, always.

  Hanna recalled this ritual each morning the first year they lived together. He devoured her breakfast without complaint or praise. She watched him eat while sipping her coffee. Then, after ten minutes of his ketchup dollops and salt-sprinkling, after watching his British-isms and listening to him chew up her cooking, she’d practicall
y jump over the table for a frenzied but brief round of sex. Then he departed to truck soda syrup to restaurants and bars around North Oakland, leaving Hanna to wash the dishes and hit the books before classes.

  “What do you want?” Hanna heard herself say. “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to say ‘hello.’” He stopped eating to smile at her. “I haven’t seen you in six years.”

  He returned to his omelets. Hanna picked at her yogurt and granola. Mouth full, he set down his utensils and took a long sip of coffee. “I’m not here for a welcome-home kiss,” he said. “I’m not waiting for you to run into my arms. I’m not asking you to take me back. But for goddamn’s sake, you could at least say ‘hello’ to me.”

  He dumped a generous amount of cream from a crystal pourer into his cup. He stirred it briskly. After testing the tan coffee, he returned to his meal.

  “Have my own business now.” He sawed a sausage link. “I’m a consultant.”

  “Inspirational speaking,” Hanna said. “Maximizing potential.”

  “You’re thinking of Tony Robbins.” He snapped it out in such a way, she imagined he had to explain the distinction often. “I show professionals how to work smarter.”

  Hanna motioned to his clothes and the platinum ring. “I can see you’ve done well for yourself.”

  “I have.” It didn’t come out as a boast. He sounded bitter it had taken her so long to express it. “I’m settled, Hanna. No more running off for a week at a time. I don’t do that anymore.”

  He waited for her to say something, jaw in motion, then returned to his breakfast.

  “It’s funny,” he said. “I fought you all those years on having children. You never let up. You wore me down. Like sanding flat the edge of a knife, you wore me down.”

  He flagged the floating server. While he topped off their coffees, Vaughn asked for hot sauce and a glass of orange juice. When he left, Vaughn continued.

  “You said you wanted one child. Then you gave me two.” He shook his head. His grin returned. “A part of me swore you’d planned it. Some witchery you and your mother performed at that coven you call a ‘farm.’”

  “I love Ruby and Cynthia,” Hanna said softly. His mere presence caused her to slump slightly, to sit with her back arched and her shoulders sloped.

  “At home, I have a rooftop patio with a view of the Pacific.” He continued as though she’d not said a word. “It’s gorgeous. Palm trees, sand, and deep blue water. I like to grill. Have some friends over. Mix up margaritas.”

  The hot sauce arrived. What Hanna did not predict was Vaughn splashing two drops into his ketchup and stirring them in. He swiped a chunk of cheese and egg through the mixture and chewed it up.

  “There’s a woman in my life now,” he told Hanna. “Her name is Adele. She’s wonderful. I think you’d like her, if you gave her half a chance.”

  Hanna said, “Maybe I’ll tell the judge about Adele.”

  “You do that,” he said. “Look, I’m not thick. These judges and social workers, they take a dim view of single fathers raising children.” He shook the end of his knife at the wall-to-floor windows separating the elegant hotel dining area from noisy and noisome Stockton Street, as though the judges and social workers were standing on the sidewalk outside. “I’ll be introducing Adele to the judge, just to show him my two children will be raised in a secure and responsible household. I’ll also be introducing our tax returns so the judge can evaluate our combined incomes.”

  Two children. “You can’t have Cynthia,” Hanna said. “And I’m going to get Ruby back.”

  He shifted his jaw left and right. “I don’t want Ruby and Cynthia,” he said. “Adele and I want to raise my children. The girls’ finalities are in a few weeks. What matters is what happens after that.”

  “I don’t know what you want,” she said, “but I know you don’t want to raise our children. Not after running away for six years.”

  “I have a friend, a television producer,” Vaughn said. “He does work for the—it doesn’t matter where he works. He and his wife have a new child. The finality was around Christmastime. Well, last summer, he brought over his infant while we were grilling.”

  With a slight far-off look, chewing with care, he said, “Adele was holding the baby. Just holding her.” For a moment, he mimicked a woman holding an infant in her arms. “Like this. A few other children were running around too. And I was standing at the grill when I looked over and saw her with the baby.” He breathed out. “She was glowing. She had the halo of the setting sun about her. And the children laughing and playing all around us. For the first time in my life—I wanted that.”

  Vaughn leaned in toward Hanna. “I suddenly understood my father. He worked his whole life for nothing but his family. Five days a week for the postal service. Sundays were for church and fixing up the house. He never took our car into the shop. He did everything, all to squeeze pennies and make sure we were fed and warm. The only day of the week for us was Saturday. Every Saturday, he spent from dawn to dusk with us. He was greedy about those Saturdays. He never scheduled anything but family time for that day of the week. He was—I know this sounds corny—he was a family man.”

  Grinning, he shrugged in a playful way, then returned to his near-completed breakfast.

  “This epiphany came to you,” Hanna said, “while you were on your rooftop patio in Pacific Palisades? Drinking margaritas?”

  “It’s not like I was in a hot tub when it happened,” he said, trying to maintain his smile.

  “You’re not getting Cynthia,” she said, “and you’re not getting Ruby either.”

  “You let our bridge daughters run off with Hope Elizabeth Andover,” he said.

  “Ruby was kidnapped by that girl,” she said.

  “Don’t hand me that,” he said. “Even the press doesn’t call her a kidnapper. This ‘Pied Piper’ girl, she lures out bridges. She doesn’t take them by force. She spins this yarn to them about living a full and complete life, and then gets them to kill the babies they’re carrying.”

  “It’s still kidnapping,” Hanna said.

  He leaned over his plate to her. “The real question is, how the hell did this Pied Piper get so close to Ruby and Cynthia? Ruby tells me Piper was in the farmhouse with them both.”

  He leaned back and coughed out a single laugh. “Look at your face. You didn’t know that?” Then he turned serious. “No. You did know that, didn’t you? You knew Piper was in the house with our bridges.” He shook his head. “It’s called criminal negligence if there’s any justice. But that’s not what this hearing next week is for. It’s to decide who’s the better parent.”

  “You weren’t there for us,” Hanna said.

  “I was there for eight hard years,” he said.

  “Even when you were there, you weren’t there for us,” she said. “Off for a week at a time, doing who-knows-what, not even the courtesy to call and let the girls know you’re thinking of them. I’m half-worried sick you’re dead in a ditch while the other half of me is doing my best to keep the girls healthy and fed.” Her voice was drawing attention from the tables around them. “At the end, I quit caring where you’d gone off to,” she said. “I quit caring about the women I knew you were seeing, or whatever the hell you were up to.”

  “I could’ve done better,” he admitted.

  “Who had to tell them their father wasn’t coming back?” she said. “They both thought it was their fault. They cried for weeks, Vaughn. They cried over you. I so wanted to tell them you weren’t worth crying for.”

  “I’ve changed.”

  “Who had to tell Cynthia and Ruby they were bridges?” Hanna said. “Who explained they were pregnant with my children? Who sat down with them and explained the truth about their finalities? Have you ever told an eight-year-old they’re going to die in a few years? I had to do that twice.” Her voice was full-throated now. “Ruby was so sick—have you ever rocked a sick little girl to sleep? Sit up all night, a
lone, crying out your eyes the pneumonia would kill the baby, and then it would kill her? Did you ever—you never saw Cynthia come home bawling her eyes out. The other girls call her a boy. They tell her she’s a smelly man. No, you were running around with your beach floozy while I raised Cynthia and Ruby—”

  “Cynthia and Ruby, Ruby and Cynthia,” he said. “That’s why you’re unfit.” He took two breaths to reassemble his poise. “You’ve put your bridges before your children.”

  The floating server gingerly approached and asked if they needed anything else. Vaughn said he never got his orange juice, then told the server, “If we could have the bill.”

  “How old is this Adele?” Hanna’s imagination conjured up a stock replacement girlfriend, a blond with a permanent wave, big in the chest, with a pert face and a button nose. She always imagined blue eyeliner.

  “She’s forty-six,” Vaughn said.

  Hanna needed a moment. She always imagined Vaughn dating younger women. This Adele was his age.

  “She’s everything to me,” he said.

  “How many children does she have?” And then it dawned on Hanna. “She doesn’t, does she?”

  Women Adele’s age had medical options, but birthing bridge daughters in your mid-forties meant raising your real children in your early sixties. Vaughn’s solution created a neat shortcut to her problem.

  The bill arrived. Without checking the total, Vaughn placed a credit card in the padded folder and slid it to the edge of the table.

  “Some women put career before children,” Vaughn said. “That’s what Adele did, and then it was too late. She loves children, Hanna. She really does. She’s a great woman. I wish you’d give her a chance.”

  “Who says I haven’t?” Hanna said. “How about telling her to give me a chance. I did the right thing, Vaughn. I did what every woman is told. I had children young.”

  “I know you did,” he said.

  “I’ve paid a price for doing the right thing,” she said.

  “Most people do,” he said absently. “Where’s that waiter?”

  “I’ve put Cynthia and Ruby first,” she said.