Between Before and After

by Maureen Doyle McQuerry

  Could it be possible this man had spent nine months inside her body, hearing her heart beat, eating what she ate, totally dependent on her for survival? He’d picked the wrong mother—not that anyone could select his family.

  The last time she’d seen this man, he was a light-haired baby with a rosebud mouth, and a solemn gaze that had met hers before he was whisked away. Did he know then that she didn’t want him?

  And yet.

  Despite turning away, despite setting a fence around her heart, she had wanted him with a visceral ache. This tiny life had been attached to her by the invisible cord that connected every mother and child. And they’d told her he was dying.

  She’d turned her back. What kind of person did that?

  Her pulse pounded in her temple.

  His eyes opened as if he knew she was staring at him, drinking him in.

  “Mom? Can I call you that?”

  She bit the inside of her cheek. She wouldn’t let this stranger see her cry. “I’m more comfortable with Elaine. You can’t expect me to take all this in right away.”

  “Okay, Elaine. I know I have to be a shock. I’ve had years to wonder about my family. I can’t expect that you thought about me.”

  “I was sixteen when you were born. I thought you’d died.”

  “It must have been hard. I don’t blame you.” He pushed himself up on the pillows. “I’ve always wanted to know who I was like. The Whipples are good people, but I’m nothing like them. They’re farmers to the core. They don’t have time for books or movies. But me, I’ve always loved words and stories. I used to read books under the covers at night. For a while I wanted to be a writer, but now I know I want to teach history.”

  He loved words. He wanted to teach history. Her boy.

  “Well, I make my living writing, if that satisfies your curiosity.” She swallowed. “Molly’s like that too. Her brother—um, your brother—is more like their father.” She twisted her hands. There was something she needed to ask. “Your father, Howard, did he have a good life?”

  “I think he did. He and his wife traveled a lot. He never had any other children. He said his wife couldn’t have them.”

  She thought of Sally and how she had once hated her. That feeling was gone now, smoothed and flattened by the current of years, just like her anger at Howard. They had all been so young. She hadn’t been much older than Molly. What would Molly and Angus think about her now?

  Arthur was still watching her face.

  “All this”—she flipped a hand back and forth between them—“might take some getting used to.”

  When Arthur smiled, Elaine felt a curious lightening inside.

  “I’ve got time.”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  REVELATIONS

  SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA—AUGUST 1955

  Molly

  When Mom came out of Arthur’s room, I couldn’t read the expression on her face. I expected tears or shock, but she looked like the very same person I’d seen at breakfast that morning. How could she have carried this secret all these years without a mark on the outside? I thought of my hidden report card. Secrets didn’t always reveal themselves.

  Angus, Uncle Stephen, and I were sitting in the small waiting room at the end of the hall. With so much to process, I had very little to say. But the situation kept getting clearer to me. The hair ring. Woodward House.

  “You had another baby besides us?” Angus looked at Mom. She didn’t answer him. Her gaze was fastened on Uncle Stephen.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Uncle Stephen dug into his pockets. “Here, why don’t you two go buy us some Cokes? I’m feeling terribly thirsty right now.”

  I know when I’m being pawned off, and I wasn’t about to leave, but Angus had no hesitation. We didn’t often get to drink soda pop. I stayed glued to my chair while Angus ran off to find a pop machine.

  “All these years and you never said a thing.” Uncle Stephen made room for Mom on the vinyl couch.

  “Secrets are things you don’t talk about. You should know that.”

  Uncle Stephen gave her a half smile, a dip of his head as if he understood something she wasn’t saying out loud.

  Mom continued. “You knew it wasn’t a real boarding school.”

  “I had my suspicions, but not until I was older. The Gossleys never said a word to me.”

  “Arthur Seward must have left instructions for Howard to be notified,” she said.

  “Maybe he knew you’d never tell him.” Uncle Stephen took Mom’s hands in his own. “Why, your hands are as cold as ice, Lainey.” And he began to rub them.

  Mom looked like she was wearing a mask; her face was that stiff. “When I got word that Mr. Seward died, I never heard from anyone else in the family. I used the money to rent that room in the house Father Kearny found for us. I was working, and you were about to start high school.”

  “And then you had some money for college.” Uncle Stephen turned to me. “Your mother worked very hard for a long time. She didn’t start college until she was twenty-five years old, and I was thinking about becoming a priest.”

  “You, a priest?”

  “Well, I soon realized it wasn’t the life for me, and I decided I’d rather be a teacher. Then after college, your mother got a job, and then, later in life, she met your father and had you two.”

  I looked at Mom. “Why did you think Arthur died?”

  Mom was staring at her hands as if she didn’t recognize them. “He had scarlet fever. Not many babies survived scarlet fever in those days. He was almost a month old.”

  The only thing I knew about scarlet fever came from reading Little Women. The chapters always made me cry.

  As she described life at Woodward House, I watched the way regret played across her features like shadows. But there was something in her eyes that I hadn’t seen for a very long time: hope.

  She leaned her head on her hand. “I’ve made an awful lot of mistakes in my life, Molly. Even after the sisters told me he was dying, I never went to see him, not even once. I couldn’t take anymore sorrow. I needed to think about the future. One of the nuns gave me a ring made out of his baby hair. I assumed he’d died.”

  “The blond one in your drawer,” I said.

  For a minute fire flashed in her eyes, and then she sighed. “So you found that. I should have known. He had a funny thatch of blond hair when he was born.”

  Uncle Stephen slung his arm around her. “Lainey, you had some hard choices to make.”

  She shook her head. “Not too hard to see my own child.” She began to snuffle into his shoulder.

  I went over and put my hand on her arm. “But he didn’t die.”

  Angus came back with two Coke bottles in his hands and one protruding from each pocket.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” Mom said, and she took a long swallow of Coke. I couldn’t believe she was drinking soda pop. “It’s like something right out of a story.”

  A story I never predicted when I started her biography box, and I wasn’t sure I liked the way it was turning out. A person couldn’t show up and expect to immediately be part of your family, even if he technically was.

  “Does Dad know about him?”

  “I told him before we got married and made him promise never to say anything.” Her eyes filled again. “I told him the baby died. Because that was what I believed.”

  It was painful to see her that way. Angus put his head on her arm.

  “Arthur saved Robert Crater,” I reminded them all. I wondered if bringing Arthur to us with my ad cancelled out my role in getting Robert to jump. But that sounded like a question for Uncle Stephen, who knew much more about this kind of thing than I did.

  “He did. We should be celebrating.” Uncle Stephen raised his Coke bottle into the air. “To family!”

  After two weeks in the hospital, Arthur was ready to be released, and that became a point of discussion for all of us. He’d quit his job, which he’d hated anyway, when he ca
me out to California. His entire life had been put on hold when he came to spy out his family. We knew he had a serious girlfriend back in New York and that her name was Andrea, but that was all. Uncle Stephen believed it was our business to help him sort it all out.

  Somehow, he managed to get in touch with Andrea, and she showed up at the San Francisco airport. It seemed she hadn’t given up on Arthur, and she didn’t hold his leaving against him once she heard the whole story. Uncle Stephen went to pick her up, and what was said on that hour-long drive back to San Jose, I never heard.

  Andrea was small and dark, quick with energy and ambition. Just what someone as laid back as Arthur needed, Mom said. Andrea was willing to support him while he went back to getting a teaching degree, which pleased Uncle Stephen to no end. They would still live in New York, which I think made Mom feel relieved. She even bought a new dress for Arthur’s wedding. It was jade green with a scalloped neckline, and when she tried it on for me, it made me think of spring.

  And best of all, we’d be going to New York in early October for a wedding.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  BURYING THE PAST

  SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA—SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1955

  Molly

  The doorbell rang late in the afternoon the day before we were to leave for New York. I hesitated before answering it, something I never used to do before the events of this summer. Although the remnant had mostly disappeared after Robert jumped from the roof, as if some question they had been waiting for was answered.

  When I cracked the door open, Aricelia was standing on the front porch.

  “Hi.” Her smile flickered uncertainly.

  “Hi.” My fingers crushed the doorknob. I didn’t open the door any wider, didn’t move at all.

  “I heard you’re going to New York.”

  I nodded my head. “For Arthur’s wedding.” It still felt awkward calling him my brother.

  “Well, I have something for your trip.” She held up a bag I hadn’t noticed. “I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you. I should have been.”

  My eyes blurred. My chest hurt. “You’re right, you should have been.” I made no move to reach for the bag, but I stepped out onto the porch, letting the door close behind me. She dropped the bag to her side.

  “I know. I let other people decide how I should feel . . . and I guess I was scared.” Her brown eyes shone, and she was biting her lip the way she always did when she was upset.

  “People already thought we were weirdos—now they know.”

  “At least it’s settled. My best friend’s family is peculiar. Famous people’s families usually are.” She held out the bag again. “You don’t have to forgive me, but at least take this.”

  I looked inside. There was a red notebook. As I drew it out, I noticed the cover was smooth leather.

  “You always said writers get their start in New York. I thought you might need a new notebook for your start.”

  I ran my hand over the leather. It was almost too fine to write in. Almost.

  “Open it up.”

  On the first page, in her loopy script, Ari had written:

  Remember me when you’re famous.

  With love from your best friend, Aricelia

  “Always,” I said as my face melted into a smile.

  It was close to midnight and we were catching an early flight, but I couldn’t sleep. I got out my new notebook to explore a thought that had been nipping at me all day and wrote the question at the top of a new page. What does it feel like to have a surprise sibling? I didn’t often know how I felt until I wrote things down as a way to think them through, and I couldn’t rest until I got everything sorted out.

  I found myself writing that having a surprise sibling felt muddy, like when I was little and played with finger paints. I’d take two of my favorite colors and mix them together, expecting a remarkable shade, but usually it was brown and murky. Good and bad mixed together felt the same way. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of a stranger having the same mother I did. I was pretty sure I wasn’t ready to be Arthur’s new best friend like Angus was. On the other hand, I liked the idea of our family—which had always seemed disappointingly small—being larger, and I liked the way Arthur made my mom’s lips curl into a secret smile when no one else was watching. I wished the one triggering that smile was me.

  The click of typewriter keys made me realize I wasn’t the only one having trouble sleeping. Mom was at her desk in her worn flannel pajamas, hair in a ponytail, tapping away about some dead person from a biography box. She must have felt me staring at her back, because she stopped typing and swiveled around to face me.

  “Molly, why are you up?”

  I climbed onto the couch and drew my knees to my chest. “I couldn’t sleep. I was trying to figure out how I felt about having a new brother.”

  She rested her head on one hand and looked at me between her fingers before she spoke. “And what do you think?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I think I’d say complex.” She paused, thinking. “It takes a while for someone to stop being a stranger, even when he’s my own child and even when I’m very glad he found us.”

  Then I asked the question that been lurking in the darkest corner of my mind.

  “If Angus or I had been very sick, would you have left us?”

  In a second she was up and had both arms around me. She smelled like lavender from the two sachets I bought her last Mother’s Day, the ones she kept in her pajama drawer.

  “Of course not, Molly. I was very young and very scared. More than anything, I wanted to be with my little brother. He was the only family I knew. I wanted to make a life for us. I couldn’t give up.” She brushed the hair from my face. “For years I thought I’d never be able to forgive myself. And then I had you and Angus, and it was like I was given a second chance. And now I find I really have been.”

  I burrowed deeper into her hug.

  “It’s going to take me a while to figure out how to be a mother to a grown man. But I like the idea of second chances.”

  For the next few minutes my sobs and Mom’s crying blended together into one mournful sound. Then she started talking again while I wiped my nose on my pajama sleeve. She told me about all the places she wanted me to see in New York.

  Then she made me promise to get back to bed because we’d all be getting up in a few hours.

  As I looked at the pile of papers on her desk, I thought about how hard she worked, how she never gave up when there was a problem to solve, and how she kept most of her feelings close. She was like a wary dog when she met someone new, watching and sniffing, not getting too close right away, even when the person was a long-lost son. And then I had a startling thought without even having to write it down first: Maybe Mom and I were a lot more alike than I thought.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  NEW YORK

  BROOKLYN, NEW YORK—OCTOBER 1955

  Molly

  Arthur and Andrea picked an auspicious date for a wedding: Sunday, October 2. We arrived on the first and planned to stay through the fifth so that we could do a little sightseeing, not knowing that week would make Brooklyn history and be talked about for years after.

  We spent what was left of our first day hunting through Holy Cross Cemetery for a grave. A woman in a small building right at the cemetery gates looked up the name of Mom’s father, Michael Fitzgerald, in a ledger.

  “He’s in section F10. Right about here.” She pointed with a chipped orange fingernail to a spot on the cemetery map. “But he’s not the only one in the grave. There’s four of ’em.”

  “All in the same grave?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what to think about bodies being stacked in a single grave like sardines in a can.

  “Four?” Mom had been quiet all the way to Holy Cross, her eyes a million miles away from us. Now her face, under a brand-new pillbox hat in peacock blue, was puzzled. “What are the names?”

  The lady snapped her gum and Mom winced. “Mi
chael, Anna, and Claire Fitzgerald, and Timothy Meeks. Look like the Meeks man paid for the marker.”

  Mom looked up at Uncle Stephen. “I have no idea,” he said, and scratched his nose.

  As we walked, Mom explained, “He was the man who told us Pop died. Tim Meeks used to come home with him sometimes. I always resented the extra mouth to feed.”

  We wandered a bit until we found the right place, being careful not to walk across other people’s graves as Angus had suddenly developed a concern about dead people germs. The marker was a cement slab smaller than the pillow on my bed. The names of my relatives looked like they had been scratched by hand in wet cement.

  Crouching down, so she was almost kneeling in the grass, Mom opened her purse and brought something out in her hand.

  I squatted down next to her

  She unfurled her fist, and the tiny hair ring sat alone in the middle of her palm. She started talking, but not to us.

  “You have three grandchildren: Arthur”—she dropped the ring onto the marker and reached back into her purse—“Molly, and Angus. I thought you’d want to know.”

  She pulled out an old photograph with scalloped edges. Angus and I were little, and we each held an Easter basket filled with eggs. Angus’s mouth was stretched in a wide smile, but I looked stern, like egg hunting was serious business. She placed the photo, held down by a rock, next to the tiny ring. Then she stood up, brushed herself off, and turned to Uncle Stephen. “It’s good to come home.”

  He slung an arm around her as we walked back to the rented car, and I tried to distract Angus from complaining about the dead people germs.

  Arthur and Andrea gave us their two tickets to see the Brooklyn Dodgers play the New York Yankees in the final game of the World Series on October 4 at Ebbets Field, since they would be on their honeymoon. It was impossible to get two more. So, we drew straws to see which two of us would go. Angus and Mom won and headed out to see the game under a rare October sun.

  I didn’t mind. Uncle Stephen had promised to take me to Wallabout Basin to see where he and Mom grew up. Ever since Arthur arrived in our lives, Mom had begun to reveal pieces of her childhood, and Uncle Stephen had joined in with stories of his own.