by Cara Colter
But once she knew all his secrets would she still love him? Could she? Now seemed like the time to find out.
Mac took a deep breath. It was time. It was time to let it all go. It was time to tell someone. It involved the scariest thing of all. It involved trust. Trusting her.
He hesitated, looking for a place to start. There was only one starting point.
“When I was five, my mom left my dad and me. I remember it clearly. She said, I’m looking for something. I’m looking for something more.
“As an adult, I can understand that. We didn’t have much. My dad was a laborer on a construction crew in a small town, not so different from Lindstrom Beach. He didn’t make a pile of money, and we lived pretty humbly in a tiny house. As I got older I realized it was different from my friends’ houses. No dishwasher, no computer, no fancy stereo, no big-screen TV. We heated with a wood heater, the furniture was falling apart and we didn’t even have curtains on the windows.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know if he couldn’t afford that stuff, or if it just wasn’t a priority for him. My dad loved the outdoors. Since I could walk, I was trailing him through the woods. In retrospect, I think he thought of that as home. Being outside with his rifle or his fishing rod or a bucket for picking berries. And me.
“Mom left in search of something more, and I don’t remember being traumatized by it or anything. My dad managed pretty well for a guy on his own. He got me registered for school, he kept me clean, he cooked simple meals. When I was old enough, he taught me how to help out around the place. We were a team.
“My mom called and wrote, and showed up at Christmas. She always had lots of presents and stories about her travels and adventures. She was big on saying ‘I love you.’ But even that young, I could tell she hated how my dad lived, and maybe even hated him for being content with so little.
“When she left, there was always a big screaming match about his lack of ambition and her lack of responsibility. I was overjoyed when she came, and guiltily glad when she left.
“Then she found her something more. Literally. She found a very, very rich man. I was eight at the time, and she came and got me and took me to Toronto for a visit with her and the new man. Walden, her husband, had a mansion in an area called the Bridle Path, also called Millionaire’s Row. They had a swimming pool. She bought me a bike. There was a computer in every room. And a theater room.
“That first time I went for a visit with them, I couldn’t wait to get home. But what I didn’t know was that the visit there was the opening shot in a campaign.
“My mom started phoning me all the time. Every night. Why didn’t I come live with them? They could give me so much more.
“I love you. I love you. I love you.
“What I didn’t really get was how she had started undermining my dad, how she was working at convincing me only her kind of love was good. She would ask questions about him and me and how we lived, and then find flaws. She’d say, in this gentle, concerned tone, ‘Little boys should not have to cook dinner.’ Or do laundry. Or cut wood. Or she’d say, mildly shocked, ‘He did what? Oh, Macintyre, if he really cared about you, you would have gotten that new computer you wanted. Didn’t you say he got a new rifle?’
“In one particularly memorable incident, I told her my dad wouldn’t let me play hockey because he couldn’t afford it.
“She expressed her normal shock and dismay over his priorities, and then told me she would pay for hockey. I was over the moon, and I ran and told my dad as soon as I hung up the phone.
“I can play hockey this year. My mom’s going to pay for it!”
“You know, I’d hardly ever seen my dad really, really mad, but he just lost it. Throwing things around and breaking them. Screaming, ‘She’s never paid a dentist’s bill or for school supplies, but she’s going to pay for hockey? She’s never coughed up a dime when you need new sneakers or a present to bring to a birthday party, but she’s going to pay for hockey? What part of hockey? The fee to join the team? The equipment? The traveling? The time I have to take off work?’ And then the steam just went out of him, and he sat down and put his head in his hands and said, ‘Forget it. You are not playing hockey.’
“This went on for a couple of years. Her planting the seeds of discontent, literally being the Disneyland Mama while my dad was slugging it out in the trenches.
“When I was twelve, I went and spent the summer with her and Walden. I made some friends in her neighborhood. I had money in my Calvin Klein jeans. I was swimming in my own pool. She bought me a puppy. She didn’t have rules like my dad did. It was kind of anything goes. She actually let me have wine with dinner, and the odd beer.
“And when summer was over, she sat down on the side of my bed and wept. She loved me so much, she couldn’t bear for me to go back to that man. She told me I didn’t have to go back. She said I didn’t have to think about my dad or his feelings. I should have seen the irony in that—that my dad’s feelings counted for nothing, but hers were everything, but I didn’t.
“I was twelve, nearly thirteen. At home, my dad made me work. By then, I was in charge of keeping our house supplied with firewood. I did a lot of the cooking. Sometimes he took me to work with him and handed me a shovel. I was allowed to go out with my friends only if I’d met all my obligations at home.
“And here she was offering me a life of frolic. And ease. I saw all the stuff I could ever want. I could be one of the rich, privileged kids at school instead of Digger Dan’s son.
“I phoned my dad and told him I was staying. I could hear his heart breaking in the silence that followed. But she had convinced me that didn’t matter. Only I mattered.
“And that’s what I acted like for the next few months. Like only I mattered. She encouraged that. When my dad called, sometimes I blew him off. I was supposed to spend Christmas with him, but I didn’t want to miss my best friend’s New Year’s Eve party, so I begged off going to be with him.”
Mac took a deep shuddering breath. “Do you remember, a long time ago, I told you I killed a man?”
“With your bare hands,” she whispered.
“Not with my bare hands. With my self-centeredness. With my callousness. With my utter insensitivity.
“He died. My dad died on Christmas Day.”
“Oh, Mac,” she whispered.
“At home, all by himself. He managed to call for help, but by the time they got there he was gone. They said it was a massive heart attack, but I knew it wasn’t. I knew I’d killed him.”
“Oh, Mac.”
“Killed that man who had been nothing but good to me. He might not have been big on words. I don’t think I heard him say ‘I love you’ more than twice in my whole life. But he was the one who had been there when no one else was, who had stepped up to the plate, who had done his best to provide, who had taught me the value of hard work and honesty. I had traded everything he taught me for a superficial world, and I hated myself for it.
“And her. My mother. I hated her. When she told me she didn’t see the point in me going to the funeral, that was the last straw. I ran away and went back. To his funeral, to sort through our stuff.
“I never lived with her again. I couldn’t. When they tried to make me go back to her, I ran away. That’s how I ended up in foster care.
“I haven’t spoken to her in fourteen years. I doubt I ever will again. I can see right through her clothes and her makeup, her perfect hair and her perfect house. She plays roles. For a while I was the role and she could play at being the fun-loving, cool mom, because it filled something in her. It relieved her of any guilt she felt about leaving me when I was little.
“But underneath that veneer she was mean-spirited and manipulative, and basically the most selfish and self-centered person ever born. She was using me to meet her needs, and I was done with her.
&nb
sp; “I went through a series of foster homes, crazy with grief and guilt. And then I came here. To Mama Freda.
“And Mama saw the broken place in me, and didn’t even try to fix it. She just loved me through it.
“I owe Mama my life.”
The silence was so long. There, Lucy had it all. She knew the truth about him. He was the man who had killed his own father.
“When you told me, all those years ago, that you had killed a man, I thought you were blowing me off,” Lucy whispered.
When had she moved beside him? When had her hand come to rest on his knee?
“I started to tell you. Back then. I saw the look on your face and retreated to the default defense. I always told people that when I was trying to drive them away, protect myself. I added the part about with my bare hands because it seemed particularly effective.”
“You feel as if you killed your father,” she said, looking at him. The firelight reflected off her face. In her eyes he saw the same radiance he had seen when she held the baby.
It hadn’t been pity for the baby. And it wasn’t pity for him.
It was love. It was the purest love he’d ever seen.
“I did kill my father,” he whispered, daring her to love him anyway.
“No,” she said, firmly, with almost fierce resolve. “You didn’t.”
Three words. So simple. No. You. Didn’t.
Her hand came to his face, and her eyes were so intent on his.
It felt like absolution. It felt as if, by finally naming it out loud, the monster that had lived in the closet was forced to disappear when exposed to light.
He’d been a teenage boy who did what teenage boys do, so naturally. He had been selfish and thoughtless and greedy. He’d thought only of himself.
It didn’t have to be who he was today. It wasn’t who he was today.
“You’re terrified of love,” she said.
“Terrified,” he whispered, and knew he had never spoken a truer word.
And she didn’t try to fix him. Or convince him. She laid her head on his chest, and wrapped her arms hard around him. He felt her tears warm, soaking through his shirt, onto the skin of his breast.
Her tenderness enveloped him.
And he knew another truth.
That she would see him through it.
Mama’s love had carried him so far. Now it was time to go the distance. If he was strong enough to let her. If he was strong enough to say yes to something he had said no to for the past fourteen years.
Love.
He suddenly felt so tired. So very tired. And with her arms wrapped around him, with his head on her breast, he slept, finally, the sleep of a man who did not have to go to his dreams to do battle with his guilt.
When he awoke in the morning, she was gone. The coffee was on, and there was a note.
“Sorry, three zillion things to do. The gala is tonight!”
He went back over to Mama’s. Overnight the population there had exploded. Her many foster children wandered in and out, many of them with children of their own. There were tents on the lawn and inflatable mattresses on the floor.
“You stayed with Lucy?” Mama asked, in a happy frenzy of cooking.
“Not in the way you think. Mama, come outside with me for a minute.” He found a spot under the trees, and took a deep breath. “Lucy asked some of your foster children to speak at the gala tonight. She chose a few. I was one of them and I’ve said no. But I think, with your permission, I’ll change my mind. But only if you’ll allow me to share that story you told me all those years ago.”
“Ach. For what purpose, schatz?”
“For the same purpose you told it to me. To let everyone know that in the end, if you hold tight, love wins.”
Her eyes searched his. She nodded.
* * *
The gala was sold out. He had seen Lucy flitting around in her red dress. He had told her he would speak.
But it seemed to him strange that with the big day here, the day that she had given her heart and soul to, she seemed wan.
“Are you not feeling well?” he asked her.
“Oh,” she said. “No. I’m fine. I thought my doing this...” Her voice faltered. “Mother’s Day is hard on me.”
“Why? Because your own mother is so far away?”
“I’m just being silly,” she said. “Sorry. I think I’m a little overwhelmed.”
“Everything looks incredible. The silent auction is racking up bids.”
She smiled, but it still seemed wan, disconnected.
He had the awful thought it might be because of what he had shared with her last night.
“I think the custom-painted Wild Ride kayak is going to be the high earner of the night.”
“It will be. I keep pushing up the bid on it.”
He expected her to laugh. She ran a hand through her hair, looked distracted.
“Oh,” she said brightening slightly. “He’s here.”
“Who?”
“I couldn’t find a comedian on such short notice. I found something Mama will like even better. An Engelbert impersonator.”
He waited for her to smile. But she didn’t. She looked as if she was going to cry.
“Later,” she said, and walked away.
After dinner, some of Mama’s foster children spoke. Ross Chillington talked about his parents being killed in an accident and about coming to Mama’s house, how she was the first one who ever applauded his skill in acting.
Michael Boylston told how Mama had given him the courage and confidence to take on the world of international finance and how now he lived a life beyond his wildest dreams in Thailand.
Reed Patterson told of a drug-addicted mother and a life of pain and despair before Mama had made him believe he could take on the world and win.
And then it was his turn. But he didn’t talk about himself.
“A long time ago,” he said, “in a world most of us in this room had not yet been born into, there was a terrible war.” And then he told Mama’s story.
When he finished, the room was as silent as it had been that day fourteen years ago when he had first heard this story.
Into the silence he laid his next words with tenderness, with care.
“Mama spent the rest of her life finding that soldier. She found him over and over again. She found him in every lost boy she took into her home. She found him and she saved him. She saved him before the great evil had a chance to overcome him.
“I am one of those boys,” he said quietly, proudly. “I am one of the boys who benefited from Mama’s absolute belief in redemption, in second chances.
“I am one of those boys who was saved by love. Who was redeemed by it. And as a result, finally, was able to love back.
“Mama.” He looked right at her. “I love you.”
The words felt so good. She was weeping. As was most of the audience. His eyes sought Lucy. It wasn’t hard to find her in her bright red dress. She had her face buried in her hands, crying.
Mac realized right then that he had a new mission in life. He had not killed his father. But it was possible that he had contributed to his death.
He could not change that. But he could try to redeem himself. He could spend the rest of his life on that. Make up for every wrong he had ever done by loving Lucy. And their children. By believing all that love was a light, and when it grew big enough it would envelop the darkness. Obliterate it.
Lucy still didn’t look right. She was in her element, surrounded by people. She had just pulled off something incredible. But she was still crying.
And suddenly she spun around and went into the night.
He waited for her to come back, especially when the Engelbert impersonator geared up and the
tables were cleared away for dancing.
Mama stood right in front of the stage. She took off her scarf and threw it at the man’s feet.
He picked it up and wiped his sweaty brow, and tossed it back to Mama, who looked as if she was going to die of happiness. Michael Boylston came and asked her to dance. Mac watched and shook his head.
If Mama was unwell, there was no sign of that now. None.
It occurred to Mac that there was something of the miraculous in this evening.
Those foster kids who had grown into adults seemed to be the first to take to the floor, having embraced so much of Mama’s enthusiasm and joy for life. They were asking others to dance with them, and, in some instances, were dancing with the people who had once snubbed them as the riffraff from Mama’s house.
Claudia was trying to get Ross to sign a movie poster with him on it. Over in the corner, Billy was drinking too much and talking football with Reed Patterson.
Lucy had done what she always did best. She had brought people together.
It hit him out of nowhere.
Things on her dining-room table she didn’t want him to see.
Rezoning that had the neighbors in an uproar.
Caleb’s House: a home for unwed mothers.
Finding joy in holding little babies.
Mother’s Day is hard on me.
It hit him out of nowhere: all her plans had been altered. Claudia feeling superior to her. Her friends not being her friends anymore. No college. Moving away from here. And coming back. Changed.
“Oh my God,” he said out loud, and he headed for the door.
There was still, thankfully, a little light in the evening sky. If it had been darker, he might not have been able to see her.
But as it was, her red dress was like a beacon in the thick greenery above her house.
Mac went toward that beacon as if he was a sailor lost at sea. There was a trail, well-traveled along the side of her house, that led him to her.
She was in a small clearing above her house, sitting on a small stone bench. There was a little flower bed cut from the thick growth. In the center of that bed was a stone, hand-painted in the curly cursive handwriting of a girl.