by Rachel Hanna
"Well, we don't all turn out just like our parents, do we?” Mia hoped she would one day get the chance to be the mother that hers had been. Until then, maybe she could just be a fantastic aunt.
"Thankfully, no. I mean, I had a good mother growing up, but I’d never want to be my father.“
Mia nodded in understanding. “Listen, I need your extremely long arms and legs to help me with something right now."
Kate stood up. “Okay…”
"There's a box in the closet here that I can't reach. Would you mind grabbing it for me?"
Kate walked over to the closet and Mia pointed to the box. "The floral one. Right there in the back corner."
Of course, Kate grabbed the box easily with one hand and gave it to Mia.
"What is it?"
"That's the thing. I don't know. I've never seen this box before which makes me think that my mother was hiding it from me."
"Well, let's dig in."
They sat down in chairs across from each other where there was a little table in the middle. She didn't know why her mother had set up the office like she was going to have clients in there. But that's exactly what she did.
"I'm a little scared to open it."
"Do you want me to do it?" Kate asked. Mia nodded.
She watched carefully as Kate opened the box and looked inside. She pulled out a leather bound notebook or journal of some kind. As she opened it, at first she didn't look very surprised. But then her eyes widened and she closed it quickly.
"What?"
"Are you ready for some information about your father?" Kate asked.
Butterflies zipped around Mia’s stomach. That's exactly what she had been hoping was inside. Maybe all those years of mystery would finally be gone. Maybe she would know at least a little something about her father.
"Yes," she said, reaching out her hand.
Kate gave her the journal. As she opened it up and started to read, she felt so many emotions wash over her.
The first thing she noticed was her mother’s handwriting. Although it was obviously from her younger years, it had the same flair she was used to, with the long tail her mother always gave to her L’s and S’s. She ran her index finger across the words, feeling their indentation on the thick paper, and struggled not to cry.
I’m pregnant again. I can’t believe it. The doctor told me it wasn’t possible, that my lab work showed a condition that would keep me from having another baby. I’m ecstatic. Thank you, God, for another chance! How will I tell him? I’m in shock.
Mia’s eyes started to mist. Kate sat across from her, saying nothing, but silently supporting her.
The next entry was just as short as the first.
I couldn’t tell JR. It wasn’t fair. He’s moved on with his life, and I won’t tie him down. I won’t be the one who takes his opportunity away. I love him more than my next breath, but maybe that means I have to let him go. Push him away. Tell him I don’t love him anymore. He deserves more than this small town, and I’m going to make sure he gets the life he’s always dreamed of. God, please help me do the right thing for all of us.
Mia stared at the paper. She didn’t understand. Her mother never told her father she was pregnant? And then she pushed him away? How could she do a thing like that? She basically stole her father away from her. All those years, Mia assumed he left when he found out she was pregnant. Now she realized her mother hadn’t even told him. She was so angry.
“The rest of this is empty?” she said as she turned to the next pages. Empty, all of them.
"They're empty?" Kate asked, as Mia slid the journal across the table to her. She stood up and started pacing around the room like a caged animal.
"I can't believe this! Read it. You're not going to believe what she did!"
Kate quickly read the pages and then closed the journal, placing it back in the top of the box.
"Wow."
"I know, right? She didn't tell my father I even existed? And then she pushed him away? Why would she do such a thing?"
"I'm so sorry, Mia. I know this must be really hard."
Mia threw up her hands. "I feel like I don't even know her. All those years that I asked about him, and she just wouldn't speak."
"You know, maybe she was embarrassed or felt guilty. She was a wonderful mother in every other way, right?"
Mia walked over to the desk and sat down. She stared at the picture of her mother that she kept on the desk now. She felt very different looking at it, and that made her feel sad.
"She was the best mother anyone could ask for. I just don't understand why she lied to me my entire life. Or at least wouldn't she tell me anything when she was sick? She could've given me some kind of information."
Kate stood up and walked over to the desk. "I don't have the answers. And there's nothing else in the box but some baby clothes and photo albums of people in the family tree. No more journals."
"So all I know is that my dad's name was JR, or at least his initials. And he never knew about me. I mean maybe she told him later and just didn't write it down?"
Kate shrugged her shoulders. "We may never know."
"Well, I could know if the man who matched me on the website would actually respond. "
Mia felt heartsick. She was angry at her mother now, and she may never meet her father. She just needed some time alone to gather her thoughts.
"Listen, I know we probably need to talk about what happened with Evie some more, but I just want to go down and sit by the water for a while."
Kate nodded. "I understand. Go take some time to get yourself together. I'll hold down the fort here."
Mia smiled and squeezed both of her sister’s hands. "Thanks. I'm kind of liking having a sister."
Kate chuckled. "Me too."
Mia made her way down to the dock, bypassing Evie’s door which was closed. She was sure her niece was probably inside, licking her wounds.
She walked over and sat down at the end of the dock, her feet dangling. She loved this place. Something about looking out over the still waters and the mountains just brought a certain kind of peace to her soul.
"Oh, sorry, I don't want to interrupt." She looked over her shoulder to see Jack standing there, a fishing pole in his hand. Her mother had always told her to be the best host she could, and she was still planning to do that.
"No, not a problem. Feel free to have a seat. I'm just taking some quiet time."
"You sure?"
"Yes, of course," she said, sending her voice up a couple of octaves to try to cover up the fact that she wanted to burst into tears.
Jack put his tackle box on the dock and took the spot beside her. He pulled out a fishing lure and attached to his hook. Then he flung it out into the water, wound it in a bit and waited.
He was a pretty quiet guy, from what she could tell. Certainly he would give her the peace and quiet she needed right now.
"What's got you feeling so down?"
"Oh nothing. Just feeling a bit blue today."
He laughed under his breath. "Now, I wasn't born yesterday. I can always tell when something’s wrong with a woman. Y’all get really quiet when you aren't usually that way."
She nodded her head and smiled. "I guess that's a pretty accurate thing to say."
"Look, I'm a stranger. You'll probably never see me again. What better person to confide in?"
She shrugged her shoulders. “Okay, but you might be sorry you asked."
"I don't think so. So what's going on?"
"Where to begin? When my mother was a teenager, she got pregnant and had a child that I never knew about. Years later, she had me. She would never tell me anything about my father. And, as you know, Kate found me on a DNA site recently. We found journals where my mom talked all about Kate’s father. How much she loved him and how their parents pushed them apart. Made her give up her baby. Today, I found a journal where my mom actually talked about being pregnant with me, but there were just two short entries. In one of them, I fou
nd out that she never told my father that she was pregnant with me."
Jack sat there quietly for a moment, staring out at his fishing line. "Wow, that's some story. You must be feeling a little angry at your mother right now."
"I am. And that's really hard because I've never been upset with her like this. She was the perfect mother. We were as close as any two people could be, and I just don't understand this. I'm upset for me, but I'm upset for my father also.
"I know I'm just a nobody to you, but there has to be a reason why she did it. It sounds like she was a lovely woman, and maybe she didn't make the right choice, but I think you can be safe in assuming she did it out of love."
Mia shook her head. "Maybe she loved my father more than she loved me in the end because she never told me."
Jack looked at her. "I don't believe that's true at all, Mia. I bet your mother made a decision and then regretted it, and then she spent the rest of her life feeling guilty. Sometimes, we don't know how to undo the messes that we've made."
He reeled his line back in, looked at the empty hook and put another lure on it before tossing it back out again.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Sure," he said.
"You and your wife don't seem very happy to be here together. Is there anything you want to talk about?"
He smiled slightly. "Oh, we're fine. We've been married a very long time. It's just that I don't know why she made me come here. This isn’t exactly the type of place we normally vacation, no offense. She's been trying to get me to talk about growing up around here the whole time we've been together, and it's just not something I want to talk about."
"Yeah, but how can you be married to someone and not want to share every part of your history with them?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Some things are just better left in the past, especially those that cause a lot of pain.”
"Well, I know I'm a lot younger than you are, but I'll give you a piece of advice. Never bottle up your emotions away from the people you love. They love you for a reason, and I'm sure that you can trust Sylvia to understand."
"I'll take that under advisement," he said, reeling in his line again. "Boy, the fish aren't biting today."
"Yeah, Travis didn't have much luck the last time he was out here either. Maybe I need to get somebody to come stock it again."
"I like that Travis. He's a good guy."
She nodded. "Yeah, he is. In fact, we're supposed to go on a little canoe ride here shortly."
Jack stood up. "Well, I don't wanna get in the way of that."
Mia chuckled. "Nothing is going on. We're just very old friends."
"Mia, I was born in the morning, but not this morning," he said, raising his eyebrows. “Well, I’d better get on with the rest of my day. I think Sylvia wants to go shopping this afternoon.” He rolled his eyes and sighed.
“Have fun!”
Jack turned one more time. “I hope you find a way to forgive your mother. She seemed like an amazing person from what you’ve said.”
“She was. She is,” Mia said.
As she watched him walk off, carrying his old, beat up looking tackle box, she wondered what he and Travis had talked about that day they went fishing. She was pretty sure Jack knew a whole lot more than he was letting on.
Chapter Nine
Mia tossed a piece of bread into the water. Her favorite duck, who she had aptly named Donald, swam over, pecked at the water and immediately swallowed the bread. Travis chuckled.
"Do you remember when we used to sit out here for hours feeding the ducks? And there was that mean one, Fred, who used to grab the food right from our hands and then try to peck us in the eye?"
Mia smiled. "I was so happy when that duck finally died."
Travis started laughing. "And do you remember that time we stole the freshly baked poundcake your mother made and came out here and fed it all to the ducks? I thought she was going to kill us!"
"How were we to know it was for the church picnic? She ended up having to take some blueberry muffins we made out of a package right before we left. Sacrilege!”
Mia loved reminiscing with Travis. He was one of the only people she knew, other than Raven, who had memories with her from that time in her life.
"How's your dad?" Travis looked a little shellshocked, like he wasn't expecting her to ask the question.
"Hanging in there."
“Has hospice been called in?"
Travis shook his head. "Not yet."
She felt like he was being tightlipped, but she decided not to press further since she knew just how hard it was to have a parent so sick. She felt terrible for him, and wished that there was some thing she could do.
"So, what made you decide to come back out on the lake with me?"
"I don't know. It's nice to reminisce about the good old days, I guess. Remember homecoming in our junior year?”
"How could I forget? You wore the turquoise dress with all the sequins.”
She giggled. "I looked like a little mermaid."
"You looked beautiful," he said, looking at her. "I remember thinking I couldn't believe I got to date somebody as pretty as you."
"Well, I remember thinking I couldn't believe I got to date Travis Norton. Every girl in school wanted to go out with you. I never understood why you picked me."
He stared at her, his eyebrows furrowed together. "Are you kidding me? When I met you, it was like meeting this adorable little pixie that I could carry around in my pocket. You always made me smile, and I never had any interest in another girl at our high school."
"I wish things could've…" she started to say, then stopped herself.
"Could’ve what?"
"Nothing."
There was no use rehashing the past and what could've been. Those days were over, and there was way too much water under the bridge. Plus, he lived in New York, and that much was probably never going to change.
"Listen, Mia, I need to talk to you about something…"
She put up her hand. "Travis, please don't. Let's not ruin a very nice afternoon."
"But you don't understand…"
“There's nothing to understand. There's a lot of water under this bridge, and we’ve changed a lot since those high school days. Let's just keep the nice memories and try to stay in touch after you leave."
He looked let down, but she wasn't sure why. What did he think was going to happen? Did he think she was going to start dating him again while he lived in New York City?
"Right. I understand.” He picked up the oar and started moving toward the shore again. “But, just for kicks and giggles, what do you think would’ve happened if I never left Carter’s Hollow all those years ago?”
She shrugged her shoulders slightly. “Who knows?”
“Just humor me. What do you think wouldn’t happened?”
Mia thought for a moment. “I guess I always thought we’d be one of those happily ever after couples who gets married in a big ceremony and then settles down to have an army of kids.”
Travis smiled and nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
“Sometimes plans just don’t work out,” she said, looking back toward the B&B.
As they rowed toward the shore, she found herself lost in thought, visualizing what could have been.
"I'm going to be sad to leave here in a couple of days," Sylvia said as she took a bite of her chicken and dumplings. Mia had opted for an easier dinner tonight, just serving that and a side salad. Later, they would have lemon poundcake that she had thawed out from her freezer. It was one that her mother had made months ago before getting too sick to bake.
"Well, I hope you two will come back and visit one day. I know it hasn't been your favorite vacation, Jack," Mia said, with a wink.
"It's growing on me. I can see why you love it here. There's just a certain energy, but I can't put my finger on it."
"That's Momma. She's still in this place, always. In fact, I've been talking with the library about all of the
books she left behind, and they're thinking about opening a room dedicated in her name so we can display her collection."
"Really? That's amazing!" Kate said. “Her memory would be honored, and her books would go to good use. I like it!”
"So, how was your first day of school, Evie?” Travis asked.
"Pretty good. I mean, school is school. But I'm finding my way around better than I thought I would."
"And you're not hanging out with the wrong people, are you?" Kate asked, a look of warning on her face.
"No, Mom," Evie groaned as she looked down at her food.
"Good."
“Evie, you don't look so much like your mom. I think you might look a little bit more like your aunt Mia," Jack said with a wink.
“Mia told me that I look like my grandma."
Mia smiled. "She is the spitting image of my mother. Actually, I found a picture of Momma when she was younger in a box the other day. I put it on my desk in the living room to frame. Let me grab it so I can show you, Evie.”
Mia walked over to the desk and picked up the picture. She walked back to the breakfast room and handed it to Evie.
"Wow. We do look a lot alike! Even our hair looks the same.“
"Mind if I take a look?" Jack asked.
“Now, Jack, that might be too personal," Sylvia said, nervously. Her voice shook as she said it.
Jack looked at her, confused. "A picture is too much?"
"I don't mind at all," Mia said, handing Jack the picture.
What happened next defied explanation. He stared at the photo, Sylvia looking down at her plate like she was about to go before a death panel.
Jack looked at the photo like he was seeing a ghost. He didn't say anything, just gripped it in one hand, his eyes fixed to it.
" Are you okay? You don’t recognize my mom do you?”
He cleared his throat. "No. I mean, maybe. She might have grown up near me."
"Oh wow. That would be so great if you had any old stories or…" Kate said.
Jack stopped her. “I don't. I just thought she looked a little familiar, but I might be wrong about that."