by Rachel Hanna
Mia felt very uncomfortable now. There was definitely something going on with Jack and his wife, but she couldn't put her finger on it. And now, was there some possibility he actually knew her mother? This whole thing was weird.
"You know, I'm feeling a little sick on my stomach. I think I'm going to go upstairs and lie down," Sylvia said suddenly.
Jack gave her a look. "Yeah, let me come help settle you in. Thanks for dinner, ladies. Sorry we had to cut it short."
Sylvia quickly hurried up the staircase with Jack not far behind.
"What on earth?" Kate said.
Mia stood there, looking at the picture that was still laying on the table where Jack had been sitting. "Something is off. Do you think he knew our mother??"
"It sure seems like he's hiding something," Evie interjected.
"You know, when we were fishing the other day, he talked like he had some history here he wanted to forget. Maybe it's about that?"
“What would Momma have to do with it? I've talked to him about her a couple of times, but he didn't seem to know her."
"Yeah, but is this the first time he’d seen her photo?" Kate asked, her eyebrow raised.
"I assume so. Although he could've looked at her pictures on the mantle any time."
"He never goes in the living room much. He always goes from the upstairs to the kitchen and then to the lake. Maybe he just hadn't seen them." Evie said.
Mia didn't know exactly what was going on, but the next time she saw Jack, she certainly planned to get to the bottom of it. If he knew more about her mother, she wanted to know what it was.
Sylvia stood at the window, staring out over the mountains. Jack was getting really tired of her not turning around and facing him.
"I asked you a question.”
“What?"
"Sylvia, why did you really bring me here?"
"I told you. I just wanted you to reconnect with your roots…"
"Dang it! Don't lie to me! Tell me the truth,” he said, gritting his teeth.
She slowly turned around, tears running down her face. "I think you already know the truth."
" Are you saying she's my daughter?"
"Yes."
"How did you figure this out?"
"Remember when I told you we were going to do some genetic testing with the doctor and they gave me that kit?”
"Yes.”
"Well, that was really for that online DNA site."
Jack ran his fingers through his hair, confusion written all over his face.
"Why would you do that?"
She threw her hands in the air in desperation. "Because you won't open up to me! All these years, I knew you were hiding something, and that it had to do with where you came from. So, I took a chance to see if maybe you had a child out there you didn't tell me about."
"You had no right!"
She stared at him, her hands on her hips. "No right? I've been your wife for twenty years, Jack! How is it that I have no right to know that you had a daughter all this time?"
"I didn't know she existed.”
"What?"
“Charlene never told me. She let me go off and start a new job and told me she wasn't in love with me anymore. I didn't know she was pregnant."
"Oh my gosh. So you didn't abandon your daughter?”
"I would think you would know me well enough to know I would never do something like that."
"You have to tell her."
"I think she already knows,” he said, running his hands over his face.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. When I saw you had a match, and she told me where she lived, I just couldn't help myself. I needed to see her. I wanted to figure out if you had a connection to her.”
"This isn't okay. The fact that you did this without consulting me is something we are going to have to work through."
Sylvia nodded. "I understand. I'm sorry. I just thought if I told you, you wouldn't agree to meeting her. And I immediately closed my DNA site account as soon as she messaged you because I felt so guilty.“
"It should've been my choice, Sylvia."
"You're right. Are you going to talk to her?"
"Right now, I need to think. I think I'll go take a walk."
As Jack slipped down the stairs and out the front door, he couldn't believe he had a daughter. Never in his wildest dreams did he think Charlene was pregnant, but now he had a piece of her in this world and he didn't know what he was going to do.
Mia walked around the town square, taking some quiet time before she had to get back home and prepare dinner. She didn't know how that was going to go. Would Sylvia and Jack be sitting at the table, or would they check out early in an effort not to have another awkward meal together?
She was still wracking her brain as she walked, looking at all of the shop windows in her little town. She loved that everything there seemed like time had stood still. They still had a barbershop, a diner and even a soda fountain in the back of the drugstore. Walking down the sidewalks always made her feel calmer, and right now her brain was buzzing in circles.
What was she going to do about Travis? Her feelings for him were bubbling under the surface, just like they had been for all those years, but she knew he'd be leaving at some point. She couldn't go through all of that again.
And then there was Jack. He obviously knew something about her mother and just wasn't saying it. Did he know her history? Did he maybe know who her father was? She hated confrontation, but she needed to talk to him and find out exactly what he knew.
She stopped under her favorite magnolia tree and sat down on the park bench. It was an old one, with black wrought iron and rusty spots around the scrollwork. The wood slats had finally been replaced a few years back, but they were starting to weather now. She remembered sitting with her mother on this same bench a couple of years ago, having an ice cream cone and laughing about this or that.
She missed her so much. And yet she was still angry at her.
They had always promised not to keep secrets, but her mother had kept so many. About Kate. About Kate's father and now about her own father. She just didn't understand.
Mia was an open book, probably giving way too much away to people who didn't deserve it. But it was a part of her nature to want to have deep conversations and connections, and it was something she didn't seem to be able to maintain with a man so far.
She took a sip of her iced coffee, something she reserved as a treat for herself on the bad days, and decided to do a little people watching.
There was Esther Haynes walking down the street with her tiny little dog and her very large rear end. It didn't fit her body, and Mia often wondered if she had it surgically placed there. At any point, she looked like she might topple over backward and bounce right back up again.
And then there was old Mr. Reginald. That man had the worst demeanor of anyone in town, and most people were scared of him. He had a permanent scowl on his face, and he always had a pipe sticking out of his mouth as he waddled down the sidewalk with his baggy pants and red suspenders.
Of course she saw families too, little kids with parents, eager to get to the ice cream shop. When she looked at families, she longed for her own. Oh, how dreams don’t always become reality.
But then she saw something she didn't expect. Off in the distance, down in front of the dry cleaners, there was Travis's mother. She was fiddling with something in her purse, and she looked like she was waiting for someone. Assuming it must've been Travis, Mia decided to walk down and say hello. She had always enjoyed spending time with his mother, and they hadn't had a conversation in so many years. Now that Travis was home for a while and they were cordial, maybe she could have a relationship with his mother again.
She started walking that direction, but Travis's mother hadn't seen her yet. Just as she got about fifteen feet away, the person she was waiting for came out of the dry cleaners with a stack of shirts on hangers. It was Travis's father.
She stood there, frozen in place.
He didn't look sick. He had plenty of color in his face, and he certainly wasn't gasping for breath or anything. She ducked behind a brick building, around the corner from the drugstore and then popped her head out to watch them. They smiled and talked before walking to their car and driving off.
She leaned against the cold brick and tried to get her heartbeat to slow down. Travis had told her a huge, intricate lie to get her to agree to let him stay at the B&B. But why?
She felt so betrayed. How could he lie about his father being sick? There was only one way to find out, and she was about to do a whole lot of confrontation. This time, she was ready.
Travis walked out of the B&B and headed to his car. He had some errands to run today, and he had promised his mother that he would stop by the pharmacy and pick up her prescription that she'd forgotten to get when she was in town.
"Travis Norton?"
He looked up and saw Cooper standing there, trimming some hedges out front.
"Cooper. I would say it's good to see you, but we both know I'd be lying."
Cooper's eyes widened. "Mia did tell you that we made up, right? I mean, I'm kind of dating her sister."
"Yeah, she told me all of that. And I told her what I thought about it."
Cooper put down the trimming shears and walked over to Travis. "Look, man, I know I was kind of a jerk in high school…"
Travis took a couple of steps forward. "Do you know how many times I wanted to kick your butt? When Mia told me some of the things you did to her, I had to restrain myself."
Cooper held up his hands. "That was a long time ago. I was a bully. But, like I said, Mia has forgiven me. I hope you can too.”
"Words don't mean anything to me, Cooper."
"Well, if you're around long enough, I'll make sure that you see action also. I'm a different person, and I'm embarrassed about who I was back then."
Travis stared at him for a moment. "I hope you're right."
"Good to see you, Travis," Cooper said, as he walked back over to the hedges. Travis turned to get into his car and then saw Mia pulling into the driveway at a rapid clip.
"Oh, hey. I was just about to text you and see if you might want some help getting dinner ready later…" he started to say.
She stomped over to him, anger very apparent on her face. He’d seen this side of her before, and it was never good. Tiny as she was, she was a spitfire through and through and he had a good feeling that he was about to get his butt chewed out for something.
"Travis Norton, the nerve of you to lie about your father being so sick! Why would you do that?"
Travis cut his eyes over at Cooper who was obviously listening to their conversation but pretending he wasn't.
"What are you talking about?" he said as quietly as he could, but knowing he should just come clean.
"Don't pretend that you don't know what I'm talking about. I'm not a fool!"
He sighed and looked down. "How did you find out?"
"I saw your mother and father in town. Your dad looks like the picture of health."
Travis leaned his head back and rubbed the palms of his hands over his eyes. "Look, I'm sorry. My dad definitely isn't the picture of health. He has emphysema, but it's under pretty good control. But he does have to wear oxygen at night."
Mia just stood there, glaring at him. "Travis, you know as well as I do that you did not come back here because your dad was on his deathbed. You used that excuse to stay here at the B&B, knowing I would not tell you no, especially having just lost my own mother."
"You're right. I told you that because I knew you’d let me stay here if it had to do with one of my parents.”
"But why? Why on earth would you lie about something like that?"
He looked back at Cooper. “Can we talk about this on the dock? There are too many listening ears around here!" he said loudly. Cooper turned his head and went back to trimming.
Mia nodded and followed him down to the dock, her arms crossed the whole time. He could hear her tiny feet slamming into the gravel on the driveway all the way down, definitely trying to make her point of how irritated she was. When they finally stopped on the dock, he was just thankful she hadn’t pushed him in yet.
"Mia, when I left here all those years ago, I thought I was doing the right thing. Every time I wanted to write you a letter, I felt like I had to have some level of success to save my pride. And then the years passed, and it became apparent to me that there was no coming back here. I thought you would hate me, and I didn't feel like a success taking pictures of hamburgers and hotdogs. I just kept waiting until I had some level of success so I could come back home and show you this great life. That never happened."
“Travis, what are you getting at? "
"After my wife died, I did a lot of soul-searching. I looked at where I was living, what I was doing, and I decided I just couldn't keep living a lie. I loved my wife, don't get me wrong, but you were always there."
"If I was always there, why didn’t you at least send me a Christmas card or even a note when my mother died?"
"Because I felt like it had been too long. I didn't feel like I had an opening to come back into your life."
"So you cooked up this story about your father because you knew that would be your only way to get me to talk to you again?"
He closed his eyes and nodded. "Yes, and I'm really sorry. It was juvenile, and I should've just been honest with you from the beginning."
She turned around and started pacing back-and-forth on the dock and then stopped in front of him again. "I still don't understand what you're trying to say.”
"I'm trying to say that I'm back in Carter's Hollow for good. I socked away as much money as I could over the last couple of years to live on, and I'm going to start some kind of business here. Something to do with real photography and not pickles and onions."
She stared at him, her eyes open wide. "You're staying?"
"I came back here because I want to win you back."
She looked like she had seen a ghost. " And what if I don't want you back?"
"Then I guess that's the price I'll have to pay for being a stupid kid all those years ago."
“Travis, I can't promise anything…"
He took a chance and grabbed both of her hands, looking down into her big, doe-like eyes. "I'm not asking for promises. I'm just asking for a chance."
Chapter Ten
Kate stood in the office, her hands on her hips. “He lied? About his father being sick? Who does that?”
“Apparently, Travis does that. I don't know what to think about it.”
"Are you considering actually taking him back?"
"I can't even think about any of that. Right now, I need to know what Jack knows about our mother.”
"That should make for a great dinner conversation," Kate said with a laugh.
"So, what's up? You said you needed to talk to me about something?"
Kate sat down across from her. "I have an idea. Something I think would be a great opportunity for the business, and a way to also honor our mother."
"What do you have in mind?"
"Honey bees."
"Honey bees?" Mia said, her head cocked to the side.
"I want to start a beekeeping operation so that we can produce our own raw honey and sell it all over the country. We can have a website, and we're going to call it ‘Sweet Charlene’s’!“
“You're kidding me, right?"
Kate looked sad. "No, I'm not kidding. I thought you would think this was a great idea. Just think about it. We’ll have a great income stream because people love raw honey. It's much healthier, and I think it's like an antibacterial or antiviral or maybe both!"
“I’m in the bed and breakfast business, Kate. I don't know the first thing about raising honey bees. Plus, I'm allergic to bees and terrified of them! Didn’t you see me run from one the other day? I almost ran right into the lake!“
“Mia, I’ll take care of everything. With just a little bit of funding…"
"Have you looked at our books lately? I'm not even sure how we're going to pay all of our bills this year if we don't get more visitors here, and you're talking about investing in honey bees?"
"I just think it’d be a great side business for us. We could get labels made that say ‘Sweet Charlene’s Raw Honey’. We might even be able to sell it online around the world."
"Do you really think so? I mean, you can go right down to the grocery store and buy honey."
"This isn’t regular honey. That stuff is basically all sugar, made in a factory. This will be home grown and we can advertise Sweet Tea B&B with it. Maybe even sell our own teabags so they can have tea with honey. There's so many different options!" Kate said, standing up and pacing back-and-forth in front of the desk. Mia had never seen her so excited about something.
"I don't know, Kate. That's a lot to think about."
Kate smiled. "But you're not saying no?"
"You're too excited for me to say no right now."
Kate started laughing. "Good. Just give it some thought. I'm not asking you for an absolute yes. I'm just asking you to think about it."
Where had she heard that type of phrase before? Oh yes, with Travis just a little bit earlier. Everybody wanted her to think about things, and her brain was so full she could hardly stand it.
"Fine. I'll think about it. But I'm not making any promises."
Kate ran around the desk and gave her a quick hug. " Okay, but I'll need an answer soon because we’ll have to put in our order for the honey bees."
Mia stared at her. "They’ll mail you the honey bees?"
Kate nodded her head. "I can't wait! This is going to be so exciting!" she said as she trotted out of the room.
Mia felt like she needed a giant bottle of wine.
Jack stood at the edge of the dock, knowing full well that Mia would see him out there soon and probably have some questions. He and Sylvia had skipped dinner, and he was pretty upset with her even now. She was up in the room packing, getting ready for the trip back to Nashville the next day.
Still, he knew he had to do something. He had to come clean with the daughter he never knew he had.