Mary Kay took the chance and touched Eunice’s knee. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Swann. Your sister, Therese, told us how close you were when Lynne was young and Lynne spoke so highly of you. . ..”
“Lynne didn’t speak highly of me.” Eunice brushed away her tears with her knuckles. “She didn’t speak of me at all.”
That was true, of course. “She loved you very much.”
“I have no daughter. My daughter left in the middle of the night and never told me where she was going. Years of sleepless nights, I waited for a phone call, a note, anything to indicate she was alive. But none came. None ever came.” Turning to them, her eyes red-rimmed, cheeks damp, she said, “My daughter went off into the darkness and disappeared. My daughter has been dead for years.”
“Lynne turned out fine,” Beth said. “She married a man named Sean and became an art teacher and had twin boys, Kevin and Kyle. Your grandchildren.”
“Grandchildren,” Eunice whispered, shaking her head, as if refusing to hope. “It’s been so long, so very long. You don’t know how I’ve dreaded a visit such as this.”
“I understand,” Beth said. “I’m a mother, too. We’re all mothers. And our heart goes out to you.”
“We’re here because Lynne loved you,” Mary Kay said, leaning close. “Therese said you should think of Dorney Park and the day you found out you were pregnant.”
Eunice rubbed her brow. “How would Therese have remembered that? Dorney Park. I couldn’t go on any of the rides.”
“Please read the letter,” Carol said, getting up and handing her the envelope for another try.
Turning again to the window, she said, “One of you do it. I can’t.”
Carol opened the envelope, removed the folded, white, lined paper, and read a bit. “Why don’t you do the honors,” she said, handing it to Beth. “Lynne would want that.”
Holding the paper firmly between her hands, Beth cleared her throat:
Dear Mom,
If you’ve received this then my friends have done as I’ve requested. Please thank them because I know that what brought them to you was their love for me. Their task was not easy. Nor is it easy, I expect, for you to hear that I have passed on to hopefully a better place without pain or sickness, where I can be with Grandma and Grandpa and dear friends who’ve gone before. Pray that I might find the peace I seek.
Mom, I love you.
You are my mother.
I have always loved you and will forever love you. You were the one who stayed up with me when I was sick as a little girl and even now, as a sick big girl, there have been nights when I have cried for your gentle touch, your comforting hug. Somehow, I felt you were there, so it’s OK. Let’s not feel bad today. Let’s feel good because at last we are putting our bitterness behind us and reuniting.
Do you remember when you used to take me to the park for our Winnie the Pooh tea parties? I think of that often. Just you, me, and Pooh and tea and cookies on a blanket in the sun. These are things I think of: the two of us holding hands in church. You letting me roll out dough for my own pie. (Did you have a special tin?) That day when Josie Kauffman and Tammy Jacobson were so mean I ran home crying from school and you took me in your lap and stroked my hair and told me someday I would have real girlfriends, and I would forget the Josies and Tammys of the world.
Well, Mom, I did find those friends and here they are because you believed in me and, therefore I believed in myself. You were a great mother. How do I know? Because the gifts you gave emboldened me in my darkest hours—you taught me to be strong and to never lose faith. You taught me to be a loving mother, too, and maybe, God willing, you will come to know your twin grandsons Kevin and Kyle. Kevin, especially, is the spitting image of Daddy.
My only regret is that I did not get to know Julia. But now I see this, too, is OK, because I sense that she was loved by a warm family and enjoyed a much more stable childhood than I was equipped to offer her then. What you did, you did for the right reasons, and I am fine with that. I’m sorry if my leaving caused you anguish. I never meant to hurt you. (Though, I know I did.)
If you find it in your heart to do so, please tell my good friends what you know about Julia. It is my last request to them, that they find her. Also, that they tell you in person of my death.
That word is not so hard to write. It is freeing, not frightening. Someday, Mom, you and I will be together again and then we will hold hands and spread out a blanket in the warm sun and laugh and catch up. Maybe even Pooh will be there too.
Until then—
Love always, Your Daughter
Lynne
Beth folded the letter and set it on the Bible on Eunice’s lap.
Eunice ran her arthritic fingertips over its edges, smoothing them. “I loved her,” she said. “I loved her as much as any mother could love a child. She was my angel. I used to rock her on my lap at night and roll her hair in rag curls and sew her dresses. I made her paper dolls. She was my darling. And now this is all I have left of her. This is all that’s left of my only child. Words.”
Mary Kay took Carol’s hand.
“Lynne never realized how proud I was of her. Even after the baby.” Eunice straightened the pink cuff folded over her white blouse. “All I wanted was for her to have a normal life. She deserved that.”
Mary Kay said, “Do you know what happened to . . .?”
Eunice wasn’t listening. “I never wanted her to be a mother at such a young age, to be saddled with that responsibility. I wanted her to be able to truly enjoy motherhood when she was ready.”
“She did enjoy motherhood,” Beth said. “She was the best mother ever and her children made her incredibly happy.”
“Lynne got it into her head that I was ashamed of her. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Eunice went on. “I was frightened and acted hastily, bossily, which I tend to do when I’m scared. I went to our priest, who suggested a lawyer, Douglass Andersson. Mr. Andersson suggested I send Lynne away to spare her humiliation. So, I called Therese and we found Dr. Dorfman and it was done. Mr. Andersson arranged everything.” Eunice bowed her head, ashamed. “Lynne hated me for what I did. Hated me. But why she had to run away and never come back, that I’ll never understand.”
What was it about mother/daughter relationships that made them so complicated? Mary Kay asked herself, not for the first time. Was it because women feel too much? Or that they expect too much? Look at Eunice and Lynne. Years lost over a stupid misunderstanding. Grandbabies never held. Christmases never celebrated. And now Lynne was dead and nothing would be the same. Ever. Memories could not be recaptured.
Mary Kay went over to kneel in front of Eunice. “Lynne didn’t hate you, she emulated you. Like Beth said, she was a hands-on mother. She helped the boys build tree houses and took them camping. . ..”
“And she made your cupcakes!” Beth just remembered. “They had frosting an inch thick. She used to say they came from her mother’s recipe.”
“Yes, those are my buttercream.” Eunice put a hand to a gold pin on her sweater, near her heart, pleasantly surprised. “That recipe was handed down from my own mother. Oh, my. The things you never think will matter. . .”
“Are the things that do.” Mary Kay stroked the woman’s hands. “Your daughter remembered those small gifts and she passed them on to her sons. Her only regret was that she couldn’t pass them on to her own daughter. Do you suppose there’s a way we can fix that?”
Eunice thought about this. When she spoke, her voice was thick and dull. “I don’t know exactly what happened to Julia, but I know this much: She stayed nearby. That’s what Mr. Andersson assured me. Go ask him. He knows where Julia is. His son took over the firm, but it’s still on Main Street, right by the courthouse.”
Mary Kay rose, sensing that Eunice might want to be alone. “It’s too bad you and Lynne had a falling out, Mrs. Swann.”
Eunice smiled weakly as she slid the letter into the Bible. “Lynne wrote me this because she never stop
ped loving me, just as I never stopped loving her.” She cleared her throat. “Do you have a daughter, dear?”
“I do,” Mary Kay said. “Her name is Tiffany. She was my niece and I adopted her when her parents died in a car crash, but I love her as my own.”
“Then you’re lucky. Sons are a godsend, but a daughter stays with you through thick and thin, fire and rain, life and even death.” She placed her hand over the gold pin over her heart. “Here.”
Dessert Martinis
The end, as we like to say, is often a fine beginning.
So it is with our two favorite dessert martinis: ginger-pear and chocolate-raspberry.
Ginger, long heralded for its digestive properties, gets a boost from the French-made Domaine de Canton, a heavenly aperitif made from the highest quality Cognac and young Vietnamese ginger that infuses its mesmerizing essence with fiery taste. While the Domaine de Canton recipe for a ginger martini—two parts vodka to two parts Domaine de Canton—is quite good, we like to lighten it by adding one part pear nectar. A lemon twist is a nice touch.
Chocolate-raspberry, however, is pure decadence. There is nothing light about it.
First, dip the rims of martini glasses in melted bittersweet chocolate. Freeze. At the bottom of a martini shaker muddle a few fresh raspberries, add raspberry vodka and Godiva chocolate liqueur, along with a splash of Chambord—a French black-raspberry liqueur that is to die for. Shake vigorously with ice. Pour into the chocolate-dipped glasses and garnish with two fresh raspberries. Warning: don’t let the chocolate and fruit deceive you. This packs a punch.
So delicious, you might be tempted to skip dinner altogether.
Chapter Twelve
The women burst from Beckwood’s stifling heat into the refreshingly cool evening air.
Beth felt light-headed, like she might faint. “I don’t know how you nurses do it, Mary Kay, breaking bad news to families day after day.”
“Bad news is what we try to avoid.”
“Even so.” Beth unlocked the car and climbed in, eager to get away—far, far away. She felt guilty about not staying longer. They should have at least accompanied Eunice to dinner, but she insisted on being alone and April gently suggested that Eunice should be given space. She assured them that her doctor had been alerted, as had the staff, to check on Eunice frequently and offer support.
The situation was so awful. So sad and lonely and . . . hopeless. Beth couldn’t conceive of twenty-four hours of not speaking to her mother, much less thirty years. Sure, sometimes their closeness was suffocating. It was impossible for Elsie to resist weighing in if Beth so much as rearranged the furniture, and it would be nice to pack on a few pounds over the holidays without her mother discreetly pushing the grapefruit.
But Elsie was so much a part of her life that when she and Chat left for a two-week cruise, Beth found herself automatically picking up the phone to call them, forgetting they were incommunicado. It was the longest two weeks of her life. She missed not being able to brag about David and hear Elsie gasp in admiration or ask how to get her hydrangeas to bloom in pink instead of blue. She felt almost disembodied.
It made sense now, why Lynne was so reserved when every spring Elsie swooped in with a trunk of annuals so she and Beth could spend a glorious warm afternoon digging, weeding, and planting. It hadn’t occurred to her until meeting Eunice and reading that letter that Elsie’s presence must have made Lynne long for her own mother.
“What do you think will happen to Eunice?” Beth asked as they pulled out of the Beckwood parking lot. “Her husband’s dead. Her daughter, too. She doesn’t have any children. Who will be there for her?”
“Seems like Beckwood’s been preparing for this,” Mary Kay said, heading across the parking lot. “Eunice might have talked herself into believing that her daughter was dead as a coping mechanism, but obviously Lynne maintained close contact with the staff. They knew she was alive and knew she was dying, too. You heard April say they had professionals on call to help Eunice deal with the shock.”
“It wasn’t shock.” Carol, who’d been quiet in the backseat lost in thought, suddenly piped up. “I’ve had a glimpse of what it’s like to be estranged from your child and even if you’re separated physically, that doesn’t mean you’re apart spiritually. I would know if Amanda were dead, perish the thought. I could feel it in my bones.”
Beth turned around in her seat. “And you think Eunice felt that too?”
“I think Eunice knew a lot more than she let on. I bet she suspected that we—or someone—was coming to tell her Lynne had died.”
Which would explain the pearls and frills, Beth thought, and possibly the Bible in her lap. Not because it was Sunday, but because by the time they arrived, Eunice was ready to mourn.
They didn’t have far to travel to get to their hotel, twenty miles at most. A pittance compared to the four hundred miles or so they’d clocked so far. But they were tired and it was dinnertime, so the last thing they wanted to do was get back on the road.
“There’s a Douglass Andersson & Sons law office in downtown Calais,” Beth said, checking Carol’s iPhone.
“That’s got to be them,” Mary Kay said. “We’ll stop by tomorrow.”
“We should go bright and early in case Dorfman gets the swift idea of giving Andersson a heads-up,” Carol said. After the doctor’s pat lecture about what was right and wrong for women, she didn’t put it past him to call the lawyer who’d orchestrated the adoption.
“And then, if we get some info, we can start searching for Julia,” Mary Kay said excitedly. “That would be a welcome change after two days of playing the grim reaper.”
Beth said nothing.
“What do you think, Beth?” Mary Kay asked.
“I don’t know, MK. I’m tired.”
“We’re almost at our hotel.”
“Not that kind of tired. I’m tired of these confrontations.” She didn’t mean to complain, but she wasn’t like Mary Kay and Carol, who were used to dealing with strangers in sticky situations day in, day out. She preferred to keep to herself and read. You couldn’t make a book cry or make it angry. Books didn’t have hearts that could be broken. Books were friends and she missed their silent company. “Besides, my father’s getting his test results back tomorrow morning. I really need to be available.”
“I hear you,” Mary Kay said. “Why don’t you take the morning off?”
“Besides, this is a job for a couple of professional bitches,” Carol said. “Not an amateur like you.”
Mary Kay said, “Seriously.”
“OK.” Beth breathed a great big sigh of relief. Already she felt better.
A Radisson loomed ahead on a knoll off the highway, lit up green like the Empire State Building on St. Patrick’s Day. The parking lot was packed with cars end to end. “Yowza!” Mary Kay exclaimed, turning into the driveway. “What gives?”
“Guess this is the place to be on Sunday in Calais, PA,” Beth said, noticing the KARAOKE TONITE! Sign with grave disappointment. So much for going to bed early. “Maybe we should stay someplace else.”
“My credit card’s already been charged,” Carol said. “It’s not like this area is brimming with options—unless your idea of an upgrade is a Motel 6 down the interstate.”
“We’ll leave the karaoke on for ya.” Mary Kay parked and headed inside, where another sign exclaimed WELCOME PENN. SOCIETY OK CHEMICAL ENGINEERS.
“Nothing says party hearty,” she said as they wheeled their bags to check in, “like mathematicians on a bender.”
The lobby reverberated with a booming bass beat, and every once in a while the bar door would open and a chemical engineer would emerge, making a beeline for the bathroom across the hall.
“And when do the festivities end?” Carol asked as she signed her slip. “It’s been a long day and we’re knackered.” Not to mention that Jeff was supposed to call at six sharp to discuss the house. She hardly needed Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” to add to her stre
ss.
“Normally, around two. But since it’s a convention and most of the guests are in-house, in all reality, three.” The clerk handed them their plastic keys.
Mary Kay, who’d checked out the karaoke scene, returned with a report. “After eight, ladies get in free. Whaddya say, girls? Can’t beat ’em, join ’em?” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Carol said, “There’s not enough alcohol on the planet.”
Had there not been a virtual frat party rumbling below, their rooms would have been perfectly adequate, large, with outdoor balconies. Tonight, Beth and Mary Kay shared a room with two queen beds while Carol got the adjoining king so she could finish a law memo due Monday.
“Work, work, work for me,” Carol singsonged as she dragged her cases down the hall. “I’m afraid that means no martinis, either.”
“Come over for dinner, at least,” Beth said. “Mary Kay heard there’s a sushi bar not far from here. We’ll do takeout.”
It was hard to resist sushi. Clean, fresh food. (Though Carol had to wonder what grade of tuna made its way to this neck of the woods.) She paused at her room, tempted, though she really needed to be alone when Jeff called.
“Maybe I better order in from room service so I don’t get distracted. A crappy chicken Caesar salad and Diet Coke should be fine.” Discipline had always been her ally.
Beth shrugged. “Suit yourself. We’ll order a little extra, just in case you change your mind.”
“You don’t have to go to all that trouble, but thank you,” Carol said sweetly. “Well, good night.”
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