“Yes, I have . . . a little,” she admitted.
“Well, maybe you ought to stop worrying, then, and give this one over to God. Don’t give Him too much advice about what should happen,” she suggested with a smile. “Just pray and see if the answer comes to you.”
Jessica took a deep breath. “All right. I’ll try it. I’ll try anything now, I guess.” She smiled at Emily, feeling grateful for her company and advice. It was so wonderful to be closer to her sister, like a best friend but even better somehow because they shared the same history and family ties.
She regretted that she waited so long to let Emily get close to her. She knew in her heart that Emily had always wanted them to be there for each other. Maybe there is some good to come out of this heartbreak over Sam, Jessica thought. She may have lost Sam, but at least she had gained a sister.
Jessica made some coffee to serve with the lemon meringue pie that Emily had brought. They decided to have dessert outside on the porch.
“Your garden looks wonderful,” Emily said as they stepped outside. “Still green and blooming despite the heat.”
Jessica shrugged. “I probably wasted money, since I’m leaving so soon, but when certain flowers peaked in late July, I put in some late-blooming plants that will carry on until the first frost.”
“You must get that from Mother,” Emily said admiringly. “I only made a really good garden once, when I lived down in Maryland. I don’t have a green thumb like you two. But I did have the time down there, and the warmer weather helped.”
Jessica knew that her sister was referring to the year when she was married to Tim Sutton.
Jessica barely remembered Tim. The romance had been a secret from Emily’s family, and Jessica only met Tim once or twice. She was probably about eight years old at the time.
It was interesting, Jessica thought, that Lillian disapproved of Tim as a match for Emily the same way she now shunned Sam. Of course, Emily had been so much younger and more under her parents’ control.
Or so they thought, before she surprised them all by running away with her boyfriend and getting married.
Jessica didn’t really know much of the story after that point. She had never really asked Emily about that brief time, she realized.
But she felt so much closer to Emily lately, especially tonight, and she wanted to know. Maybe hearing about it would help her understand her own confused feelings about Sam.
“What was it like, being married to Tim?” Jessica asked. “You never talk about it.”
“It was wonderful. Truly,” Emily said with unexpected emotion. “I loved Tim very much and he loved me. That time was probably the happiest in my life,” she confessed.
She sighed and glanced at Jessica. “I missed him for a very long time. I still do, in a way. But it was so long ago now, sometimes it feels as if I’m trying to remember a very sweet, faded dream.”
Emily’s tone wasn’t sad or self-pitying, but Jessica ached for her sister’s loss.
“But we were very young,” Emily went on. “Who knows what would have happened? Maybe our marriage wouldn’t have made it over the long run.”
“It sounds to me as if it would have,” Jessica said.
A distant look came into Emily’s eyes, and she smiled. “I think so, too.”
They were both quiet for a long time, then Jessica said, “When I heard that Tim had died, I felt so sorry for you, being all alone down there. But I still didn’t think you would ever come home.”
“I had to at that point. Or thought I did. It felt as though I lost my spirit when Tim died. I didn’t have anything more to rebel about, I guess.” Emily glanced at her, then out at the garden again. “ . . . And something else happened that . . . complicated things,” she said slowly. “Something I don’t think you know about.”
“What was that?” Jessica asked curiously.
“I was pregnant when Tim died. I had a child about a week later while I was in the hospital, recovering from the accident.”
Jessica felt a jolt. Had she really heard Emily correctly? She was so stunned she couldn’t speak for a moment.
“No . . . I didn’t know that. No one ever told me,” she said, sitting up straight.
“She was a baby girl. I only saw her one time. Her eyes were very blue—they say most babies’ are at that age. Then they change. I don’t know what color they’d be by now,” she said softly.
Jessica was quiet. Stunned, actually. Did she really have a niece somewhere—a grown woman by now—whom she had never even met, had never been aware of until this very moment?
“Wh-what happened? What happened to the baby?”
“I couldn’t keep her. I had to give her up for adoption.”
“That must have been so hard,” Jessica said.
Emily’s expression grew taut, and she pursed her mouth, as if the words spoken aloud were bitter tasting. Jessica moved closer to her on the step and put her arm around her shoulder. She didn’t know what to say.
“I got to hold her once. I wasn’t even supposed to see her, but a sympathetic nurse snuck the baby in and gave her to me for a few minutes.”
Emily shut her eyes, remembering how she was so afraid to move, even to breathe, as she studied her daughter’s tiny face, snub nose, and perfectly formed little fingers. Her daughter, the one link to the man she loved so dearly.
“Then she was taken away. That’s all I ever saw of her,” Emily explained in a thick voice.
It had only been a few minutes, a quarter hour at best. But it was long enough for Emily to have fallen totally and irrevocably in love—a love that had survived on nothing but bitter tears and regrets for all these years. It was Emily’s deepest sorrow, her greatest mistake. An irreversible one.
“You must have felt so alone,” Jessica said.
“Mother came down to help me. When she saw that I was pregnant, she . . . she really wanted me to give the baby up,” Emily said. “You know how she can be.”
“Yes, I know,” Jessica said slowly, staring at her sister.
“Mother took charge,” Emily went on. “She said I was only a teenager, uneducated, and widowed—that it wouldn’t be fair to the baby to keep it. She said I would never be able to support it and give it a proper home. So she—arranged everything.”
Jessica felt a chill go through her as she began to understand Lillian’s role in all this.
Emily’s hands were shaking so badly she put down her coffee cup, but she was determined to go on with her story. “I was so overwhelmed with grief over Tim, I probably wasn’t thinking clearly. I wasn’t old enough to make that kind of decision,” she tried to explain. “To understand what I was giving up.”
“Mother made you do it, you mean,” Jessica summed it up for her. When Emily didn’t reply, she added, “Why didn’t you bring the baby back up here, so that Mom and Dad could help you take care of her?”
Emily remembered exactly what their mother had said when she asked that very question.
“Take you in with this child? Give me one good reason after the way you disobeyed us, Emily. The way you disdained our wishes, rejected everything we tried to teach you. You shamed our family and made a fool of your father and me. You thought you knew everything, didn’t you? Well, here’s your chance to prove it, then. Why should we help a foolish, insolent girl who knows everything?”
Emily took a deep breath, shaking off the memory. Finally, replying to Jessica, she said, “Mother didn’t want that. She said it was fine for me to come back. She would help me go to college and get a degree. But not with the baby.” Staring straight ahead, Emily squeezed her sister’s hand. “You know how she felt about Tim. She considered anything connected to him a disgrace. I guess she saw her chance to erase the entire episode from the family history.”
Emily could practically hear her mother’s voice once more, sharp and clear and relentless. How many nights had she lain awake, going over the scene again and again in her mind? Trying to see how it could have come ou
t differently, what she might have said or done.
“You can’t keep the child, it’s unthinkable,” Lillian had insisted. “How will you feed it or even keep a roof over your head? What kind of job will you find—waiting tables or working as a checkout girl in a supermarket? Or maybe you’ll marry another fisherman? Is that the kind of marginal, hand-to-mouth existence you want for your baby and yourself?”
“Mother told me I was being selfish,” Emily recalled. “She said I always thought of myself first, and I had made a complete mess of my life the day I turned my back on my family and ran off with Tim. She said this was my one chance to do the right thing for myself and the child.”
Emily felt her sister gently rubbing her shoulder, and she turned to face Jessica again, as if waking up from a nightmare.
“It was as if she just wanted me to pick up where I left off when I ran away with Tim. Getting back on track again, Mother called it.” Emily wrapped her arms around herself, shivering despite the warmth of the August night. “Mother more or less talked me into pretending that Tim and my entire life with him—our love . . . our child—never existed.”
“What about Dad? Did he know?” Jessica asked quietly. She didn’t want to press her sister, but she needed to know the whole story, to try to make sense of what her sister had kept hidden for years.
“You know how Dad was,” Emily said wearily. “He was up here, with you. I only spoke to him over the phone a few times. He was happy and relieved I survived the accident—and sincerely sorry about Tim. But he didn’t have much to say about the baby. I think he felt bad for me, but he didn’t have the courage or strength to go against Mother,” Emily told her. “I tried. But I didn’t win.”
“I’m sure that Mother believed she was doing the right thing,” Jessica said, “but the way she treated you—and your daughter—was completely unfair.”
“Unfair?” Emily echoed in a bleak tone. “Well, maybe, but life isn’t fair, is it? I was weak, Jessica, and Mother was the strong one. I should have fought for my baby.”
Emily’s head dropped, and Jessica could see she was crying. “Sometimes I still can’t believe that I did it—let her persuade me. I’m so ashamed. Maybe that’s why I never told you.”
“It’s okay, Emily. I understand, really,” Jessica assured her. “I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through.”
It was Jessica’s turn now to comfort her sister. She patted her back as Emily wept. Poor Emily. And to think that all these years Jessica resented her, because Emily was away at college when their father’s scandal broke—and Jessica always thought Emily had it easier. Meanwhile her older sister had been dealing with so much, a grief that would have broken a lesser person.
Finally Emily looked up. “Thanks for saying that. But I should have told you sooner. . . . Can you forgive me?”
“Of course I can. Of course.” She leaned over and hugged her older sister. “Does anyone else know? Besides Mother, I mean?”
“Just Reverend Ben,” Emily said. “I’ve gone to speak to him a few times about it. Especially when I first came back.”
When Emily returned to Cape Light, she felt more dead than alive, going through the mere motions of life, whatever Lillian wanted of her. Reverend Ben was some help, and at his urging, Emily began to attend church and slowly grew in faith. As he had promised, she found great comfort in God’s love and mercy.
“Have you ever tried to find her?” Jessica asked her quietly.
Emily nodded. “Yes, I did. I tried for a long time. Mother wouldn’t tell me anything, of course. She claimed it was a closed adoption, and she didn’t know herself where the baby had gone. She wouldn’t even tell me the name of the lawyer she used. But I found out the name of the agency that had handled it. About ten years ago I went down to Maryland to see them. I couldn’t get any information, though. The best I could do was leave some documents, saying they could give out my name and whereabouts if my daughter ever tried to find me.”
“Do you know if she’s tried?”
“They won’t tell me that, either,” Emily replied.
“Is that why you’ve stayed here all this time? So that she can find you?”
“Part of the reason,” she admitted. “I think about her all the time—where she might be, what she’s doing, how she turned out. . . .” She sighed. “I pray to God she’s been raised by loving parents. That’s the most important thing, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Jessica agreed, “I do.”
“Every night I pray that someday I’ll find her,” Emily admitted. “That’s about all I can do now,” she added sadly.
“I’ll pray for you, too,” Jessica promised. “I’ll pray that you find her.”
“Thank you,” Emily said quietly. Squeezing Jessica’s hand, she managed a small smile.
“Maybe now that she’s older, she’ll come and find you on her own,” Jessica said. “You see these stories on TV all the time.”
“Yes, you do. It doesn’t always turn out happily, though,” Emily reminded her. “Still, I’d give anything to see my daughter again.”
A short time later they went back inside. Jessica showed Emily some pieces of furniture that she acquired since coming to town that she couldn’t take back to Boston. “My place is so small there. I love them,” she said, running her hand over the satiny curve of her favorite antique chair, “but most of it just won’t fit. It would make me happy if you’d take something.”
As Emily looked at the pieces that Jessica was offering, two of Elsie’s kittens popped out from under the couch and ran straight to Emily.
Emily bent down and picked one up, then continued to look at the furniture. The cat squirmed a bit in her grasp, but Emily quickly calmed it with some expert ear scratching. Jessica noticed that the small cat was soon purring ecstatically.
“Hey, you’re really good at that,” she noted. “You wouldn’t want to take him home, would you? I have to find homes for all six, and I’ve only got one booked so far.”
Emily looked doubtful, then looked down at the kitten, who had stuck himself to her chest, as if it had Velcro paws.
“I never approved of wearing fur,” she said dryly. “But they are sort of cute,” she admitted. “The thing is, I’m out so much. He may get lonely.”
Jessica thought for only a beat. She bent down and scooped up another one, who let out a plaintive meow at the handling. “Then take two, by all means. A matched set,” she said, holding the two spotted kittens side by side. “I’ve always heard that you should keep cats in pairs,” she offered encouragingly.
“Oh, dear . . . this is some sales pitch,” Emily said. She glanced from cat to cat, and a smile lit her face. “All right. You’d better get a carton quickly, before I change my mind.”
“No problem,” Jessica promised, dashing to the broom closet where she had saved some boxes for just this purpose.
She also packed some food, litter, and cat toys in a shopping bag. “Here you go, the full starter kit.” She handed her the carton and Emily put the cats inside, struggling to close the lid around contradictory little paws. Finally the cats were secure inside. For the moment, at least.
“I guess this makes it official,” Emily said with a laugh. “I’m a classic spinster now. I think you need at least two cats to qualify.”
“No, you’re not,” Jessica insisted. She so rarely heard Emily voice a discouraging word, that the admission caught her off guard. But tonight had been a night of surprises.
Jessica helped her sister carry the box and cat supplies to her car, then hugged Emily good night. “Thanks so much for coming,” Jessica said sincerely. “I’m sorry I cried all over your beautiful silk blouse.”
“I’m glad you did,” Emily assured her with a warm smile. “I can always get another blouse. I’ll never have another sister.” With a brief wave, Emily and her new cats were gone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SARA WAS NOT AT WORK AGAIN. EMILY NOTICED right away as she took a seat at the coun
ter in the Clam Box.
It was between shifts at the diner. Lunch was well over, and there was still an hour before people came in for supper. She had just stopped in for a quick bite to keep her stomach from growling later during the long, tedious planning meeting scheduled for that night.
Lucy greeted her and took her order.
“Sara’s not here again today. Did she quit?” Emily asked abruptly.
Lucy’s brows drew together in a frown. “Sara quit? Who told you that?”
“Well, she mentioned to me about a week or so ago that she might be leaving town soon. She wants to go back home, I think.”
Lucy shook her head, looking baffled. “Well, if she does, it’s news to me. As far as I know, she just has a bug or something.” Lucy shrugged. She quickly wiped Emily’s table with a damp rag and set down a paper place mat with a map of the local coastline and pictures of famous lighthouses.
“Oh . . . Sara’s sick. Is it a cold?”
“The flu maybe. I don’t know. She sounded terrible over the phone, so I just told her to stay in and take it easy. I’m going to bring her out some soup or something when I leave,” Lucy added. “You know the way young women are—they don’t take care of themselves at all,” she said, shaking her head.
She turned on the heel of her soft-soled shoe. “Sara better not quit on me now. I need her too much. She’s the best waitress we ever had around here. . . .”
Emily wanted to agree, but Lucy was by now too far away to hear her. She checked her watch, then called over the counter and asked Lucy to give her the sandwich to go. “And give me a container of chicken soup if you have any. I have time to go see Sara. I’ll take her some dinner.”
Lucy glanced at her. “Are you sure?” When Emily nodded, Lucy said, “I guess it’s just as well. I won’t be done here until late. She might be asleep by then. I’ll give you a roll and some ginger ale, too.”
“And some orange juice,” Emily suggested. “Do you have any fresh squeezed?”
“Good idea. I’ll check,” Lucy said, disappearing into the kitchen.
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