by Shirley Jump
“I never knew any of this. Grandma never said a bad word about Grandpa.” The grandfather she remembered had been kind, quiet, a man who liked to putter in his garden and play solitaire.
“Well, he eventually got his act together, but in those days, he was a mess. Most weeks, your grandpa would spend his entire paycheck at the bar. He couldn’t even make it the four blocks home with some money left in his pocket. That left Gramma pretty much always stressed and on the edge. She would bark at us, and if we were too slow or too messy or too anything, she’d get us back in line quick.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“Well, your mom learned it firsthand. And like you girls, we each took different paths. My brothers went to college. One became a doctor; one became a scientist. But me…I started acting up when I was fourteen. I think she gave up on me. I was the wild child, and after working all day and trying to take care of my brothers, she just didn’t have the energy to look after one more.”
“Until Ma came along, right?”
“Well…Grandma didn’t exactly ask for your mother to come along. She did as best a job as she could, but honestly, it was never really her job to raise your mother.”
Never really her job to raise Ma? How could that be? The only reason raising a child would be someone else’s job would be if—
Then it hit Bridget. The conversation about Billy Donnelly The offhand comment about abandoning the child he already had. The family pictures that so resembled her own. “Wait…is Ma”—she hesitated—”is she your daughter?”
Aunt Mary didn’t say anything for a long time. The neighbor started up a lawn mower, and that sent a flock of birds scattering into the sky. A slight breeze whispered along the grass, tickling at their feet. Pedro buried his head in the crook of Bridget’s knee and went to sleep.
“Aunt Mary? Is Ma your daughter?”
“Yes,” Aunt Mary said after a long pause. “She is.”
Wow. Bridget absorbed that information and filled it in with all the blank spaces that had been in the O’Bannon family over the years. Apparently her late husband wasn’t the only one keeping secrets about a baby. “And you never said anything?”
The birds did a U-turn and came to rest on another tree. The lawn mower kept up its steady drone, the sound receding, growing, receding, growing. Pedro whimpered in his sleep and kicked one leg out.
“Back then, girls didn’t have babies out of wedlock,” Aunt Mary said. “Billy broke up with me as soon as he found out I was pregnant. We were in high school, and he was scared that his life would be over. He’d have to drop out, get a job, support the two of us. He wasn’t ready for that, and honestly, neither was I. I went to stay at my aunt’s for a while and came home with this beautiful baby and no idea what I was going to do.”
“That must have been terrifying,” Bridget said.
“It was. I didn’t know anything about babies or childbirth, or anything. My mother immediately said, ‘I’ll raise it as my own, and you will be her sister.’ At first I liked the idea because I still got to be a teenager, but the first time Colleen called your grandmother Mom, it almost broke my heart. I’d see her run to my mother at the end of the day and call for her when she was scared…” Aunt Mary’s voice broke, and her lower lip trembled. Even now, sixty-two years after she’d given birth, it was clear she still felt the same pain and loss. “She never called for me. Never even knew how much that hurt. So I left home and went on adventures and tried to forget.”
Bridget thought of all those whispers within the O’Bannon family. The way Grandma had always seemed a little harder on Ma than anyone else—something Bridget chalked up to the two of them working together. The way Aunt Mary would flit in and out of their lives, never here for a holiday or family occasion, because that surely only drove home the point about her relationship with Colleen.
Years of heartbreak, buried in the O’Bannon genes. And no one had known or said a word.
“But you never forgot you were her mother, did you?” Bridget took Aunt Mary’s hand in her own. Pedro woke up and snuggled into the space between their hips. “I can’t even imagine how hard that was for you.”
Tears glistened in Aunt Mary’s eyes, held back for so many years, and even now, still unshed, a secret Mary had had to bear alone. “Your mother never knew. Not until a few years ago, after your grandmother died. I decided it wouldn’t harm anything to tell her but she…wasn’t very happy to hear it. I thought I’d lost her forever, and it damned near broke me.”
Five years of silence. Five years of distance.
“Maybe she just needs more time,” Bridget said, even though she didn’t believe it.
“And maybe she just needs me to go away.” Aunt Mary got to her feet. Pedro popped his head up and scrambled over to his mistress. “That’s why I’m leaving as soon as I can.”
Bridget ignored her aunt’s words. Aunt Mary had always run from the family—like Bridget had done, and Abby too. Maybe even Magpie. But running hadn’t done anything but fracture the fragile bonds between them, and Bridget was tired of that happening.
As her aunt turned to go, Bridget said, “You know what I see when I look at my yard, Aunt Mary?”
Her aunt looked confused at the change in subject. “Uh…grass?”
Bridget drew in a deep breath of the sweet summer air and let her gaze roam over the lush green space before her. “Possibilities. The yard was the only thing I really liked about this house when we bought it. When we first moved in, all that was back here was grass. I planted the shrubs over there, the primroses at the back, that Japanese maple in the corner. Some of the things I planted didn’t take, and I had to learn my lesson and start over again. But some of them flourished and bloomed and now, every time I come out here, I see something that has…hope.”
Aunt Mary sank back onto the step. Pedro let out a long-suffering sigh and lay beside her. “This whole yard thing is some kind of metaphor for my relationship with your mom, isn’t it?”
“Would I be Irish if I didn’t have at least one allegory for life?” Bridget laughed. “Seriously, though, I’ve had a lot of time to think over the last few months and a lot of these things are starting to make sense. Like the yard—I’ve watched it morph into a place that brought me…peace.”
Aunt Mary propped her elbows on her knees. “That’s something I’ve been looking for my entire life. I’ve been all over the world and never found it.”
“Maybe—and here’s your lesson—it’s as simple as looking in your own backyard. And not being a sabhaircin.”
“The fairies that come in and ruin your garden when you’re sleeping?” Aunt Mary rolled her eyes and dismissed that with a wave. “My mother talked about them all the time. But what do the sabhaircin have to do with anything?”
“Grandma said they were destructive little things sometimes,” Bridget said. She could remember sitting on her grandmother’s lap while they decorated cookies, listening to her tell Irish tales in that slight, soft brogue of hers. For all her faults, her grandmother had loved her granddaughters and left them with hundreds of sweet memories. She’d taught them how to turn flour and sugar into masterpieces and how to remember their heritage. “You know, I haven’t seen a single fairy since I planted the primroses.”
Aunt Mary laughed. “I’m thinking that has more to do with the fact that fairies don’t exist.” She glanced at the sky and crossed herself. “Sorry, Mom.”
“Maybe. Either way, I didn’t set out planting the primroses to scare off mythical fairies.” She thought back, remembering the hours of digging in the garden, nestling each plant into its new home, gently nudging dirt around the roots. Jim had told her they were a waste of time, that that part of the yard got too much sun. In the end, he had helped her plant the last of them, laughing at Bridget’s sabhaircin superstitions. “I did it as a last-ditch effort to save my marriage. I kept talking to Jim about how, if we had a baby, the baby’s room would face the garden and the baby would see them. I tried to get h
im to see my dream, to believe in it. But by the time the last primrose was in the ground, I realized he was never going to want children. And that the relationship I thought I had with him had deteriorated over the years we’d been married. Now I’ve found out that he lied to me about dozens of things, and that I was like the sabhaircin, only seeing what I wanted to see, thus creating havoc in my own life.”
“Another metaphor. Grandma taught you well.” Aunt Mary smiled. “And now? What do you see now when you look out there?”
The lawn mower had stopped, leaving only the bird songs as music for the day. It seemed appropriate, Bridget thought. She inhaled again, a breath of summer happiness and hope. “Now I look at those primroses and see them as a chance to begin again. They bloom, they die, and then they come back. Sometimes weaker, sometimes stronger, but always one more time. They’re not going to give up, no matter what comes at them.” She drew her knees to her chest. The discovery of Jim’s child, the truth about the missing money, were all storms that had tried to uproot her. But she was still here, and still moving forward. “And neither am I. And neither are you.”
Aunt Mary drew her niece close. “Ah, Bridget, how did you get so wise?”
Bridget leaned into her aunt—grandmother? It didn’t really matter; Mary was family. And for Bridget, that had become the most important thing, the garden she intended to always nurture. “Easy, Aunt Mary. I have great genes.”
TWENTY-NINE
Colleen sought solace in the bakery. After running to church, she’d gone back to Charmed by Dessert and stayed long after closing, baking treat after treat and freezing cakes, cookies, pie, brownies, anything she could create. Her back ached, her feet hurt, but she kept working. Idle hands gave way to an idle mind, and an idle mind dwelled.
But no matter how many cakes or tarts she made, her mind kept circling through her life, like a movie that started with her earliest memory and spiraled forward. When she’d been a little girl, her mother’s words had felt like harsh stones. You don’t sit up straight enough. Can’t you do something with your hair? Were you dressed by a band of baboons? She’d never understood what she had done that had made her mother so angry, so strict. She’d started working in the bakery because it was the only place she found praise from her mother. Here, she could create things people loved.
Her sweet Michael was the only man to love her just as she was, bristly and stubborn. He’d been the light to her dark, bringing laughter into her life. When he died, it was as if the entire world deflated. Colleen had lost that spark, that laughter, and for a time, she used alcohol to forget. Then she replaced that with burying herself in the only thing she could count on to be the same day after day—the bakery.
Because of that, the girls had suffered, even though she had never meant for them to live the life she had. She’d been too hard on them, too difficult, and now…
They were gone. The only thing she’d ever feared had come true.
Colleen O’Bannon was alone. Utterly, completely alone.
She said a silent prayer, whispering the words into every stir of the spoon. Please let me make it right with my daughters. She added chocolate chips, folded the batter over the little dark chunks. Please show me how. She sprinkled in chopped walnuts, giving the batter a few more gentle turns. Please help me find my way back to them.
There was a knock on the glass door. Colleen abandoned the cookie dough, washed her hands, and then crossed through the darkened bakery. Mary stood on the other side of the door, one hand cupped over her brow, trying to peer into the dim interior.
A little wave of happiness ran through her, but Colleen tamped it down. Her sister—her mother, she couldn’t decide which was easier to think—was one of those people Colleen had always loved to talk to when she was young, and still did, even though they were now talking about things that opened old wounds.
She unlocked the door and opened it to let Mary in. “What are you doing here?”
Mary propped her hands on her hips. “I should ask you the same thing.”
“I’m working.”
“Working at avoiding things. Am I right?”
“Of course not.” Colleen tried to draw herself up in righteous indignation, but her aching muscles protested and instead she sank into a chair. “Okay, maybe I am.”
“Oh, Colleen, you silly, stubborn woman. You’re going to work yourself into an early grave.” Mary sat in the opposite chair and shook her head. “All this avoiding isn’t good for you. Eventually it all boils over, like an untended pot on the stove.”
“It already has.” Colleen let out a sigh. She wasn’t just tired from working for several hours straight; she was exhausted to her core. Her heart was tired, her mind, everything inside her. If she went home, she would probably sleep for a week straight. “I don’t know what else to do, Mary. How to fix this. How to get my girls back.”
“Talk to your family.” Mary’s hand covered hers. “Talk to me. Please.”
“I…I don’t know how.” All her life, she’d had this complicated relationship with Mary, and now she knew why. There were no defined roles for them, no guidelines to follow. “I mean, are you my sister? Or my mother? Or what?”
“How about just Mary?” She gave Colleen a lopsided smile. “We’re too old for labels, don’t you think? All I want is a relationship with you, Colleen. You set the parameters. However little or much contact you want will be…a blessing to me.”
In Mary’s voice, Colleen heard the same pain that was in her heart. Was this how God wanted to communicate with her? By bringing in the one woman who understood what it was like to have your daughter shut the door in your face?
But Colleen had gone so long in this same mode, this solo path, she wasn’t sure she could pave a new road with Mary, with her daughters, with herself. “It’s hard for me to accept change.”
Mary chuckled. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“But I’m going to try. I have to.” She sighed and gazed out the window, into the dark outside the shop. Somewhere out there were four O’Bannon girls, each of them incredible in their own way, but right now, so very, very far away. If she closed her eyes, she could still hear the slam of the door, the finality of that act. She could still hate herself for staying in the kitchen and mixing cupcake batter instead of running out the door and begging them to come back. “I’ll lose my daughters for good if I don’t.”
“They’ll still be there. You just need to be easier on them and on yourself. And admit to them that you are just as fallible as they are. Be honest, Colleen.”
She shook her head. “They’ll judge me. And rightly so. I should have been there for them when they were younger and so grief-stricken, instead of rushing them off to bed so I could drink away my pain.”
Mary covered Colleen’s hand. “You fell into a pit for a time. It happens to all of us.”
“I would have still been there if you hadn’t shown up.” Mary had come to stay one Christmas and stood beside Colleen as they poured every single one down the drain and then stayed with her for weeks, until she got her life back on track. “I never really thanked you for that.”
“You don’t have to. I did it because I love you. Because you’re my daughter. Just as you would do the same for your own children.” Mary gave her a soft smile. “So talk to them. Let them see you, really see you. They love you, you know.”
Colleen fiddled with the place mat on the table. A part of her wanted to run back into the kitchen and start whipping up some brownies or a complicated torte, just to avoid this conversation. But she knew if she did that, it was only a matter of time before she circled right back to this place, these same arguments. That was the funny thing about getting older—you realized how much of life was a circle. You were destined to travel the same bumpy road if you didn’t see the hazards and chart a new course.
“I don’t know how to be easier and softer,” she whispered. “When Michael died, I felt like, if I fell apart, the rest of my family would too. I�
��ve gone twenty years holding on to that thought, and holding on to myself by a thread. Making sure everything was ordered and neat and perfect became a way to control what was uncontrollable.”
“And putting your life on hold in the process. Your girls are grown. They don’t need you to brush their hair or make them eat their vegetables. They just need you to be”—a bittersweet smile crossed Mary’s face—”their friend.”
In the soft hitch of that word, Colleen heard longing. For a do-over for all those years she’d kept Mary at a distance. When she was young, the space between them had been a by-product of Mary’s constant travel. She’d barely known her sister. But after Mom’s death—and it was still weird dealing with this who’s-your-mother thing—Mary had come around more. At first, Colleen had loved the time with the sister she had missed so much.
Then Mary dropped that bombshell in Colleen’s lap, and her first reaction had been to shut it out. Shut her out. To use the shock and betrayal as an excuse to avoid the truth and, in the process, avoid Mary.
She thought of how much it had hurt to hear that door shut behind her daughters today. Her girls—her heart. If she ever lost them for good, Colleen knew she would curl up into a ball and die.
Mary must have felt the same thing when Colleen had walked away five years ago and cut off all contact. She could see that pain echoing still in Mary’s eyes and in that little bit of hope she’d heard in the words talk to me.
Maybe it wasn’t too late for them to figure out how to be…friends, or whatever this was going to be. Maybe it wasn’t too late for Colleen to learn how to do the same with her own daughters.
“Will you…” It took a bit to push the next words out, to admit maybe she didn’t have it all together like she thought she did. “Help me?”
“Of course.” Mary squeezed Colleen’s hand. “That’s what I’m here for, Colleen. What I’ve always been here for.”
The two them sat in the dim bakery for a long time, talking like friends, like family, and, finally, like mother and daughter.