I Love You, Jilly Sanders

by Cindy Lou Daniels

  She retreated slowly, not wanting to disturb them. There was no place else for her to run to; she had to go back to the living room.

  She looked at Jane Sandra. Why was she scared? Was she frightened that maybe this tall stranger with her reddish hair and thin lips was her mother? Or was she terrified because she feared the opposite?

  “Is everything all right?” Gwen asked. She looked at Jilly, clearly puzzled.

  Jilly nodded.

  “I think,” Mackenzie said, “I’m going to go home for a while.”

  “Could Tage stay here to help me with the girls?” Gwen asked, but she darted a glance toward Jilly.

  Mackenzie nodded and gave Gwen a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ll be back later,” he told her.

  Did Gwen know? Jilly wondered. Had Jane Sandra said something to Gwen before they’d returned?

  As if in answer to Gwen’s words, Jilly heard Shye coming down the stairs. She waltzed into the living room, dragging her blanket in one hand and the stuffed bear Otto had given to Ariana in the other. “I’m hungry,” she told everyone. “Can I have pops?”

  “She means corn pops,” Gwen said to Jane Sandra. “This is Shye, my oldest daughter.”

  Jane Sandra nodded her head, but Jilly noticed her staring at the bear. Of course she would recognize it; she had probably looked in that cedar chest a million times as a child.

  Gwen started to take Shye into the kitchen when Ariana’s cries came floating down the stairs. “Another country heard from,” Gwen muttered. “Tage, could you get Shye her cereal, and I’ll get the baby.”

  Tage rubbed Jilly’s back briefly as he passed by and she smiled at him gratefully, but then she was alone in the living room with Jane Sandra.

  The woman smiled at her hesitantly. “You wrote to me,” she said, but her tone held no note of question. “I got your letter.”

  Jilly plunked down in the easy chair, her knees no longer able to support her.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t answer you, but there were reasons.” Jane Sandra linked her hands together and centered them in her lap. “I’m a professor,” she said, “at a local university where I live; I couldn’t just up and leave during the semester, and I didn’t want to send a letter here—”

  Otto and Cat walked back into the living room. Jilly smiled gratefully at Otto. He reached over and rumpled her hair. “You’re back,” Jilly said. She could see it—could literally see the happiness in his brilliant blue eyes.

  “Yes,” Otto said simply. He carried the journal, and he nodded toward it. “I’d forgotten, but now I’m up-to-date.” He set down on the couch and patted a place next to him for Cat and she joined him.

  He looked at Jane Sandra. “I agree with you,” he said. “Sending a letter here would not have been the best thing to do, but under the circumstances . . .” His gaze strayed toward Jilly.

  “Otto,” Jane Sandra said. “Don’t you think I would have told you?”

  Otto frowned. “Not necessarily.” He shrugged. “Why would you?”

  Jane Sandra blinked rapidly, as though she could blink away whatever answer his casual question had formed.

  “What is it you want?” Otto asked her, his voice gruff but not unkind. “After all this time, why have you come back?”

  “Jilly wrote to me. There’s been a huge misunderstanding, and I—I wanted to set things straight once and for all.”

  “Your mother set things straight years ago, didn’t she?”

  Jane Sandra stood up; she looked shaky. “If you want me to go—”

  “Oh, sit down,” Otto ordered. He rubbed his chin. “I think, since these ladies have become my family, and since Jilly obviously doesn’t know the entire truth, they have the right to know the whole story.”

  Jane Sandra sat back down. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She sucked in an audible breath.

  “Shall I start?” Otto said.

  Chapter XXX.

  The question was rhetorical; he didn’t wait for her answer. “I haven’t seen Jane Sandra in almost seventeen years. Haven’t heard from her, either, or from Mirabelle.” He looked at Cat. “You remember: she was my wife,” he told her and she nodded. He reached out and clasped her hand, Cat’s darker skin linked protectively with his own.

  “Right before Jane Sandra’s sixteenth birthday, the two of us were trying to surprise her mother. I was going to teach her to drive.”

  Jilly knew this part of the story, but it still horrified her to hear Otto tell of the accident, his voice cracking with emotion even though she could see him struggle to remain calm.

  “When we got to the hospital, I was all right. A miracle, the doctors said. I only had a few broken ribs.” He smiled wryly at Cat here; she winced, and touched her own ribs in a show of sympathy.

  Otto looked away and stared at the floor. “Jane Sandra had severed an artery in her leg. Her face, too, had been cut extensively by the glass from the windshield. I barely recognized her.” He cleared his throat. “The doctors had begun to stitch up the cuts when Mirabelle arrived.”

  He looked up then, and his lips smiled, but his face remained sad. “She blamed me. Blamed me for the accident, blamed me for a lot of things. She always had. She even blamed me for Kaitlyn’s death. Nothing had been right between us since then—” His laugh was bitter. “Well, since before then, really, as I discovered when the doctor came out and said Mirabelle could go in and see Jane Sandra.”

  He stopped talking. Wearily, he rubbed his hand over his eyes.

  “Mother couldn’t stand the sight of me,” Jane Sandra told them, her voice flat and expressionless. “I had cuts all over my face, and the doctor had stitched them up. Later I had plastic surgery . . .” She ran her finger over her cheekbone as if she could still feel the scars.

  She brought herself back to the present with a wry smile. “I found out later Mother went out to the waiting room and raged at Otto. She said he’d caused the accident we had been in. That he’d destroyed what I looked like because he knew he wasn’t my father—and he couldn’t bear the sight of my face that looked so much like my real father.” She met Otto’s eyes. “I didn’t know it, either,” she said. “I found out at almost the same time you did. Right before we left, Mother told me the whole story of my existence.

  “She said she’d been about two months pregnant when she met you—and when the man who’d gotten her that way left town, she’d convinced you to have sex with her.” Jane Sandra swallowed. “She said it was easy because you were crazy in love with her.”

  Otto laughed again, but there was no humor in his voice. “She was right about that,” he said.

  Jilly’s heart fluttered painfully. Poor Otto.

  “I married Mirabelle in 1964, after I’d known her about four months. Back then it wasn’t proper for a girl to do anything—” He looked pained—“sexual before she was married, but Mirabelle knew I was hotter than a tomcat for her and, well, we made love only a couple weeks after we started dating.” He looked at Cat. “God, I loved her, I loved everything about her—or I thought I did. After Mirabelle told me she was pregnant—we got married in September and she had the baby in February—Jane Sandra here was born. We were happy together, and I thought we had something special together. I would have married her all over again.

  “About a year later Mirabelle had another baby, but this one died on the day it was born—we named her Kaitlyn Ella—and after that, there were no more babies. Mirabelle used to go off by herself, sometimes for a full day, but I didn’t think much about it. She’d gotten melancholy since the death of Kaitlyn. I didn’t know she’d been seeing other men regular, or that she’d had an operation so she couldn’t have any more kids. This went on for years, and Jane Sandra grew up.

  “I didn’t know if Mirabelle loved me or hated me. I always thought she blamed me somehow for Kaitlyn’s death, and that’s what made her turn cold.”

  “I always thought Mother loved you,” Jane Sandra said softly. “Before she started feeling so m
uch shame over what she had done you. Once she started thinking about what she had done, she couldn’t put it out of her mind. It drove her crazy, and to save herself she tried to blame you.” She hesitated, then added, “I always loved you.”

  Otto cleared his throat. “Yes . . . well . . .” He blinked several times before he continued the story. “After Kaitlyn died, Jane Sandra took to hanging on her mother’s skirts like a possum baby—did so her whole life—and I thought their closeness was good. I loved them both and I only wanted them to be happy. That’s all I ever really wanted—”

  He broke off, and Jilly could see he was unable to speak.

  “I was the one responsible for that accident,” Jane Sandra said. “There’s some treacherous curves up there, and a log truck came along and I swerved and hit a cement embankment. I guess it’s true that Otto wasn’t hurt too badly—but it’s not true he was responsible for the accident.” Jane Sandra bit her lip, and drew in a deep breath. “Mother, I think, had lost her reason, if not her mind. Otto didn’t know I wasn’t his daughter—not until Mother accused him of trying to destroy me.” She swallowed. “But she was the one who really destroyed everything. She gave up our family because she felt guilty about all of her lies.”

  The room fell into a silence so complete Jilly felt as though someone had dropped a plastic bag over her face. If Jane Sandra wasn’t Otto’s daughter, he wasn’t her grandfather, either.

  Jilly felt a stinging sensation in her chest, as though someone had injected Novocain into her heart.

  Jane Sandra coughed delicately. “We left, mother and I. We had to. Otto refused to speak to either one of us. I wished I were dead for a long time. I blamed myself. If I hadn’t been born, none of this would have happened. I tried to tell Otto. I wrote him a letter, but we never heard from him.”

  Jane Sandra looked sad but determined as she added, “It was probably for the best. Mother met up with another man and left me with Aunt Delilah. That’s when I learned what life must have been like for Otto for all those years. Aunt Delilah told me Mother had always been wild, even as a very young girl. She believed Mother never loved Otto the way he loved her, and she told me what Mother did to you that day in the hospital.” Her chin wrinkled as though she was a small child, but she caught herself and took a deep breath. “That’s why I never contacted you again,” she told Otto. “I figured we deserved your silence, Mother and I, after what we had done to you.” She cleared her throat. “Just so you know, I’ve never contacted my biological father. I never felt the need. And Mother never returned to Aunt Delilah’s. We heard she died a few years ago.”

  Otto looked faintly surprised, but not unduly upset by the news. Jilly didn’t blame him. Mirabelle had lied to him for years.

  “So why did you send Jilly out here?” Otto asked. “Did you hope to reconcile after all these years?”

  Jane Sandra’s lips whitened. “I didn’t—”

  Jilly thought she might throw up. Jane Sandra didn’t look like the type to try to make trouble, but she wouldn’t lie, either. That much was obvious.

  “Because I’ve been an old fool,” Otto said, not letting her finish. He reached down and stroked the cover of the marbled journal. “I spent years regretting my life,” he said. “Even before I lost my day memory. And then things got even worse. The only thing I could remember clearly was you and Mirabelle and the accident that took you all away. And I had no new memories to take its place.”

  Jilly saw Cat reach up to stroke Otto’s arm. He smiled at her. “Or at least I didn’t until Jilly came along and brought all these new people into my life.” He picked up the journal and stroked it again, his fingers bent and gnarled but his touch firm and smooth.

  “I’m through with that,” he said. “I want to live my life and at least make an effort to be happy.”

  Jilly blinked. She’d been right all those months ago: memory did make a person . . . but not the way she had imagined. A person had choices: to lie, to live in the past, or to make new memories, honest ones that promised something to one’s self.

  “I’m sorry,” Jane Sandra said to Otto. “I’m sorry for everything—”

  Otto shook his head. “No,” he said. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.

  It’s Mirabelle and I who should be sorry. We were the grown-ups; you were just a child. We should have taken better care of you.”

  Otto flipped open his journal and took his pen out of his pocket. He spoke the words aloud as his pen wrote them in the memory journal: “I can’t forgive my daughter because she has done nothing to be forgiven for. I only hope she can forgive me.”

  “Do you really think of me as your daughter?” Jane Sandra asked, her voice choked.

  “I raised you, didn’t I? At least up until I turned foolish.” He grinned at her. “And that’s what makes a parent. Taking care of somebody no matter what. I only hope you can forgive me.”

  Jane Sandra nodded. “Maybe we can start fresh, and keep in touch from now on.” Then she looked at Jilly.

  Instinctively, Jilly wanted to say ‘don’t tell’, to beg Jane Sandra to take her into her heart anyway, to keep the story she’d been living alive, but her throat pinched shut painfully. She licked her lips and swallowed dryly in an effort to get her voice to come out. “I think I’m going to go outside,” she said faintly. She hated herself for not being brave enough to tell them all to their faces that she had never been certain Otto was her grandfather.

  Jane Sandra shook her head. “Not yet, please.” She looked at Cat and Otto. “There’s another reason I couldn’t write a letter,” she said, her voice slow and careful. “I didn’t want to break someone’s heart, even though I knew I’d have to eventually.”

  Jilly ran then, ran outside, her feet flying over the new spring grass, crushing it under the weight of her steps.

  Chapter XXXI.

  Nothing was what she thought it was.

  She came to the old car and yanked the door open, her wrist snapping painfully. She dove into the car face first, her sobs muffled by the musty car seat. She cried those choking, death-like kind of tears, until she felt her nose running and she couldn’t sniffle it away. She felt as though she were seven-years-old again. Only this time, she knew for certain the loss of her family was her own fault.

  She sat up and from the corner of her eye she saw Jane Sandra approaching the car. She wiped her nose on the end of her shirt. There wasn’t anything else available. Besides, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. Everything was over, and it was time to be strong enough to move onward, to build new memories.

  Jane Sandra walked slowly, approaching the car timidly, and when she reached it, she didn’t get in. “I haven’t seen this old car since the accident,” she said. “I used to think I’d hate to ever be near it again . . .” she trailed off.

  Jilly could see her running her hand along the rooftop.

  “But I tell you,” Jane Sandra said, “seeing this car is not as bad as I thought it was going to be.” She cleared her throat. “Just like coming home wasn’t as bad as I thought. Sometimes the truth hurts,” she said. “But it hurts more to keep yourself in the dark, to imagine things you think may be the truth, but that turn out to be nothing but something you’ve created in your own mind.”

  Jilly’s throat felt clogged and swollen. She climbed out of the car and stood beside Jane Sandra. “You’re not my mother. I know that now.”

  Jane Sandra dropped her hands to her side and shook her head gently. “I’ve never had any children,” she said.

  Jilly blinked, and looked up at the sky. The blue background was cloudless.

  She blinked again and the sky lightened and blurred. “You must think I’m pretty stupid,” she said. “Coming out here and—and assuming that Otto—” Her throat clicked and the words were lost. “I just wanted so badly to find her,” she said. She shook her head. “I never meant to lie to everyone.”

  “I don’t think you’re stupid at all,” Jane Sandra denied. “I�
��m guilty of the same thing, really. Maybe we all are.” She shrugged. “I felt so guilty over my mother’s actions I couldn’t see past her into me. Maybe you and I have learned the hard way that children shouldn’t take on the burdens and sins of their parents. We have to learn to be our own people.”

  “But what am I going to do now?” Jilly said. She hated the sound of desolation in her voice, but she didn’t know how to stop it. “I don’t belong here. I don’t belong anywhere.” She wanted to crawl back into the car and hide her face again.

  “What do you mean?” Jane Sandra asked. “Of course you belong here. Why wouldn’t you?”

  “I’m not family,” Jilly said. “You are. Otto said so. You should stay here now, at least for the summer—” She broke off, and her shoulders drooped. “I don’t have any right to invite you to stay here. I do that all the time. It’s a weakness of mine.”

  Jane Sandra laughed lightly. “Not a weakness, Jilly, a strength.” She hopped up on the trunk of the car. “Look what you’ve accomplished here. You’re the reason all of these people—all of these strangers, including me—are together now.”

  “But once they find out what I’ve done, they won’t want me to stay,” Jilly said.

  “What have you done that’s so terrible? You made a mistake about who your mother was, that’s all. Don’t you want to stay here?” Jane Sandra asked.

  “Of course I do! I love Otto and Cat, and I love Gwen and the girls. She’s going to marry Mackenzie, you know. And Tage . . .” Her lips curved in a helpless smile. “Tage is special.”

  “So are you,” Jane Sandra said. “Don’t you think these guys love you as much as you love them?”

  Jilly’s stomach fisted. “Why should they love me? My own mother—if you were my mother—”

  “I’m sorry I’m not your mother,” Jane Sandra said. “And in all honesty, Jilly,

  I won’t pretend to be your mother, either. That wouldn’t be fair to either of us. I have a good life, and whether you realize it or not, so do you. Besides, whoever your mother is doesn’t really matter, not in the grand scheme of things. And what she did doesn’t have anything to do with other people loving you. Or with you loving yourself.” Jane Sandra wrapped her arms around her knees. “That’s your real problem,” she said wisely. “Why don’t you love yourself?”