by March, Mia
“I understand, Bea.”
Bea hated the concern in her eyes. You’re a stranger, Bea wanted to shout. A total stranger.
“When you’re ready,” Veronica said, “if you want, I’d like to meet again. I’d love to learn more about you.”
Bea tried to smile but she felt so jumpy and uncomfortable. “I’ll call.” She sounded like one of those noncommittal guys after a so-so date. “Thank you for the pie,” she added, grabbed her bag, and headed toward the door. Veronica opened the door for her, and she hurried out, aware that Veronica was staring after her.
Oh, darn, she thought as she was about to say good-bye and then flee. She’d forgotten to tell Veronica about the Hope Home article. “I almost forgot. I found out about Hope Home from my original birth certificate, and when I went for a visit a few days ago, I met a reporter who’s writing a big article about the home’s fiftieth anniversary. I told her my story and didn’t give your name on the record, of course. But I wanted you to know that I did talk to her. She’s staying at the same inn I am. She got me a temporary job there, and it comes with a room.”
Veronica’s eyes widened. “So you’ll be staying in town for a while, then?”
“For a couple of weeks,” Bea said. Was Veronica happy about that? Worried?
“I appreciate that you didn’t give the reporter the okay to use my name. I’m pretty well known in town because I work at such a popular diner and because of my pie business too, but I’m a pretty private person. I’m not sure I’d want my personal history in the paper.”
“Are you upset that I let her interview me?”
“No, not at all.”
“I think she’s especially interested in the here and now where we’re concerned,” Bea said. “I know she’d love to talk to you too.”
“I’m not sure I’m up for that,” Veronica said.
“I can understand that. Well, good-bye then.”
“Good-bye,” Veronica said, and Bea could see tears shimmering in her eyes again, which she was trying hard not to show.
Chapter 14
VERONICA
Veronica shut the door behind Bea, half wanting to go running after her and hug her tight and ask her to come back, half wanting to never have to answer another of Bea’s questions.
Bea looked so much like Veronica and Timothy. She had Timothy’s blond hair, and there was something about the shape of her face and the general expression that were all Timothy Macintosh, but the features were Veronica’s. The round, pale brown eyes. The straight, pointy nose. Wide mouth. She had the hint of a cleft in her chin, like Timothy. She was tall, like both of them. Fine boned, like Veronica.
You have my nose, Veronica had thought over and over while she’d been sitting so close to Bea, trying not to stare. And my mouth. I see myself in your face.
Every time Bea smiled, which hadn’t been often, she saw her own smile, with Timothy’s long, even, white teeth.
She sat back down on the sofa, staring at Bea’s teacup, the faintest bit of berry-colored lipstick on the rim.
The phone rang, and Veronica would have ignored it, but it might be Bea.
It was Nick DeMarco. Relief unwound the tight muscles of her shoulders.
“Just checking in,” he said. “I know you were meeting with your birth daughter tonight.”
Veronica burst into tears. She couldn’t stop. She sat there, clutching the phone and crying, unable to speak.
“Veronica, I’m coming over. Just hang on.”
She hung up the phone and buried her face in her hands. You’re just overwhelmed, is all, she told herself.
She went into the bathroom for a tissue and dabbed under her eyes, but when she looked in the mirror, all she could think about was how much Bea looked like her, that the young woman who’d been sitting on her sofa fifteen minutes ago was the same six-pound weight Veronica had held against her chest in the ambulance twenty-two years ago.
The doorbell rang, and when Veronica opened the door, the sight of Nick, in jeans and a dark green Henley T-shirt, almost obliterated all other thought. The look in his eyes—concern, curiosity . . . interest, Veronica thought—was everything she needed right now. She did have friends, and she did open up to Shelley often, but she mostly kept to herself and never talked about the baby she’d given up for adoption or her travels the past twenty-two years. But Nick knew; he knew her from high school. He knew Bea had called her. He knew they’d met for the first time tonight. And here he was, standing on her doorstep, strong shoulders and all.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had strong shoulders to lean on, and she was overtaken by the need for him to pull her into his arms and just hold her. He wouldn’t of course, that would be crazy, but she wanted him to—and that scared her. She relied on no one.
“The two of you got together tonight?” he asked.
She nodded and stepped aside for him to come in. “I could use some coffee. Maybe a glass of wine.”
“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” he said. “Leigh’s on a sleepover tonight at her friend’s and will be going to school straight from their house, so I don’t have to rush back.”
“How are things with her grandparents?” she asked as she led the way into the kitchen.
“They call Leigh every day—sometimes I think more to check up on me than because they want to hear that she has double-digit multiplication homework. God forbid she didn’t have eggs for breakfast—I’d never hear the end of it. And when she told them she was going on a sleepover tonight after having stayed at their house last night? They assume I pushed her into the sleepover so I could have ‘women over.’ ”
“Oh, Nick, I’m so sorry you have to deal with all that pressure. I figure it’s hard enough to raise a girl on your own.”
“Tell you the truth, it’s not that hard. Mostly because Leigh’s a great kid, but things are great at home. We have a routine, we have a great relationship. I give her what she needs, I’m there for her. But because I’m not her mother, because of the trouble between us when her mother died, I’ve been the enemy for two years, and now they’re keeping a list of my infractions.”
“Because of a Pop-Tart for breakfast? Or whatever wasn’t ‘eggs’?”
“She had a bowl of Cheerios and a glass of orange juice and that was too skimpy for them.”
In the cabinet Veronica found a bottle of wine that Shelley had given her last Christmas. She wasn’t much of a drinker, but she’d love some red wine right now. “I think we could both use a glass of this.”
He sat down at the round table by the window, and Veronica was struck by how the moonlight filtering through the curtains rested on his dark hair, on his green shirt. “Anyway, forget my crazy life. Tell me about meeting your birth daughter.”
“She’s exquisite,” Veronica said, handing him his glass of wine as she sat down across from him. “Lovely. She seems very intelligent, polite, kind. She had no idea she was adopted until just a month ago. She found out in a deathbed confession letter.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Are both her parents gone?”
She nodded. “I can’t imagine how shocking that letter must have been. She must have started questioning everything she knew about herself.”
“She must have had a lot of questions for you.”
“I had no idea how hard it would be to answer those questions, though. I don’t want to tell her how awful it was back then, how my parents treated me, how her father treated me, how completely alone I was.”
He took a slug of the wine and looked down at the table, then up at her. This time, she could read his expression: compassion. “Sixteen years old. You must have been so scared.”
She also took a sip of wine. “I was. Sometimes, when I look back on that time, I don’t know how I got through it.”
He shook his head and was quiet for a moment. “I remember Timothy telling us—a group of his friends—that his girlfriend was saying he’d gotten her pregnant and that there was no way it was t
rue. I wasn’t sure what to think then.”
She felt that old familiar stirring of shame, of embarrassment in her gut. “Because of my reputation?”
“Because Timothy was my friend and I didn’t know you at all. He never brought you around us.”
Veronica nodded. “He used to tell me he didn’t want me to hang out with his friends because he hated what they thought they knew about me, he hated my reputation. He said he was never able to change it, make anyone think he was seeing me because he really liked me, not because I’d ‘go all the way.’ ”
“I wasn’t all that close with him; I was more a friend of a few of his close friends, but I remember how everyone would talk crap to him about getting lucky. God, I’m sorry, Veronica.”
“Well, then I got pregnant and confirmed everyone’s opinion of me. The slut got knocked up. I thought he’d stand by me, tell everyone that he was the only guy I’d ever been with, but I think he was so shocked, scared maybe, that he wanted to believe the worst so he could walk away, pretend it didn’t involve him.”
“So he told everyone he wasn’t the father, that he used condoms, that it couldn’t be his.”
Veronica nodded. “I never saw or heard from him again. Not a word. The day after I told him I was pregnant, I was sent away, to Hope Home, the home for pregnant teenagers on the outskirts of Boothbay Harbor. My parents washed their hands of me—they even filed emancipation papers on my behalf. And then after I had the baby, I left the state. How can I tell Bea all this?”
“The truth is the truth, isn’t it?”
Veronica shrugged and looked away. “When she was sitting right next to me, all I could think of was that she’d been that six-pound baby girl I got to hold for two minutes. Completely innocent, having nothing—and everything—to do with how she was brought into the world. I don’t want her to know the truth. Even if she says she wants it.”
“You’re a good person, Veronica,” he said, reaching for her hand and holding it. “I’m sorry I didn’t know you back in high school. I’m sorry I wasn’t your friend.”
She started to cry again, and he was beside her in seconds, lifting her out of the chair and wrapping his arms around her, after all.
He held her for barely fifteen seconds, but it felt like forever—in a good way. She could smell his soap, the faint scent of laundry detergent, and the feel of his arms around her was better than anything she could have imagined.
She backed away, afraid that he’d kiss her when she couldn’t handle it; the idea of it scared her so much that she moved across the room and turned her back to him. Thirty-eight years old and unable to act normal in front of a man. God.
“Should I go?” he asked, leaning against the counter, his hands in his pockets.
She turned around. “No. I’m just . . .”
“Overwhelmed?”
She nodded. “Exactly that, yes.”
“Meeting your daughter is monumental, Veronica.”
Yes. And so is being in your arms like that.
“My head feels like it’s going to explode,” she said.
“If you’re all talked out, we can just watch a movie.”
He’d surprised her. “That’s exactly what I am. All talked out.”
“That’s two for two on reading you,” he said.
He didn’t seem to be flirting; there was gravitas in his expression. Compassion again. She hadn’t been able to read him before, and it was unnerving that he was so good at reading her.
“A movie sounds perfect. Take us both out of our lives for a couple of hours.” She thought about the film she had on deck for tonight. “Have you ever seen A Single Man? About a British professor grieving over the loss of his partner in the early 1960s? I missed it when it first came out, but now that I’m an extra on the Colin Firth movie shooting here in town, I plan to watch every one of his films. He was nominated for an Oscar for this role.”
“I had no idea you were an extra for the movie. That’s great. What’s it like?”
She told him about mostly sitting around for two days, and how yesterday they’d started filming a scene in the meadow. “My job was to walk and check my watch at the same time, and I almost messed that up.” She didn’t have to mention the finger jabbing. She was glad to be finished with heavy conversation and memories.
“Well, let’s celebrate your new gig by watching A Single Man, then. I haven’t seen it.”
And so fifteen minutes later, they sat in the living room, watching the opening credits of A Single Man, a slice of blackberry pie on a plate in front of him and two cups of coffee on the table. If anyone had told her a few weeks ago that one night in late June, she’d meet her birth daughter, tell Nick DeMarco her life story down to the last detail, then watch a movie with him, his feet up on the ottoman, his arm stretched out across the back of her sofa, his fingers brushing her own shoulder, she would have laughed. Now here they were.
“This pie is insanely good,” he said, his fork cutting through another bite. “Is this one of your special kinds?”
“It’s just plain old Happiness Pie.”
“Nothing plain or old about happiness.”
She smiled at him, a weight lifting off her shoulders—why, she wasn’t sure. She just knew that she never wanted him to leave this room. As long as he didn’t touch her or try to kiss her, that was. Yet, anyway.
Chapter 15
GEMMA
The morning light streaming in through the filmy curtains on the window in her room at the Three Captains’ Inn woke Gemma, and she was surprised to find Alex in bed beside her. A full week away from him and she’d gotten used to hogging the center of the bed and the blanket. She’d gotten used to him not being there. And lately, yes, his not being there was a good thing. But the sight of him lying there, facing away from her, his broad, tanned back, the way his thick sandy-blond hair curled behind his ear, was still familiar and comforting.
They’d argued all night long, getting nowhere. They’d gone out to dinner, for Chinese food, since she was craving sesame chicken and fried dumplings, and she’d laid out her plan to him. She would find a great new job as a reporter, despite disclosing her pregnancy. She would work until the last minute, then take maternity leave. During her leave, they would line up a loving nanny with impeccable references, then she would return to work on schedule. They would alternate taking off for when the baby was sick or had an appointment with the pediatrician. Both of them would take off for in-school teacher conferences, concerts, and various holiday celebrations. She would not, under any circumstances, become like Caitlin Auerman, she’d added to herself.
“Absolutely not,” he’d said after a long, hard stare.
“Yet my plan is exactly what you’re planning to do, isn’t it? Except you won’t be taking maternity leave—no need, right? And I’ll be your nanny, won’t I? I’ll be the one staying home with the baby. I’ll be the one taking the baby to doctor’s appointments.”
“For God’s sake, Gemma, you’re not going to be the damned nanny. You’re going to be the mother. Get that through your head.”
“But your life doesn’t change at all.”
“Yes, it does. I’ll be solely responsible for taking financial care of our family. I’ll be a father. My entire life is going to change. How dare you say it won’t?”
“You’re not giving up everything you want. Why can’t you see this?”
“Gemma, what are you giving up? You don’t have a job. The timing couldn’t be more perfect.”
She’d known he would say exactly this.
“So if the roles were reversed,” she said, “if it were you who’d lost your job, you’d be fine with staying home with the baby, being a stay-at-home dad, your entire life revolving around the baby instead of prosecuting criminals, pursuing justice, making a difference in the world.”
“Gemma, you’re pregnant. You don’t have a job. You’ve sent out a bunch of résumés and haven’t gotten a call back. How easily do you think you’d get you
r dream job when you have to disclose at an interview that you’re pregnant?”
“Can we just eat,” she said, stabbing her fork in a dumpling. She was surprised she didn’t lose her appetite.
“Gem, I love you. We’re going to have a baby. Aren’t you happy about that at all? We’re having a baby.”
She put her fork down, tears stinging her eyes. “I’m not going to be a good mother anyway,” she whispered. “I don’t have a maternal bone in my body.”
He reached across the table and took both her hands. “You do so. You’re incredibly loving and kind and generous. You have a huge heart, Gem. You’re going to be a great mother.”
“I don’t know where you get that faith from,” she said, and as usual, that faith buoyed her up some, made her feel better. “Do you really think I’d be a good mother?”
“You will be a great mother. No doubt.”
Now, the memory of how relieved she’d been to hear him say it, to hear in his voice how much he believed it, made her spoon against him in bed, her cheek against his warm shoulder. She wondered if he could be right, if she could work at it, develop maternal instincts. Maybe once you had the baby, hormones and biological impulses took over. She would love her baby, that much she knew. Maybe love was three-quarters of the battle, the big motivator.
He turned around to face her, lying on his side, and the streaming sunlight lit his hair. “How are you feeling, Gem? Tired?”
“Actually, I feel pretty good. I’m really looking forward to today’s plans. I’ve got three interviews scheduled. One with a teenager who’s giving her baby up for adoption, and two with residents of Boothbay Harbor who have strong opinions on Hope Home and the effect they feel the home has on the town. One woman thinks that a home for pregnant teenagers encourages teenagers to get pregnant, encourages a false sense of protectiveness. Another feels there should be a center in every county in the state.” She was hoping to meet with at least one former resident of Hope Home who had lived there in the sixties or seventies, and Pauline was working on arranging interviews.