And by tomorrow, everyone in town would know she’d screwed him in a window. Way to create a connection with the locals.
She reached for her knitting, still in its basket where she’d left it on the kitchen table. Thank God for the lace. It might keep her from going stark raving insane during the next few moments she had to spend with her mother.
“Have you had sex yet?”
“Mom.” Naomi pretended to search for a dropped stitch when it was actually a simple knit-back row.
“Fine. Don’t tell me. But this is what I have to tell you, darling: don’t wait too long. You need to get a man like that on the hook, and catch him. Pull him into your boat before—” Maybelle stopped speaking and looked down into her ice cubes. “You can keep it from him that you’re not perfect until you snare him.”
Naomi exhaled sharply. “You sound like a magazine article from the fifties. Do you really believe that? Did Buzz think you were perfect when you got married?”
Maybelle nodded, confidence exuding from every tight pore. “He thought there was nothing better than me. I’ve still never once farted around him.”
Naomi winced. “That doesn’t sound healthy.”
“Healthy for the relationship, though. And that’s what I’m trying to say to you. Keep the romance alive, keep that spark, make him wonder a little, never show him all the mystery. A little suspense adds spice.” She shot a sharp look at her daughter. “And get your hair done. You’ve got a little gray coming in now, haven’t you? You get that early silver from me, poor thing.”
Naomi moved the salt shaker, a little pink girl owl, away from the pepper, a little blue boy owl. Since she hadn’t known her mother was coming to town, most of the owl things were put away. At least these were out.
“That’s a game, Mom. I don’t want that.”
“Not a game so much as a clever plan. Nothing wrong with that, right? Didn’t you have a plan when you wanted to be a doctor?”
Of course she had. But Maybelle wouldn’t know much about that plan. Her father had been the one who had plotted and schemed with Naomi late at night while she was in high school, critiquing her college entrance essays, and planning which college campuses to visit on school break. After he’d died, even though no one else she knew worked full-time through medical school, she had, picking up whatever waitressing job would provide her with the most flexibility. She’d worked as hard as she could, at everything.
“Of course I had a plan,” said Naomi.
“There.” Maybelle tapped the top of the table with her French-manicured nail. “That’s what I’m talking about. No different from when you were in college. You were so good at things then.”
“And now?”
Maybelle took a sip of water and looked up at the ceiling.
“Okay, Mom. I think I’ll—”
“No, don’t go. I have more to say.”
Naomi should have known she wouldn’t get off so easily. Her head ached, throbbing in time with her heartbeat, but she stayed at the table. Just a few more minutes, a few more stitches, and then she’d be able to cry in bed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Anna. But I’d just found out and—”
“You should have told me. I’m furious with you about that. But no matter who that father is, I know one thing: it’s going to be a gorgeous baby. I can’t even imagine what I’ll feel, holding my perfect little grandchild. I wonder if I can talk her into coming home with me this time . . .”
“Are you kidding me?”
Maybelle looked at her hot-pink-tipped manicure.
Naomi went on, feeling almost frantic. “I don’t get it. I’ve never done anything right on your terms in my whole life. I’ve been screwing up, left and right, from the moment you left me with Dad. At least he loved me, just as I was. You’ve always pushed and pushed me. Now that Anna’s knocked up, you’re supporting her? You’re not going to be mad, even a little bit? But you’re mad at me for not telling you, when it wasn’t my job in the first place?”
“I just—”
“What, Mom? You just what?” Nothing her mother said could change the fact that she was always going to play second fiddle in her mother’s estimation, and yeah, that hurt. Like hell.
“I just never expected any more from her.” Maybelle’s words were flat, without affect.
The words shocked Naomi into closing her mouth, into swallowing the retort she hadn’t quite come up with. Finally she managed, “What do you mean?” But she knew. In a small, ashamed part of her heart, she wondered if she’d felt the same way about Anna as her mother had. God, she hoped she hadn’t. But it was possible.
Maybelle sighed heavily, and it sounded real. “It was the same with me, you know. When I got pregnant with you. She’s just repeating her mother’s mistakes.”
“But you were with Daddy.”
Her mother laced her fingers together so tightly Naomi could see her knuckles going white. Again, she remained silent.
“Mom. You were with Daddy. It was totally different from the situation Anna’s in.”
Maybelle met her eyes, and with a thunk, Naomi felt something drop heavily into place.
“You weren’t with Daddy.”
“I couldn’t . . .”
“You couldn’t what, Mom? Tell me the most important truth of my life?” Naomi took a deep breath around her tightening chest. “Who was he, then?”
“Naomi, I can’t just . . .”
“You have to.” Naomi had never felt such a combination of shock mixed with grief. If the one person who’d ever really, truly loved her wasn’t her father, then where did that leave her in the world? Who was she?
Nobody.
Maybelle, looking more miserable than Naomi had ever seen her look, said, “He was a young man I met while I was traveling, trying to see the world. He was married to a woman he loved but who didn’t love him. He already had a son. When he found out I was pregnant, he said he couldn’t see me again. He cut off everything.”
“I have a brother?” This was just too much. “Where is my . . . father now?”
“He died. A long time ago.”
“Oh, good. Just like my fake dad. How did you know? Were you keeping track of him the whole time?”
Maybelle looked like she was about to cry. Her fingers still fought each other, the acrylic ends clicking, an echo of Naomi’s needles that, astonishingly, were still moving. “Facebook.”
Naomi let out a sharp-edged laugh. “Are you serious?”
“Not that long ago, an old friend of a friend put together a list of the people we’d been traveling with that summer. He wasn’t on it, and another friend asked why.”
Naomi would never have a chance to know him. She’d never meet him. Naomi stopped knitting, finally, and wound the leading yarn around her fingers, wanting them to go as white and bloodless as Maybelle’s knuckles. “Do you know where my . . . brother is?”
Maybelle bit a nail tip between her teeth. “No, I’m sorry. I haven’t tried to find out. And honey, you have to understand that Daddy is still your father. He was that, in every single way,” Maybelle said, panic rising in her voice.
“Except he wasn’t my father. Ever.”
“He was. He loved you so much, Naomi—I wish you could know how much—he was there when you were born. He chose you as his from your first breath. He held you first. Before I even did. He claimed you as his.”
“Daddy was the one thing that buoyed me up in the face of your indifference. Why didn’t you tell me? What possible excuse could you have had for keeping the most important thing in my life a secret?”
“You loved your father. If I was bad at being your mother, I could always rest easier knowing I’d given you the best father in the world.” Maybelle paled even further. “I know you think . . . Anna told me. But—”
“Anna told you what?” A fear crept into Naomi’s heart that she didn’t know how to name.
“That you’ve always thought you were second best to me.”
Naom
i’s blood felt icy. “Where did she get that information?”
“She said Rig told her. When they were working on a surprise for you. But, honey—”
“Stop.” Naomi let the right needle go. “Stop for a minute.” She’d told Rig in confidence, when she was sick, her secret belief that her mother loved her two daughters very differently. It was something she’d never said out loud, until she said it to him. And he’d gone and told her sister? Anna had of course run and blabbed it to their mother, which made it a million times worse.
“Is that why Anna called you? To talk about me? Not to tell you that you were going to be a grandmother?”
Maybelle flinched. “What matters is that she called. And that I came. And now I can tell you that you’re wrong; even if I’ve never been good at showing you, I do love you as much as I do Anna.”
“Words, Mom. That’s all those are.” The feeling of betrayal was like a scalpel, one slick, fast cut letting the blood spill out. She stood, throwing her shawl onto the table with a metallic clatter and shush of wool. “No matter what you tell yourself, you never, ever loved me like Anna. No matter what I was or how well I did. Your love for me was different. Conditional. Contingent on my being the good daughter, on my grades, on my being the one who never screwed up. And now I finally get it.”
“No, you don’t—”
“You must see my biological father in me.” Naomi wondered how it was that when her entire world was shattering around her, she could think about this so clinically. So rationally. So like her father would have. Her father had always said to take herself out of the equation when dealing with patients. Now, she was the patient, and when she took herself away, she could see the situation clearly.
Her mother had abandoned her in all the ways that counted. “When you divorced the man I thought was my father, you made me live with him. Someone I wasn’t even related to.”
“You wanted to. You chose him over me. You always chose him over me. And Daddy chose you over me, too.”
Naomi gritted her teeth together and spoke through them. “But he wasn’t my father.”
“He was,” said Maybelle stubbornly. “In every single way that counted.”
Something else struck Naomi with the weight of a bat. “He was from here. My real father.”
“Your real father was Daddy.”
“My biological father. Oh, God, that’s why you hate Cypress Hollow so much. You passed through here before I was born. Maybe nine months before?”
Maybelle pressed her fingertips to her eyelids, and then covered her mouth. She nodded. “I didn’t want to have to come here to visit you. To remember.”
“You always loved Anna. Totally. But never me, not that way.”
“Never the same way, no,” said Maybelle. “But parents don’t love their children exactly the same. Equally, yes, but in different ways. And I have always loved you.”
Scanning her mother’s face, Naomi knew her mother thought she was telling the truth. But that wasn’t enough. She pulled her shawl up off the table by the working yarn and clutched it as if it could save her.
“Does Buzz know?”
Maybelle bit her lip. One huge tear rolled down her cheek and then was matched by another. And another.
“I see,” said Naomi. “He does. Of course. Please, for the love of God, does Anna—”
“No! Of course not. And I don’t want her to know how alike we are. I’m . . .” Maybelle’s voice trailed off. “I’m ashamed. Please, Naomi?”
Naomi laced her fingers through the holes, bringing the mass between her hands. Her mother was ashamed of her, on top of everything else. Naomi was the symbol of a mistake made years ago. It made so much sense, now that she knew. She looked at her mother one last time. “I don’t have to agree to do anything you ask of me. Ever again.”
Once in her room, the door safely closed and locked behind her, Naomi buried her face in her pillow and put another one over her head so she couldn’t hear her mother’s sobs. Maybelle was only crying about revealing a secret.
Naomi had much more to mourn: today she’d lost a real father, a pretend father, an unknown brother . . . and the man she was involved with had gone behind her back, betraying her.
Oh, Rig. It was because of him that she now knew the truth. That her world was upside down. The weight of it hit her like a bullet, ripping and tearing her flesh.
She wouldn’t forgive him.
Her own tears came then.
Chapter Forty-eight
We will always have wool in our fingers, and everything comes down to these small stitches that march forward, resolutely.
—E.C.
The first thing Naomi did at the office the next morning was to go over her patient roster for the day. She was a professional. She ignored the fact that her hands shook on the keyboard—it was lack of sleep, that was all.
Good. She had fifteen minutes before her first patient.
That would be just enough time to let Rig know exactly what she thought of him.
Knocking only once before she swung his office door open, Naomi entered. Rig looked up. The surprise on his face changed quickly to pleasure, and for a terrible second, Naomi forgot what she was going to say. She could only remember the feel of his arms around her, his mouth on hers, the shivers she couldn’t control . . .
The green curtains, so sheer they hid nothing from viewers on the street.
Anna chose that moment to pop her head in as she walked by. “Good morning, you two. I’m going for a coffee run, or really, a coffee waddle. Do you want anything?”
“No thanks,” said Rig politely.
Naomi could only shake her head. Anna was next on her list, but first, most important, was Rig.
“Okay, I’ll be back soon, then.”
She waited until Anna was down the hall before she pushed Rig’s door shut. She supposed it could have been called slamming, but she didn’t actually mean to. Not really.
“Hi, you,” said Rig, his voice sweet gravel.
“You told Anna.” She was proud she controlled her voice so that it didn’t shake.
“About last night? No, of course I didn’t. If she knows, it’s because of those damned curtains, and I’ve told you I’m sorry about those, but I’m happy to apologize again.” His smile was slow and rich. “I’ll apologize any way you want.”
Naomi folded her arms in front of her and took another step forward. “You told Anna what I told you about my mother.”
He blinked. “Oh. Yeah. I thought she might know how to make you feel better, and she knew your mother would come.”
“So you knew Anna would tell her.” It was even worse than she’d thought.
“She said she might. It’s what she thought would be best.”
“You plotted with her about it?”
Rig sat heavily in Dr. Pederson’s old chair, the leather creaking under him. “I’m sorry, Naomi. I was worried about you, and you were so sick. Anna said she knew your mother loved you, and that maybe it would be good for you to hear that from her.”
“It was awful. Horrible. Not only did the fact that she has never loved me the same as she loves Anna come out, but so did the fact that the man I thought was my father was never actually related to me. The same man she gave me to when she remarried.” The sharp, slicing pain cut into her again. She met Rig’s eyes, choosing to ignore his look of bewilderment. “Your betrayal was bad enough. I spoke to you in confidence. I trusted you.”
“And then to have your mother’s betrayal follow so closely.” Rig’s voice was gentle, as were his eyes. “Of course you’re upset.”
“Upset?” He had no idea. How dare he agree with her? “I’m so far beyond upset the word doesn’t even seem to apply.”
“I’m sorry, Naomi.” He stood and came around the desk toward her.
Scrambling backward, Naomi almost tripped on a pile of books on the floor. She raised her hands to hold him off. “Don’t touch me.”
“Okay, okay. Don’t worry
.”
“Don’t worry? I’m now officially worried about everything. The town probably hates me. I didn’t even dare go to Tillie’s this morning.”
“I went. I got a couple of high fives, but no one actually said anything. And Shirley wasn’t there, so I couldn’t get the real scoop.”
Naomi’s vision blurred as she shook her head. “High fives. You’re kidding me, right?”
“I don’t know what they were about. Could just have been guys saying hello . . .”
Naomi groaned. “I’m going to kill you.”
“Before you kill me, will you accept my apology? I’m deeply sorry that I betrayed your confidence. I acted in a hasty manner, and I didn’t think it through. I know you’re a private person, and I should have known better. I’m sorry, Doc.”
“Don’t you Doc me.” She pressed her fingers to her temples in a vain attempt to dull the headache. “It’s done. Whatever it was between us is completely over. The trust is gone.”
A frown cut a deep furrow in Rig’s brow. “Naomi. I just said I was sorry. And I think your mother’s revelation is definitely a huge betrayal, too. You want to talk about it?”
Naomi’s laugh was hollow. “With you? No way.”
“I’m a good listener.”
“Yeah. You’re good at listening and then sharing my secrets.”
He took another step forward, moving into her space. “Naomi, what’s it going to take to get you to believe that I’m truly sorry?”
She just shook her head. Nope, she couldn’t think of a thing. “I just had to tell you that we . . . that whatever this was, we’re done.” She couldn’t scoot any farther back—he had to stay away. If he touched her . . .
“So that’s it?” His voice was rough.
“What do you expect me to do?”
Rig raised his hand as if he would reach out to her, and she felt herself flinch away. He noticed, and the pain in his eyes was obvious. But then he just rubbed the back of his neck and said, “I expect you to be angry and then to accept a heartfelt apology and move forward. Like a grown-up.”
“You’re calling me a child?”
“If the kid’s shoe fits . . .”
“I can’t believe this.”
Wishes and Stitches Page 28