Not My Daughter

by Barbara Delinsky

  "Of course he does," she said. "Our medical care is just fine."

  "I know. But I worry."

  "You shouldn't. You have your own life."

  "He is my father."

  "You haven't seen him in years."

  There was an edge to her mother's voice that caught Susan the wrong way. "Is that my fault?" she asked quietly.

  "Yes. Yes, it is."

  "Well, I used to think so, but I'm not sure anymore. I was careless one night, and I happen to have an amazing daughter to show for it." An amazing pregnant daughter, she thought but didn't say. This conversation was less about Lily than Susan, and her fuchsia heart was beating fast. "Dad's pride was wounded. At what point does he realize that he's turning his back on his flesh and blood? I mean, what does Reverend Withers sermonize about every Sunday, if not forgiveness?"

  Ellen didn't answer.

  "Mom?"

  "Reverend Withers retired six years ago. Reverend Baker took over, and she's a woman. Your father doesn't listen as closely as he used to."

  Was that a subtle dig at her dad? If so, it would be a first. Ellen marched in lockstep with John, mainly because she adored him. And he adored her. He was home every day for lunch. Theirs was a very sweet romance that had lasted more than forty years, in part because they appeared to agree that John's way was the right way, the only way.

  Adding insult to injury for Susan was her father's blindness toward his son. Jackson could do no wrong, even when he did--though, in fairness, his sins were petty. Then again, he had married a woman who had never acknowledged a note, a phone call, or a gift from Susan. In Susan's mind, that was a major sin. She wondered if Ellen, who did always write a note, would agree with that.

  "I would like to have a relationship with you, Mom. We still have a lot in common."

  "What, for example?"

  Most immediately, a pregnant teenage daughter, but this was not the reason Susan had called. Or maybe, once past the excuse of her father's health, it was. She wished she could confide in Ellen, had truly ached for it at times. But Ellen's tone didn't invite that. And Susan couldn't bear a put-down on this.

  What else did they have in common? Susan was thinking that they had different taste in books and food, and that Ellen had no idea what Susan's job was like, when, looking around, she spotted her yarn. "Knitting," she said, relieved to have found an answer. "What are you working on?"

  "Why, a prayer shawl for the town clerk's mother," Ellen said on a lighter note. "She broke her hip two weeks ago, and she's doing well, but she'll be in rehab for a bit. I'm using a wonderfully soft alpaca that I picked up in Tulsa. It's beige."

  Susan was familiar with the Tulsa store. It carried PC Wool--not that she would ever expect her mother to actually buy PC Wool. "I wish I'd known," she said. "We have alpaca. I'd have sent you some." Theirs was exquisitely soft, though not beige. Well, some colorways did have beige, but it would have been paired with celadon and orchid, navy or teal.

  "I can afford to buy my own," Ellen said briskly. "Your father's income may have gone down, but that was because he voluntarily took a cut in his pension so that the town could avoid layoffs."

  "I didn't mean--"

  "Easterners tend to think they have the best restaurants, the best schools, the best doctors. They think anyone with any brains graduated from Harvard, but that is not true."

  "I know that, Mom."

  "Your father has done very well in his life, and that includes providing for his family. He's made arrangements for me. He's a good man that way, always concerned about me. We own this house, and our savings are safe in the bank. We live quite comfortably. I see no reason why that should change."

  Susan was startled by the outburst. Reading into the words, she worried that her father might not be around much longer--or that Ellen feared it. Susan wanted to ask, but couldn't form the words. Here would be something Ellen might share with a daughter and not a son. But not even in the best of times had Susan had the kind of relationship with her mother that she had with Lily.

  She regretted that now, when they both had deep concerns. "I would like us to be able to talk on the phone without this tension."

  Ellen was quiet for a minute, clearly regrouping. When she spoke again, her voice was calm. "Notes are fine."

  "Not for me."

  "Phoning puts me in an awkward position."

  "With Dad."

  "You've never tried to see it from his side, Susan. You decided early on that he was the villain. That was how you saw it, so that was how it was. Maybe if you'd approached him and apologized--"

  "I did, Mom."

  "Not in years."

  "Because the older my daughter gets, the more wonderful she is. I won't apologize for having her. Besides, I've sent cards and gifts. Didn't Dad see that I was reaching out?"

  "You never visited."

  "I was never invited!" Susan cried, heartsick. "I was told to leave, remember? I was made to feel that I wasn't welcome."

  "Your father gave you money to start a new life, and look where you are now."

  Susan thought of the struggle it had been, through many months of loneliness and fear. She thought of the latest with Lily, and vowed that, even in this, Lily would have it easier than she had. And she thought of Ellen, who was missing so much, now times two.

  "Oh, Mom," she said sadly. "I didn't call to argue. I just wanted to see how Dad was."

  "He's fine," Ellen responded. "Thank you for calling."

  "Will you tell him I'm thinking of him?" Susan asked. But there was no answer. With the formal thank-you, her mother had hung up.

  Chapter 13

  Saturday mornings were for dyeing yarn, and if ever Susan needed a distraction, it was now. Wearing her wool jacket over an old shirt and paint-splotched jeans, she took her time entering the barn. The old boards sang of history, with the echo of hooves pawing the straw-strewn earth, a soft snort, the whisper of a whinny. No matter that the inner wood walls were new and insulated and the sounds strictly human, even mechanical when tape was being whipped around boxes of yarn, the original spirit remained.

  Now, with the front stalls dim where computers and cartons stood idle, Susan headed toward the light at the back. Halfway there, she smelled fresh-brewed coffee, followed seconds later by the ageless odor of wet wool.

  Kate was at a large tub filled with skeins soaking in water to open their pores. "I put these in last night," she said, repositioning them with a stick. "It was a good thing. I just got here five minutes ago."

  Susan draped her jacket on the back of a chair. Her friend looked worn out. "Bad night?"

  Kate shrugged and kept working.

  After helping herself to coffee, Susan joined her at the tub, but Kate remained focused on the wool, either lost in thought or angry.

  Fearing the latter and feeling the blame, Susan said, "I really am sorry, Kate. It was a choice between letting word dribble out on its own or setting the record straight with an e-mail. This way we're hit with the reaction all at once, and then it'll be done."

  Kate smiled sadly. "Until our girls start to show. Until one of them goes into labor at school. Until the three of them share a bench at the harbor wearing their kids in BabyBjorns."

  Susan rubbed her friend's arm. "Tell me about last night."

  "Oh, Susie. Either it was my phone ringing or the girls running in to tell me who else had just called."

  "People knew it was Mary Kate?"

  "And Jess." A punishing look here. "Lily was the tip-off. By the way, you won't have to worry about imitators. The consensus is that the three of them are idiots."

  "Your friends said that, too?"

  "You mean, the people who called me?" Kate replied, giving the wool another stir. "I'm not sure they're friends. Funny how people come out of the woodwork when they want information." Her voice rose in imitation. "'Oh, Kate, it's been sooo long since we've talked, but did Mary Kate really plan to get pregnant, will she marry Jacob, and what does Will say about this?
' It was horrible. Mary Kate is now angry at Jacob for being angry at her, and the tension is probably not good for the baby." She reached into the tub to separate two skeins. "She wanted to come with me this morning, and I told her no. I need time away. If that makes me a terrible mother, I'm a terrible mother." She looked around. "Do you have your colors?"

  Susan produced her notebook. "Where's Sunny?"

  "Not coming. She says she has too much to do."

  It was an excuse. Sunny didn't want to be seen with Susan and Kate, whose daughters were her own daughter's cohorts. "Maybe I should call. She's having trouble with this."

  "And we're not?"

  "We aren't married to Dan." Easier to blame Sunny's absence on him than on not wanting to work with Susan and Kate. Saturday mornings were a ritual--a reward at the end of the week--an excuse to be with friends, reminiscent of Thursday nights at Susan's garage. When they were caught up in work, they could go on until Susan had to head to school for an afternoon game. When there was little work, a long cup of coffee sufficed. They knitted then, and if they weren't discussing the vagaries of a pattern, they discussed a book, a movie, even a town rumor.

  It didn't feel right without Sunny. But that was only part of the problem.

  "Has Pam called?" Susan asked.

  "No. Haven't you heard from her?"

  "Not since yesterday. She was supposed to get back to me about the school board." Not a comforting thought, that one. The unease Susan had felt leaving Tanner's office was as strong now as then.

  Putting her cell on the worktable, she opened her notebook and crossed to the far wall, where shelves were neatly lined with bottles of powdered dye. She removed Scarlet, Sun, and Spruce. Liking her colors intense, she measured double the suggested amount into wide-mouthed jugs, added water to each to form a paste, and, after stirring, poured in enough water to make a gallon of stock solution. She would use this straight, diluted, or mixed for variations in hue. Taking a stack of measuring cups and a pair of rubber gloves from the supply shelf, she returned to the dye.

  Behind her she heard trickling as Kate removed one skein at a time and squeezed each to remove water. Above the sound came a quiet "Jacob's parents called."

  Susan looked back. Kate's expression said the news wasn't good.

  "They're upset. I knew they would be. They say Mary Kate used Jacob." Hands filled with wet skeins, she swore softly. "I forgot to lay out the plastic."

  Returning to the supply shelf herself, Susan wondered what Robbie's parents would think. Likely the same thing, she decided, which was why she tried not to even look at their house when she drove down the street and pulled into her driveway. She tore a length of wide plastic wrap from the spindle and flattened it on the table. Taking one skein from Kate, she arranged it in an oval.

  Oh, yes, she was sorry that Sunny and Pam weren't there. But this part of PC Wool production was really up to Susan and Kate. Susan conceived the colors and worked out the formula, while Kate did the dyeing. The process had evolved from the early days in Susan's garage, growing more nuanced as they took courses and studied under experts. Though they had added implements like the skeining machine, the basic technique remained the same. Susan worked the dye, adding more or less and squeezing it through the fiber.

  It wasn't an exact science. Much as Kate would take notes on dye proportions, the replication was never exact. But that was the beauty of hand-painted yarn. Each skein was unique.

  Now, Susan filled a cup with eight ounces of Spruce stock and dipped in a paper towel to test the color. Even before comparing it to her notebook, she knew it was too cool. After adding a half cup of Sun, she did another test, but it was only after adding two more tablespoons that she was pleased.

  Kate wrote down the measurements, then picked up where they had left off. "Jacob's parents are right. She did use him."

  "They'll come around," Susan said. "They've always loved Mary Kate."

  "They love her because Jacob loves her. If he stops, they stop. It isn't a visceral thing, like the way Will and I love her."

  Susan considered the term visceral. "Do all parents love that way?"

  "I think so. Don't you?" Kate asked in surprise.

  "I used to. Now I'm not so sure." She told Kate about talking with her mother.

  "They still love you," Kate assured her. "They just never got past the anger. When they sent you away, they stopped the clock. They never worked it out."

  "Do you think I should go back--y'know, just show up one day and force the issue?"

  "Now? No. You have enough on your plate. Get through this stuff with Lily. You didn't tell your mom about her, did you?"

  Susan shook her head.

  They fell silent. Wearing disposable gloves, Susan poured dye directly from the plastic cup onto the wool at three different spots in the oval, then studied the result. "More, I think," she said aloud. "This is my major color." She added more dye to deepen the saturation, then, while Kate turned the wool, applied dye to the underside. The dye didn't have to be perfectly even; one of the beauties of PC Wool was a fine subtlety in saturation. That said, there was nothing beautiful about a large patch of white in a colorway called Vernal Tide. Coral, yes. Pale green, yes. Even sand. But not white. A missed underside wouldn't do.

  She shifted the wool to help it absorb the color, and squeezed dye to the ends of each swath, and all the while, she was thinking about what Kate had said.

  "Working out the anger, huh? Then the little squabbles I have with Lily have a purpose?"

  Kate snorted. "I put the same question to Will. He says yes. The anger will fade. It takes time."

  "I feel like I'm still paying my dues. Like this is another challenge that goes right back to my own pregnancy."

  "That's ancient history."

  "Then you don't blame me for what our girls did?"

  "No. Only for being who you are now and having to make it public."

  "I had no other choice, Kate. Please believe that. I'm suffering the fallout, too. Sunny and Pam may be angry, but I need your support."

  Kate shot her a helpless look. "You have it. That's one of the reasons I'm so pissed. I need a scapegoat, and you'd be a perfect one, only you're my best friend. I was so proud of you when you got this position. Now I resent it."

  "There's good and bad in every job. This is the bad."

  "Right." She studied Susan's book, then the three stock solutions. "We need turquoise."

  While she mixed it, Susan readied the yellow dye and began to apply it. When she had poured the most concentrated shade in two small spots, she stood back to look, spread it around a little, looked again, added a diluted patch.

  "Incredible how you do that," Kate said. "Look how the two colors shimmer where they meet."

  "Mm," Susan said, but her mind was on work. "I wish Phil were as understanding as you. He forwarded me a sample of the e-mails he received. People are blaming the school clinic for offering pregnancy tests, blaming me for establishing the clinic, blaming Phil for allowing me to do it."

  "He must have sent only the bad ones."

  "He says this is how people feel. So if I defend the clinic, and Phil points out that the school board had the final say in allowing the clinic, do you think the board will shoulder the blame? No way. They'll put it right back on me."

  "Not just you. Me, too. Mothers always get hit--like our kids are extensions of our bodies. They'll blame Sunny, too."

  But they wouldn't blame Pam, Susan realized. Taking a fresh plastic cup, she filled it halfway with Scarlet, added measured increments of Sun, then turquoise to get coral, but all the while, the issue of blame niggled at her. When she was satisfied with the shade, she set down the cup. "Did you know that Abby was pregnant?"

  Kate eyed her in surprise. "I did not! Was?"

  "She lost it. Pam doesn't know."

  "We should tell her."

  "Abby needs to do that," Susan said, because betraying Abby would hurt friendships all around. "But it raises an interesting
point about who'd be blaming who if the world knew." She had another niggling thought. "If you were to guess--just a guess, since neither of our daughters has said--who do you think first suggested the pact?"

  Kate didn't blink. "I have a hunch."

  "Me, too."

  They were thinking the same thing, with neither of them wanting to say it because it felt disloyal, when the front door opened. Susan thought she heard Kate murmur something like Speak of the devil, before Pam reached the back room. She wasn't coming to work, likely not even to have coffee when she knew they were working with dyes. She wore wool slacks, a silk blouse, and a lambs-wool jacket, all top-of-the-line PC designs. Her freshly styled hair shimmered with some of the same blond shades Susan hoped to capture on her yarn.

  "Hey," Pam said, her eyes on Susan. "Tomorrow at noon?"

  The school board. "Perfect," Susan said. "Thanks, Pam. I appreciate this."

  Pam was studying the wool they were dyeing. "I like it. Where's Sunny?"

  "Home, I think," Susan said, but Pam was already turning to leave.

  "Aren't you staying?" Kate asked.

  "Nah. I'm not dressed for it. Besides, you don't need me for this."

  "Actually, I do," Susan said. "I want to copy the color of your hair."

  "Cute."

  "Stay for coffee, at least?" Kate said.

  "Can't do," Pam called back without stopping. "We're driving down to Boston. Tanner promised me a shopping trip, and we have theater tickets, so we're making a night of it. We'll have to leave early if I want to get back for the meeting, but if I'm late, Susan, you'll understand?" She didn't wait for an answer.

  They watched until she reached the door.

  "Theater tickets? How lovely," Kate remarked. "You should have told her about Abby. That would give her something to discuss with Tanner over martinis at the Four Seasons."

  But Susan was skating on thin ice. With the prospect of facing the school board extraordinarily daunting and Pam a questionable ally, she couldn't risk it.

  The board met in a conference room at the town hall. There was no harbor view here, only a glimpse of the church. It was an unassuming room, functionally appointed with a long table and fourteen spindle-back chairs. Narrower ladder-backs lined the walls to accommodate guests, and above them, compensating for the limited view, hung a collection of local seascapes.