“Come on, come on,” she urged her sister’s car. At least Rachel wasn’t such a goody two-shoes that she drove the speed limit. On country roads the speed limit was more of a suggestion, really, especially if you were friendly with the local officers. And the Smith family had always been good citizens. Once they’d arrived in Iowa, at least.
By the time they pulled into the care center lot, her palms were slick with sweat against the steering wheel, but she managed to put the car in park before she grabbed her phone. She opened the email and had only gotten past the “Thank you so much for your interest!” opening when Becky tapped on her window.
She rolled it down and nodded reassuringly. “I’ll be inside in a second. I need to answer this email.”
“Sure.” Becky, her arms piled with Tupperware containers holding genuine homemade treats, started toward the entrance, then turned back around. “We’ll meet back at the house this afternoon and talk about all this, okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“We’ll get it figured out.”
“Right.” Her fingers twitched as she fought the urge to shoo her sister away. “Just give me a minute. I’ll meet you in Mom’s room.”
Not giving her sister a chance to engage again, Hannah raised her phone.
Thank you so much for your interest! Our property has been operating as a B and B since 1993. Before that, it was private property. If you’ve visited before, please keep in mind that though the house was updated in 1993, I did a complete renovation and restoration in 2010 when I purchased the inn and surrounding acreage. I think you’ll find the rooms much improved in comfort and design. I’m also very excited to let you know that we recently restored the riverside cabins that were built in the 1960s and had fallen into disrepair. You can see pictures of all our accommodations on the website. We’ll see you in Big Sur soon!
—Tucker Neff
Hannah’s lip curled. The email hadn’t told her one damn thing. Maybe she could call and explain to Tucker Neff what information she needed and why. See if he could help.
Her face burned at the thought. She wasn’t going to lay her secrets at a stranger’s feet so he could back away in horror. He didn’t sound like he knew much, anyway. All he cared about was the business. Confessing the truth wouldn’t be worth the shame.
Surely in this digital age she could send away for property records and start her search quietly. No one else needed to know. Even with Becky, Hannah had felt a shock of horror that Rachel had revealed her secret. It was bad enough that Hannah herself knew. If one or two more people found out, the entire town would get the news.
And Rachel must have told her husband. Becky would tell hers. Maybe even the older kids.
No. Her sisters wouldn’t want their children to know anything sordid about their grandparents. And they wouldn’t want the neighbors to know. This wouldn’t spread further. She was safe.
But safe from what, exactly? Not pain or betrayal or confusion. Not the knowledge that she was truly, utterly alone in this.
Clutching the steering wheel, she stared at the front doors of the care center and considered driving away. She could just pull out, grab a cup of coffee, and keep driving. All the way back to Chicago. Or even farther than that. Maybe all the way to the East Coast. Find a job in a small office, rent a studio with an ocean view, start a new life, and never look back.
Sure.
With a wistful sigh, she got out of the car and headed inside.
Her sisters weren’t in their mother’s room. They were at the nurses’ station, passing around Tupperware containers full of delicious treats and catching up on the caregivers’ lives. The kids were visiting too, the earbuds dangling free as they smiled and laughed.
Hannah had spent her days here for a full month, and she’d had no idea that Nurse Quinn’s brother played for a minor-league baseball team in Kansas or that Nurse Brenda had a daughter with cerebral palsy. The caregivers beamed with happiness at this little reunion.
“She must be eight by now?” Rachel asked Brenda. “Third grade in the fall?”
Hell, even matching ages to grades was a mystery to Hannah, aside from placing five-year-olds in kindergarten and teenagers in high school.
But her sisters settled into their places in this group as if they’d always belonged there and always would. Hannah walked past them and slipped into her mother’s room.
Her mom was seated at the small desk, a puzzle piece clutched in her hand. She looked up, her face a pale moon of polite confusion. “Hello,” she ventured carefully.
“Good morning!” Hannah offered, going for cheerful neutrality today. She pulled a chair close to her mom and took a seat. “I see you finally got a puzzle.”
“Yes. It’s a painting.”
It wasn’t a painting, but the vivid photo of flowers was so bright it looked almost surreal even to Hannah’s clearer eyes. The pieces were oversized and easy for shaky hands to fit together. “It’s beautiful. I know how much you love gardening.”
“I do!” Dorothy said. “Flowers are pretty, of course, but vegetables are so much more satisfying. Don’t you think?” Always so practical. She slowly angled her trembling hand into place and pressed the piece in.
Hannah glanced over her shoulder. She couldn’t see her sisters in the hallway, but she could still hear the laughter and conversation. She’d meant to at least start this day with a nice reunion. She’d planned to pretend for an hour or two. But once her family came in, Hannah wouldn’t be able to ask any significant questions. Rachel would interfere. The kids would listen.
She cleared her throat. “Your vegetable garden was always the envy of our block. Remember when Lorraine Davenport said you should be banned from competing in the county fair because your winter squash won every year?”
This time her mother’s smile wasn’t vague at all. It shone bright and wide. “I didn’t want to cause a fuss, so I bowed out that year. And she still didn’t win.”
Hannah laughed. “That’s right. She didn’t say much about your squash after that.”
“No, she did not.”
“Are you sure you didn’t mean to cause a fuss?”
Her mother laughed. “I really didn’t.”
And Hannah believed her. She leaned a little closer and lowered her voice. “My favorite part of your garden was the zucchini, because you’d make zucchini bread. Loaves and loaves of it until the deep freeze was piled high. God, I can still remember the smell of it, and the pats of butter melting on a warm slice.”
“That was always Hannah’s favorite,” she said.
Hannah froze and tried to think how to proceed without scaring Dorothy out of this good mood. “Yes. Hannah loved it. How did you get so good at gardening?”
“Oh, you know, when I was a girl, we didn’t have any choice. If we didn’t garden, we had nothing to eat. And at the orphanage . . .” She trailed off, frowning a little as she picked up a puzzle piece of pink and red petals.
“And in Big Sur?” Hannah tried gently. “Did you grow vegetables there?”
“My, yes. We had almost two acres of garden. It was a lot of work, but the kids helped too.”
“Rachel and Rebecca?”
“Yes. They loved helping. We all helped each other.”
“Who did?”
“The whole community.”
“Even Hannah’s mother?”
Dorothy’s hand stopped its restless wandering in the air above the puzzle. The piece wobbled in her clawed hand.
“Did she help in the garden? Hannah’s mother?”
She set the piece against the edge of the puzzle and pushed. The lines weren’t right. The pink and red petals mashed up against a yellow daisy.
“Dorothy,” Hannah pressed. “What was her name? Did you know her?”
The tips of her mom’s fingers turned white as she pressed harder at the piece, trying to mash it into the wrong spot.
“Please. Please, Mom, just tell me who she was.”
“We left h
er there,” her mother whispered.
“What?”
“We left her there.”
“In Big Sur?”
“Yes,” she rasped. “We left her there.”
“Who was she? I need to know her name! I need to—”
“We don’t talk about that!” Dorothy cried. Then her palm came down hard on the table, a terrible boom of sound. “We don’t talk about that!”
Her shout stopped the laughter in the hall, and sudden footsteps brought her sisters to the doorway. They paused for a moment, taking in the scene; then Rachel rushed forward. “Hannah, what are you doing?”
“I’m just asking questions.”
“I told you not to do that!”
Hannah glared. “And I told you I needed to ask.”
Her mom’s hand hit the table again, the slap echoing through the room. “We don’t talk about that! We don’t talk about that!”
“I know, Mom,” Rachel said soothingly as she knelt down and took her mom’s hand in both of hers. Her eyes stabbed through Hannah, as if trying to burn her with shame and scorn. “Shh. Don’t talk. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” Hannah snapped.
“Yes,” Rachel ground out, “it is. It’s fine, Mom. I see you’re working on a puzzle.”
Hannah glared at her sister and refused to back down. “It’s not okay. She just told me they left her there.”
“Who?”
“My mother. She just said they left her in Big Sur.”
“We don’t talk about that!” Dorothy cried again.
“Christ,” Rachel cursed. “Becky, would you get her out of here?”
Hannah jumped to her feet. “I don’t need to be handled, Rachel.”
“Apparently you do.”
What the hell was Hannah supposed to say to that? Yes, her mother was upset. Yes, she was crying, but Hannah had a right to know her own truth. “She could still be there, don’t you get that? She could still be in Big Sur. I could still find out who I am.”
“You’re Hannah Smith.” Rachel drew her mother’s trembling hand to her mouth and kissed it. “This woman is your mother, right here in front of you, and you’re being cruel to her. She raised you. She loved you. We’re your family and we’re here with you, so what could it possibly matter who they left behind in Big Sur?”
She drew a deep breath, pulling in enough air to tell Rachel exactly what she thought of such a shitty dismissal of her feelings. But Becky’s arm curled over her shoulders and pulled her into an embrace. “Come on. Let’s go outside and talk.”
Hannah held her breath. If she walked away, Rachel would go on thinking she was right, and she wasn’t.
But did it matter what Hannah might say? Rachel wouldn’t be swayed. She was the oldest sister, and she had utter confidence in the rights and wrongs of the world. Of course it was wrong to upset an old woman with dementia. Of course it was wrong to dig into your family’s closet of dried and dusty skeletons. Hannah was being selfish again. She was always being selfish.
When Becky tugged her carefully around, Hannah let herself be guided to the door, then down the hall toward the little walled yard that let the memory care patients wander safely outside.
“I’ve been thinking,” Becky said as she led them to a bench shaded by a maple tree. “Maybe it isn’t what you suspect. Maybe you’re a niece or something like that. If Dad had a sister who got into trouble, Mom and Dad might have raised you as their own. That would explain why you look like him.”
Hannah frowned, considering the possibility for a few heartbeats. Long enough that her pulse sped with hope. Hope that there was a more innocent explanation. Maybe even a generous one. And yet . . . “I could understand raising me as their own, but why would he have covered up having siblings at all? Why run to Iowa and lie about their past?”
“Maybe she was troubled.”
“Mom isn’t reacting as if it’s something innocent, is she?”
“These days Mom isn’t reacting to anything the way she should.”
Hannah nibbled on her thumbnail. “She said they left her there.”
“I know, but—”
“I think I need to go.”
“Go where?”
“To Big Sur. I can’t just sit around here every day wondering about this. If my mother is still in California, I need to know. And I can’t . . . I can’t stay here with all these secrets.”
A foot scuffed the cement behind them. “Of course you can’t,” Rachel said. She circled the bench to face them, arms crossed over her chest, face set in anger. “Of course you can’t stay. I should’ve known.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hannah demanded.
“One month. You finally come back to help take care of Mom and you only manage one month before you decide to leave.”
“That’s not fair!”
“Isn’t it?”
“No! I moved here for the long haul. I’ve been here every day and I had no intentions of leaving. But even you have to admit this changes everything.”
“How? You’re going to run off to California and somehow find a woman who’s been missing for forty-five years? And then what? Mom is still the one who raised you, and she’s the one who needs you now.”
“She doesn’t need me! She doesn’t even know who I am! Oh, she recognizes the two of you. Great. I’m happy for you both. It must be nice. But for some mysterious reason, she tells me I’m not her daughter.”
“But you are,” Rachel snapped.
Hannah surged to her feet. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. You’ve always belonged. You’ve always been just like her. I’m the one who never felt right.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“What the hell would you know about it, Ms. Homecoming Queen?”
“Oh, come on. So we had different interests in high school. Do you think I always felt like I fit in?”
“Yes,” Hannah answered. “Yes, I think you always fit in perfectly. With this place, with this family. I don’t think you ever lay in your bed at night and wondered why you were so damn different from everybody in your whole world.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “So you’re going to run off and abandon your sick mother because of some ancient teenage angst? You’re forty-five years old, for God’s sake. It’s time for you to stick with something.”
“Ha.” She hadn’t meant to make the sound. It sprang from her mouth like a cough. A harsh, blank, one-syllable laugh.
Ha. She’d always known that was what her family thought of her. She’d seen it in their eyes and felt it in the deepest pits of her own guilt. At least someone was finally saying it.
“Rachel,” Becky said, the word drowning in caution.
“No,” Rachel bit back. “I’m tired of always putting up with her artsy, angsty bullshit. Always smarter than the rest of us, always too sophisticated for this town and our little worries. Well, it’s easy to keep up with music and fashion and politics when you only have to look out for yourself, isn’t it, Hannah?
“You never have to worry about what to make for dinner or how to pay for new athletic uniforms for five kids or whether or not Medicare is going to cover Mom’s new prescription. You never have to worry how the town will float new books for the high school or if the church can keep paying out pensions to three retired secretaries. You don’t even have to worry about your husband anymore, do you? All that matters is what Hannah feels. What Hannah wants.”
Hannah sneered, though she suspected the tears pooling in her eyes gave away her hurt. “You’re a self-righteous bitch.”
“Stop!” Becky said, moving to stand between her sisters. “Stop it right now. Rachel, go back inside.”
“Sure,” Rachel snapped. “I’ll go take care of Mom. Hannah, go ahead and run away like you always do. Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine. Just do whatever you want. That’s your specialty.” She marched across the garden and flung the door open.
Hannah stared at the door closing slowly behind
her sister until it latched with a cold, hard click.
Becky put a hand on her arm. “Hannah—”
“Don’t apologize for her. She said exactly what she meant.”
“She’s upset. We’re all upset. This is all . . . This is crazy, Hannah! The idea that Dad might have . . . God, I can’t even say it.”
“Well, try to imagine how I feel.” She barely got the words out before her throat swelled with choking tears. They spilled over her eyes, and she couldn’t stop the sobs from escaping. “I didn’t bring this on!” she pushed out past the pain. “This isn’t my fault!”
“I know.” Becky, despite being five inches shorter, wrapped her arms tight around Hannah and tried to hold her. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not fair!”
“I know. It’s not fair at all. But you’re so upset right now. There’s no need to decide anything today. We’ll see what we can find out from here.”
“I already looked into Big Sur. There are only a thousand full-time residents. If my real mom is there, she’ll be easy to find.”
“And if she’s not?”
“Then it should be easy to find someone who remembers her. During the winter the place is even smaller than Coswell. Easier for me to go ask a few questions than write a thousand letters.”
“Hannah.” Becky’s voice was broken, pleading. “If she’s been there for forty-five years, she’ll be there for another month. Please take a few days to let it sink in.”
“I can’t, Becks. It’s making me crazy. I can’t sit with Mom every day and not ask questions. And Rachel is going to have me arrested for elder abuse if I don’t stop.”
“She will not.”
“Maybe she’ll just tell me I’m a worthless, selfish piece of shit again.”
“That’s not what she said.”
Hannah drew up, pulling out of Becky’s arms. She swiped her sleeve over her face and sniffed hard. “That’s exactly what she said. But it doesn’t matter. She’s right. I am running away. I always do.”
“You don’t—”
“It doesn’t matter! I don’t care. If my mother is still there, I need to know.”
Half Past: A Novel Page 7