What The Heart Wants

by Gadziala, Jessica

  “Wait… what? You told her that?” he asked as if the idea was genuinely perplexing. Who told their parents they were having sex? In general it was just something they assumed after you had been dating someone for a while. But it wasn’t something you usually sat down and have a conversation about.

  “No, I didn’t tell her. She just knew.”

  “How did she just know?”

  “I don’t know. It’s like she has sex radar or something. But she’s here and she knows about you and she wants you to stay for dinner.” At Sam’s barely-noticeable grimace, she rolled her eyes. “She’s cooking, not me. Don’t worry.”

  “In that case,” Sam said, grabbing her waist and pulling her to him. “I would love to.” He kissed her until she swayed against him. “Show me to your mother.”

  Anna tentatively walked into the house, Sam right behind her, a hand on her hip.

  “Hey mom,” she called, looking at Viv’s back.

  “Dinner is almost ready. I just have to strain this pasta and make sure the veggies have cooled. Oh and toss a quick salad…”

  “Mom…”

  “Honey, why don’t you…” Viv said, turning around and noticing them. A smile spread slowly across her face. “Well hello there.”

  “Hey,” Sam said, giving her his charming lopsided grin and reaching his hand to her. “I’m Sam.”

  Viv sent a pointed look toward Anna who quickly said, “Oh, right. Mom this is Sam Flynn. Sam this is Viv.”

  Viv took his hand in hers and looked him over carefully. “It’s a pleasure,” she cooed.

  Anna shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. Was there anything more awkward than introducing your flirtatious mother to your new… male friend? Was that what he was? She hadn’t really stopped to give that much thought. Were they actually dating now? Was that a conversation she would have to, heaven forbid, have with him sometime soon?

  “Hey mom,” she broke in as Viv was complementing Sam on his height and strong build. “what were you going to ask me to do when we came in?”

  Viv looked at her like she lost her mind for a second before she smiled. “I was going to ask you to throw together a nice salad.”

  “Please, allow me,” Sam said, moving away from her side. “I don’t know how but I’m pretty sure Anna would find a way to make even lettuce come out badly.”

  “Hey,” Anna objected on principle, though she knew he was right.

  But Viv laughed, charmed. “Why thank you. There are a bunch of different greens in the refrigerator and a large bowl up above the sink.”

  Anna leaned against the wall, feeling out of place as she watched Sam and Viv work side by side as Viv talked to him about his business, sounding genuinely interested in goat farming. She always had that ability, to make any man feel like she found him to be the most interesting person on the planet.

  They sat down to a mixed greens salad and a whole wheat cold pasta dish with cooked and cooled eggplant, zucchini, tomato, and feta cheese topped with a homemade Italian dressing.

  As Viv brought the food to the table, she looked over at her for the first time since they came in. “Anna, there’s wine in the trunk of my car.”

  Anna obediently went out to fetch it, knowing by the strange solid feeling in her gut that Viv was sending her away so she could have “the talk” with Sam. The “what are your intentions toward my daughter” talk. Anna took her time, dawdling over choosing which wine to bring in so she didn’t have to walk in on some weird protective mom lecture.

  Sam put the salad down on the center of the table then looked up to see Viv staring at him, her hand placed on the back of a chair as if bracing herself. “She’s something special, you know,” she said, her eyes seeming to cut through him.

  Sam nodded his head. “Yeah, I know.”

  “She’s not the kind of girl you sleep with and toss aside.”

  “No, she’s not,” Sam agreed. Viv hadn’t seemed like the over-protective mother type. But he had to admit, there was just something about Anna that made people want to protect her. He searched Viv for some sign of Anna, but found nothing in her more mid-sized bone structure, sharp features, and height. “I know you’re worried about her,” he said. “I promise I am looking after her.”

  Viv watched him for a minute and nodded. “I believe you,” she said, placing the tongs in the salad bowl. Then she looked at him sideways and said in a sweet but firm tone. “If you hurt her, I will drive my ass down here, break into your house, and chop off your balls. Understood?”

  “Perfectly,” Sam agreed, a ghost of a smile on his lips. He didn’t doubt she meant it.

  Anna walked in with the wine and they sat down to eat, Anna heaping two plates full of pasta and noticed both Viv and Sam looking at her. Sighing, she filled a second helping of salad to placate them and finished it before moving back to her pasta.

  After dinner, Viv kept the conversation going for a minute before standing up and declaring that she was going to take a long soak and they should go for a walk. As she said it, she looked over at Anna and winked.

  “Oh my god,” Anna whispered under her breath but Viv managed to hear, patting her on her knee and smiling slyly.

  Sam grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the back door.

  They walked silently for a few minutes, Anna marveling at how his large, work-calloused hand swallowed hers up. Sam stopped as they reached his property line, picking her up and putting her down on the top rung of the fence.

  “I’m sorry about my mother,” she said, not meeting his eyes.

  “I am under strict orders of good behavior or I risk castration,” Sam said, smiling widely.

  Anna’s face shot up. “No,” she said, embarrassed. “she didn’t.” But she knew she had. It sounded exactly like Viv, over the top and dramatic.

  Sam nodded down at her. “So I guess I better be good to you.”

  Anna looked up at him from under her eyelashes. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Mmhm,” Sam said, pushing to stand between her legs. “Is this good?” he asked, leaning down to trail kisses along her jaw line.

  “It’s… okay,” she said, smiling wickedly. Was that really her talking? Was she actually flirting? Where had that come from?

  “Hmm,” Sam said, looking down at her for a second. “How about this?” he asked, leaning down and catching her lower lip between his teeth and biting down.

  Anna yelped, half pleasure and half pain. When he pulled back, she smiled slightly. “Eh,” she said, shrugging.

  “How about this then?” he suggested, reaching between them, his hand slipping into her dress and stroking her desire.

  Anna groaned, leaning forward to rest her head on his chest. “Better,” she said, her voice a whisper. She felt her desire building, leaning into his exploration for a moment. “Wait. No.” Sam’s hand slipped away and he looked down at her, confused. “She knows,” she said, her face scrunching up.

  “What?” Sam asked.

  “She knows. That’s why she sent us out here. So we could like… mess around.”

  “Oh, right,” Sam said, smiling a silly smile. “her sex radar.”

  “Don’t laugh. You know I’m right.”

  “Alright, alright,” he laughed, holding up his hands. “I’ll keep my hands off of you,” he said, putting them behind his back and leaning forward to kiss her. “I had fun meeting your mom.”

  “Yeah you can both commiserate about my terrible eating habits,” she grumbled.

  Sam smiled. “You can eat all the junk food you want. But I’m still gonna try to get some vegetables in you.” There was a slight pause, Sam looking at her strangely. “You and your mother are nothing alike.”

  “Yeah, I know. She’s such an extrovert.”

  “I didn’t mean just that,” he said. “I don’t see you at all in her.”

  Anna shrugged. “I guess I look like my father. I don’t know,” her voice sounding defensive. “Viv never really holds onto a man for more than a couple months or s
o.”

  “You’ve never met your father?” Sam asked, looking even more curious.

  “Nah,” she shrugged. It wasn’t something she focused on much. Viv had always been strong enough for two parents. “Why?”

  Sam shook his head as if to clear it of some nagging thought and smiled at her. “No reason. So when your mom leaves,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “I am going to take you to bed for three days straight,” he mumbled.

  Anna felt a tension build inside her. “Sounds like a plan,” she said and turned her head to catch his lips in hers.

  Sam kissed her for a long time, his lips sensual and slow. He sighed, leaning his forehead against hers. “Okay we need to stop or I am going to take you right here.”

  Anna fought against her desire, kissed him quickly and jumped down. “Good night, Sam,” she said, walking away before she changed her mind and ran back to him.

  Twenty

  Anna watched Viv as she picked at her bowl of steel cut oats with honey and strawberries. “Mom.”

  Viv looked up, fully made-up at six o’clock in the morning. “Yeah?”

  “Did you know that Mam had a baby?”

  Viv’s head shot up, her eyes wide. “A baby? What are you talking about?” she asked, a strange inflection in her voice.

  “A baby. I found a picture of her after giving birth. How come no one knows anything about a baby?”

  Viv stood up, walking her bowl to the sink before turning around and giving Anna a uncharacteristically serious look. “Look, baby. Mam’s secrets were Mam’s secrets. Don’t go digging around in her business,” she said, walking toward the bedroom and closing the door.

  Anna sat at the table a long time, feeling chastened. It wasn’t like Viv to be so harsh. And as someone who was always a vicious gossip, it was weird for her to tell her to mind her own business.

  What was going on? Viv knew something that she obviously didn’t want her to figure out.

  Anna stood up, walking back over to the cabinet, pulling out the picture she had found before and putting it aside. She pulled everything out of the drawers, sifting through it frantically, listening for the sound of Viv’s heels in the hall.

  Just when she was about to give up, she felt the glossy surface of a photograph at the bottom of a stack of paperwork. She pulled it out, putting the pile back where it came from. It was another picture from the hospital. Mam was sitting up, leaning forward and looking down at the baby who was laying on the hospital bed.

  Then she noticed something at the corner by the window. A very small sliver of a person’s side, just out of the shot. It was a woman by the pink top and delicate fingers of her hand. Anna looked more closely, feeling her heart thudding in her chest as she looked at the fingers. There on the ring finger of this woman’s right hand was a ring. A very familiar ring.

  Anna heard her bedroom door open. She grabbed the pictures and stuffed them between the pages of a book about woodworking and smiled at her mother. “I have to go to town today. Do you want to go? There’s not a lot to do, but you can go look around.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll go stir crazy sitting here all day.”

  “Great,” Anna smiled. “I just have to go grab some things, I’ll meet you at the car.”

  Anna rushed into her room, grabbing an oversized purse and taking the letters she had found from John and stuffing them into the bag. She snuck back into the dining room, removing the pictures from the book and slipping them into the bag too.

  She was going to set some things straight. And she knew just who was going to

  help her.

  Maude Mays was sitting out front of her storefront office on the main street of town. She stood up as Anna got closer, whether it was from her determined gait or some vibe she was picking up, she wasn’t sure.

  “I have some questions,” she said, pulling her purse off her shoulder.

  Maude nodded, looking at her with her head tilted. “I have the answers. Come on in.”

  The inside of Maude’s office was decorated extensively. There was a desk covered in multi-colored scarves. A table had a velvet purple piece of fabric draped over it. On the surface was a deck of cards and a bowl of crystals. The walls were littered with artwork. Diagrams of auras, charts of gemstones, framed artwork of astrological signs, pictures of Jesus and Siddhartha and several images of airy women in vibrant colors… goddesses.

  “Come sit,” she said, lowering herself on a chair next to the table. “Show me what you got.”

  Anna pulled the letters out of her purse. “Who is John?” she asked, sitting down with her arms on her lap.

  Maude took the letters between her fingers littered with rings. There was a wistful smile playing at her lips. “John Sinclair. You met him.”

  Anna’s eyebrows drew together, trying to place the name. “Mr. Sinclair? The man from the dance?”

  “The one and only,” Maude nodded. “Those two were head over heels for each other.”

  “When? When they were young?”

  “No, not young. They were both older when they realized how they felt about each other. Before that, they were constantly at each others throats. At every town meeting, they butted heads. Mam got madder than a hornet anytime she saw that man.”

  Anna smiled at the idea. “When did it all change?”

  “Hard to say exactly. One day they just stopped fighting. They kept up the charade in public, mind you. But their hearts weren’t in it.”

  “So what happened?”

  Maude sighed, a heavy, sad sigh. “He was married.”

  Anna sat back on her chair, feeling the weight of knowledge weigh on her. “Ah, I see. That makes sense then.” She looked down at one of the letters. “He wanted to leave her,” she said. “his wife. He wanted to leave her for Mam.”

  Maude nodded, the beads on her five strings of necklaces jumping. “Yeah he did. He was head over for that woman. Meanin’ your aunt of course. But Mam was having second thoughts. See she was struggling with her conscience. She wasn’t the type of woman to be someone’s mistress.”

  “So she ended things?”

  “Not exactly, no.”

  “Then what happened?”

  Maude pushed the letters back toward Anna. “That is something to ask Mr. Sinclair.”

  Anna nodded, pushing the letters back in her purse and standing. “Okay. I’ll do that. Mind keeping my mother busy?” she asked, opening the door. “She is going to want every kind of reading you can give her.”

  “Send her in,” Maude waved a hand toward her tarot cards.

  Anna smiled, then turned back around. “Did Mam have a baby?”

  Maude’s face closed, a mask of defenses. “Girl, send in your mama.”

  –

  Anna got the address to the Sinclair estate on the opposite end of town from her farms. There was a street of old houses, meticulously maintained to keep their glory. She pulled to a stop in front of an large old Victorian with an oversized wrap-around porch and charming window boxes. She parked her car on the street, afraid that her old clunker of a car might accidentally leak something on the pristine blue stone driveway.

  Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the door.

  She had intended to be greeted by a maid, a butler, a personal assistant. She certainly hadn’t counted on facing John Sinclair himself in a pristine lightweight summer suit in a buttery shade of beige.

  “Miss. Goode,” he said, his voice curious.

  Anna took a breath. “Mr. Sinclair, I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time.”

  He looked at her for a second before moving aside. “Please come in. Let’s get some lemonade.”

  She tried not to gawk at the house as they walked through. Every piece of furniture was perfectly placed and looked like they cost more than she paid for her car. He led her into a oversized kitchen with cherry cabinetry and cool marble of swirling gray and red shades.

  He gestured toward the island and she sat down on the stool, watching
him pour them each a glass of obviously homemade lemonade.

  “What can I help you with, Miss. Goode?”

  “Anna,” she corrected, smiling weakly. She reached into her bag, pulling out the letters. “I was curious about your relationship with my aunt,” she said, watching some of the color drain from his face before he composed himself. “I know it is untoward of me to pry, but I feel like I owe her so much and I know nothing about her.”

  John smiled then, his eyes wrinkling charmingly at the edges. “She was an amazing woman. She was… ten gallons of trouble in a five gallon bucket,” he said, his eyes far away. “What would you like to know?” he said, looking at her with startling green eyes.

  “Well, I have… figured out a lot about the relationship itself. I was more curious about what happened between the two of you?”

  John’s eyes fell from hers, looking down at his hand sadly. “She wouldn’t let me ruin my marriage for her. She just… she wasn’t the kind of woman who was comfortable with being any man’s mistress. She was too strong, too independent for that.” He shook his head slowly. “I should have just done it and went to her after it was all cleared away.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “She wouldn’t even speak to me. One day she just stopped coming into town or answering her door or phone. She didn’t want anything to do with me anymore.”

  Anna felt her heart constrict in her chest. She reached into her purse, pulling out the pictures and looking down at them. “Did you know she had a baby?”

  John’s eyes shot up to hers, shocked and piercing. “What? That’s not possible.”

  Anna handed him the pictures, watching a wave of emotions crash over his face. Shock. Disbelief. Sadness. Anger. “Where did you… this isn’t possible. Someone would have known.”

  “There’s a date on the back. February. That’s it. No day or year. But if she had a baby in February then she probably conceived around spring of the previous year.”

  “Someone would have seen. I would have seen.”

  “She wouldn’t have shown for a long time. Five months probably. When did she stop taking your calls? Did she disappear from town around the fall and winter that year? Maybe she wasn’t… recovering from the break up. Maybe she was…”