by Lea Wait
Maggie kept her voice low and calm. Dorothy was clearly distraught. “There was never a promise that every one of the students would make it. That would have been an unrealistic expectation, and you knew that. You allowed for it in your planning. And you did a darn good job of convincing everyone around, from the Board of Trustees to the local media, that your idea was going to work. Something has happened to Sarah Anderson; that’s sad. It’s tragic. But it’s not the end of your program.”
Unless the media runs away with this story, Maggie thought to herself. Unless there’s any connection between Sarah’s poisoning and the college. Unless the college is forced into a position of defending the program in the press and chooses not to do that.
Dorothy blew her nose again. Her face, usually so composed and immaculately made up, was red and blotchy, and lines of mascara were under her eyes. “Maggie, I need to tell you something. I need to tell someone, and you’ve always been so organized and calm and so good with the students.”
Dorothy had clearly never seen Maggie during an exam period when she also had an antique show to attend. Did she really want to listen to Dorothy’s confidences? Dorothy was on the Board of Trustees; Maggie was a professor. Would this change their working relationship? But if what Dorothy was about to say would provide information that might help Sarah and Aura…
“Of course, Dorothy. You can talk to me.”
“You have to promise to keep what I’m going to tell you a secret. You can’t tell anyone. Not the police. Not Oliver. Not anyone.”
“I can’t promise that, Dorothy. I can promise not to volunteer any information. But if the police ask me something directly, then I won’t lie.”
Dorothy looked at her. “I don’t think anyone will ask you this, Maggie. No one knows enough to ask.”
“Then we’ll be like the army. If no one asks, I won’t tell.” Maggie smiled slightly. This conversation was making her uncomfortable. But, for Sarah’s sake…
Dorothy seemed satisfied with her answer. “The story starts a long time ago. Over twenty years ago. I was living with my parents, here in Somerset County. But not in a big house like the one Oliver and I have now. I was a nobody who lived in a little house in Somerville with a father who worked for the post office and a mother who stayed home. And I fell in love. I thought he was handsome and charming and kind and he would take me out of Somerville and into a new life. His name was Larry.” Dorothy smiled at the memory and dabbed at her damp face with tissues. “Larry wasn’t much older than I was. But he went to Rutgers. I worked as a supermarket cashier. I wasn’t smart enough to get a scholarship, and my family didn’t expect it. No one in my family had ever been to college.”
“Did your family like Larry?”
“At first I didn’t tell them about him. I’d met him at a bar near the campus, and I didn’t want them to know my girlfriends and I sometimes went to bars. We were underage, and my father would have killed me. But after I’d been seeing Larry for a couple of months I finally introduced him to my mother, and then my father, and they seemed to like him.” Dorothy sat back for a moment and smiled quietly, as though to herself. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than I was in those next few months, Maggie. Larry and I loved each other; my parents were pleased. Everything was going so well. Larry and I talked about getting married. He was a junior then. I saved every dime I could, putting it away to pay for an apartment and furniture someday.”
“And what happened?”
“The world ended. That’s all. It came crashing down, and nothing was ever the same again. On his way from my house back to his dorm one March Saturday night, Larry’s car was sideswiped by some drunk kids in a truck. His car flipped over and hit a tree. The police said he was killed instantly. He didn’t have a chance.”
Maggie could feel her heart beating faster. Her parents had been killed in a car accident, and so had Michael. She knew what that telephone call from the police, or from Larry’s family, must have been like.
“Dorothy, I’m so sorry.”
“But that wasn’t all. A couple of weeks later, when I got myself out of bed and washed my face and knew I had to start over again, I realized I was pregnant. At first I didn’t want to believe it. But it was true. The baby was Larry’s, of course, and I wanted to keep it, although I didn’t know how I could support a baby. I didn’t tell my parents; my mother would have wanted me to have an abortion. I didn’t think my father could have dealt with the situation at all. So I didn’t tell anyone. I kept saving my money and thinking it was for my baby and me. That I had a little part of Larry left, and that would help me go on.”
Maggie sat, listening. So Dorothy had been a single parent herself. No wonder she had felt so strongly about founding Whitcomb House.
“After a few months I couldn’t hide my pregnancy anymore. My parents were furious. They said they wouldn’t support an unwed mother or her child. That I was a disgrace to them.” Dorothy blew her nose again. “I knew there were other girls who managed to keep their babies, who left their parents and went on welfare, or found apartments. But I’d never lived away from home. I didn’t know what to do. I’d always depended on my parents for advice. And I needed love and support then, Maggie. I needed it more than anything else.”
Maggie nodded. It must have been a horrible time for the young Dorothy.
“When my time came, I went to the hospital alone. My mother wouldn’t even go with me. But I had a beautiful little girl. It was all arranged; the social worker came to have me sign the papers and take my baby away and find a family for her. But I couldn’t sign. I panicked. I didn’t want to give her up; I wanted to take her home with me. But my parents would never have allowed that.”
Maggie handed Dorothy another tissue.
“The social worker told me the best thing for my daughter would be to release her for adoption, that she was a beautiful baby and there were lots of families waiting for a little girl like her. But she was my baby. All I had left of Larry. I just couldn’t give her up and turn my back. So the social worker said they would put her in foster care until I could offer her a home.”
“And you went back to your parents’.”
Dorothy nodded. “They thought I’d given the baby up for adoption. They never even asked whether it was a boy or a girl. They didn’t want to know. I went back to work at the supermarket. But I wasn’t the same after that. I was afraid I’d never be able to do everything necessary to get my little girl back. Every time I saw a baby her age, I’d start to cry.”
“Did you call the social worker?”
“All the time. Until she said not to call her again until I had a plan for my future. But she sent me pictures of the baby and said she was in a good home. And every few months I could visit her for an hour or two. She was such a beautiful little girl, Maggie, and so happy! Every time I saw her I wanted even more to take her home with me. But I knew I’d never make enough money as a supermarket cashier to support myself and a baby. Everything was so expensive and seemed so impossible. And then I met Ed.”
Dorothy paused, as though remembering. “Ed worked for a construction company in Bridgewater. A big guy, with sort of a red face, but nice. He used to buy his lunch at the supermarket where I worked. We talked, and flirted a little, and he asked me out. He was almost thirty and had his own apartment. I thought maybe this was the way. If I married Ed, I’d have a place to live, and a place for the baby, and I could offer her a real home. I knew Ed loved kids—he said so, all the time—but I didn’t tell him about my baby.” Dorothy looked at Maggie as though asking for forgiveness. “I should have told him, I know. But I was scared that if he knew there’d been another man in my life, he wouldn’t want me. So I waited until we were married to tell him about my daughter.”
“And?”
“He blew up. Said I’d married him on false pretenses; he wasn’t going to take care of another man’s kid. That’s about the time I realized he was drinking too much. After that he started drinking a lot t
oo much. Maggie, understand, my dad was a pretty good drinker, too, so the drinking in itself didn’t bother me. My dad would come home and pick up a couple of six-packs of beer and sit in his chair by the TV and drink until he’d go to sleep every night. Most mornings my mother would have to wake him up and get him to shower and shave and get dressed to go to work. But my dad never yelled at anyone. He never hit anyone.”
“And Ed did.”
Dorothy nodded. “I knew I couldn’t stay; life with him wouldn’t be good for my little girl even if he’d wanted her. By that time she was four years old. I saw her once in a while. Supervised visits, they called them. But then the social worker said I’d had long enough to get my life together. The Division of Youth and Family Services was going to take me to court to take away my parental rights, so they could place her in a permanent home.”
Maggie thought of all the prospective adoptive parents waiting for a four-year-old girl. The social worker had done what she was trained to do: given the biological parent a fair amount of time to provide a home for her child before finding a permanent home for the child.
“I gave up,” Dorothy continued. “I felt I’d never get off the bottom, do you know? No, you probably don’t. But I knew I couldn’t stay with Ed, and my parents wouldn’t want my little girl, and I still couldn’t support her by myself. The social workers were right. She needed to be with a family who would love her and provide for her. I hadn’t been able to do that.” Dorothy sagged deeper into the hard couch.
Dorothy herself must have felt very unsafe and unloved then, Maggie thought. It must have been nightmarish. “So you relinquished custody of your daughter. Did you stay with Ed?”
“For a few more months. Then I got up enough courage to leave him. I went home for a few weeks, but my parents said I was grown-up and I couldn’t even keep a husband, so I needed to find out what it was like to live on my own. To see how hard it was to deal with the real world.” Dorothy paused. “The next years were pretty rough. At first I shared an apartment with an older woman I worked with at the supermarket who had just gone through a divorce. She had furniture, and I paid half the rent, so that was all right. But I wasn’t really making it on my own. I was depending on her for things I’d depended on my parents for. Plus I had no privacy. I couldn’t invite friends over without checking with her, and she liked the apartment to be quiet.”
Dorothy paused for a moment. “I must be boring you, Maggie. I’m going on and on. But I’ve never told anyone. No one.”
“It’s all right, Dorothy. I’m here. And I do care.” As she said the words, Maggie realized they were true. She did care about the young Dorothy who had felt trapped and limited by circumstances. Her own family situation had been far from perfect, but she’d been able to get a college scholarship so she could leave home and make a new life. She hadn’t had to depend on her mother and father. No wonder Dorothy wanted to help young single parents. Their plights were all too real to her.
“Then I married for the second time. I was in my late twenties by then, and Fred was a nice man. He had a job at the local bank, and he wasn’t aiming at being its president. All he wanted was a wife to love him, and a small home in the suburbs, and children. He wanted children more than anything. He’d been an only child, and he wanted his children to have lots of brothers and sisters.”
“That must have been a great relief…to be with someone who loved children, as you did.”
Dorothy nodded. “Yes. Of course, I didn’t tell him I already had a child. He would never have understood my giving her up. And it wouldn’t have made a difference; she was living with her adoptive family by then. Fred and I planned to have our own children. But life is ironic, Maggie. That’s a word I probably didn’t know when I was eighteen, but I sure know it now. Ironic. Because Fred and I couldn’t have children. And it was all my fault. We both had all the tests, and he was fine. But I had endometrial adhesions that were blocking my fallopian tubes. I couldn’t conceive. The doctor said the condition was too far advanced for surgery to help. That I had been very lucky to have a child when I was so young, before the condition had progressed. Because I’d never have another child.”
“Oh, Dorothy.” Maggie could see the pain in her eyes as she told her story.
“Fred said that a marriage wasn’t a real marriage unless there were children. So he divorced me, and I was alone again. He married a friend of mine. Last time I heard they had four children. By then my parents had died, and I’d gotten a little money after the divorce. I decided that marriage and children were not to be my life. Can you believe, Maggie? I came here, to Somerset College, and got my associate’s degree, and then went on to Rutgers. Just like Larry had.”
“How wonderful, Dorothy! You pulled your life together.”
“After I graduated I got a job down on Wall Street. I was an ‘administrative assistant’—really a glorified secretary—but I was finally earning enough to support myself and to buy some nice clothes and have my hair done.” Dorothy smiled almost shyly at Maggie. “That’s where I met Oliver. He was married when I first met him, but his wife had breast cancer. We all felt so sorry for him. And about a year after his wife died he asked me to have dinner with him and…here I am.”
“Have you ever told Oliver about your baby?”
“No. Never. That was so long ago. And Oliver had two children with his first wife and didn’t want any more. It didn’t bother him that I couldn’t have children. I don’t think it ever occurred to him that once I might have been able to.”
“But you found a way to help single parents who were struggling as you had. That’s a wonderful story, Dorothy.”
“Not quite that wonderful, Maggie. I did have the idea of creating a dorm for single parents and their children. But the more I thought about it and started talking to people about it, the more I thought about my own daughter. So I hired a private detective to find her.”
“And?” Maggie suddenly had the feeling she knew where all this was leading.
Dorothy raised her head and looked straight into Maggie’s eyes. “Sarah Anderson is my daughter, Maggie. Aura is my granddaughter. And now Sarah may die before I really get a chance to know her.” The tears started again. “I finally found my daughter, and now I may have lost her.”
Chapter 13
The Course of a True Love Letter Runs Smoothest when written with one of C. Brandauer and Co.’s circular pointed pens. Full-page advertisement, wood engraving, from The Illustrated London News, September 25, 1886, showing an elegant young woman sitting with pen in hand, gazing romantically into the distance…ignoring the five little cupids perched on her shoulder, desk, and in the sky behind her. 11 x 16 inches. Price: $70.
Dorothy was Sarah’s biological mother. As Dorothy had told her complicated story, Maggie had started to wonder…but now she knew for sure. Dorothy and Sarah both had slightly red hair. And Aura, too. Three generations. Now that Dorothy had told her, the connections seemed obvious. “Does Sarah know you’re her mother?”
Dorothy looked up from her tissues. Her expression became almost threatening. “No! And no one must ever tell her.” She paused. “But you need to understand, Maggie, that if Sarah dies, then I will take custody of Aura. She’s my granddaughter, and she’s the same age Sarah was when she was taken from me for the last time.”
Maggie moved back in her chair. This was all going too fast. Sarah was very sick, but it was not certain that she would die. And, should she die, she had left custody of Aura to Maggie. Not to Dorothy. Aura should be with the person her mother had named in her will.
Besides, Dorothy was obviously used to getting her own way and might not be able to give Aura the freedom she would need to grow up. Grow up to be herself—not a replacement for another little girl who was no longer there.
“Dorothy, Sarah made me Aura’s guardian. And although I never dreamed that this situation would come up, I did promise Sarah that I’d love Aura and care for her as though she were born to me.”
&
nbsp; “You can’t, Maggie. That’s why I told you my story. She’s my flesh and blood.”
“But unless you can prove that—which means everyone will know Sarah was your daughter—then you have no legal right to question Sarah’s will.”
“But you’ll do the right thing, Maggie. You’ll relinquish custody of Aura to Oliver and me. You’re not married; you work two jobs; you have no time for a child. I’ll make sure any needs you have are met. Oliver and I can give Aura everything she would ever want. For Aura’s sake, you will give her to me.”
Maggie stood up. “Sarah’s not going to die. I can’t have this conversation. We mustn’t even think of anything but how to get Sarah well again.”
Neither of them noticed Dr. Stevens approaching until he spoke. “I’m glad both of you are here. I just saw Sarah again, and there’s been no change. But it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. We have to wait this out. At least there’s been no change for the worse.”
“There is no way of predicting?” said Dorothy. The only sign of her earlier emotional story was her slightly swollen face and a trace of black mascara smudged beneath her left eye.
“We may know more when we identify what poison she swallowed. I’m hoping those test results arrive very soon. Now we can just monitor her closely and hope for the best.” Dr. Stevens was clearly sticking to a middle ground. He was neither holding out hope nor accepting defeat. “I’ll let you know as soon as I learn something.”
“I should be home by midafternoon.” Maggie glanced at her watch. “Right now I need to get back to campus. I have a class at one o’clock.”
“Remember what I said.” Dorothy reached out her hand as though to stop Maggie, but Maggie kept walking.
“I’ll remember.”