“I don’t think so.” She let him hold her hand, but hers was limp inside his, as if she were already schooling herself to let him go.
“We’ve talked enough tonight.” He squeezed her hand, then turned away from her to find his clothes. “Keep tomorrow night clear for me, Gemma. I’m coming over after dinner. We’ll finish this then.”
“It’s finished now, Farrell.”
“No, you had your say. I get a turn. That’s only fair.”
“Nothing you can say will change my mind.”
“I’m not going to say anything. I just have some things to show you.”
She didn’t answer.
“But there is one thing I didn’t say tonight because I haven’t had any practice.” He zipped his pants and reached for his shirt; then he faced her again.
“Don’t, Farrell, I—”
“I love you, Gemma, and I think you love me. I know this happened quickly, and that you don’t trust it yet. But I never expected it to happen at all, so I’m going to fight hard to keep you. Nothing you’ve told me changes the way I feel. And nothing changes my intention of making a family with you. A real family.”
She shook her head mournfully.
He came around the bed and pulled her head to rest against his belly. “Go to sleep. Don’t think about this now. Just go to sleep. We’ll settle this tomorrow.”
Her cheek was wet against his skin. He smoothed her hair and prayed that tomorrow he would have the courage to make her understand the truth.
Chapter 8
Gemma watched Mary running through the backyard with Shawn right behind her. Katy had a doctor’s appointment, and she had asked Gemma to baby-sit Shawn for the afternoon. The two children had played together several times since the picnic at Patty’s, and they were well suited. Whenever Shawn visited, Mary seemed to evolve right before Gemma’s eyes, as if she had just needed a role model so that she could learn how a child was supposed to act. On the other hand, Shawn was learning how to behave with a younger child, which was good, since Katy had told Gemma over lunch that she was pregnant again.
Right now the little boy was holding himself back, as if he were afraid that if he really caught Mary, the game would be over. Mary stepped into the rope net that webbed the skeletal pirate ship and began to climb, giggling as she crept higher and higher.
Gemma held her breath, but her foster daughter didn’t stop or even falter until she had reached the top. It was a new milestone in Mary’s development. This was not the child who had clung so pathetically to Gemma and Farrell. This was a child growing confident, a child who was growing in all the important ways.
A child who might one day be Gemma’s very own.
Gemma dropped to the picnic bench and watched Mary begin her descent. She suspected a new game would ensue now. Mary would climb up and down until she tired of this new achievement, and Shawn would find some way to work this strange behavior into his own game. In years to come, would Shawn continue to adapt for this girl cousin? In ten years, or fifteen, would they still be friends, or would the rivalries and passions of adolescence separate them until they were adults again?
Whatever happened, it seemed that Gemma would be there to watch Mary grow, to suffer the pangs and joys of growing up with her. Thanks to Farrell Riley.
The grass was warm against her bare feet, and she wiggled her toes, taking her eyes off the children for a moment. Toes were as good for contemplation as belly buttons, and there were more of them. But more didn’t change a thing. She could contemplate all day and well into the night, and nothing was going to change. She could not bear children. One man had already left her because of her infertility, and she could not ask another to give up having a family of his own.
Last night she hadn’t gotten any sleep after Farrell left. She had tried to convince herself she was wrong, that her inability to bear children wasn’t a good enough reason to destroy her future happiness. But as many times as she had gone over it, she hadn’t changed her mind. When Jimmy had left her, she had sworn she would never be that vulnerable again. She would rather be lonely than pitied or resented.
Tears stung her eyes, and she took a deep breath. She loved Farrell Riley. She knew that she had never really loved Jimmy. She had loved Jimmy’s image, the glow that surrounded him, the man he pretended to be. But the Farrell Riley she loved was the man inside the human shell, the passionate, sensitive, yearning man. The man who deserved the biological ties, the family he’d never had.
“Ma…” Mary ran full tilt in Gemma’s direction and threw herself into her lap. She clasped Gemma around the neck and buried her face in Gemma’s shoulder. And again she used the word she had heard Shawn use with Katy. “Ma…”
Gemma hugged her until the little girl began to wriggle in protest. There were no breaths deep enough to keep tears from sliding down Gemma’s cheeks. “Oh, Mary.”
“Ma…” Mary touched her cheek and frowned.
“I’m just happy,” Gemma explained. And she was. Mary was going to be her real daughter now. In the ways that mattered, she already was. Gemma hadn’t even dared to dream this might happen so soon. Yet even while she stroked Mary’s hair and murmured her name, the tears continued to slide down her cheeks.
The box under Farrell’s arm was as heavy as lead. His heart was nearly as heavy. He had taken the afternoon off work, and he had spent it digging memories out of his attic. He hoped he never spent another afternoon exactly the same way. He would rather take his chances on the worst streets of Hazleton than dig through his past. But if this was what it took to convince Gemma that he wanted her forever, then he would do it every day without flinching until she saw the truth.
He hadn’t told her when he would be coming, and he hadn’t called before he left the house. He imagined he was catching her at dinnertime, which was what he had hoped for. He wanted to see Mary. If he couldn’t make his case tonight, he didn’t know how often he would see the little girl in the future. The thought of losing Mary, like the thought of losing Gemma, was something he couldn’t contemplate.
As a child, he hadn’t been able to fight for what he wanted.
But he was not a child anymore.
He knocked and waited, looking around as he did. The pansies in planters flanking the front steps were wilting in the late-afternoon sun, as if Gemma had forgotten to water them. Mary’s plastic tricycle lay turned on its side next to the front door, and dried leaves huddled against the morning paper, which had never been taken inside.
Gemma appeared at the front door, a Gemma without a smile or one trace of makeup. Her eyes widened. “I thought you’d be by later.”
His other reason for coming at dinnertime was to throw her off guard. He could see he’d succeeded. “I was hoping you’d feed me. I brought dessert.” He held up a bakery box containing a fresh apple pie. “If you don’t have enough, I could just eat the pie.”
She smiled, almost as if she couldn’t help herself. Then she sobered. “Don’t you think we should do this after Mary goes to bed?”
“Absolutely. I’ll wait.”
She shook her head, but she let him in. And once inside, he had no intention of leaving until this was settled in his favor.
Mary covered the awkward silence in the hall by dashing into Farrell’s arms. Gemma grabbed the pie just in time, and he lifted Mary with one arm, protecting the box under his other arm.
“Can I take that, too?” Gemma asked.
“I’ll put it in the living room.” He didn’t explain. He carried Mary with him, setting the box on a table out of her reach.
In the kitchen, he watched Gemma open the refrigerator and peer inside. She didn’t look at him. “I was just going to cook a hamburger patty for Mary. I have some carrots from last night. I hadn’t even thought about what I’d make for myself.”
“Why don’t I order a pizza?”
The suggestion seemed to startle her. “Pizza?”
“Yeah, you know, crust, sauce, pepperoni. No work for anybody
except dialing the telephone.”
“I never order pizza.”
He suspected there were a number of things she hadn’t learned in her first marriage that she would learn in her second. He was not marrying her to be taken care of. He was marrying her to share her life.
“Sit,” he ordered. “All you have to do is think about what toppings you want.”
“I don’t care.”
“Then I’ll get a supreme, and you can take off whatever you don’t like.”
She sat, almost as if she were in a trance. He grinned at her, forcing a confidence he didn’t feel, and picked up the telephone. He knew the number by heart, since pizza was a cop’s best friend. When he hung up the phone, she was still sitting and staring at him as if he’d just been transported to earth from a spaceship.
“Okay, where’s the hamburger? Our little girl may like this pizza just fine, but she needs something healthier to start her off.”
“Oh.” Color rose in Gemma’s cheeks, and she started to get to her feet.
“Sit,” he ordered again. “And stay there. You look beat. Just tell me where to find everything.”
She didn’t argue. With her supervision, he found and unwrapped a hamburger patty and started it sizzling in a small frying pan. He found the cooked carrots next and slipped them into the microwave; then he poured Mary a plastic tumbler of milk and set her in her high chair with a slice of bread and jam.
By the time the hamburger and carrots were on a plate in front of Mary, he had found two ice-cold beers and poured them for himself and Gemma. Mary filled the strained silence with comments on the food in front of her, some of them amazingly close to standard English. As soon as she started putting sounds together in a slightly different order, Farrell’s little girl was going to be quite a linguist.
The pizza arrived before the silence between the two adults stretched too thin. Farrell retrieved it and paid the deliveryman. Then, back in the kitchen, he dished it up, with a small piece for Mary, too.
He joined Gemma at the table. “You’ve given me a good taste of your life. You need a taste of mine. That way, when you marry me, you’ll know exactly what you’re getting.”
“Farrell—”
He shook his head. “Eat up before it gets cold.”
Mary was an instant pizza convert. She gobbled her slice, then a slice of apple pie, fretting when she couldn’t have another. Farrell made the disappointment up to her by giving her a horsey ride around the house while Gemma cleaned the kitchen.
Gemma rescued the little girl after a good long gallop and took her upstairs for a bath, but Farrell was the one who read her a good-night story and tucked her into bed. Mary pointed at pictures in the simple storybook, as if she was memorizing the names of every animal and object. Just as soon as she had the vocabulary she needed, Farrell’s little girl was going to be quite a reader.
He left the door open, just in case she needed anything, but one last peek in her direction convinced him she was falling asleep. He stood at the top of the stairs for a moment, girding himself for what was to come; then he went down to find Gemma.
He found her in the living room. “Do you want your pie now? I could make some coffee to go with it.”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t eat another thing.”
“Then we’ll save it for later.”
She looked as if she wasn’t sure there would be a later. In fact, she looked as if she was sure there wouldn’t be. “She adores you.”
“She knows it’s mutual.”
“You’re so good with her. You’re a natural with children.”
“Who would have guessed it?”
She didn’t ask him to sit beside her, but he did, anyway. “I had some news this morning.”
“Oh?”
“I’m moving up to detective.”
“That’s wonderful.” For the first time that evening, her eyes lit up. “That’s really wonderful…. Is it a dangerous job?”
He smiled, because she hadn’t managed to keep the concern out of her voice. “No more so than any other job on the force. And I’ll be spending a lot more time on investigations. The hours won’t be as regular, and I’m sorry about that. But if I work long hours one week, I can take time off the next.”
“I’m proud of you.”
He wondered what else he could say about the promotion. He wanted to keep talking about other things. He would have been happy to talk about almost anything to keep from discussing what he’d come for. But the time had arrived.
“Farrell, I—”
“Gemma, I—”
They both stopped. Gemma flushed. “I’ve given this a lot of thought, Farrell. That’s all I’ve done. And I still—”
He held up his hand. “I have some things to show you. Can I do that first? Then you can tell me what you think, and I promise I’ll listen. I promise I’ll always listen to you. But this time, I need to go first.”
She looked doubtful, but she nodded.
He stood and retrieved the box from the table where he’d set it; then he brought it over to the sofa. “Come sit beside me. You can see better.”
She scooted closer. “What is it?”
“It’s my childhood, Gemma. My life.”
He had been very careful about how he had placed things in the box. Now he opened it, spreading the cardboard flaps so that the contents were in view. He lifted out a worn scrapbook with a padded plastic cover. The cover was torn, but it had been neatly taped. One of his foster mothers had discovered the scrapbook in the destructive hands of a foster brother, and she had helped Farrell repair both the cover and some of the inside pages. She had been one of the important people.
He was not a man to make speeches, but now he knew he was about to make the longest speech of his life. “I’ve told you a little about the way I grew up. But not enough.”
“I thought it was something you probably didn’t want to talk about.”
“You were right. But you need to know me better.” He balanced the scrapbook on his knees and opened it to the first page. Dust filtered through the air. The scrapbook had been stored away for years, and although he had carefully wiped off the cover, he hadn’t touched the inside pages.
The photo on the first page had been imprinted on his brain from hours of staring at it as a child. He hadn’t seen it for a long time, but he hadn’t needed to.
“This is my mother. Her name was Noreen, Noreen Wakefield. She grew up on a small farm in Iowa. Wakefields owned that farm for five generations.”
“She was lovely.” Gemma touched the edge of the photograph. “You look a little like her.”
“I’ve been told that before.” He did resemble the woman in the photograph—the same dark hair, the same straight nose. But his mother was smiling with the exuberance of youth, and he had never felt that kind of joyful abandon.
He touched the edge of the photograph. “She was seventeen when this photograph was taken. Just out of high school. She moved to Des Moines right afterward. She moved to bigger and bigger cities after that to escape her roots. She did a good job of it.”
He turned the page. “These are her parents.” The snapshot, probably taken with an ancient box camera, was faded and unfocused. It showed two people in front of a small frame house. An old pickup was parked beside them. “I never met my grandparents. A great-aunt, my grandfather’s stepsister, sent me this photo when I was in high school. She would write me occasionally. She was very old and unwell, but even though we weren’t related by blood, she tried to stay in touch with me. Her name was Hattie.”
He turned the page again and pointed to the first of two photos. “That’s Hattie.” The snapshot was slightly more focused then the one of his grandparents. Hattie was a prim-looking woman, with the weathered face of someone who had worked hard and seldom pampered herself.
“This is Hattie’s sister, Clara. I never met her. I think she died before I was born.” The photo was similar to the one of Hattie, and he moved on to the n
ext page.
There was no photograph here, just a small plastic bag filled with dirt. “This is soil from the family farm. When I got out of high school and the state of Illinois couldn’t tell me what to do anymore, I hitchhiked to Iowa. Hattie was dead by then, but I wanted to see where my family had lived. The farm is still in cultivation, but it’s owned by a huge conglomerate now. The house is used for hay storage.”
Gemma gazed up at him. “What happened? Didn’t anyone in your family want it anymore?”
“It was auctioned to pay off debts back in the seventies.” He turned the page to one showing two young men, standing with cocky indifference under a large oak tree. “These are my mother’s two brothers, Alfred and Gary. I lived with Gary once for a few months, until the state stepped in and put me into a foster home.”
“Why?”
“Let me show you the rest of the album first.”
She looked puzzled, but she nodded. “Okay.”
He turned the page and revealed a stack of letters. “These are Hattie’s letters. I kept every one of them.”
He turned the page again. “This is my father, Paul Riley.”
The man in the photograph didn’t resemble Farrell in any way. He had a wide face and curly blond hair. He was dressed in a cheap polyester suit, and his shirt was unbuttoned to show a substantial portion of bare chest and three gold chains. “And this is my father,” he said, turning the page.
The second picture was a fading newspaper photo of the same man, but this time he wasn’t wearing a sly smile. He looked surly and mean. The headline beside it read Local Man Arrested In Robbery.
Farrell turned the page again without looking at Gemma. “This is the transcript of a hearing dated just after my birth. I filed for and got this when I was twenty-one.”
“A hearing?”
“My mother tried to get child support from my father, but he claimed that I wasn’t really his son. For all I know, he may have been right. I saw Noreen on and off through the years before she died, just often enough to keep the state from severing her parental rights, but she never would tell me if Paul Riley was my real dad. The court seemed to think he was. They told him he had to pay support for me, but it didn’t really matter, because he never had any money—at least, none that he could claim on his income tax.”
A Mother's Day: Nobody's ChildBaby on the WayA Daddy for Her Daughters Page 9