One Week In December

by Holly Chamberlin

There was only one problem. Rain hated her name. She thought it was stupid and she’d confided to Becca that she suspected her parents must have been on drugs when she was born, though the image of a stoned mom and dad was pretty hard to conjure. Of course, Rain had no idea that Becca had chosen her name and that every time she complained about it in her aunt’s hearing—and every time she announced her desire to legally change her name as soon as she was eighteen—Becca cringed. If she could do it over again, rename her daughter at birth, she would, and she would give her a more traditional name, Elizabeth or Katherine, or maybe even Virginia or Alexandra. But what had a sixteen-year-old known about the importance or the reverberations of names? Besides, none of the older Rowans had suggested she reconsider her choice. No one had offered a word of advice.

  Other than complaining about her silly name, Rain was a joy to be with, smart, funny without being sly, and friendly without being false. Of course, some credit was due to David and Naomi, Becca could grudgingly admit that, but she also believed that Rain was inherently good. She was enormously proud to be her mother, even if she couldn’t shout that pride to the world.

  Suddenly, between the salad and the serving of the pork roast with apples, and in spite of her great resolve, Becca experienced a decidedly unpleasant twinge of doubt. She wondered if she should, after all, break the family’s agreement not to reveal the truth about Rain’s birth mother until her twenty-first birthday. For an awful moment, Becca wondered if she was really and truly prepared for the consequences of such an act, consequences which, and it didn’t take a creative genius to figure this out, might very well be disastrous. Becca reached for her wineglass. In vino veritas. Maybe the merlot had something to say about the matter.

  “Mom.” Rain had turned to Naomi, who was seated to her left. “Tell everyone about that cool bag you made for me. It’s purple velvet. All my friends want one. You should see it, Aunt Becca,” she said, looking her way now. “It’s awesome. Maybe Mom could make you one, too.”

  Becca managed a smile. At least she thought she did. “Yes,” she said, lifting her wineglass again. “Maybe.”

  Conversations continued around her. How to get squirrels out of an attic, humanely, of course. What the twins’ friends were getting for Christmas and why the twins thought they should be getting it, too. The neighbor, some artist guy, would be stopping by the next day, per his usual habit. Nora’s annual checkup had gone well; her cholesterol had even gone down. Becca heard words, but they had no meaning. Her mind was focused on one thing only and that was her decision to lay claim to her daughter. She was resolved.

  She should be the one Rain called Mom. She should be the one making awesome purple velvet bags for her daughter, not Naomi. (She couldn’t sew but she could learn, couldn’t she?)

  The meal was a trial for Becca. She was hardly aware of what she had eaten. Cinnamon rolls might have been involved; they usually were, being one of David’s favorites. Everyone always wanted to please David.

  Finally, dinner was over. David and Naomi were eager to get to bed. It had been a long day for both, and the boys were showing signs of grumpiness. Rain and Lily took off to listen to some new music Rain had brought along, and Nora retired to the living room to read. Becca had no intention of being alone with her parents, who had begun to clean up after the meal, any more than was strictly necessary and made her own excuses. Besides, tonight was not the night for her revelation. She wanted the whole family to be present, not that Olivia and James were likely to contribute much of use to what would no doubt be a—lively—discussion.

  Becca closed the door of the den behind her. She wondered why her mother hadn’t given this room a name, too, something like the Stinkweed Room.

  It was crammed full of miscellaneous furniture, or so it seemed to Becca, who was not prepared to look charitably on her new sleeping quarters. An old bookcase stood about six feet high against one wall and looked dangerously close to exploding, so many books in all sorts of conditions were stuffed onto its shelves. The couch had seen better days, but to her mother’s credit, she had provided plenty of ultraclean sheets and blankets, which would cover the cracked leather. A small desk was shoved against another wall and on it were stacks of yellowing magazines, an ancient typewriter with no ribbon, and a jumble of framed photographs, including one of Becca’s grandparents on their wedding day. The floor was made of pine boards, painted a farmhouse gray; in the center of the room was a small braided rug in maroon and gold.

  Becca sighed and sank onto the couch. The room would have to do. She had brought with her several days’ mail and now shuffled through it. Bills; what else was new? An announcement from a local discount furniture warehouse. How had that not gotten tossed in the garbage immediately? And finally, what seemed from the colorful Santa Claus sticker on its front to be a holiday card from a name and address that Becca, at first glance, didn’t recognize.

  Becca tore open the envelope and found inside a garish greeting card printed on cheap, glossy card stock, the kind of card you bought in bulk at the dollar store.

  Who did she know who would have chosen such a thing? Becca opened the card. Molly Hansen, that’s who would and had sent such a greeting.

  Molly Hansen. Becca frowned at the round, childlike signature. She hadn’t seen Molly since junior year of high school. And apart from one or two birthday cards during Becca’s college years (Molly’s family hadn’t been able to send their daughter to college at that time; Becca now wondered if Molly had ever managed to get a degree), there had been nothing, no communication between the girls.

  It was odd, then, hearing from her old neighbor now. Odd, coming on this Christmas in particular, when Becca was determined to claim her child, the child who, inadvertently, had been the cause of Becca’s break from Molly and from all her former friends. Because when Becca had gone to live with David and Naomi and await Rain’s birth, she’d never answered any of her friends’ calls or letters, and when she was finally ready to go back to school, she’d begged her parents to let her graduate from a private high school in a neighboring town, instead of having to return to the local public school. Steve and Julie had agreed and at some expense had enrolled Becca among a senior class of strangers, none of whom seemed to care much about Becca or where she had come from, which was just as she’d hoped things would be.

  Anonymity. That was what Becca had sought and it was what she had achieved ever since, so that her personal life was largely devoid of intimate connections. Becca feared prying eyes and wagging tongues the way some people feared snakes or mice.

  And now, here was Molly Hansen, innocently, perhaps, asking questions in her rounded script, like what Becca was “up to” and how she’d been and even, daringly, suggesting that they get together sometime soon to “catch up.”

  Becca closed the card. There was nothing she would like to do less than “catch up,” especially with someone who was witness to her exodus from town all those years ago, someone who might have suspicions about the reason for Becca’s absence and who, in spite of her seemingly pleasant nature—Becca did remember Molly as a very sweet and natural girl—might really be in search of dirt. Gossip. “So, Becca. Tell me the truth. You were pregnant, weren’t you? Who was it? Who knocked you up? What happened to the baby?”

  Becca slid the card into her briefcase. She might have torn it up and thrown it in the little trash bin under the desk but she didn’t, and she didn’t ask herself why. Instead, she began to prepare for bed. Over a flannel nightgown she zipped a sweat jacket; on her feet she wore thick woolen socks. The den certainly wasn’t warm enough for Becca, who increasingly felt the cold weather and hated it thoroughly.

  It was interesting. Vague memories, old photographs, and amateur video proved that as a child she had loved the snow and icy weather. She’d even owned a pair of white ice skates with faux-fur pom-poms on the end of the laces. When had things begun to change?

  Somewhere along the line, Becca thought as she turned off the small lamp on the end t
able by her head, she had lost her old self. Somewhere along the line, she’d changed so much, it was almost as if her old self had been killed and she’d been reborn as . . .

  As who? That was the question.

  Her thoughts, as she tried to fall asleep, were troubled.

  6

  As their children and grandchildren were settling down for the night, Steve and Julie were in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner. Neither minded the chore; it gave them time to be alone together, which when all the other Rowans were at the house became a precious commodity.

  Now, in the brightly lit kitchen, Julie stood at the sink washing dishes, pots, and pans, and Steve stood next to her, drying them. Hank nibbled contentedly at his bowl of kibble. Henry Le Mew, reigning feline, was nowhere to be seen.

  Julie, now in her mid-sixties, had been married to Steve Rowan for almost forty-five years. Her primary focus during that time had been the raising of their children, a job she had thoroughly enjoyed. That, of course, and keeping a clean and well-ordered home, one to which her husband could look forward to returning each evening after a long and arduous day at work.

  She’d never been much interested in a career outside the home. And honestly, Steve’s salary and all the perks that attempted to compensate for his spending inordinate hours at the office were in fact sufficient for the family’s needs. Still, for a while Julie had tried her hand at being an Avon representative; she remembered how Olivia had loved to play with her makeup samples and how David once had—accidentally, he claimed—dumped an entire bottle of body lotion on the living room carpet. But sales hadn’t captured her mind or her imagination the way parenting had, and after two years she’d given up the job with no regrets.

  And then there had come another child. Though Lily was a surprise, and the notion of yet another child had made Steve more than a bit nervous, Julie had embraced the pregnancy with joy. In spite of her “advanced” maternal age, the birth was an easy one, as those things go, and Julie got down to the business of breast-feeding and child rearing with her usual gusto. It was really only when Becca got pregnant at sixteen that Julie, for the very first time, began to feel tired and not entirely up to every task that presented itself.

  She was vaguely aware that she’d passed the primary emotional care of her youngest child to her mother-in-law. But Julie was not one for guilt and worry; she rarely dwelt on a subject or a problem for more than an hour before devising a solution or a plan and acting on it as soon as possible. So she didn’t feel as if she’d abandoned Lily; she simply felt that she had identified a problem—a lack of emotional energy available for the girl—and solved that problem—a transfer of the girl’s emotional care to someone who did have the energy at hand. And everything had worked out just fine. Lily was a good person, an excellent student, and a generally happy young woman. The sadness she felt over this Cliff character would, Julie was sure, pass before long. And in the meantime, there was always Nora to help Lily through the rough times.

  The sound of lapping water made Julie glance down at Hank, her New England–bred Chinook, with a smile. Julie was a dog person. Each morning, come rain or shine—or snow—she and Hank walked two or three miles together. Now three years old, Hank was the sweetest dog Julie had ever lived with, and she’d lived with dogs since she was a small girl. Big ones, small ones, short-haired and long-haired canines, it didn’t matter to her what the dog looked like or even how he behaved—as long as a dog wasn’t rabid, Julie loved him.

  Maybe because of all the fresh air and exercise being with her dogs required, Julie looked younger than her years, or so she’d been told. Not that she cared much about her appearance. In fact, there was only one thing about which she was vain and that was her hair. Once a lustrous brown, it was still thick and only slightly gray. She liked to wear it in a long braid down her back or, on occasion, wound around her head. Steve had once told her that she looked like a Swiss milkmaid—but only once.

  Julie pretty much liked most people and was slow to voice a negative opinion when she met someone she didn’t care for. Like the obnoxious boy Lily had been dating for some time, Cliff something-or-other. Yes, Cliff Jones. Julie was glad that relationship was over! And then there’d been that former partner of Steve’s, an overly ambitious and definitely suspicious type named Bob Yarrow, who’d sold his practice when only fifty to retire on what, in Julie’s opinion, were ill-gotten gains. Good riddance to him, too! How her husband had put up with that man was a mystery.

  But then again, maybe it wasn’t so much of a mystery. One of the qualities that most impressed Julie about Steve was his patience and his tolerance for all but the most openly bad behavior.

  Steve, now also in his mid-sixties, was the only child of Thomas and Nora Rowan. Almost two years earlier he’d retired from law after many, many years as a partner in an influential Boston firm. Nowadays, instead of bringing in clients, supervising his staff of junior lawyers, and hiring litigators, he spent the majority of his time taking photographs of just about anything that caught his eye—the deer that regularly paid a visit to the herb and vegetable garden; the hedgehogs that lumped themselves on the remains of an old stone wall behind the house; the bright orange of the autumnal oak leaves on the tree just behind his studio; the way the late afternoon sun hit the living room windows; his wife as she rolled dough for a pie. And even Julie had to admit that some of his best, most artful photographs were of his beloved cat. Steve Rowan was a cat person and proud of it.

  As if summoned by Julie’s thoughts, a distinctive howl came from the kitchen doorway.

  “I wondered where he’d been hiding all evening,” Julie said, without turning from the sink.

  A massive Maine coon cat lumbered over to where Steve stood by the drainboard and glared up at him. At his last weighing in, Henry had been recorded as twenty-four pounds.

  “Not hiding,” Steve corrected. “Avoiding. You know he doesn’t care for crowds.”

  “Family is not a crowd.”

  “Tell that to Henry.”

  While his wife was rarely without her canine sidekick, Steve was rarely without Henry Le Mew, his fur-child of the past eight years.

  “I’d better sit down,” Steve said, a note of apology in his voice. He put aside the dish towel he’d been using and sank into a chair at the table. Henry Le Mew heaved himself onto Steve’s lap, circled several times, and collapsed in a heap of shaggy black and white fur.

  “I suppose there’s no point in telling you that you’ve dreadfully spoiled that animal.”

  “No point whatsoever,” Steve agreed. “Besides, I didn’t do anything. Henry makes all the decisions around here.”

  Henry Le Mew was, in fact, a bit of a dictator. He tolerated Julie’s canine companion, but barely. If he could get in a swipe of his massive paw, he would; though in deference to the family peace he rarely drew blood. Henry was one of those particularly intelligent cats; he knew how to get what he wanted, even if it meant learning—yes, learning—how to wrap his giant paw around a cabinet knob and pull. Witnessing this one afternoon, Steve had decided to put a lock on the cabinet in which Henry’s food was kept. This had not gone over well with Henry; he’d refused to meet Steve’s eye for a week.

  Anyone observing Steve sitting in his kitchen that night would have noted that he looked like a man who had paid a price. He had a thin, careworn face and his shoulders were slightly stooped. Both physical traits were proof of years of slavish devotion to his law practice; unlike his wife, he looked older than his years, though according to his doctor, he was in robust health.

  As was true of many men of his generation, he was not as obviously close to his children as his wife was; most of his days and many of his nights had been spent at the office while Julie had been at home with their brood. But Steve loved his family dearly and considered his children his greatest achievement. Well, his and Julie’s greatest achievement.

  An important part of his job as father was the dispensing of advice, a job he took very
seriously. He considered it a responsibility as well as an honor. It might have been a habit formed from years of practicing law; people paid for his advice and had a right to expect it to be valuable. So both at the office and at home, Steve’s words were considered and kind. This habit had no doubt helped build decent relationships with each of his four children.

  In fact, the only familial relationship that troubled him was the one he had with his third child, Rebecca, or Becca, as she’d asked to be called after her twelfth birthday. In the past few years she had become increasingly distant and, at times, combative or cold. And earlier that evening, before retiring to her room, she’d been barely civil to him, refusing to meet his eye even once. Steve suspected he knew the reason behind her behavior and it worried him that Becca might be regretting the decision he and other members of the family had made for her when she was a shattered, pregnant sixteen-year-old.

  Nora came into the kitchen for a cup of tea, interrupting Steve’s troubled thoughts. She raised her eyebrow at her son and the feline on his lap.

  “I see you’re helping Julie with the dishes,” she said.

  Steve shrugged. “What can I say? He demanded I sit.”

  Steve’s relationship with his mother had always been good, uncorrupted by dark resentments or Freudian jealousies. The fact that his wife and mother got along so famously was, in his mind, nothing short of a miracle. It certainly made their current living situation more than tolerable, even pleasant, for which he was very, very thankful. Over the years he’d heard horror stories from colleagues who lived with a spouse and parent or parent-in-law; at times he felt almost guilty in admitting his own happy situation.

  As an only child, born when his mother was about twenty, Steve might have been overly pampered, but he hadn’t been. It wasn’t Nora’s style to send a child out into the world ill prepared for some cold hard facts of life, like failure and competition and injustice. She hadn’t been unnecessarily harsh with her only child, just fair, thus preventing Steve from becoming an insufferably spoiled man-child, unfit for career, marriage, and fatherhood.