Layla dragged a hand across her face. “Why?”
“Because, whether you like it or not, your mother has come home. It is your grandmother’s greatest wish to repair their relationship, but that can’t happen unless you two repair yours.”
Layla glanced at her mother then back at Aunt Grace. “How am I supposed to do that?”
Her expression softened. “You listen. You open your heart and imagine what it would take for a mother to give up her child.”
“Aunt Grace—”
She held up a hand. “I agreed to wait till Barbara was stronger before we told her. In exchange, you’re going to be civil and talk to your mother. Get to know her. I have a feeling you’ll discover that everything you think you know is completely wrong.”
Aunt Grace smiled. A genuine, compassionate smile filled with the love she’d always displayed. She kissed Layla’s cheek and then glanced over at the silent figure on the couch. “Good luck.”
Layla stared out across the lawn. Clouds were beginning to gather on the horizon and even now, Layla could smell the change in the air that signaled a coming storm. A blue jay was splashing in the marble birdbath in the flower garden. A monarch butterfly flitted down briefly and then took off again. A couple houses down, a dog barked.
The world was continuing on, unaware that Layla’s life had shattered…again.
When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she turned back to face the woman who’d influenced her life as much as her grandmother. Elizabeth McCarthy – even in her mind, Layla couldn’t bring herself to call the woman “mother” – withstood the scrutiny. She did set the glider into motion, the only visible sign that she was as unsettled as Layla. The creaking of metal sliding along metal was somehow soothing.
“I tried to tell Aunt Grace we shouldn’t surprise you, but she’s very determined,” Elizabeth said, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
Her voice was smooth and husky, with a hint of velvet. The tone didn’t match her waif-like appearance, and was as unexpected as her words. Because she’d just given Layla an out. She almost took it, but then she thought of her grandmother. A woman who’d waited decades for the daughter who’d left. And Layla knew she didn’t have a choice.
“No,” Layla said. “Aunt Grace is right. I need to figure out a way to live with you being back in our lives. Gran won’t have peace otherwise. Besides, it’s past time I got some answers from you.”
“Yes, it is.”
Now that the moment was here, Layla didn’t know where to start. She forced herself to move, sitting on the rattan patio chair. She continued to stare. The jeans and loose-fitting shirt made Elizabeth seem thin to the point of emaciation.
“Are you dying?” Layla asked, forcing the words out. “Is that why you finally came back?”
The glider stopped for a moment, and Layla glimpsed a brief flicker of emotion. “No, I’m not.”
“Really? Because Aunt Grace has been hinting that you might not have much time left.”
The monotonous creak began again as Elizabeth released a soft chuckle. “Aunt Grace looks so innocent that you usually don’t realize you’re being manipulated,” she said. “She does it with the purest of hearts, so it’s impossible to be mad at her.”
For a moment they shared a quiet bond.
“You have been sick, though,” Layla said, looking down at her hands.
Two creaks of the glider before she answered. “I was. Breast cancer, but I’m in remission.”
“And that’s why your hair—” Layla’s gaze flicked to her mother’s head before she could stop the impulse. She tried to connect the golden-haired young girl she’d seen in pictures growing up, with the thin, nearly bald woman, sitting on the glider, but the two images wouldn’t match up.
Elizabeth finally stopped the nervous fidgeting and sat forward. “Why my hair fell out, why I lost my breasts, and why I look like someone battling an eating disorder,” she said, her gaze steady and voice unflinching as she listed the litany of her physical changes.
Layla tried not to react to the recitation. Tried not to feel compassion. She couldn’t afford compassion. Not before she had some answers. “If you’re not sick, why come back? Why now?”
“Because I don’t know how long I have.”
Layla’s stomach knotted, and she drew in a sharp breath. “You just said you’re okay.”
“For now. My cancer could come back tomorrow,” Elizabeth said in a soft voice that didn’t betray a hint of fear over that prospect. “That’s why I knew I needed to make amends.”
“You’re here to say sorry?”
Elizabeth moved from the glider, drew closer until she was kneeling at Layla’s feet. “I’m here to grovel and beg for whatever you’re willing to give,” she said. “I’m here to explain, and yes, to tell you that I’m sorry.”
“What if being sorry isn’t enough?” Layla whispered, wishing forgiveness could come that easily.
“Then, I guess I’ll have to live with that.”
The answer was so direct, and so unexpected, Layla could only stare again.
“You’re more beautiful than I’d ever dreamed you could be,” Elizabeth said softly. Her hand lifted, as if to touch, but she caught herself and dropped it to her side. Her green eyes did the touching, though, as if she were trying to absorb every detail of Layla’s being.
The words awakened Layla from the brief fascination. She tilted her head. “Did you dream about me or wonder how I was? Did you have even one regret about what you’d done?”
Elizabeth let out a quick, startled breath and stood up. “Baby, I have so many regrets they’d fill up this entire house.”
Now that the questions were surfacing, so was Layla’s anger. “Regrets about what?” she asked. “The life you threw away like garbage?”
The arrow sunk deep enough that Elizabeth finally flinched. She turned to stare at the yard. “It wasn’t like that.”
Layla couldn’t sit still any longer. She jumped up and paced a few steps until she could look in her mother’s face. “Really? What would you call dumping a baby on someone’s doorstep and then disappearing forever?”
Elizabeth rotated her head, and Layla felt a jolt rip right through her as she saw the raw anguish reflected behind her mother’s eyes. “I’d probably think she was weak and selfish and that she had earned every terrible thing you’ve ever thought about her,” she said, voice shaking.
Layla tried to stay on track. Remember her need for answers. “You’ve obviously been in town for a while now. Larry Conklin mentioned seeing you on the street even before you met with Aunt Grace. If you were so intent on making amends why did you wait so long?”
“Because I saw you that day,” Elizabeth said, turning to face her fully. “You walked out of the house, and I panicked. I’d come back ready to face my mother, but I wasn’t prepared for you.”
Layla had thought the pain couldn’t get any sharper. She’d been wrong. “So you’re not even here for me?”
“I didn’t know you were in Shellwater Key,” Elizabeth said. “I came to try and reconnect with my mother first. Seeing you changed everything.”
“Seems I have a habit of screwing up your life.”
Elizabeth made a sound of protest. “You didn’t screw up my life,” she said. “I did that all on my own.”
“I’m glad you’re at least being honest about that. I figured you’d try to blame everyone but yourself. Maybe even Gran.”
Elizabeth stilled, and another flash of emotion flickered behind her eyes.
Layla didn’t miss the hesitation. “Don’t you dare suggest that Gran made you abandon your only child because I won’t stand for it.” She stepped closer and pointed toward the door. “If that’s your game, you can walk out of here right now.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth as if to speak, but instead of defending herself, she seemed to think better of it. She looked at the ground as if to gather her thoughts. “Of course, you’re right. It’s not her fault. I wasn’
t here, but I need you to know that at the time I felt I had no choice.”
“You’re not going to give me a sob story about being abused or something, are you?” she asked, cynicism dripping from every word.
Lifting her head, Elizabeth looked Layla right in the eyes. “No. But I do want to tell you a story about a beautiful girl who always felt ugly on the inside.”
Layla couldn’t move. Part of her longed to race into the house – the lost child who’d cried for her mother. But the adult Layla needed to hear the story.
Elizabeth nodded, as if sensing Layla’s consent to continue. “You know about your grandmother’s accomplishments,” she said. “But I don’t know if you can appreciate what it was like trying to live up to the expectations of an entire town.”
No, Layla mostly knew what it was like to live down to them. Or repeat the same mistakes.
Elizabeth started pacing. “I wasn’t stupid, but knew I could never be as smart as my mother. I didn’t have a head for figures and had no interest in science. In elementary school it wasn’t so bad, but once I got older the criticism became more apparent. My teachers would shake their heads. I even overheard one of them lamenting the fact that Barbara McCarthy’s daughter was so average. Another told me that I shouldn’t worry so much. After all, I was so very pretty.”
Layla listened, a lifetime of bitterness warring with sympathy. She didn’t want to feel empathy. Or acknowledge that she could have anything in common with Elizabeth. Except Layla had been told the same thing many times.
“After a while I simply gave up trying to be my mother’s daughter,” Elizabeth continued. “I knew nothing I did would ever come close to matching her accomplishments. So, if my only claim to fame was being beautiful, then I’d do that perfectly. I was a natural flirt so it wasn’t hard to slip into that role.”
“Didn’t it bother you when people started talking about you? Whispering behind their hands and wondering who you’d take up with next?” Layla asked, as she was flooded with memories of conversations that would cease whenever she walked into a room. The taunts from the girls, the leers from the boys.
Elizabeth stopped her pacing. She grimaced and wiped a hand across her mouth. “I guess I should apologize for that, too.”
“For what?”
“You were talking about your experience growing up, right?” she asked, her smile filled with understanding. “Everyone watching you, wondering when you were going to turn into your mother?”
Layla swallowed at how easily she’d been read. “You’d done something to earn it, though.”
Elizabeth’s hand rubbed her chest as if massaging an old ache. “I admit I got caught up in the excitement. I liked the power my looks gave me. I can’t deny that, but I was never as wild as people thought. I didn’t do half the things I was accused of back then. Unfortunately, I did enough to earn the wrath of the good folks of Shellwater Key. Pretty soon, no one saw anything in me beyond my face and my supposed promiscuous ways. Things changed when I met your father my senior year, though.”
“My father?” Layla’s eyes widened in surprise, and she moved closer. “Who was he?”
Elizabeth leaned against the back of the deck chair, her hands resting on the top. “He was in my Physics class,” she said, looking down at the concrete squares of the patio. “Now, he was smart.”
“My father was a high school science geek?”
Elizabeth’s head tilted, and a glimmer of a smile appeared. “Who did you imagine your father was? Some drug addict I’d picked up off the street? Or maybe a married man I’d seduced?”
Pretty close, Layla thought with unexpected guilt. She covered the emotion by pushing for more. Now that she was getting answers, she wanted everything. “What was his name?”
A smile softened her face. “Colin Landry.”
Layla studied that smile, and a fission of shock jolted through her. “You loved him.”
Elizabeth ran her fingers along the thick cushion. “With all my heart. Colin was sweet and kind, and he saw things in me no one had ever taken the time to look for. He thought I was special and not because I looked good on his arm walking down the hall.”
“He wasn’t just an escape? Another way to shock people?”
A spasm of pain chased across Beth’s features, and her eyes closed as if to block out the memories. She swallowed. “For a few short months he was my everything. No one’s ever loved me the way he did,” she said, her voice faltering for the first time.
Layla didn’t know why it mattered that her parents had loved each other, but somehow knowing she wasn’t the product of a drunken one-night stand eased the darkness in her heart. “So what happened?” she asked, becoming engrossed in the story despite herself.
“I screwed it up by getting pregnant when I was seventeen.”
“Seventeen…” Layla hadn’t known her mother had been a teenager when she’d gotten pregnant. She’d never imagined it.
Elizabeth gave another one of her ironic smiles. “You keep acting surprised. There were a lot of people around here who always knew I’d get myself into trouble. Nearly everyone, including my own—” She broke off suddenly, her eyes darting toward the house.
“Including whom?” Layla asked.
She turned back and forced a smile, but her hand shook as she ran it across the top of her head. “Just everyone, you know. Telling your grandmother was the scariest thing I’d ever done. Seeing her face when I told her shattered my heart. I think that was the worst part. I hated knowing I’d disappointed her.”
“What happened after you told her?” Layla asked. “Surely she would have supported you once she got over the shock?”
Elizabeth’s body jerked as if she’d been shot. “You would think so,” she murmured.
Layla stepped in front of her mother. “What does that mean?” she asked, trying to see the truth in Elizabeth’s eyes.
Elizabeth looked up. She worried her lip and then blew out a very slow exhalation. “Nothing. We talked about it, and we argued.” She stopped again. “No, it was a terrible fight. We had different ideas of how to deal with the situation. I ended up running to Aunt Grace, and she took me in. I left before anyone in town found out I was pregnant.”
“Without even telling my father?”
Her head dipped. “Yes. I started to call him a few times after I’d left, but I always lost my nerve. And by the time you were born he’d graduated and gone to college. I didn’t think it was right to burden him, when he had a future. I never even tried to find him.”
“So you ended up at Aunt Grace’s.”
Elizabeth nodded. “In hindsight it was probably the best place for me. You know how she is. She’s so comforting and accepting. I tried to settle in and prepare to be a mother. I read every book I could find.”
“You wanted to keep me?”
Elizabeth lifted her head and smiled. “I did. From the moment I felt the first flutter inside me. Please believe that.”
“Then what happened? Why did you run away?”
“Everything came to a head when you were born,” she said, her voice soft and thick with unshed tears. “You came a little early. You wanted to be first from the very beginning. You were tiny and red and squalling like a banshee, but you were perfect in every way. I couldn’t believe I’d done something so amazing. I guess I panicked then, thinking someone might take you away from me. So, I bundled you up and ran away from the hospital.”
“Did you even plan anything out or did you just bolt?”
“I’ve never been good at making plans,” Elizabeth said, her tone dry. “My only goal was to get away and prove that I could be a mother. Except I couldn’t.” A tear slipped down her cheek, and she brushed it away.
Layla had the sudden urge to comfort her mother. An impulse she fought. “What happened? Where did you go?”
Elizabeth faced the yard once more. “I didn’t have anywhere to go. I had a GED and no job skills beyond working at a dress boutique in Shellwater Key. I
eventually got a job, but it wasn’t easy. You were sick a lot. I lost a couple jobs because I kept missing work. I eventually ended up in this women’s group home.”
“Why did you give me up?” Layla asked, even though a part of her didn’t want to know why she’d been disposable.
Elizabeth still seemed intent on watching the birds cavorting around the birdbath. “The place I was living. Some of the women there had escaped from abusive homes. One night this man showed up looking for his wife. He was yelling and making threats. I didn’t even understand what was going on until he appeared in the doorway of my room. He had a gun.”
Layla couldn’t contain a gasp of horror. “Did he hurt you?”
Elizabeth finally turned, her face twisted with anguish. “No, but he pointed the gun at your crib. Said he’d kill you if I didn’t tell him where his wife was. I threw myself over the crib trying to shield you.”
Layla’s hand flew to her mouth.
“I don’t know why he didn’t shoot,” Elizabeth said, tears filling her eyes. “Maybe he heard something because he took off up the stairs. I scooped you up and ran like hell. I wasn’t even to the door when I heard shots.”
Elizabeth’s expression told the rest of the story.
“He found his wife,” Layla guessed.
“Killed her and himself,” she said, her throat working. “I threw up outside the house and never went back in. Not even to get my things.”
Layla could only imagine what Elizabeth must have felt. “That must have been awful.”
“It was, and it made me see the truth. I’d been kidding myself, thinking I could be the kind of mother you needed.” She ran a hand across the short fuzz on top of her head. “I had no right to keep you when I was such a disaster.”
“Is that when you brought me back?”
She started shaking, and a sob emerged. “I couldn’t bear to give you to strangers so I left you with the one person I knew would take care of you. Someone who could love you the way you deserved. I wrapped you in your favorite blanket, made sure you had Woo-Woo—”
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