A Mother's Secret (11 page)

“Just for a minute, and then we need to go.”

He didn’t notice anything, thank goodness, only grabbed her hand to draw her outside. His chatter blurred like birdsong. She sat with him and set the glider in motion, aware the entire time of Daniel standing in the doorway watching them, his hands in his pockets.

She could not—could not—look at him. Managed not to meet his eyes at all as she nudged Malcolm into thanking him for lunch, and steered them out the front door.

This despair was worse than the earlier ache of regret. Much worse.

I keep wondering…

Now she knew. It was the same. No, not the same; different. Better. She was more sensitized to his touch. She could shame herself so easily, wanting him as she had never, perhaps would never, want another man.

Did he have his answer? she wondered bitterly. Was it any more welcome than hers?

“Mom!” her son complained, tugging at her hand. “Slow down!”

From somewhere, she summoned a grin. “I’m sorry. I forget how short your legs are, munchkin.”

“The car is right there anyhow, isn’t it, Mom?”

“Yes, it is.” She produced her keys from her purse. “And in you go, kiddo.”

He was asleep before she’d gone a dozen blocks, leaving her to her bitter reflections.

D
ANIEL SPENT THE WEEK
asking himself what he was playing at, anyway. No, he hadn’t plotted in advance to kiss Rebecca. But he hadn’t resisted the temptation very hard, either. From the minute she stepped in the front door, her gaze wary, he’d felt…God, he hardly knew. Intense sat
isfaction because she was back where she belonged? Yeah, he couldn’t deny it. Pleasure that she and his son were
both
here? Sure.

He’d spent the previous week, after issuing the invitation, flooded with memories. Everywhere he looked in his house, he saw her. He’d brought women home only a couple of times after Rebecca left, and had been sorry both times. They didn’t belong.

She did, although after she was gone he never let himself quite realize how much he missed her.

Now, every piece of furniture, every room, reminded him of her. The sofa where she would read, the kitchen table, the dining room where they’d entertained friends, the balcony where they’d sat, feet dangling, and lazily talked as the sun set…every inch of the house seemed permeated with her. He’d even kept that damn antique cherrywood rocking chair he’d bought when he was seeing her, though it was too small for him. It currently sat upstairs in his bedroom, completely useless, and yet…he hadn’t been able to bring himself to get rid of it. He was glad she hadn’t seen it still there.

She had kissed him back. The fire was still there, but she didn’t seem very happy to discover that. She hadn’t wanted to be here, and he was still shaken by her anger. Daniel couldn’t blame her for it, either. He had driven her away, then brooded alone in this damn house for months before he even considered asking a woman to dinner. He hadn’t been ready to marry Rebecca, but he hadn’t wanted to let her go, either.

What he was finding was that he never
had
let her go, not entirely. She’d stayed at the edges of his thoughts, like an elusive scent. No other woman moved the way she did,
with that dancer’s grace; he was never as satisfied talking to anyone else, man or woman. He’d never felt the same passion for another woman.

It bothered him how much she’d changed. Becoming a mother was probably responsible for some of that, especially being a single parent; she could never relax her vigilance, never quite trust anyone else to take care of Malcolm as well as she did. He guessed there’d been a financial struggle, too, even though she claimed she’d been able to take care of both of them. What he did know was that she had become more serious and considerably more guarded. She didn’t seem to laugh much anymore, at least around him. She wasn’t the relaxed, warm, open woman she’d been.

Or at least, Daniel thought ruefully, she wasn’t with him. He had seen her face light up often enough for Malcolm’s benefit. He suspected she was serene, gentle and affectionate to her students, too.

Hell, maybe she hadn’t changed at all. Maybe she just didn’t like him.

Daniel grimaced. Why would she? He was demanding she hand over her son to him part of the time. He embodied her worst fears, of a father who would yank one way while she pulled the other, damaging Malcolm emotionally.

He wanted to kiss her—
had
kissed her—while she probably hated his guts.

Remembering Joe’s question, Daniel gave a humorous laugh. She’d looked less than thrilled when he told her he would have married her once he found out she was pregnant. So marriage for Malcolm’s sake wasn’t an option she was willing to consider. He had wanted to believe that, like
him, she was giving it some thought now. It seemed…logical. After her flare of anger today, though, he had to guess she wasn’t in favor.

He still panicked when he imagined being tied to this woman and no other for the rest of his days, having a son, maybe more kids. He wasn’t sure she’d understood what he was trying to say when he told her he wished he could be what she needed, but that was still what scared him. Would he let her and Malcolm down when they needed him? He wasn’t even that sure what his role would
be
as a husband and father. How was he supposed to know, after having virtually raised himself?

But he wasn’t only panicked when he thought about Rebecca as his wife. He also felt an emotion both insidious and potent. Longing. He was a kid with his nose pressed to the glass, wanting the wonders inside, afraid they weren’t for him.

Thinking about Rebecca moved him to call Vern and ask if he could stop by one evening. If he didn’t ask his questions now, he might never get the chance. Vern Kane was eighty-three, and he and his second wife had moved a couple of years back to a seniors apartment complex in Walnut Creek, inland from the city. Mable was developing dementia and Daniel knew they were planning for the transition to assisted living. They’d be able to stay together even as her condition worsened.

The complex was nice, the architecture Spanish and the roof red tile. He’d only been here a couple of times, but Vern had reminded him of the apartment number.

Mable let him in, kissed his cheek and led him into the living room. “Vern, that nice young man is here.”

Daniel realized she had no idea who he was.

Settled in his recliner, Vern started to lever himself up. Daniel waved him back. “No need to get up. Glad to see you, Dad.” The word
Dad
stuck in his throat, but he’d forced it out. He hadn’t decided yet how direct he was going be.

He accepted a soda, and Mable left them alone.

“Missed her soaps today,” Vern said. “Lucky for her, I stuck a tape in.”

He’d noticeably aged this past year. His hair had begun receding thirty-five years ago; now, only a wispy white tonsure remained. His hands were liver-spotted and arthritic, his neck crepey, but his faded blue eyes were still shrewd.

“She didn’t know me,” Daniel observed.

“You’re not around often.” He hesitated. “She didn’t know Patty the last time she came by, either.”

Patty was their oldest child. Since she lived nearby and had stayed close with her parents, Daniel suspected she was here often.

“She looks good otherwise.”

“Her heart’s stronger than mine. I had an angioplasty last fall. Did I tell you? Another of these damn blockages. But they keep reaming me out, and I keep going.”

Daniel grinned. “You could be ten years younger.”

“Don’t care so much about myself. But leaving Mable, now…I don’t like that idea. I can see when she’s confused the way she looks for me…” Vern’s brooding gaze settled on the doorway beyond which they could hear the TV. It took a moment before he gave himself a shake and focused on Daniel again. “This just social, or is there something you need to tell me?”

He decided not to waste any time.

“I’ve had Mom on my mind lately. Did she ever talk about Adam’s father?”

His bushy white brows rose. “You mean, Billy?”

The restraint in Vern’s voice answered one of Daniel’s questions. “Uh…no.”

“She didn’t want you boys to know.”

“About Robert Carson?”

“Was that his name? She never told me.” He mulled that over. “All she said was that there had been a married man. Broke her heart.”

“She had another baby. Did you know that?”

Vern pushed back in the recliner. “You don’t mean after you?”

Daniel shook his head. “After Adam. A girl. She let Carson take her and raise her as his own.”

“Jo did that?” He looked stunned. “How the heck did you find this out?”

Daniel told him then about the letter Sarah Carson had left to be opened after her death.

“So this woman knew all that time and put up with it?”

“Apparently she loved Jenny and it sounds as if they moved past Robert’s infidelity.”

Vern gazed toward his big-screen TV as if the past was playing on the dark screen.

“Your mother was a strange woman,” he said at last. “Beautiful, of course.”

Daniel guessed she was. By his earliest memories, she was in her midforties, her hair already threaded with gray. A slender woman in her twenties and maybe thirties, by her forties she was too thin. Brittle, he sometimes thought. But he had seen enough photos of her as a girl, a wartime bride and a young mother. She was a beauty, with that copper-
bright hair and big gray eyes. The smile he’d seen so little of could have lit a room and must have made men flock to her.

“I couldn’t believe she looked twice at me. Oh, I was successful enough by then, and maybe that was part of the appeal. Not having to struggle to pay the bills. But still, all she had to do was flash those eyes at a man, and he’d trip over his own feet to get to her.”

“She was a flirt?”

“No-o. I’m not sure she meant to have that effect. With one more look, she could freeze a man between one step and the next, too. Did that more often than she summoned. I don’t know what it was about her eyes. You could see she was hurting, but brave and making the best of it, too. Somehow I thought I could fix everything that was wrong for her.”

When he fell silent, Daniel said quietly, “But you couldn’t.”

“No.” Vern’s mouth twisted into a near smile. “Didn’t take me long to realize I was a stand-in. I even wondered…” He swallowed whatever he’d been going to say, his gaze sliding away from Daniel’s.

He made a snap decision. “Whether I was really yours.”

Vern’s gaze swung back to his and his eyes narrowed. “This Mrs. Carson had something to say about that, too?”

“No. But I’ve been looking back and doing some wondering, myself. Why you and Mom didn’t stay married any longer than you did, and why you always seemed ambivalent about me.”

“Ah, well, I wouldn’t say that.” Vern cleared his throat. “You were a fine young boy. The problems your mother and I had…”

“Were directly related to whether you believed I was yours.”

Vern harrumphed some more, but finally said, “You get to my age, your realize it’s too late to make up for mistakes. I’ll admit I’ve had some regrets. It wasn’t as though you had any other father waiting to take over.”

“And not much of a mother, either.” Daniel rolled his shoulders, trying to ease his rigid muscles. “She admitted to me before she died that she didn’t want to be a mother again at forty. I can’t really blame her, I suppose. I think she was depressed when I was young. By the time she took over raising Adam’s boy, Joe, she’d come out of it. She did fine by him. She tried to do better by me, too, but by then I wasn’t having any of it.”

Vern nodded. “Do you have some reason to think you aren’t my son?”

“Yes.” Daniel told him about the birthmark and the DNA test he was waiting on.

Vern reached for a mint from a candy dish, then unwrapped it so slowly, Daniel could tell he was buying time. “So I was right,” he said finally.

His attempt to sound matter-of-fact didn’t quite come off. Sure, he’d known in one way that Jo had either used him or betrayed him, but maybe a part of him had always wondered whether he’d been wrong.

“I’m afraid so,” Daniel said.

“You’ll let me know?”

“Sure.”

“Not that it changes any of my regrets.” The faded blue eyes met his squarely. “None of this was your fault. I could see that Jo was neglecting you, and I left anyway, too full
of my own hurt to think about you. I’ve meant for years to say how sorry I am.”

Was he asking for forgiveness? Examining his churning emotions, Daniel didn’t know if he could give it, not and be honest. The pain of all those canceled visits should have left nothing but old scars, but they still wrenched when he moved wrong. A five-year-old boy, not much older than Malcolm, he’d thought his daddy was rejecting him.

But looking into those eyes that had become rheumy, he found he could say steadily, “I appreciate you saying it. I, uh, found out recently I’m a father, which is what got me thinking.”

“A father?”

Of course he had to explain, and produce a studio photo of Malcolm taken last Christmas that Rebecca had given him.

“Looks just like you.” Vern’s disbelieving gaze kept going from the picture he held in one tremulous hand to Daniel’s face and back again. “Isn’t that something.”

“He’s a nice kid. Smart, confident. But he’s wondered about why he doesn’t have a father. Now that he does…” Daniel shrugged awkwardly. “I want to do it right.”

“Sounds like you already are.” Vern handed the photo back with seeming reluctance. “I can see Jo in him, too.”

“It was a shock the first time I met him. Malcolm’s got his mother’s eyes, though.”

“Then she must be pretty.”

“She is. She was a dancer when she was young. Teaches elementary school now.” His throat closed. “I was an idiot to let her go.”

“Is there any going back?” Vern asked.

Daniel realized he was twitching. “I don’t know. She’d say no right now. I don’t think she likes me very much. But, uh, I’m trying to change that.”