Finder's Keeper (18 page)

The enthusiasm at the table deflated like the air releasing from a balloon. Martin sat, reaching again for Teresa’s hand and she snatched his up, clinging to it with a white-knuckled grip as she said, “But Martin and I have made a decision. You all know I haven’t been able to…become pregnant on my own, and at this point it doesn’t look likely—”

“Teresa…” her mother protested, but Gina hushed her.

Teresa swallowed, met her husband’s supportive gaze and flashed a tentative smile. “We’ve decided to adopt.”

A moment of startled silence met this announcement, but Nonna leaned forward and gave a small nod. “Good for you, bella.”

Mia knew how badly Teresa had wanted to carry a child, to be a mother in every sense of the word, but she forced a bright smile, leeching all the pity from her eyes. “That’s wonderful, Teresa.”

Another, more cautious round of congratulations began, slowly gaining momentum. Mario stood to fetch the champagne—

Until her mother declared, “That’s ridiculous, Teresa. Adoption isn’t necessary.”

Any celebratory sentiment at the table died a brutal death.

“The watch will fix your little baby-making problem, sweetheart,” she went on. “You just have to have patience.”

The watch I lost?
Mia felt a stab of guilt. Had she somehow caused this with her carelessness? She had a sudden, fierce longing for the watch—more pure than any desire for it she’d ever had—but before she could give Chase the signal to scan her, Teresa lurched up out of her chair.

“
Damn
the watch, Mama!”

Shock froze Mia in place. And everyone else at the table, except for Nonna and Zia Anna who frantically crossed themselves.

Teresa just didn’t say things like that. She was fairy tales and romance and magic and happily ever after to her core, and she
never
cursed, but now she was ranting against the family amulet like she’d been possessed by demons and they were pouring off her tongue.

“Everything is perfect thanks to the watch. Everyone is happy and healthy and gets everything they want because of a goddamn
watch
. But I’m not happy, Mama. I can’t conceive. This is the only way I’m ever going to have a child and it would be nice if you could stop bragging about how wonderful Marley is
because of the watch
and how happy we all are
because of the watch
because I don’t see how it is fucking fair that it is responsible for everything good and wonderful in the world but Grandpa and Uncle Freddy both died young and I’m not allowed to have the one thing I want more than anything in the world. I know this isn’t how you pictured things. It isn’t how I pictured them either, but couldn’t you just shut up about the watch for five goddamn minutes and be happy for me?”

Tears were streaming down her face by the end of her speech. She choked back a sob and fled the room, the sound of her footsteps pounding up the stairs unnaturally loud in the silence she left behind.

“I didn’t…you know that isn’t…” There were tears in her mother’s eyes as well, before she shoved back her chair and bolted for the kitchen.

Mia felt like a petrified tree, rooted in place but no longer alive, just a frozen husk of herself. Then Chase’s warm hand closed over hers and she came back to herself. Suddenly everyone seemed to be in motion. Martin was rising to go after Teresa, Gina already on her way to the kitchen after their mother. Mia squeezed Chase’s hand gratefully, then stood herself and spoke to Martin. “Do you mind if I try?” She nodded upstairs.

Martin hesitated—he knew as well as anyone that she and Teresa had never been particularly close—but something in her expression must have convinced him. He nodded his consent and accepted the scotch Tony pressed into his hand with the words, “Mama will come around.”

Mia glanced back to see Chase circle the table and join their manly tableau, his charm on full display as he worked his hardest to distract Martin from his unease. She could’ve kissed him. So many men would’ve run like hell at the first hint of drama, but Chase was right in the middle of it, calming the waters. She knew she shouldn’t come to rely on him, but right now, she was just so damn glad he was there, she couldn’t make herself wish him gone.

Mia climbed the stairs and searched the second story before she remembered the attic access. Teresa sat, huddled at the top of the attic stairs, a ratty fifty-year-old stuffed rabbit she must’ve found among the dust up there clutched in her lap.

Chapter Eighteen

The Ties That Blind

“Are you going to say I told you so?” Teresa’s voice wavered down the steps, but there was something fierce and bitter in the words that made Mia’s chest ache.

She trudged to the top and perched on the step beside her sister, bumping Teresa’s softer hip with her bony one. “About the watch?”

“The watch, magic, happy endings… Take your pick.” Teresa spoke without looking up from the stuffed bunny in her lap, her long fingers slowly tracing the worn face.

Mia swallowed thickly, at a loss for the right thing to say. She’d never seen the point of the social stuff, but now she wanted to comfort her sister and didn’t have the first idea how.

The mooring of her life seemed to be slipping loose and she was drifting. Teresa was a constant. She was a born dreamer and the last person on earth Mia had expected to renounce the magic they’d been immersed in since birth. She hadn’t realized how much she relied on her sister’s unfailing belief as a counterbalance to her own lack, until it wasn’t there anymore, weighing down the other side of the scale.

She’d taken Teresa’s role in her life for granted, blind to the value of the family belief system. She’d never acknowledged the good in Teresa’s belief until it had gone bad. That very romanticism had festered into a toxin eating at her sister from the inside out, her desperation for a child creating something tight and bitter at her core.

She’d renounced magic, they suddenly had something in common, and now Mia wanted nothing more than to talk her back into believing. To have her sister back.

“Are you really miserable, Teresa?” she asked softly. “Aside from the baby stuff?”

“That’s just it. There is no
aside from the baby stuff
. It’s become all I am. Like my failure to have a child is my entire identity now.”

All Mia could think about was the biological injustice of it. Teresa would be a wonderful parent. She was smart and loving and responsible. If anyone’s DNA should live on, it should have been hers, but Mia doubted those words would comfort her sister, so she held her tongue, simply threading her fingers through Teresa’s and resting their joined hands against her knee.

“I couldn’t keep listening to everyone go on about how perfect everything is because of that stupid watch. Second only to God in the family mythology and sometimes even that ranking is in question. The sainted goddamn watch.”

“Want me to bash it with a sledgehammer? Maybe drop it down the darkest well I can find?” Where it could already be for all she knew.

Teresa gave a short, bitter laugh that ended on a low sob. Her hand tightened sharply on Mia’s. “I can’t do it anymore, Mimi. I can’t pretend I don’t go home and cry every time Mama gushes about how Marley is so perfect.”

“Oh Tessy…” she whispered, both of them falling back on their childhood nicknames for one another.

“I don’t want to be this person. I hate that I’m so jealous I could scream. God knows it isn’t healthy. I just… I can’t live like this anymore, and neither can Martin.” Her voice broke on her husband’s name.

“Is he…?” She didn’t know how to phrase it. Mia loved her brother-in-law. He’d been part of the family for sixteen years. But if he was blaming Teresa for their inability to have a child, she’d burn off his family jewels with hydrochloric acid.

“He’s been amazing through all of this.”

So no acid necessary. Good to know.

Teresa sniffled wetly. “He’s the only thing keeping me sane. Just when I feel like I’m going to start screaming and never stop, he puts his arms around me and tells me I can fall apart and he’ll hold the pieces, and all that awful, helpless anger just melts away for a while. But it never stays totally gone.” She looked up, her red-rimmed eyes meeting Mia’s. “I don’t want to be angry anymore, Mia.”

“You won’t be. You’ll adopt and it’ll get better.”
And I’ll find the watch
. It couldn’t hurt. “I’m sorry about Mama. This should have been a happy announcement.”

Teresa’s mouth twisted in a grimace. “I’m sorry too, but I’m not surprised. I’d been dreading telling her because I thought this might happen.”

“How long have you been planning to adopt?”

“Years.”

Mia gasped. Teresa had been planning this for years and none of them had suspected? How could they have been so blind?

“Daddy knew. I just… I couldn’t tell Mama. We’ve actually had two false alarms. Two expecting mothers who decided at the last minute that they wanted to keep their daughters. Just like that. Poof. Adoption cancelled.” She pushed on the button nose of the stuffed rabbit. “We’d already picked out names.”

“God, Tessy…” Why hadn’t she said anything?

“The agency we were going through recently told us we were bordering on too old to adopt an infant, so we decided to go the international route. We fly to China in three weeks to pick her up. If nothing more goes wrong.”

“It won’t. It will be perfect. Any child you adopt will be the luckiest kid on earth, Tessy.”

Teresa gave a little cry and slumped over to tuck her head against Mia’s neck, crying in earnest. Mia wrapped her arms around her big sister, the one who had always believed in happily-ever-afters, and crooned that everything would be okay, trying to make her believe again.

When after a half hour, Gina and her mother reappeared but Mia and Teresa still hadn’t come back downstairs, Martin followed them up. The marinara contest had been declared a draw for the first year on record and the party had begun to break up, Corregiannis departing in twos and threes.

The awkwardness in the air made Chase itch. Made him feel like he had to move, had to act, had to
do.
Left to his own devices, he would have immediately gone to the beach for some night surfing, even if the waves were crap. But he couldn’t leave Mia, so instead he found himself in her grandmother’s kitchen, asking her mother if he could help wash the dishes.

Angelina Corregianni looked up and smiled weakly, elbow deep in bubbles, her eyes red but dry. “I never turn down a man with a dishtowel.”

He came to stand at her side, picking up the towel hanging from a hook and accepting the first dripping bowl. For a while they just worked in silence—soap, scrub, rinse, dry—the repetition of the chore soothing in its own way. Chase was fixed on his task. It took him a moment to realize Mia’s mother was watching him.

“You’re a good boy,” she said softly, turning her eyes back to the bubbles in the sink. “You must think I’m terrible.”

She was a mother. He couldn’t take those for granted. “I think you want your children to be happy.”

“I do.”

He almost didn’t say it. He wasn’t an advice giver or a problem solver, but… “Lots of people are happy adopting.”

“Oh I know. Please don’t think I’m anti-adoption. It’s a wonderful thing. I just never thought it would be necessary. Not for anyone in our family. Especially not my Teresa.” There was a wealth of truth in the way she said it.
My Teresa
. Her favorite.

Chase was a talker, but this time he let the silence do his talking for him. Bowls were stacked neatly on the counter and they’d moved on to pots when Mrs. Corregianni spoke again.

“Mia seems fond of you.”

Did she? He didn’t know what they were doing anymore. Was this business or pleasure? He wanted to kiss her again, but something that felt a helluva lot like fear held him back. He had no idea what he should say to her mother, or even what he wanted to say, so he said nothing.

Mrs. Corregianni gave a soft huff—half exasperation, half confusion. “But then, it can be so hard to tell with Mia. She’s always seen things her own way. Even when she was a tiny thing.”

Chase silently accepted a pot and slowly wiped it dry.

“I remember a time when they were both little,” Mrs. Corregianni went on. “Mia must have been about four and Teresa six or seven. We were walking in the park and we saw a young couple, obviously newly in love and oblivious to anything in the world but one another. They were cuddled together on a blanket with a picnic and neither Mia nor Teresa could stop staring at them. Mia was looking at them like a science experiment. She asked me why they were touching and kissing and I told her they were in love. Teresa sighed and told me that she couldn’t wait to fall in love, but Mia just said, ‘Why, Mama? Why does being in love make you want to kiss?’ I thought it was a phase, but she never did stop asking why.”

Another pot passed between them.

“I never really understood Mia, but Teresa was my dreamer. She was my little princess who always believed in true love and everything was supposed to be perfect for her. It was my job to make sure everything was perfect for her, wasn’t it? To protect her belief in soulmates and happy endings?”

There was no such thing as a happy ending in life. Only a happy middle followed by reality stepping in to end things however it damn well pleased, but Chase couldn’t say that to Mia’s mom. Not when she was still raw from reality kicking her in the face. So he just dried another pot.

Mia stepped into the kitchen, emotionally drained but feeling closer to her sister than she ever had before, just in time to hear her mother say, “I never really understood Mia.”

Chase was drying dishes for her mother, shoulder to shoulder in a companionable way she couldn’t quite make sense of. How had Chase become a part of her family, already so accepted he’d earned confidences from her mother that Mia herself had never heard? She might have been jealous, if she’d had the emotional energy to spare for it. As it was, she just watched the scene through a distancing fog, as if it were a scene in a movie she didn’t particularly care about.