One Week In December (13 page)

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Authors: Holly Chamberlin

BOOK: One Week In December
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“I don't see anything wrong with Olivia's idea.” Naomi shrugged. “We could choose a nice name and have a little sign made for beside the front door. Maybe Alex could help us make the sign. Or maybe I could paint one.”
Becca shared David's disdain; she thought the idea was ridiculous but wasn't about to voice her alliance with her brother.
“Grandma.” Olivia turned to Nora, who sat in her favorite armchair, one she'd had since the early days of her marriage. Nobody could remember exactly how many times it had been reupholstered. The current fabric pattern was one of dark pink cabbage roses. “What do you think?”
“I think,” she said, “that the decision should be your mother's and your father's. After all, the house is theirs.”
Julie smiled. “Well, I think it's a fine idea and I was thinking that in keeping with the flower theme I began with the bedrooms, we might call the house Rose Cottage. Oh, I know this isn't a cottage, but doesn't that have a nice ring to it?”
“I had,” Olivia said, “something a little more—sophisticated—in mind. Something like, for example, Kently Manor.”
Becca couldn't help it. She let out a laugh—and was disconcerted to hear her brother's bark of laughter at the same time.
Lily, who hadn't spoken since her mother had introduced the topic, now said, “Don't be mean, you two. If you don't like the name, you don't have to use it.”
“It's just that it sounds so pretentious.” David laughed again. “Manor? Come on!”
The discussion came to an end when Alex appeared to offer his farewells. Olivia ignored him, but the others were gracious. Even Becca. Alex smiled to himself. He hoped she could hold her liquor. If not, she was going to have one major headache the next morning.
23
The Brandy Alexanders had softened Becca's mood; maybe the cream had absorbed some of the alcohol (could it do that?) because she didn't feel at all drunk, just—mellow. Even the site of Olivia leaning across the table toward their grandmother, armed with a notebook like a rabid journalist, didn't bother her. Her sister was harmless. Strange, but harmless.
“So you're okay with the idea of my interviewing you on tape? I don't want to make all the preparations if you're going to change your mind, Grandma.”
Nora seemed to be controlling a smile. “I told you, Liv, I have no inordinate fear of tape recorders or microphones. I may be old, but I am familiar with basic electronic recording devices.”
“Good.” Olivia sat back, relieved. “I'll take some preliminary notes this week and when I come back next month, we'll sit down and start recording.”
“You're coming again next month?” Julie asked.
“Why, is that a problem? I thought I'd take a week off to do some research and take an oral history from Grandma. James can handle the business on his own.”
From the look of surprise on her brother-in-law's face, Becca would have put money on the fact that he'd known nothing of his wife's plan.
Olivia, oblivious to her husband, was chattering on, pen poised. “For example, I'm hoping you can describe for me what it was like before your family had a dial phone. From what I've read, automatic telephone exchanges were phased in through the early 1950s, but until then, most people didn't have dial phones.”
“What's a dial phone?” Michael asked. He was ignored.
Nora laughed. “Well, on the topic of phones I'm going to have to disappoint you, Liv.”
“What do you mean? You don't remember anything about using an operator to place a call?”
“Not really. It has been quite a few years.”
“Try, Grandma,” Olivia urged. “Just think really hard. Did it feel like you had no privacy on the phone? How did you pay for calls? Did you get a bill in the mail?”
“Olivia, dear.” Nora sounded exasperated. Becca couldn't blame her. If she were the one being badgered, she'd have popped Olivia in the nose by now. “I just don't remember! Really, one of the pleasures of growing old is that so much just escapes your memory. Life is a lot less complicated than it used to be and, trust me, that's a relief.”
“Grandma, how can you say that? Without our memories we're nothing.”
James dropped his knife. It clattered against his plate and he murmured an apology. Olivia didn't seem to notice the interruption.
“That may be so, Olivia,” Nora said, in what Becca thought was a placating tone of voice. “I'll try to jog my memory and see what comes up, all right?”
“Now that that's settled,” Julie said brightly, “did I mention I got a call today from my friend Marion—you remember, the woman I met at that preservation society I belonged to back in Massachusetts?”
There were a few murmurs on the order of “No, you didn't” and “Sure, I remember.”
“Well, she told me the funniest story about her grandson. It seems he's always wanted to be a marine biologist. Well—”
The mention of marine biology had jump-started Becca's memory. Years ago, when she must have been only six or seven, her parents had taken the family to a marine show in Cape Cod. At least, she thought it was Cape Cod. Anyway, the memory was really about how excited David had been about getting to pet the tame dolphin. Right then he'd announced he was going to work for a cleaner natural environment so the dolphins could swim in a cleaner ocean. Impatiently, Becca waited for her mother to finish relating what seemed to her, who was only half listening, a remarkably boring tale.
“You know what I just remembered?” she said the moment her mother had finished speaking. “I don't know where it was exactly, but, David, you were there, Olivia, too, and Mom and Dad, and it must have been summer and we were all—”
David was staring at his plate, his expression tight. Everyone else, it seemed, was staring at her.
Becca flushed with embarrassment. What was she doing? How could she expect her family to share with her a happy memory when she'd set herself up as their enemy? She knew there was a good chance that if she pursued her decision to tell Rain the truth about her birth, she would alienate her parents and siblings forever. She thought she had known loneliness before now, but to be cut off from her family forever could be far, far worse than anything she'd experienced. Was it, she wondered, a risk worth taking?
Whatever the answer to that question, how could she go on with her anecdote, given the current fraught situation, a situation she had created? The answer was that she couldn't.
“I—I'm sorry,” she said. “I suddenly can't remember what I was going to say. I guess Grandma's not the only one with a bad memory. Sorry.”
Becca imagined a collective sigh of relief from her family. Someone changed the topic. They had to have because conversation was going on around her, though Becca was entirely unaware of the content.
For the remainder of the meal, Becca was silent. To herself she vowed to avoid the Brandy Alexanders in the future. Alcohol only lured you into a false sense of security and well-being. It only made you weak. It made you vulnerable, not only to the designs of others but maybe worse, to your own demons. It made you vulnerable to the parts of yourself that tormented you. It made you defenseless against the facts of your life that haunted you.
Facts like—like loneliness. And facts like guilt.
24
Nora caught Becca's arm as she attempted to pass out of the dining room after dinner. Becca flinched at the touch.
“We're ready to have that conversation,” Nora said. “Everyone is gathering in the living room.”
No,
Becca thought.
I can't.
She felt beat up by the individual encounters she had barely survived that day, and chastened by her own blunder at dinner. She simply couldn't handle any more conflict. She needed time to recharge her energies. Plus, she felt a headache coming on. A big one.
“Maybe not tonight, Grandma,” she said. “I'm exhausted. We can all talk in the morning.”
“Everyone is exhausted, Becca,” Nora countered. “You can't just drop a bomb on us and then ignore the damage. You've got every one of us scared of the next hit. We don't know when it's coming or how bad it's going to be. You owe us that discussion we talked about last night.”
A bomb? Well, she could out-cliché her grandmother. A string of expressions flooded Becca's head. It was time to cowboy-up. Time to face the music. Time for the fat lady to sing. Well, maybe that last one wasn't quite right. “I'm sorry, Grandma,” she said. “You're right, of course.”
She followed her grandmother into the living room, where the rest of the family—minus Rain and the boys, of course—were gathered. Becca took the only remaining seat, a straight-backed chair that usually lived in a corner. She moved it slightly so that she wouldn't be directly facing her father.
“Have you thought more about our—conversation—last night, Becca?” Julie said as soon as her daughter was settled.
And about your badgering me today,
Becca thought.
And about David's harassing me.
“Yes,” she said. “I have.”
David leaned forward, his expression tight. “And?”
“And I haven't changed my mind.”
Olivia huffed. “As if any of us expected better from her.” Becca thought that James looked more embarrassed by his wife's comment than she, Becca, felt.
David went on, as if his older sister hadn't spoken. “You're going to put a huge emotional burden on Rain if you tell her now, and in this—this ridiculous way. She might try to act like an adult, but she's not, Becca. She's still a child.”
“I don't see what's so ridiculous—”
But David cut her off. “We'll leave right now if you persist with this nonsense,” he threatened. “I will pack up my family and we'll be out of here within the hour.”
“Like your leaving this house will stop me from talking to Rain?”
“Now just stop this,” Julie snapped. “No one is leaving—don't be silly, David. And Becca, calm down, please. You two sound just like you did when you were kids fighting over what show to watch on TV.”
After a moment of silence heavy with tension, Naomi spoke.
“Becca, what do you envision happening after—after you tell Rain that you gave birth to her?”
“Don't indulge her, Naomi,” David scolded.
Nora shook her head. “No, David, it's a good question. Becca, do you have an answer to it?”
Becca felt her mouth go dry. The truth was—and how could she admit this, she who was the most organized person in her career and financial life!—the truth was that she hadn't thought through every single detail of the matter. Not entirely.
“Well,” she said finally, “I suppose I expect Rain to come to live with me in Boston.”
“Of course.” The words burst from Olivia. “Because Boston is so much more sophisticated than Framingham!” Her seemingly pointless comment was ignored.
“What if she doesn't want to live with you in Boston?” David asked.
Of course she would. Becca had to believe that her daughter would want to be with her real mother. She had to believe that. Before she could put words to her belief, Naomi pressed on.
“But what about all of the friends Rain has made over the years? What about school? She's been with some of the same kids since first grade. It would be terrible if she had to transfer now. Especially—especially without her family. Without those of us, including the boys, who spend every day and night with her. We've been her daily support system for all these years and she—she's been ours.” Naomi pulled a tissue from her sweater pocket and wiped her wet eyes.
“The boys would miss their sister terribly,” Julie said, almost as if to herself. “What would we say to them? How could we explain?”
The mention of the boys, Rain's ostensible brothers, called Becca up short, again. She hadn't thought about them at all when she was planning her new life with Rain. She felt uncomfortable. Was it possible that Rain would miss her little brothers so much that she would choose to return to them? Of course it was possible.
Becca took a deep and steadying breath. “Look,” she said, “I'll admit that I haven't ironed out all the details and considered all the logistics yet but—”
“And yet you've been claiming exactly the opposite!” David cried. “You keep telling us you've thought everything through!”
Naomi hushed him with a significant look. The last thing they needed was Rain coming downstairs to see what all the noise was about.
“Becca,” her mother said now, leaning forward as if to emphasize her point, “if you want to be a parent, the kind who is responsible for the day-to-day raising of a child, you have to focus on the details. You have to plan every little thing, from what the child's going to eat for breakfast to what vaccines she's going to need at her annual physical. I can't believe you can sit here with us and demand the right to tell your daughter the truth of her birth and say you want her to come to live with you and yet you haven't even thought about, oh, I don't know, which doctor she'll see or what school she'll attend.”
Becca was at a momentary loss for words. She didn't want to feel chastened, but she did and it annoyed her.
David was now talking at her, again. “God, Becca, even if you planned on Rain staying in New Hampshire with us—her parents!—what did you expect to have happen? You drop your bombshell, then walk away and leave us to deal with the emotional mess you've created? Is that it? Are you trying to punish us or something? Because if you're angry with me or with Naomi, fine, tell us, but don't drag your child into it.”
“All children get dragged into other people's dramas.” Olivia's second enigmatic pronouncement of the evening also went unanswered.
Thus far in the conversation, Steve had remained a silent but emotionally involved observer. Now he felt the need to speak; at the same time, he seriously doubted that anything he might say would make much of a difference to his daughter.
“Why are you doing this, Becca?” He knew his voice sounded pleading. “And why now? Please, tell me. Help me to understand.”
“Why?” she shot back. “So you can try to change my mind about wanting Rain to know the truth before any more time is wasted in deception?”
“No,” he said calmly. “So that I can—so that I can help you.”
Becca felt helpless to stop a smirk from appearing on her lips. “I don't need any more help, Dad, thanks. You and Mom and Grandma have already done quite enough for me.”
Nora rose to her feet. She was actually trembling. Becca had never seen her grandmother so angry. “Do you really have to be sarcastic?” she said. “Do you really have to talk this way to your mother and father? It's unworthy of you, Becca.”
Again, Becca felt chastened. Things were getting out of hand. She was losing control. She had spoken disrespectfully and had made her eighty-six-year-old grandmother scold her. But really, a small voice inside Becca challenged, what did you expect? You are threatening to destroy the peace in which this family has existed for close to twenty years. You are threatening to undermine the structure of the family. You have announced yourself as the enemy of a system that works without a hitch, a system that has served everyone well for many, many years.
Everyone, the voice said, even you.
Everyone,
Becca said back,
except me.
“We agreed,” her grandmother was now saying, repeating the same old argument they all had been using. “We made a deal. We all promised, each one of us. Doesn't that mean anything to you? You gave your word, Becca, that you would keep the truth of Rain's birth a secret until—if—we all agreed it was best for her to know.”
“My word was given under pressure,” she replied. “You can't hold someone responsible for a promise she made when she's under duress.”
And there was that voice again. But isn't that selective morality, Becca? the voice asked. By that reasoning, any promise could be broken with a claim—true or false—of duress at the time the promise was given.
“Oh, please,” David spat, “you were fine! Maybe a little scared, but come on, Becca, you were perfectly lucid, even eager for us to do something with—to take care of Rain.”
“I never wanted to abandon my child.” Becca hated the note of desperation she detected in her voice.
“No one is saying you abandoned your child,” Naomi pointed out. “You placed her into the care of your brother and sister-in-law. That's quite a different thing from abandoning.”
Becca wasn't quite sure it was, and opened her mouth to say something—she wasn't sure what, exactly—when David cut her off.
“This is insanity,” he said. “We're making no progress here at all. Becca, you haven't even tried to see things our way. How can we come to a compromise if—”
“I don't want a compromise. I want my daughter.”
“Speaking of whom.” Nora turned to Lily. Thus far, Lily had said nothing. “Lily, do you know if Rain suspects anything—odd—going on?”
Lily seemed uncomfortable being the center of her family's attention. “Um, no,” she said, fidgeting with a button on her wool sweater. “She hasn't said anything to me.”
“You'll let us know if she does?”
Lily agreed that she would. She hoped, though, that her niece could be spared a too early knowledge of the common practice of duplicity, even the kind meant to protect someone from harm. Lily was still processing—and would be for some time, she thought—the news of her grandfather's affair, and the knowledge that at the heart of the Rowan family lay not one but two big secrets.
No one, not even David, seemed to have anything to say, until Julie cleared her throat and spoke.
“Becca,” she said, “I am asking for your promise not to approach Rain until the family can meet again after the holiday. This is absolutely not the time for such a conversation with her.”
“It wouldn't be a conversation,” Nora corrected. “It would be an ambush. You must see that, Becca. It would be grossly unfair of you.”
“Please, Becca,” Naomi pleaded, “if things are going to—change—at least let her enjoy one final Christmas as . . .” Again, her words were cut off by tears.
Becca shifted in her seat.
“You're demanding something enormous from us, Becca,” her grandmother went on. “The least you can do is meet this simple request for time and more family consideration. If Rain is to be told the truth of her birth, then there must be preparation.”
David opened his mouth—no doubt to argue that there would be no telling of the truth except on a family consensus—but Naomi's hand on his arm stopped him.
Becca felt the eyes of her family upon her, anguished, angry, and confused.
“All right,” she said after a moment, her reluctance obvious. Vaguely, she wondered if she would lose resolve over time. It worried her but at the same time, she knew the wisest strategy was to go along with the others. This one last time. “I agree.”

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