Sweet Forgiveness (24 page)

M
y mother invites me to spend the night, but I don't. Instead, I drive toward my beautiful rental cottage, feeling guilty. The privileged daughter gets to walk away from the shabby cabin and a man in the throes of dementia, but my mother cannot escape. Thoughts of the day ramble in my head. Did I make any progress? If so, why do I feel so damn horrible? The single accusation, made twenty years ago, created a domino effect. My mother's life and Bob's were forever altered by my actions. They can never reclaim his reputation.

My heart begins to race, and my breath comes in uneven bursts. I pull off to the side of the road. The diamond-and-sapphire necklace chokes me and I fumble to unhook it. I free it from my neck and slide it into my purse. I need to talk to Michael. I need someone to assure me that my actions were those of a thirteen-year-old. That I didn't mean for their lives to be ruined.

I quickly punch in his number. His voice mail picks up. I click my phone off without leaving a message. Who was I kidding? He doesn't want to hear my story. I close my eyes and work to breathe, until finally I can drive again.

Two miles down the road, I pass the sign for Merlot de la Mitaine. Without forethought, I turn down the gravel lane and make my way to the parking lot. The tension eases, and I rub my neck. A half dozen cars are in the lot, and the place is lit up. I have a sudden urgency to see RJ. I want to tell him about today. I want to feel his arms around me, comforting me, telling me it's okay. And barring that, I need a glass of wine.

I lock my car and scurry toward the entrance. Just before reaching the door, I stop. What am I doing? This isn't fair. I told RJ I have a boyfriend. Now suddenly I turn to him because I need sympathy? How pathetic. Am I just like my father, craving love but unable to give it? Using people for my own purposes?

I turn around and hurry back to my car. I speed away, before RJ even knows I was there.

I return to the house the next morning. My mother has a breakfast of pancakes and sausage waiting for me—something I haven't eaten in years. Bob sits in the living room, thumbing through an old Sears catalog. From the other side of the kitchen counter, my mother watches me eat.

“More juice?” she asks.

“No, thanks. But these pancakes are delicious,” I say, prompting her to add another stack to my plate.

By the time we finish the dishes it's after ten. My flight leaves at six, and I'd planned to get to the airport early, make a call to Michael and catch up on e-mails.

But it's a glorious day. A day for fishing.

I step into the living room and find Bob asleep on the recliner, the weathered catalog on his lap. I take it from him and place it on the end table. When I do, I see that it's turned to the girls' underwear section. A chill comes over me. Jesus, is he . . . ? I stare down at him, sleeping, with his mouth slack and his skin sagging.
He's just a child
, I tell myself.
He's no different than a young boy
. And I pray to God it's true.

I take Bob's elbow, and he skips through the grass toward the lake. In his hand he lugs his old red tackle box, the same one I remember when I was a girl. It's locked, just as it always was.

“Going fishing,” he says.

“No fishing today,” I tell him. “But we're going for a boat ride.”

I settle Bob onto the boat's metal bench seat, and my mother secures an orange life vest to his chest. He keeps the tackle box on his lap and places a hand on it like it's his favorite toy. The hinges are rusty now, and corrosion covers the old padlock.

I narrow my eyes, wondering why he has a lock on a tackle box. The entire contents can't be worth much more than fifty dollars. Two keys dangle from the boat's key chain. I'm guessing the little one is to the tackle box.

“What's in that box of yours, Bob?” I ask, and knock on the metal case. “Fishing lures? Bobbers?”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, but he's gazing off in the distance.

Big, billowy clouds hang overhead, playing hide-and-seek with the sun. The water is a sheet of cellophane today, and I count at least a dozen other fishing boats.

“Looks like a good day for fishing,” I say. “See all your old pals?”

“Oh, yeah.”

I fill the tank with gas, then prime the pump. It's strange how it comes back to me. I was barely listening the day Bob showed me how to start the boat.

I pull the start cord and each time it spits and chokes, but never catches. My arm aches, but I won't give up. I owe Bob this boat ride. I prime the pump again, and finally the engine chugs to life.

We push off, and the engine coughs and blows smoke. The familiar diesel odor mingles with the pungent scent of the lake. I sit holding the engine's handle, pointing the small craft into the lake. My mother perches beside Bob, shouting over the engine for him to sit down. He wants to stand. He's like a child at the fair, dizzy with joy and excitement.

He laughs and smiles, raises his head to the sun and breathes in the fusty scent of the lake. My mother laughs, too, and I smile at their happiness. I slide the engine handle and we head west. A wave splashes up on the boat's bow, sending drops of cold water raining down on us. Bob lets out a whoop and claps his hands.

“Going fishing,” he says again.

We flit about on the water for a good forty-five minutes before my mother notices a couple inches of water have collected in the boat's bottom. I turn toward shore and tie the boat at the dock. Bob holds my mother's hand, and the three of us traipse up the grassy hill toward the house.

We pass by the old balance beam, and on impulse I step up on it.

“You made me this beam, Bob. Thank you. I should have told you years ago. I love it.” I flit across the narrow plank, laughing as I steady myself with my outstretched arms.

Bob holds out his hand to me. I perform a clumsy little leap, then look over my shoulder at him.

“Thank you, Bob.”

He smiles at me and nods. “Sister's beam.”

Our good-bye is bittersweet. This time, it's temporary. My mother and I both recognize how much we've lost, and how much making up we have ahead of us.

“Next month,” she tells me. She pulls me into her arms, and I hear her whisper, “I love you.”

I step back and look into her blue eyes, bright with tears. “I love you, Mom.”

I drive out of Harbour Cove, my emotions raw. Yes, it's wonderful to have a mother again, but can I ever forgive myself for what I've put her through? And Bob, too. What would their lives be like, had I not jumped to the wrong conclusion?

A few miles out, I pull over at a rest stop and call Michael.

“Hello, sweetheart.”

“Hey,” Michael says. “Where are you?”

“Just leaving Harbour Cove, on my way to the airport.”

“Doing okay?”

“Yes. Coming here was the right decision. I promised my mom I'd come back in a month or two. It's surreal, having a mother again.”

“So everything's copacetic?”

What he wants to know is whether I'm going to reveal any secrets on the air. Despite Stuart's urging, I never mentioned the show to my mother. She'd come if she knew Stuart wanted her onstage during the segment. But I won't let my mother be a prop for my trumped-up story. My entire viewing audience, along with Stuart and Priscille, believe I traveled to Harbour Cove to grant forgiveness, not to seek it. And that's exactly what I must tell them.

“Yes,” I say. “You have nothing to fear. I won't reveal any ugly secrets.”

I hear the snark in my voice and imagine he hears it, too.

I
t's nearly midnight when the plane touches down Thursday evening. I turn on my telephone when I get to baggage claim and see two missed calls, both with a three-one-two area code. Chicago. My hands fumble to retrieve my e-mail, and I warn myself not to get too excited.

Dear Hannah,

Congratulations. You are the final candidate for host of Good Morning, Chicago. The last step will be an interview with Joseph Winslow, the owner of the station.

Attached you'll find the details of the compensation package we've put together. Please let me know when it's convenient to talk.

Sincerely,

James Peters

I open the attachment and stare at the figure at the bottom of the page. And all of the zeros. No way! I'd be rich! And I'd be closer to my mother, and . . .

A quick flash of RJ comes to mind. I tuck it away. He's just a nice man, a man I barely know, who came along when I was feeling vulnerable.

I read the e-mail three more times before tucking my phone away. As I do, it hits me. The entire purpose of interviewing in Chicago was so I could spend weekends with Michael and be positioned for a job when he goes to DC. What a strange turn of events, that my only thoughts after receiving the offer were that I'd be closer to my mother and RJ.

Jade strides into the dressing room Friday morning, five minutes early. “Welcome back,” she says, and hands me a scone from Community Coffee.

“Hey, thanks.” I click off my e-mails and rise from my desk. “You're in a good mood today. Did you get lucky last night or something? And please tell me it wasn't Marcus.”

She shoots me a look. “Officer Asshole isn't getting any piece of this booty. If I got laid, I'd be passing out champagne glasses, not blueberry scones. But I do have some things to tell you.” She moves to the locker and stashes her purse inside. “First, tell me about your trip. How was your mother?”

I shake my head and smile. “Wonderful . . . and awful.” I tell her about my mother, and Bob, and our two days together. “I'm so ashamed. I really screwed up her life.”

She takes me by the arms. “Hey, you finished step one. You apologized. Now you need to complete step two. Forgive yourself, Hannabelle.”

“I'll try. It just seems too easy, like I need to do something bigger, a penance or something to make up for what I've done.”

“Oh, I think you've done your penance. You've been without a mama for years.”

I nod but inside I know that's not enough.

Jade motions to the makeup chair. “Have a seat.”

I scoot into the chair and describe the beautiful vineyards. She raises her eyebrows when I tell her about my evening with RJ.

“You like this guy.”

“I do. But I love Michael.” I turn away and snatch the mail from the counter. “Enough about me. What's happened since I've been gone? How's your dad?”

She unfurls a black apron and meets my eyes in the mirror. “I finally told him.”

I swivel so that I can see her directly. “What happened?”

“We were on the sofa, looking at an old photo album. He was talking about the past—it's always the past now, never the future. There was a picture of him and me in the driveway of our old house on LaSalle. Natalie had taken it. We'd been washing his old Buick Riviera, and we'd gotten into a water fight.” She smiles. “I remember it as if it were this morning. My mother was furious at the mess we'd tracked into the house. We were soaked.”

“Great memory,” I say.

“It was. So he and I were reminiscing, and out of the blue he looked over at me and said, ‘Jade, honey, you've been a wonderful daughter.'

“I finally knew for certain I was losing him. And he knew it, too.” She puts her comb down. “I had to tell him the truth. I went straight to my purse and found my little pouch. Then I sat back down and placed a Forgiveness Stone on his palm. ‘I lied to you, Daddy,' I said. ‘All those years ago, I lied. Erica Williams was drinking that night of my birthday party.'

“He handed the stone back to me. My heart broke. I thought he was refusing it. But then he laid his palm on my cheek and smiled. ‘Sunshine, I know that. I've always known that.'”

I reach out and squeeze Jade's hand.

“All this time he's been waiting for me to trust him. Now I know, his love is strong enough to bear the weight of my weaknesses. It always was.”

The following Wednesday, the studio is packed. As promised, it's time for
The Hannah Farr Show
part two, and I'm both the host and the featured guest. Though I share the stage with Claudia again, along with a panel of reunited mothers and daughters, I've been pitched as the main attraction. Stuart ran ads all last week promoting the highly anticipated episode where Hannah Farr reveals all about her mother-daughter reunion. Of course, I have no intention of revealing all, but I'm not about to tell that to Stuart.

We're twenty minutes into the show, and I feel like a fraud. I'm being heralded as the loving daughter, the all-forgiving child. We discuss the importance of mother-daughter relationships, and Claudia lobs questions to me and the other guests about our mother-daughter reunions. I talk of my mother's choice of Bob over me, trying to keep it vague, so that I'm not actually accusing my mom of leaving me. But it's clear that's what the audience assumes.

I breathe a sigh of relief when I open the show to questions. Only twenty more minutes. It's almost over now.

A middle-aged woman grabs my hand. “Hannah, I admire you so much. My mother abandoned my siblings and me. I've never been able to forgive her. How did you find it in your heart to forgive your mother?”

My pulse quickens. “Thank you. I'm not sure I deserve your admiration. My friend Dorothy seemed to know that I needed to make peace with my mother. And she was right.”

“But Hannah, your mother abandoned you.”

But she didn't
, I want to say.
I abandoned her
. “Even though we hadn't spoken in sixteen years, I never felt like she'd actually abandoned me. I always knew she loved me.”

“Loved you?” She shakes her head. “She has a strange way of demonstrating it. But bless your heart for believing it.”

The woman takes her seat, and another guest raises her hand. “It's so hard for us mothers to understand your mom. I'm guessing if she had the courage to be here today, we would be very hard on her. Is that why she's not here?”

“No. Absolutely not. It was my idea to keep her out of this. I know my mother would have come today, had I asked her.”

“Well, you're my hero, Hannah. Despite the lack of motherly guidance, you've become a lovely young woman. And a very successful one, I might add. I wonder if you've considered your mother's motives. Is it possible she's trying to patch things up now because you're a celebrity, a woman of means, so to speak?”

I force myself to keep the smile on my face. My mother is being painted as a selfish, coldhearted, opportunistic bitch. How dare they? My blood pressure soars, and I remind myself that I'm the reason these women are hostile toward my mother. I've presented her as the wrongdoer. And now, Jesus, I'm the loving, forgiving victim. After all I've learned in the past two months, I'm a bigger fraud than I've ever been.

The woman continues. “You hear tales of celebrity reunions where the parent who abandoned the child has ulterior motives . . .”

I cannot allow my mother to take the heat for this. I need to come clean. In my mind I hear Fiona's words.
The choice is actually pretty simple—do we want to lead a clandestine life, or an authentic one?

I turn to the woman. Her forehead is creased and her lids are heavy, as if she can barely contain the pain she's feeling for me. I stare into her sympathetic eyes. “The truth is . . .”

Camera one zooms in for a close-up. I bite my lip. Should I do this? Can I do this?

“The truth is . . .” My heart hammers in my chest, and I hear that voice of doubt, once again, questioning that night and Bob's touch. I silence it. “The truth is, I'm the one who needed to be forgiven, not my mother.”

I hear a rumble of murmurs from the crowd.

“Oh, honey, it's not your fault,” the woman tells me.

“But it is.”

I turn and make my way back to the stage. I sit down on the sofa, beside another mother-daughter team. Looking straight into the camera, I begin talking. And this time, I tell the truth . . . at least, I think it's the truth.

“I have a confession to make. I am not the victim in this scenario; my mother is. I made an accusation over twenty years ago and ruined a man's life. And by doing so, I ruined my mother's life, too.”

From my perch onstage, I watch the woman's face reshape before my eyes, rearranging itself into bewilderment, and then horror, as the details of my life flow from my lips for the next fifteen minutes.

“So you see, I was a girl who decided that my truth was the truth. I was selfish and judgmental, and in the end, that single decision led to consequences my young heart could never have imagined. And as a woman, even when I knew better, I continued to perpetuate my story. It was a whole lot easier to believe
my
truth than to examine it closely and discover
the
truth.

“Did Bob accept my stone? No. Not really. It was too late. He suffers from dementia. He will never understand my confession, or feel the grace of vindication.” My eyes well and I blink back tears. I cannot invite sympathy. “But even so, I feel grateful for the Forgiveness Stones. They led me back to my mother, and just as important, to my true self.”

I blot my eyes on my knuckle. The studio is deadly silent. From the corner of my eye I see Stuart lifting his arms frantically. He wants them to applaud? Jesus, Stuart. I don't deserve an ovation. I am not the hero in this scenario, I'm the villain.

“But you never paid for your lie.”

I spin around to see Claudia. She's been so silent I almost forgot she's my cohost. The words
your lie
brand my soul. I never actually called my decision a lie, because to this day I'm not certain.

She tilts her head, awaiting my reply. I'm tempted to tell her yes, that I had, indeed paid, just as Jade insisted. I'd lost my mother and all those years with her. But that's just the old me, clinging to a thread of righteousness.

“You're right,” I say. “I haven't paid.”