The Chesapeake Diaries Series (118 page)

Berry burst into tears.

“Nothing can be that bad.” Dallas turned Berry’s face to hers while Wade retrieved a box of tissues from the powder room.

He handed her a tissue and remarked, “Berry, I don’t know that I ever saw you cry before.”

“I knew this day of reckoning would come, but truthfully, I thought I’d die before it got here. A heart attack in my sleep, perhaps. Or a slip off the dock some night into the river …”

She might be distraught
, Wade thought,
but she still knows how to deliver a line
.

“Berry, take a minute to relax and collect your thoughts. We’re here for you, whatever the problem is,” Wade assured her.

“You’re such a dear boy. So like your father.” Berry began to sob all over again.

Wade shot a what-did-I-say look to Dallas, who shook her head.

“Berry, perhaps you should take a few sips of water
and calm down. Then just start from the beginning,” Wade told her as he fetched a glass of water for her.

“Thank you, dear.” Berry took a few sips. “All right, then. I suppose I must get through this.” She sighed deeply. “Years ago, when I was just a girl growing up here in St. Dennis, I had many admirers. Oh, I should just come out and say it. The truth is, I was the prettiest girl in town. Well, of course, there was Sylvie, but our personalities were so very different. I always had a flair for the dramatic, and Sylvie was always so shy. Everyone told me I belonged on the big screen, and I totally agreed with them. I knew that was my destiny. I couldn’t wait to turn eighteen so that I could leave this dull little town behind and strike out on my own. I knew in my heart I was going to be a big star.”

“And you were,” Dallas reminded her. “And will be again.”

“Yes, yes, but you’re getting ahead of the story, Dallas.”

“Sorry.” Dallas appeared to be biting back a smile.

“Anyway. I was young and beautiful and talented and I had the world by the … well, on a string, let’s say. My future was bright and I knew that my life was going to be glorious.” She stopped and dabbed a tissue at her eyes. “There was one thing standing in my way, though.”

“What, Berry?” Dallas asked.

“Not what, dear. Who. I was in love with the most wonderful man, and he loved me, too. We had plans to marry, you see. I wanted him to come to California with me and share my dreams of fame and glory. Unfortunately, his dream was to be a lawyer, maybe even
a judge someday. But here, on the Eastern Shore, not Hollywood, no. He wanted no part of that life.”

“You’re talking about Archer, aren’t you, Berry?” Dallas said softly.

Berry nodded. “So, off he went to Columbia, up in New York City, and off I went to California. We did see each other, and for a while we did try to work things out, but after a time it became clear that neither of us was going to budge. After one of those weekends in New York—” She stopped again, the words seeming to be almost too painful even now, all these years later.

“Berry, listen, we—” Dallas began. She was interrupted by Ally’s mad dash to the front door just as the doorbell rang. Fleur, who’d been sleeping on the second-floor landing, flew down the steps to join her.

“I’ll go see who it is,” Wade said. “I’ll be right back.”

He reached the door and opened it to find Archer Callahan on the front porch.

“Ah, Archer …”

“Wade.” Archer stood in the doorway. “May I come in, please? I’d like to see Berry.”

“I don’t know if this is really a good time.” Wade lowered his voice. “She’s upset about something and …” He stared at Archer. “Did you do something to upset her? Did you have an argument with her?”

“Dear Lord, I told her to wait.” Archer stepped past Wade and went straight into the kitchen.

“Archer, for heaven’s sake,” Berry said when she saw him. “I told you I would deal with this myself.”

“And I told you that I would not let you go through this alone. I wasn’t there to stand by you then, but I’m standing by you now.”

“Oh, Archer.” Berry looked up at him with eyes filled with love.

“Have you told them yet?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’m working up to it.”

“As only she can.” Wade’s remark earned him The Look.

“Will one of you please tell us what’s going on?” Dallas looked from Berry to Archer then back to Berry.

“I was saying, that I came back east to visit Archer from time to time. I was by then quite the hot young thing. I’d made several movies by this time—I’d just turned twenty—and I was very much in demand.” Berry averted her eyes from everyone. “And then I found out I was pregnant.”

“Oh, my.” Dallas sat back in her chair. “That is … news.”

“It certainly would have been, back then. It was a different time. An unmarried woman having a child was simply not done. Not in Hollywood, and certainly not in St. Dennis.”

“What did you do, Berry? Did you have the baby?” Dallas asked.

“Oh, of course I did. There was never any question but that I would. But I had quite the dilemma. I had a career that was just taking off, and I had a man I loved who’d have none of that life. I had to choose. I told myself that if he really loved me, he’d come with me. So, for better or for worse, I chose my career.”

“And the baby was Archer’s?” Wade asked.

Berry nodded. “I never told him. He thought I just left him because I didn’t love him, when of course, that wasn’t the case at all. He’d already made it clear
enough that he never intended to move to California, and I’d made it clear that I was not about to give up my films to live here while he played country lawyer.”

“If you’d have told me then what you’ve told me this week, I would have come to you,” Archer told her. “I never would have let you go through all that alone.”

“Berry, you never told him until this week?” Dallas’s jaw dropped.

“I know, dear. It was terrible of me. Just one more terrible and wrong decision on my part. But I was very young and I’d had amazing success in a very short period of time. It’s a very heady feeling, at so young an age, to feel like the center of the universe.” She shook her head. “I see these young girls today and I wish I could take them all aside and tell them to be mindful of the choices they make. I know exactly who they are, because I was them, once. But that’s a story for another time.”

“Berry, what happened to your baby?” Dallas asked softly.

“He was born in California. A beautiful, healthy little boy.” She cleared her throat. “And I gave him to someone else to raise.”

“Oh, Berry.” Dallas’s eyes filled with tears. “Did you ever see him when he was growing up? Did you ever know him?”

Berry lifted a hand and smoothed Dallas’s hair. “Of course I did, dear. I’d given him to my sister, Sylvie, and her husband, to raise as theirs. And they did.”

For a moment Wade thought he hadn’t heard her clearly.

“But our dad was the only boy they …” he began,
and then the import of her words struck home. “Dad was your son, Berry? You were Dad’s
mother
?”

Berry nodded, then started to cry again. Archer sat next to her and put his arms around her, and she buried her face in his chest.

“How did you pull that off?” he asked. “I mean, didn’t people around here notice that your sister wasn’t pregnant?”

“I had several months between films, and I stuck close to my house for that time. I had Sylvie come out to stay with me in California for a while,” Berry explained. “When she returned to St. Dennis, she brought Ned with her. Everyone assumed she’d been pregnant when she left here. As far as I know, no one was ever the wiser.”

“Berry, that makes you …” Dallas said.

“Yes, dear. Your grandmother.”

“Which makes Archer …” Wade was still trying to grasp the concept.

“… your grandfather,” Archer finished the sentence.

“Holy shit.” Wade sank onto a chair.

“That’s a lovely reaction, dear.” Berry looked up at Archer. “I told you he was most articulate, did I not?”

“Sorry, Berry, I’m just so overwhelmed.” Wade frowned. “Did Dad know about this? Did you ever tell him?”

“I told him, yes,” Berry replied, “but not until he was grown. And he never knew Archer. By then, Archer was married and had children and, from all appearances, was enjoying a very happy life. Both Ned and I agreed that there was no need for Archer to know.”

“Another mistake on your part, Berry,” Archer said.

“Archer, we’ve been going around and around about this for the past two days. What good would it have done for me to have shown up on your doorstep with Ned? What would the news have done to your family?” Archer started to say something but she cut him off. “I know you like to think you’d have acknowledged him as your son, but it was asking too much of your wife. I know you must have loved her to have married her. I wouldn’t have put her through that pain. It was too late by then to change things—I’d made my bed, you see—and Ned didn’t feel right about contacting you to introduce himself. We both agreed to let it go for a while. I thought maybe the time might come, that when he got a bit older, perhaps he’d change his mind.” Her eyes filled up again. “But then, of course, Ned died so young and so suddenly.”

“So you never met our dad?” Wade turned to Archer.

“Not really. Oh, I saw him around St. Dennis from time to time, but I assumed, as did everyone else, that he was Duncan and Sylvie’s son. Sylvie and Berry were twins, you know, so it wasn’t odd that the boy looked like her. I just assumed he took after Sylvie.”

“So there you have it. My deepest, darkest secret. If you want to disown me now for all these years of deceit, I’ll understand.” Berry looked first at Dallas, then at Wade. “Just please don’t hate me. I couldn’t bear it.”

“How could you think for one minute that we could hate you.” Dallas put her arms around her. “I
am so very sorry that you had to carry this secret all these years. And I’m sorry you weren’t able to acknowledge your son. I’m sorry for a lot of things, but this isn’t about Wade and me, Berry. It’s about you. And Archer, of course.”

“Dallas is right, Berry. This is between you and Archer,” Wade said. “And as much of a shock as this has been, it doesn’t change the way we feel about you. You’re our Berry. We love you.”

“That’s more generous than I had a right to expect from either of you.” Berry reached a hand out to both. “Words cannot express how dear you both are to me. Thank you.”

Berry turned to look at Archer. “I did tell you, did I not, that my boy and my girl are exceptional? That you’d be proud of them?”

“You did.” Archer nodded. “And I am.”

Wade sat and stared at Archer for a long moment. How odd to meet your grandfather for the first time.

“I don’t have many memories of Grampa Duncan,” Wade said. “Do you?” he asked Dallas.

“Not really. It seems whenever we visited St. Dennis, we stayed here, not with him and Gramma Sylvie.” She turned to Berry. “I guess she really wasn’t gramma, though, was she?”

Berry shook her head.

“Which explains so many things.” Dallas got up and went to the stove. She picked up the teakettle and filled it with water.

“Like what, dear?” Berry asked.

“Like how I always had the feeling she liked the other grandkids better. Like how her affection always seemed forced.”

“Yes, I know what you mean,” Wade agreed. “I always felt the same way.”

“I’m so sorry,” Berry told them both. “I hadn’t realized …”

“It’s okay, Berry.” Dallas sat the kettle on the burner and turned it on. “I never spent much time with them. We always wanted to stay here with you anyway. You were always much more fun.”

“Looking back, I guess it makes sense that Dad always brought us here to stay. We never stayed at our grandparents’ house,” Wade noted.

“I’m afraid I didn’t always appreciate how difficult I made things for my poor sister and her husband. Two mothers in the same family is an absolute recipe for disaster. I can’t even begin to understand the amount of chaos I must have caused in that family. Always taking Ned places but never his sisters. I’m embarrassed by my thoughtlessness and how unkind I was to those two girls.”

“I thought you said they were twits,” Dallas reminded her.

“Well, they were, dear, but I didn’t have to be unkind to them.”

Dallas laughed. “There’s the Berry we know and love.”

“Archer, I can’t help but wonder how you feel about all this.” Wade leaned on the back of one of the chairs.

“I’m adjusting to it, Wade. Finding out that you had a son you never knew—and knowing that you can’t get to know him now because he’s gone …” He shook his head. “It isn’t something that you process in a day or so. I’m sorry I never knew your father. I’m
sorry that … well, I have a lot of regrets. I imagine it’s pretty near impossible to live as long as I have and not look back and wonder how things might have been.”

“Are you going to discuss this with your children?” Wade asked. “Not that it’s any of my business …”

“To be perfectly honest, I haven’t decided yet.” Archer’s face showed his conflict. “On the one hand, I want my children to know Berry, and to know you and your sister. I want all my grandchildren to know one another. On the other … well, I feel I need to get to know you both a little myself first.”

Wade nodded his understanding. He turned to Berry and asked, “Berry, I have to ask—why now?”

“Oh, well, with Dallas and Grant getting married and hopefully having a family, I thought they should know. I saw something on television last week or so about a young girl who was being treated for some very serious condition—I forget what it was. The doctors had difficulty in diagnosing her because whatever it was, it’s only transmitted genetically, but no one in her or her husband’s family had it. Which is how the girl’s parents came to tell her that she was adopted and helped her to search for her birth parents. And it got me thinking that perhaps Dallas needed to know since she’s getting married soon and hopefully will be adding to her family.”

“I’m not the only one,” Dallas told her with a smile. She pointed to Wade. “You tell her.”

“I asked Steffie to marry me,” he said.

“Oh, my dear,” Berry teared up—again. “How wonderful for you. She’s a darling girl.” Berry froze
momentarily. “Please tell me she isn’t taking Scoop to Connecticut …”