Until Now (5 page)

All three kids cheered while I shook my head, declining. But I was majorly outnumbered, which was how I found myself walking to the sport stadium’s smoothie bar with a perfect stranger and that perfect stranger’s grandson, plus two thirsty siblings who seemed more than happy to go along with the whole idea. I did insist on buying our own smoothies, however.

“Sorry,” Jane said once we were seated on one of the benches surrounding the playground, watching the kids scale the equipment. “I tend to steamroll people sometimes, or so my husband says. You just seemed like you needed some company this morning. Someone to talk to.”

I sipped my blueberry smoothie and shivered. The breeze was chilly and I hadn’t had time to grab a jacket. “I wouldn’t want to bore you with my problems,” I said, not unkindly. Surely she had better things to do than listen to the ramblings of a crazy woman.

“Before I retired, I was a high school guidance counselor,” she told me. “Believe me, dear, I’ve heard it all.”

I glanced at her, taking in her no-nonsense air and the unequivocal adoration in her eyes when she looked at little Mason. Obviously, she knew what it meant to love a tiny extension of yourself so much that if you lost them, it would feel like losing a limb. If anyone could sympathize, it would be someone like this woman.

Screw it
, I thought, and started talking. I told her everything, beginning with the day Mom left and ending on today, the day before my stepfather returned home and dismantled the new normal I’d so carefully constructed. By the time I was done, Jane’s eyes were glassy with tears.

“Oh dear,” she said, squeezing my hand. “Oh, you poor girl.”

I turned away and dug out a tissue, wiping my face before one of the twins saw me. “I don’t know what to do,” I admitted to this stranger who’d been kinder to me in the past hour than my family had been my entire life.

“Hmm,” she said, pursing her lips thoughtfully. “You know what? My daughter-in-law is a lawyer. I could explain your situation to her and see what she says. You might have rights, you know, as their sister. Maggie would be happy to help, I’m sure.”

“Mason’s mom?” I asked, picking up my smoothie again.

“No, Mason’s mother is…well, let’s just say she’s in the same league as yours. Useless as a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest.”

I burst out laughing. “How many kids do you have?”

“Four grown children and three grandchildren,” she said, beaming with maternal pride. “Mason’s my middle grandbaby. He and I spend a lot of time together.”

As if he sensed he was being talked about, Mason careened over to our bench and scrambled up on his grandmother’s lap. “Where’s Daddy?” he asked, reaching for his smoothie, which had been resting on the bench between Jane and me.

“At the store, remember?” She ran her fingers through Mason’s brown curls. “That’s why Nana took you to gymnastics today.”

“Oh,” he replied, and off he went again, sneakers kicking up gravel as he ran. Jane watched him for a moment before turning back to me.

“My son Ryan, he’s—”

Her words were cut off by the piercing sound of Lila crying. I stood up, frantically scanning the playground. I finally saw her at the bottom of the tube slide, clutching her knee with both hands. Jane and smoothies forgotten, I rushed over to her and pried her hands away, then let out a relieved breath. She’d only skinned it. I scooped her up and made a beckoning motion at Drake, who was perched on one of those springy ride-on toys. Frowning, he slid off and walked toward me.

“We should probably go,” I said to Jane when we reached the bench. “Thank you so much for…everything.”
I wish you were my family
, I added silently.

“Honey, you are more than welcome.” She grabbed her purse and rooted around in it for a moment, extracting a pen and what looked like a receipt from Target. “I’m giving you my phone number,” she said as she scribbled. When she was done, she looked up at me, eyes narrowed slightly like she was considering something. “Actually, I just had a better idea. Every Sunday, my husband Graham and I host a big dinner at our house. All the kids and grandkids come, and whoever else might be in need of a good meal. Why don’t you join us tomorrow?”

I shifted Lila on my hip. “Oh, well, I don’t—”

“Very informal affair,” she cut me off. Steamroller, indeed. “My daughter-in-law Maggie will be there. The lawyer. You could ask her some questions.”

“It’s just…” I glanced down at Drake. He leaned against my leg, heavy with exhaustion, and it hit me all over again.
One more day
. “I’m not sure I’m going to be in the mood for company tomorrow.”

Jane nodded, her face full of pity. “Well, if you change your mind…” She scribbled on the receipt some more, her address this time, and handed it to me. “Drop by for a visit sometime, let me know how you’re holding up. Okay?”

Fighting back yet another onslaught of tears, I tucked her information into my purse and put on my brave smile, the one that fooled the world into believing I had everything under control. Until now, anyway. Clearly, this woman who’d known me for less than two hours didn’t buy it for one second.

I woke up the next morning with a heavy sense of dread. Time had run out. This was happening, today, whether I liked it or not. Alan had called the night before to ask if I’d pack up a few things for the kids. Enough to last a few weeks. They’d probably never come back to the house in Redwood Hills. By the time they did come back, if they ever did, the only home they’d ever known would just be a memory. Maybe their childhoods were destined to mirror mine—thorns in Mom’s side as she dragged them around, moving from place to place, never settling long enough to build a sense of
home
. Drafty rooms and empty fridges and listening, always listening, for the sound of her key in the door. Loneliness.

I didn’t want that for them.

“Where we going?” Lila asked after breakfast. She and Drake were jumping on their beds, giggling, as I packed their tiny clothes into suitcases.

“On a trip to your grandma and grandpa’s house,” I replied, trying to inject some enthusiasm into my voice, for their sakes.

“Will Mommy be there?” Drake asked.

“Not this time.”

Lila flopped down on her butt. “Grandma and Grandpa have a black cat named Mitzy.”

It amazed me, how she remembered things like that. She’d only been to her grandparents’ house twice, and the last time was over Christmas. She remembered my cat Tabitha too, even though she got hit by a car and died almost a year ago.

The doorbell rang a few minutes later, causing all three of us to freeze. The grandparents had arrived. Awesome.

“There they are,” their grandmother trilled when we greeted them at the front door. She held out her plump arms to the twins. “Come give Grandma a big hug.”

Lila skipped right up to her, but Drake hung back with me, eyeing the grandfather warily. He had a bald spot, like Alan, only his hair was white instead of brown. When he smiled, his teeth looked unnaturally bright and straight. Dentures. These two were in their late-sixties, at least. Seniors, not stand-in parents.

The grandmother stood up straight and gave me the once over, her joyous expression sharpening into a critical one. I knew she disapproved of me not because of something I said or did, but because I looked like my mother. And my mother, in their eyes, was a wanton whore who had manipulated their precious son into marriage because she wanted his money. And maybe they were right. Before Alan came along, we’d lived in a leaky old bungalow, scraping by on her dental assistant salary. A guy in an expensive suit who drove a convertible, even a mostly bald guy with a paunchy stomach, must have seemed pretty damn attractive.

Luckily, the twins—with their brown eyes and round faces—looked more like Alan, so the grandparents could overlook any genes they shared with Mom and me.

“Where’s your father?” the grandmother asked me.

“In Pinehill Cemetery,” I replied without missing a beat. She flinched at my tone, but I didn’t care. Alan Madsen had never been, and never would be, my father. My father drowned during a drunken late night swim when I was fifteen months old, and out of all the men my mother had paraded through my life since, none of them had been decent enough to replace him. “My
step
father isn’t home yet. He said he’d be here around noon.”

She sniffed indignantly, and for a moment I almost understood why she didn’t like me. I detached Drake from my leg and nudged him toward his still-smiling grandpa, then excused myself to finish packing. For the next twenty minutes, I alternately fumed and cried as I stuffed shirts and pants and stuffed animals into the twins’ luggage. I also added plenty of Pull-Ups; Drake had been waking up soaked all week.

Would they shame him for that? I wondered. I mean, these people had raised Alan, and he was fundamentally a bastard.

A door closed downstairs, followed by a familiar, booming voice. Speak of the bastard.

When I returned downstairs, suitcases in hand, Alan had a twin in each arm and the three of them were all smiles. Lila and Drake adored Alan the way little kids loved their daddies before they were old enough to see the man behind the perfunctory hugs and presents. He was like Santa, elusive and revered, dropping in for a night to leave gifts for the children before disappearing once again.

Alan nodded at me in greeting and I responded with a pointed glare. He looked away quickly, focusing again on the twins. “You guys ready to spend a few days at Grandma and Grandpa’s house?” he asked, setting them on the floor.

“Yeah!” they exclaimed, caught up in the excitement.

The grandmother came over to me as I deposited the suitcases near the door. “Robin,” she said, leaning close enough that I could smell her cloying old-lady perfume. “I think it would be best if you didn’t contact the twins for a while. Give them some time to settle in and adjust.”

I blinked at her. She couldn’t be serious. “How long is a while?”

“As long as it takes,” she said, which didn’t really answer my question at all.

I turned away, ignoring her. The woman had a lot of nerve. If she thought I was going to just hand over my brother and sister and forget about them, she clearly didn’t know me very well.

“Better get on the road soon,” the grandfather said, patting Lila’s head. I guess he wasn’t so bad, in a reserved, cowed-by-an-overbearing-wife kind of way. “We’ll stop for lunch first, how does that sound?”

Drake grinned and ran over to grab my hand. “Come on, Robin. We’re going to eat lunch.”

My heart stuttered. Oh God. They thought I was coming with them.

I kneeled down in front of him, hoping he wouldn’t notice my bloodshot eyes. “It’s just you and LaLa going with Grandma and Grandpa, Drakey. I’m staying here.”

His chocolate eyes welled up and he let out a tiny gasp. The sound of it stabbed at my heart. “You come too,” he said, bottom lip trembling. Lila, hearing the panic in her brother’s voice, left her father’s side to join us. I hugged them both to me.

“I’ll see you guys soon, okay?” The words caught in my throat, choking me. As I held them, I glanced up at our audience. Alan’s mother looked at me like I’d upset the kids on purpose while Alan and his father peered at the floor, uncomfortable.

“They have to get going,” Alan said coolly. “It’s a long drive.”

I ignored him, ignored everyone and everything except Drake and Lila. “I love you both,” I told them, giving them each a kiss on the cheek. Sensing my distress, they both clung to me and started crying in earnest.

“Okay,” Alan said, unhooking all twenty of their fingers from me and hefting them up. “Say goodbye to your sister.”

They continued to cry, reaching for me, and that was all I could handle. I pressed my lips to their foreheads one last time and then ran upstairs, their sobs following me up each and every step.

* * *

When I emerged from my room several hours later, my stepfather was gone.
Probably at his downtown apartment with one of his bimbos
, I thought, grabbing a handful of ice cubes out of the freezer and wrapping them up in a cloth. My eyes were so sore and swollen, I could barely see.

As I leaned against the granite counter top, ice pressed to my eyes, my mind strayed again to all those beer bottles in the fridge. More than anything right now, I wanted to be messed up. Wasted. Obliterated. Nothing was stopping me anymore, aside from the darts of guilt in my stomach whenever I thought about twisting off that first cap.

And my best friend, of course. Taylor would kill me if I ever went back to my old ways. In the past three years, she’d acted as my sponsor of sorts, keeping me on track whenever I so much as hinted at backsliding. I would’ve called her now, but I knew she was at Moretti’s today, the Italian restaurant she’d worked at since high school. I could’ve called someone else, one of the few friends I’d made during my post-partying college days, but Taylor was the only one who knew every gritty detail about my past.

I pictured myself downing all those beers and then hiding in my room like the dramatic teenager I used to be, blinds shut against the sunlight. I took the ice off my eyes and sighed. No. Blocking everything out would bring relief for a little while, but my denial wouldn’t help the twins. They were counting on me to figure out some way to fix this and bring them home. I needed to stay sharp. I needed to contact a lawyer.

Maggie would be happy to help
, Jane from gymnastics had told me about her lawyer daughter-in-law. Lovely, caring Jane, who’d invited an obviously troubled girl she’d just met to her house for Sunday dinner.

My stomach grumbled, protesting its twenty or so hours without food. I
was
kind of starving.

Rejuvenated, I dug the Target receipt out of my purse and called the phone number scribbled on the back. Jane answered on the second ring, like she was just waiting by her phone for me to call. “Of course,” she said when I asked if her offer to join them for dinner was still open. “Four o’clock. We’ll look forward to seeing you.”

Four o’clock was only an hour away, so I hurriedly made myself presentable—shower, flat-iron, makeup, skirt, blouse, heels. I wasn’t sure how one dressed for Sunday dinner, as I’d only been to a few. Traditional, sit-down meals had never been one of Mom’s priorities.

My phone’s GPS directed me to a cozy-looking brick house in an older, well-established neighborhood in the city’s south end. The driveway was full, so I parked my Sentra along the curb and climbed out, straightening my white eyelet pencil skirt. I possessed enough manners to know you should always bring something when invited to dinner, so at the last minute I’d grabbed an unopened bottle of wine from the wine rack at home. An expensive one. Clutching the bottle’s neck in my fist, I walked up to the house and rang the bell.

“Robin!” Jane’s friendly face greeted me, and I was relieved to see that she was dressed semi-formally herself in black pants and a lavender top. Her hair was different too, swept back from her forehead, but her eye-crinkling smile was the same. “So glad you could make it.”

“Thanks, Mrs...um.” Now that I was on her turf, I wasn’t sure how the etiquette worked.

“It’s Monahan, but you can still call me Jane. Come on in, Ms…um,” she added, making me smile.

“Calvert, but you can still call me Robin.” I handed over the wine as I stepped into the warm, fragrant house. It smelled like a mix of brown sugar and onions. My stomach gurgled again.

Jane made impressed noises over the wine and then brought it—and me—through the house and into the kitchen, which was sauna-hot and teeming with people. They all stopped talking to look at me, and I wondered briefly if my eyes still resembled ripe tomatoes.

“Everyone, this is Robin Calvert,” she told the assemblage, then proceeded to introduce me to each of them. “My husband, Graham,” she said, pointing to a tall burly guy with wavy brown hair. “My youngest, Nicole.” (Blond, tattooed, early twenties) “My oldest daughter, Alicia, her husband Kenji, and their daughter Ellie.” (Attractive dark-haired couple, late twenties, beautiful pudgy baby) “My oldest son Garrett, his wife Maggie, and their boy, Isaac.” (Handsome blond man who looked vaguely familiar, petite red-haired woman, school-aged son).

My head whirled. Remembering all these names and faces would require several hours and possibly a cheat sheet. The adults watched me curiously, as if waiting to see if I’d bolt. I kind of wanted to. In this warm, bustling house, surrounded by all this family, I felt like a mutant stray that had wandered in off the street.

Jane’s grandson Mason appeared in the kitchen then and wrapped himself around his grandmother’s legs. Seeing him reminded me of Drake and Lila, and I had to swallow back a lump in my throat. “Where’s Daddy?” he asked over the clamour of voices and beeping appliances.

“At the store, angelface,” Jane replied, absently patting his curls as she stirred something on the stove. “He’ll be here very soon.”

Two seconds after she said this, the thump of the front door closing filtered into the kitchen and Mason took off running. And less than a minute after that, Mason reappeared in the kitchen, this time draped across the broad shoulders of a tall, lean man with dirty-blond hair and pale blue eyes.

The universe
had
to be messing with me. My cheeks blazed, and suddenly I wished more than anything that I was back in my sad, desolate house, alone, with a lit cigarette in one hand and nice chilled beer in the other.

No food or beverages allowed
, he’d told me. It was him. The irritating guy from the bookstore.