a look.
“We wondered why you were so...unlike yourself when you got back from Chicago,” Carly said.
“It seemed to be more than simply your great-aunt’s death,” Gemma added, her face full of compassion. “You didn’t say much about it, but your mother was there, wasn’t she?”
“Yes.” Lisa looked down at her hands, which were now clasping the water bottle. “I tried to talk to her, but she—Maureen—turned away. She seemed very shaken up over Aunt Violet, but I don’t really know how she was feeling. I’ve only seen her half a dozen times in my life, so I don’t know how she would react to anything. She barely talked to me at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s funerals, so—” Her voice choked off and her head dropped forward.
“Oh, that’s rough,” Carly said.
“Maureen didn’t talk much to anyone, except the minister, and then she practically ran from the funeral home. I don’t know where she went. I don’t even know where she lives. What kind of family is this?” she asked fiercely. “I see my own mother only half a dozen times in my life and we don’t have anything to say to each other? How is that even possible?”
“Oh, honey,” Gemma said. “That’s something that started before you were even born and you can’t fix it with one conversation.”
Lisa took another deep breath. Somehow she couldn’t seem to get enough air to blow away the storm of emotions. “You’re right.” She paused, then said, “A little while later, I saw that the weather was closing in, so even though my flight wasn’t until late that night, I said goodbye to my cousins and headed for the airport and got stuck there...or, actually, nearby.”
“With Ben.” Gemma reached for her hand again as Carly gathered her into another hug.
Lisa rested her head on her friend’s arm and glanced up with a rueful look. “You know how he is.”
“Yeah,” Carly said. She and Gemma both sighed wistfully. “Charm in size twelve cowboy boots.”
Lisa nodded miserably. “He was warm, sympathetic and understanding. I was happy to see someone from home, you know? I was so distraught I hardly knew which way to turn, and the thought of spending the night at the airport was more than I could handle. I know I could have called my cousins for help, but the roads were already closed and they had enough to deal with. Then I saw Ben. He took care of everything.”
“Short-term responsibility has always been his strong point.”
“I...I know. I needed someone to lean on right then, but it got way out of hand. I never meant for this to happen,” she said yet again. “And now I’m going to have a baby.”
“Which I’ll be happy to deliver when the time comes, if you want me to,” Gemma assured her. “The good news is that you’re healthy, things look fine, and you’ve got some time to come to terms with this.”
Lisa nodded and leaned into the hug. She had time, but not much.
MAUREEN THOMAS SAT in her car across the street from Reston Realty and watched the front door, trying to build up the courage to go in and talk to Lisa, the daughter she had no right to call her own.
She had returned to Reston because she’d had no choice. She’d promised her aunt Violet that she would try to make amends with her daughter. It was far too late to patch things up with her parents, or to even get answers to the questions she’d carried with her from the time she’d been old enough to wonder why her mom and dad were so different than everyone else’s parents. Why their house and farm were overrun with things no one used, discards from other people that were left to rot or rust.
Before she could go back into the rabbit hole of endless questions, she pulled her mind to the present.
To anchor herself, she stared at her hands, which were scarred and callused from every minimum-wage job she’d had since she was sixteen. They were a reminder of how hard she’d fought to stay alive after she’d bound her breasts to stop the flow of milk and left her infant daughter in her parents’ care. She’d sneaked away in the night, dodging the twisted metal hazards in the front yard and running down the lane, hitchhiking to Aunt Violet in Chicago.
The terror and despair she’d felt then paled in comparison to the abject fear she was experiencing now at the thought of facing Lisa.
Maureen’s plan had been to stay at a motel for a couple of days, get a sense of how Lisa was, then see if they could talk. That plan had been destroyed in Wichita, Kansas, when the transmission dropped out of her car and she’d had to make a roaring, rattling entrance into a nearby garage.
The repairs had taken almost all of her spare cash, so now her plans had changed. She couldn’t stay at a motel, couldn’t eat at Margie’s Kitchen. There was no money.
Besides, she didn’t want to be seen around town, at least not until she had talked to Lisa. She would stay out of sight and sleep in her car again if necessary. She’d done it last night, driving to an old barn off the highway that she’d remembered as abandoned. But, of course, things had changed in the thirty-three years since she’d been back. The place was now a prosperous-looking organic gardening operation.
She had driven on, searching for someplace to park for the night, and had ended up at Reston Lake. Posted signs said the park was closed, but she’d driven around them and parked behind a stand of trees, leaving before dawn to avoid detection.
Maureen hated that she was sneaking into her own hometown, skulking around to see her daughter, but she simply wasn’t ready to face anyone else from her past. It would take all of her courage to talk to Lisa.
The uncomfortable truth was, if she wanted to follow Aunt Violet’s last wish, she would have to ask Lisa if she could stay with her. Lisa had once had an apartment in town—she’d proudly sent pictures of her place to Aunt Violet years ago when she’d gone into real estate. Heaven knew the girl had never sent pictures of the old Thomas place. Who would want their relatives to look at photos of a landfill?
“Now she owns the office. She’s an agent and a broker,” Maureen said aloud, gazing out her car window as she experienced a flurry of pride in what her daughter had accomplished in spite of the lousy circumstances she’d been handed.
Maureen reached for the door handle, hesitating to see Lisa at work, fearing a humiliating rejection. Still, she’d been humiliated before and she’d survived. She was terrified that’s all she would ever do—simply survive.
Jerking up on the door’s stiff handle, she stepped out of her old sedan. As the door clicked shut behind her, she smoothed the front of the coat that had fit her so well a few months ago but flapped around her figure now. At least it was good quality. Nothing to be ashamed of there.
As she walked up to the glass-fronted doors, she reached for the handle just as a man’s hand grasped it.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said in the local drawl she’d longed to hear again. “Let me get that for you.”
Flustered, she looked up at the handsome dark-haired man. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t recall where she’d seen him. She stepped inside and he followed.
The
