Custody (51 page)

“Well!” her mother said, returning to the living room. “Let’s go out to dinner and celebrate!” She smiled at Tessa—then suddenly swooped down and hugged her. “I’m so glad I’ll have you with me.” Taking Tessa’s face between her hands, she asked, “You’re glad, too, aren’t you, darling?”

Sick at heart, Tessa nodded.

“Lovely. Well, run up and put on a dress, why don’t you, and we’ll be off to dinner.”

Fourteen

S
UNDAY MORNING
,
AT THE CEMETERY
, Randall said, “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

Laughing, Kelly stepped out of her car and walked over the Jeep. “Sorry I’m late. I had to drop Felicity at the mall.”

Randall kissed her firmly. “I’m serious. We do have to stop meeting like this.”

“And do what instead?”

Randall took his hand in hers as they strolled along the winding cemetery paths. “Meet in public. Meet at your apartment. I want to get to know Felicity—how does she like school?”

“She loves it. She’s making friends, and at the parent-teacher conference the other night, her teachers told me she’s exceptionally bright. She’s just got to learn to concentrate, and it looks like I’ve got to be the one to make her turn off the TV and apply herself.”

“Well, I want to meet her. I want her to know I’m more than a voice on the telephone.”

“Oh, she knows that. I’ve told her I’ve got a new man in my life.”

“Good. And I want you to come out to the farm and meet Mont. I’ve told him about you.”

“Oooh, scary, meeting your dad,” Kelly said, only half joking.

“More scary than meeting my child?”

Kelly shook her head. “Even the thought of that takes my breath away. Look.” Kelly pointed to an ancient spreading maple. “The leaves are already beginning to turn.” They stood together looking up at the beauty change had wrought, the yellow and gold gilding the green. “How is Tessa?”

“I’m not sure. Anne’s had her with her pretty much full-time for the final leg of the campaign.”

“I saw them both on television. Anne’s a brilliant speaker, and I must say I like her ideas.”

“The primary’s this Tuesday. Anne agreed that if I let her have Tessa with her for these past two weeks, I’d get Tessa for the full week of Thanksgiving holiday.”

“So you two are negotiating and working things out. That’s good.”

“Spoken like a judge.”

Kelly looked up at him. “And like a—relative. One who knows the best environment for a child is one in which the parents cooperate rather than fight.”

“If Anne wins, I think she’ll be more receptive to our news.”

“I’ve been thinking, Randall, what if I spoke with Anne?”

“Wow.” Randall shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“As one mother to another.”

“But do you honestly feel like a mother?” Randall asked.

Kelly hesitated, then asked, “Do you honestly feel like a man who can be faithful to one woman for the rest of his life?”

By five o’clock Tuesday afternoon, Anne Madison knew she’d won the primary. No matter how many more votes came in, she’d already received such a landslide over the incumbent that Marshall O’Leary had just called her to congratulate her on her win.

At her campaign headquarters on Mass Ave, a celebration was already in full swing. Rebecca Prentiss was there, and Lillian Doolittle, and Eleanor Marks, and Adelaide Stein, and thirty or so others, men and women who had helped her in her campaign. Mick Aitkins, the videographer, helped Rebecca bring in the iced case of champagne and the rented flutes Anne had waiting in her car. Now the air was full of the sound of popping corks.

“You can have a sip,” Anne told her daughter. “Just a little celebratory sip.”

“Okay, Mother,” Tessa replied.

Anne smiled down at Tessa, a picture-book child with her long hair and her pink dress. Anne was letting her stay up late tonight even though tomorrow was a school day. Tonight was
her mother’s victory celebration, after all. Besides, Anne could do pretty much whatever she wanted with Tessa’s schedule.

Rebecca approached, a silver tray in her hand.

“Have a canapé, darling,” Anne urged her daughter.

Very quietly, Tessa said, “I don’t like caviar.”

“Oh, but of course you do! Or if you don’t, you should. It is a bit of an acquired taste, I admit, but you’re old enough to begin acquiring it.” Plucking a caviar-covered cracker off the tray, Anne handed it to her daughter. “Come on, darling. Eat it.”

Tessa obeyed. She choked. Her face went white.

Don’t you dare vomit out here in public, Anne thought. Leaning down, she whispered, “Go to the bathroom.” She gave her daughter a little shove in the right direction. Tessa went off just in time.

“Kevin! Darling! How good of you to stop by! Have some champagne.”

Anne leaned forward, accepting an air kiss from one of the local Democratic honchos, a handsome older man with exquisite taste in clothing.

Friday afternoon, when the doorbell rang, Anne was on the Internet, gathering information about the Millennium Democracy Institute, an international assemblage of informed politicians who would gather in Washington, D.C., one weekend a month to write a handbook for emerging democracies across the world. From this group, delegates would be chosen to represent the MDI, traveling to fledgling capitalist nations across the world. MDI could be of stunning international significance, and Anne had been asked to become one of the members.

Behind the scenes, those in power were already discussing the possibility of Anne running for the U.S. Senate in 2002.

And from there—with her ambition, wealth, intelligence, and good looks, not to mention her sterling character and her genuine desire for reform—who knew what Anne could achieve? She was only in her early forties. She might even be one of the first female vice presidents. She might even—

With a sigh of regret, she pulled her attention away from the computer screen and flicked it off. She glanced at her calendar—yes, she did have an appointment now, at three o’clock. The
afternoon had slipped past so quickly. Thank God Randall took Tessa with him during the weekends. That way she could work without interruption.

She surveyed the items so neatly arranged on her desk and, cramped from sitting, rose and stretched her arms high over her head. From the hall she heard Carmen’s polite voice and the equally polite tones of the woman Carmen was leading down the hall toward Anne’s office.

Anne looked down at her calendar again.
“Judge MacLeod,”
she’d written there in red ink. Who, the woman had said, when she telephoned, wanted to meet in private, about a personal matter.

Judge Kelly MacLeod entered the room. In her thirties, she was tall, with a chignon of blond hair and pale blue eyes. She could be my younger sister, Anne realized, holding out her hand.

“Judge MacLeod. Nice to meet you. Won’t you sit down?” Coming around the side of her desk, she settled opposite the judge in a wing chair by the fireplace. “Would you like something to drink?”

“Thank you, no.” The woman seemed oddly nervous.

“All right, then.” Anne turned to Carmen. “That will be all, Carmen. Shut the door, will you?”

Carmen went out, closing the door with a whisper of wood on wood.

Anne tilted her head, waiting.

“First of all, Mrs. Madison—”

“Anne, please.”

“Anne.” Kelly MacLeod licked her lips. “First of all, Anne, I’d like to congratulate you on winning the election. I’ve followed your career, and I voted for you. I know you’ll do a great deal of significant good work in the future.”

“Thank you.” Anne crossed her legs. Something was making the other woman apprehensive, Anne could feel it like the rumbling of distant thunder.

“I’m here, as I said on the phone, on a personal matter.” The judge took a deep breath. “Twelve years ago I gave birth to a baby girl. She had a small birthmark on her neck—” Her voice caught. She cleared her throat and began again. “I was a surrogate mother to the baby. I was artificially inseminated by a couple who wanted a child they weren’t able to have by themselves.”

Anne put her hand to her throat. “You’re saying that you are Tessa’s birth mother.”

Judge MacLeod nodded.

Anne stared at the other woman and saw that what she said was true. The pale hue of Tessa’s skin, the long line of her bones, the shape of her eyes and ears, the way she sat, with such ramrod dignity—it was all Tessa.

“We paid you fifty thousand dollars,” Anne reminded the woman.

Judge MacLeod put out a hand, as if to stop her words. “I’m not here about money.”

“Then what—?” Suddenly fear ignited within her. All at once she knew what this woman wanted, and adrenaline sped through her body, filling her with alarm.
“No.”
She half rose from her chair. “You can’t have her. She’s my daughter. You’re a judge. You know the laws—”

“Please. I’m not trying to take her away from you.” The judge put her hands together in supplication. “Listen to me, please. It’s very complicated. I’m here to ask for your help. For your advice.”

“My advice?”

“Yes.”

Anne looked down at her skirt. A wave of nausea from the adrenaline rush blackened her vision; then it passed. She took a deep breath. “Go on, then.” Anne rubbed at the spot on her skirt.

“I need to tell you a story. A true story.”

“I’m listening.”

“This summer,” the judge said, “I fell in love. With a man I met in a cemetery.”

“Dear God,” Anne moaned. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the chair.

“My mother had just died. His mother had recently died. We talked. We talked, and we fell in love.”

Anne opened her eyes and looked wearily at Kelly. “Of course you fell in love with Randall,” she said. “Every woman does.”

Judge MacLeod said quietly, “And Randall fell in love with me.”

Anne snorted. She felt stronger now, on safer ground. She clasped her hands together. “This summer? Randall fell in love with you this summer? Randall was having an affair with Lacey Corriea this summer. I have proof if you’d like—”

“I know about Lacey Corriea. Randall told me. That doesn’t matter. He’s asked me to marry him.”

Anne stared at the other woman. She was very pale and trembling. Anne thought perhaps she really had not come here out of triumph or vengefulness. “What do you want?”

“I told Randall I believe I’m Tessa’s mother.”

And Anne suddenly understood it all. The knowledge burned through her like a conflagration, leaving her soul in ashes.

“And you and Randall are going to get married and live happily ever after with
your
daughter?” Anne asked. Hideously, tears were pushing at the defenses of her eyes. How could she feel so empty and yet so full, nearly explosive, at the same time?

Very softly Judge MacLeod said, “She’s
your
daughter, Anne. I know that. I don’t want to take her away from you. I don’t have the right. That’s why I’m here. Because I know that she’s your daughter, and I’m asking you to help me.”

“To help you do
what
?”

“I don’t know, precisely. Maybe simply to let me into the equation. I love Randall. I want to marry him. I want to be part of Tessa’s life, and his life, which means being part of your life. I need your help. For one thing, I need your help in deciding when to tell Tessa I’m her birth mother.”

Anne couldn’t keep her voice steady. “If you marry Randall, if you tell Tessa
you’re
her mother—she won’t need me. She won’t want me.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Judge MacLeod disagreed, her voice low and respectful. “I really don’t. You are the mother she knows, Anne. You are the one who held her and rocked her and cared for her when she was a baby.” Tears came to her eyes. “You’re the one whose smell she knows by instinct, whose voice is as familiar as her own. You’re the one whose praise she needs, and the one she runs to when she’s hurt. She knows you. You are her mother. You’ve been her mother for twelve years. I am a stranger to her.”

Surprised and oddly comforted by the other woman’s tears, unable to sit still any longer, Anne rose and paced the room. It was too much, too powerful, this strong blond woman who could be her sister, who was her daughter’s birth mother, here in the room, saying these things.