Custody (52 page)

“But Tessa will
like
you,” Anne said bitterly. All at once her heart seemed to break. Turning to look at the other woman, she whispered, “Tessa hates me.”

“Oh, I’m sure she doesn’t—”

“She does. She disagrees with me all the time.” Astonished at her confession, Anne put her cold fingertips on her cheeks and felt her own tears there.

Kelly MacLeod rose and went to Anne, standing near her but not touching her. “
Of course
she hates you.
Of course
she disagrees with you. She’s twelve years old. You’re her
mother
. You’re the person she has to rebel against. Didn’t you ever hate your mother? Didn’t
you ever rebel against her?”

Anne choked a laugh out at the thought of Sarah, frustrating, infuriating, hopeless Sarah. Her mother. She was a better mother to Tessa than Sarah had been to her—wasn’t she?

“If Tessa didn’t love you as completely as she does, she couldn’t rebel against you. If you weren’t so important to her, she wouldn’t hate you!”

Anne turned her back on the other woman. She put her hands to her face, but they did not hold back the words. “Tessa isn’t rebelling,” she whispered. “She’s stopped rebelling. She’s being very good. She’s being perfect.”

“Oh, Anne—”

“She fainted in school yesterday.” Anne wiped her cheeks with her hands. Bleakly she turned to stare at Kelly MacLeod. “The nurse told me she’s not getting enough to eat. She’s malnourished. My own child.”

Kelly drew in a deep breath, looking shocked and sad.

“I’ve tried
so hard
to do what’s right. You know how cruel children can be, teasing one another for the slightest flaw! You know how easy it is to gain weight. And Randall is such a big man, and he’s her biological father—I was afraid she would be
big
. Fat. And children would tease her.”

“I know,” Kelly agreed.

“But I never meant for this to happen.” Anne shuddered with revulsion. “Sometimes I think that nature knew what it was doing when it prevented me from having my own children.”

“That’s nonsense!” Kelly exclaimed. “Don’t even
think
that way. No mother does everything perfectly. No father does, either. We’re all only human, we all have to just feel our way along, trying to do our best.”

Anne looked at Kelly. She felt infinitely tired. “That’s kind of you to say.”

Kelly said, “It’s true.”

“You think I haven’t ruined Tessa?”

“You know you haven’t.”

Anne walked to her desk, opened a drawer, and took out a box of tissue. She held it out to Kelly, who took one and blew her nose and wiped her face while Anne did the same thing. Anne straightened her dress. Then she sat down at her desk. Immediately she felt better, stronger, in control. Having the large, ornate, majestic piece of furniture between her and this other woman was exactly what she needed. She took a deep breath.

“All right, then, tell me again what you want.”

Kelly MacLeod sank into a chair facing the desk. She looked at Anne with a level stare and said, “I want you to be my friend. I want to marry Randall someday. I want to be Tessa’s stepmother, and someday, I want to tell her that I’m her birth mother. But not right away. Not until the three of us agree the time is right.”

Anne passed her hand over her forehead. “It’s all so peculiar. So abnormal.”

“What? That she’ll have three adults to love her? As well as Mont and your parents? Oh, yes, there’s also my half sister, Felicity. She’s fifteen, and living with me now. God only knows how those two will get along.” Kelly leaned forward. “Anne. There’s no one right kind of family. No normal family. No perfect family. I’ve seen children living happily with their grandparents. With stepparents. With uncles and aunts and cousins. I’ve seen two women, living together, adopt a baby and raise a happy child, and I’ve seen two men, living together, do the same thing. I’ve seen a single man adopt his nephew and niece when their parents died in a car accident. I’ve seen a single woman adopt a little girl who was orphaned.” She pressed her case. “You’ve read about all this. This isn’t new to you. And it’s only going to get more complicated with developing technology. And who is to say what’s right or wrong? Certainly it took the three of us to bring Tessa into this world, and you must agree that was the right thing to do. What would be wrong, if the three of us who created her, loved her and cared about her, worked together in her best interests?”

Anne stared back. This woman wanted to share her daughter’s life. That was terrifying. And yet, this young woman was a judge. She was intelligent, well educated, and reasonable. God knew she was articulate.

“But we won’t agree on everything,” Anne protested. “We’ll
fight
.”

“I’m sure we will,” Kelly replied honestly. “But if you and I have learned anything in our careers, it’s how to compromise. And we’ll be doing it for Tessa.”

Anne rose. “This is a lot to throw at me all at once. I need some time to think.”

Kelly stood. “Of course. Here are my phone numbers, in case you want to call and talk to me about anything.” Taking a card from her purse, she laid it on Anne’s desk.

Anne stared at the white piece of paper marring the serene perfection of her desk. Picking it up, she slipped it into the middle drawer without looking at it. “It’s Randall I need to speak with.”

“Of course.”

They walked down the hall in silence. Anne opened the door and stood back to let the other woman pass.

Instead, Kelly stopped and looked around her, at the gleaming, orderly entrance hall with its polished table and the stern oil portraits of Anne’s grandparents. “This is a beautiful house,” she said.

“Yes, it is.” Anne’s tone was cool.

“Thank you for seeing me.”

Anne didn’t reply.

Anne watched the other woman walk across the drive and settle in her car. So that, she thought, was what Tessa would look like when she was grown.

Something moved in Anne’s heart. It was painful. It was strangely exciting. It was like a terrible fear, and the oddest kind of hope. It was, she imagined, how a woman felt on the delivery table, clutching a nurse’s hand for support. Perhaps this was how one of the women Anne worked for would feel, a single mother living on welfare, needing help feeding or educating or protecting her child, when one of the programs that Anne was fighting for was passed and implemented. When that woman knew with relief that someone out there was on her side. When she realized she would no longer have to do this alone, this challenging, chartless, heartbreaking job of
being a mother
.

Fifteen

Saturday morning Felicity, with a face like a storm cloud, flung herself into the front seat of Kelly’s Subaru.

“Felicity,” Kelly said. “Please. I’m asking you as nicely as I know how. Be pleasant.”

“I am pleasant,” Felicity growled. Reaching forward, she snapped on the radio and hit the dial until she found a hard rock station.

Kelly sighed. Was this how it was going to be for the next few years? “I just don’t understand why you object so strenuously to spending one day outside in the sunshine.”

“Because,” Felicity said through gritted teeth. “I’d rather be with my friends.”

“You were with Sly last night. You’ve been with your new friends in school. You’re having Jamie over to spend the night tonight. I don’t think one afternoon is so tragic. Come on, Fel. Give it a chance. You might even like these people.”

“Why, because you do?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. I mean, my judgment isn’t completely terrible, is it? After all, I
like
you.”

Felicity moaned and threw her head back so hard Kelly was surprised the headrest didn’t fly out the back window.

“Look,” Kelly persisted, keeping her voice as rational as possible, “you’ve met Randall. You think he’s nice enough, don’t you?”

Felicity shrugged.

“And I’ve met his father, Mont, who is as sweet an old dear as ever walked the planet.”

“Yeah, I am so dying to meet some dried-up old geezer.”

“Don’t be ageist,” Kelly snapped. “Mont Madison’s a doctor. He has a farm. He’s working on a book. He’s not a dried-up old geezer.”

“Whatever.”

“And Randall’s daughter, Tessa, will be there.” Kelly swallowed. “I haven’t met her, but I’ll bet she’s really nice.”

“Oh, goodie. A twelve-year-old. Gee, maybe we’ll play dollies.”

Kelly snapped. “Felicity Lambrousco! What the hell has gotten into you? I’ve been as nice to you as humanly possible over the past few weeks. And in return you act like one of Satan’s spawn.”

“So fine. Send me back to René.”

“What?” Kelly looked over at the adolescent huddling inside her storm cloud of emotion. Felicity’s face was blotchy and sullen.

“Oh, Fel.” Kelly reached over to touch Felicity’s hand. Felicity snatched it away. “What is going on in your convoluted little brain?”

Felicity’s black mascaraed lashes glittered with tears. “You’re going to marry this Randall guy.”

“Maybe. Yes, it’s possible that I am going to marry this Randall guy. It’s very possible that sometime within the next year or so I’ll marry him and move out to live on his farm. And if I do, Felicity, you’re moving with me. You’re living with me, wherever I go, whether you like it or not.”

“You can’t make me,” Felicity growled.

“Hey, you know what? I’m a
judge
. I know quite a few people in high places. I bet I
can
make you stay with me, at least until you’re an adult.”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“Of course I would. I’ve lived too long without you, Fel. I’m not letting you get away.
Ever.” Reaching over, she took Felicity’s hand. This time, Felicity let her keep it.

“Do you think she’ll want to ride, Dad?”

Tessa was wired, a spinning mass of nervous energy. She didn’t care about meeting Dad’s woman friend. It was the girl she was bringing with her. A fifteen-year-old. Tessa was nearly puking with nervousness.
Felicity
—such a cool name. Tessa’s dad had met her, said she was nice, in a Goth sort of way. Tessa thought she’d die with excitement. She’d never known anyone who was Goth.

“I don’t know if she’s ever ridden before, Tessa,” her father said. The Burchardts had brought over a trailer-load of hay. Randall and Tessa’s grandfather were in the barn with pitchforks, lifting the bales off the trailer, stacking them in the loft for winter. The air smelled as sweet as spring.

Tessa groaned and twisted her hands. Would Felicity think Tessa was cool if she arrived to find her on a horse, or would she think she was dinky? Neither one of the horses was exactly Black Beauty.

“Tessa?” Mont called down. “Would you do me a favor and bring me a glass of water?”

“Sure, Grandpops.”

Tessa raced into the kitchen, glad for something to do. The kitchen smelled even better than the outside. Mont had made coffeecake this morning, one of Madeline’s recipes, with walnuts and brown sugar and tons of butter. He’d made two, actually, and good thing, because Tessa had already eaten almost half of one.

She got a glass down from the cupboard, then another one. Dad was probably thirsty, too. As she stood, holding them under the tap, she looked at the postcard held to the refrigerator with magnets. Two different shots of Washington, D.C. One at day, one at night.

Tessa’s mother
rocked
. She was doing so much cool stuff. Her picture was in the
Globe
like all the time. People thought she might be a senator someday, or even a vice president of the entire United States. Everyone at school wanted to be Tessa’s friend because of her mother. And the weird thing was that now when Anne took Tessa with her to do her political stuff, Tessa actually enjoyed it. She didn’t even mind wearing those dorky dresses. And her mom was happy, so happy she hadn’t even criticized Tessa for gaining weight.

As Tessa carried the glasses of water out to the barn, she saw a silver Subaru come down the road. She looked down at her tummy. What if this Felicity was, like,
thin
? Would she think Tessa was fat? Would she think that Tessa, in her jeans and T-shirt and riding boots, was geeky? Would she even talk to Tessa? Maybe she’d just snort and roll her eyes and go in the house and watch television. What would Tessa do then? She was kind of terrified.