Her Mother's Shadow (15 page)

When everyone was in bed that night, Lacey got up and
rummaged through her top desk drawer for a notepad and a pen. Sitting down at her desk, she stared out at the moonlit lighthouse, thinking. Composing.

I was with my mother when she was killed,
she wrote.
I still have nightmares about it. My mother had taken me to the battered women's shelter to give a little something to people who had less than we did. She was always like that. She would help anyone who needed it. She even donated her bone marrow to save the life of a child she didn't know. She was the kindest woman in the world.

And she was also a self-centered whore who slept with half the men in the Outer Banks, and she hurt my father more than words can say.

“Shit.” Lacey balled the paper up in her hands and tossed it across the room into her trash can. This would not be an easy thing to write.

T
wenty dollars was missing from her wallet, and Lacey was afraid she knew who had taken it. She and Nola were putting their new schedule of sharing time with Mackenzie into place, and Lacey had made a couple of stops with the girl in the car on her way to the Realtor's house. She'd gone to the bank, where she cashed a check for one hundred dollars, and she'd stopped at a 7-Eleven to pick up a cup of coffee for herself and a doughnut for Mackenzie. She'd taken one of the twenties into the 7-Eleven with her, leaving Mackenzie and her purse in the car, and she'd stuck the change from the twenty in her pocket. It wasn't until she stopped for lunch later in the day that she noticed only three twenties remained in her wallet. Her heart sank as she rummaged through her purse, hoping to find the missing twenty. She had no proof that Mackenzie had taken the money, though, and she didn't have a clue how to deal with the situation.

Driving home from Nola's that afternoon with Mackenzie, sullen and uncommunicative, in the back seat, she thought of ways she could broach the subject. She could sim
ply make a declarative statement: “I got five twenties from the bank, took one into the store with me, and at lunch discovered there were only three twenties left in my wallet.” Or she could make a bargain with Mackenzie: “A twenty disappeared from my wallet. If it reappears within the next day, all will be forgiven.” The fact was, she was afraid to say anything to Mackenzie.
Chicken,
she chided herself. Their relationship was already rocky enough, and she feared making it worse. She would warn Gina and Clay to watch their money. She would keep her own wallet on her at all times. And she would give Mackenzie an allowance. She had not even thought about that. Of course. The girl needed money of her own.

She knew how her own mother would have handled the situation. She would have said something like, “Twenty dollars is missing from my wallet, and I guess someone needed it more than I did. I hope that someone will simply ask me for it in the future instead of taking it.” That would have been so typical of Annie O'Neill's gentle and slightly goofy parenting style. But Lacey was not her mother. She would have to come up with her own approach, and right now, that appeared to be doing nothing.

Bobby Asher had been a thief. He'd stolen money from her and from Jessica. He'd stolen a Danish from a little corner store in Nag's Head nearly every day, and Lacey had felt sorry for the elderly clerk behind the counter, who was half-blind and who had no idea he was being ripped off. She'd seen Bobby steal something as small as a cigarette from a pack lying on a table in a restaurant, and as large as boogie board from a store window. He had been a master thief, and just as Lacey seemed to have inherited her mother's gene for promiscuity, perhaps Mackenzie had inherited her father's gene for stealing.

Why on earth had Lacey been so attracted to him? She'd dreamt about him at night and fantasized about him during the daytime. She would have done anything he asked her to, and she'd felt a deep ache in her chest every time she saw him with Jessica. Maybe Jessica had been wise to keep Bobby out of Mackenzie's life. Yet he was the girl's father. Even Rick, Mr. Conservative himself, thought that he should be told. And she was going to tell him. At best, he would understand Mackenzie better than she did. At worst, he would have graduated to more sophisticated forms of running outside the law. Either way, though, she'd decided that he needed to know he had a child.

The evening after discovering her twenty was missing, Lacey sat in her bedroom, the phone in her lap, and dialed information. There were several Robert Ashers in the Richmond area, the operator told her, and Lacey wrote down all the numbers. The first one she reached turned out to be Bobby's cousin. “He lives down the street,” the cousin said, and he gave her Bobby's number, just like that. She wanted to ask the cousin, “What is he like? Does he still do drugs?” but the only question that came out of her mouth was, “Does he still go by ‘Bobby'?”

The cousin laughed. “He sure does, “he said. “Just about all us Ashers go by Bobby.”

Lacey chewed her lip now as she looked at the number he'd given her. Mackenzie was in her room exchanging e-mail with her Phoenix friends. Rani was asleep, and Gina and Clay were downstairs watching a movie on the VCR. She had the time and privacy she needed for the call. All she needed now was courage and the ability to find the words.

She dialed the number. It rang seven times, and she was trying to formulate a message for his voice mail when he suddenly picked up.

“Hey.” He sounded winded.

“Is this Bobby?” she asked.

“Speaking. Who's this?” She would not have recognized his voice. It was the voice of a man, not the boy she had known.

“I don't know if you remember me or not,” she said. “I'm Lacey O'Neill and I—”

“Lacey!” he said. “What a flash from the past! How are you doing, girl?”

She felt relief that he remembered her, that she would not have to add that explanation to this conversation. He'd been so wasted much of that summer that she'd not been sure he would be able to recall any of it.

“I'm fine,” she said. “And how about you?”

“I'm doing good.” He sounded boisterous and upbeat. She did not remember him that way. “So, how come I'm hearing from you after all these years?”

“Well,” she said, “this is a little complicated, and I'm not quite sure where to start so bear with me, okay?”

“No problem.”

“You remember Jessica Dillard?”

“Sure. I practically spent one summer of my life with her. How's she doing?”

“She recently…she passed away recently.”

There was a beat of silence before he responded. “Jesus, you're kidding. She was only…what?…twenty-six?”

“Twenty-seven. She was a year older than me even though we were in the same grade. She started school a little later than—”

“What the hell happened?” He interrupted her.

“She was in a car accident. She was hit by a drunk driver, but she survived and had to have a lot of surgery. They thought she'd recover, but she got a blood clot in her lung and it killed her.”

“A drunk driver?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Son of a bitch. How fair is that?”

“Not at all fair.”

“The two of you stayed close, Lacey?”

She liked the way he used her name, the way it sounded in his new, grown-up voice. “Yes and no,” she said. “She'd been living in Arizona since she was fifteen, and we didn't get to see each other much. And…here's the real reason I'm calling you. Jessica had a child. A little girl. She…that's why Jessica moved to Arizona, because she got pregnant and her mother really thought it was best that she not stay here. She—”

“Lacey.” He stopped her frantic rambling. “What are you trying to tell me?”

“You're the girl's father.”

That silence again, this time stretching for long, agonizing seconds, and Lacey squeezed her eyes shut as she waited for his response.

“I…uh…” He let out a short laugh. “What makes you think that?”

“Jessica knew you were the baby's father,” she said. “There was never any doubt. But she also knew you were young and that it was just a summer fling and that you were…well, you weren't exactly the responsible father type back then, and she figured it was best just to put ‘unknown' on the birth certificate where it asked for the father's name.”

“Hold on,” he said. “I've got to sit down for this.” She heard some rustling of papers and then he was back on the line. “You don't plan to dump this kid on me, do you?” Now,
that
sounded like the Bobby she remembered.

“Jessica left her in my care,” she said. “But I thought you should know.”

“Why didn't
she
tell me?” he said. “I mean, she could have tried to get child support out of me, if nothing more.”

“She figured you were…” What could she say? “The two of you didn't have a serious, adult relationship, Bobby. You know that.”

He didn't respond, and she continued.

“I only picked up Mackenzie—that's Jessica's daughter—a week and a half ago,” she said. “And the thing is, I always told Jessica I thought she should get in touch with you about her. That you should know. I didn't find out who my father was until I was sixteen, and—”

“Your father was that vet, wasn't he?”

“Yes, but my
birth
father was someone else altogether,” she said. “I didn't know that, and I think I had a right to know. And so did he.” She was rambling, talking fast. “Anyway, Jessica disagreed with me, but I think deep down, she really wanted you to know, or else she wouldn't have left her to me. So, that's why I'm calling. Just to let you know that Mackenzie exists. That you have a daughter.”

Again, the silence, followed by a low chuckle. “I'm feeling something like…I think I'm having a panic attack.”

His vulnerability softened her. “I guess I can't blame you for that,” she said.

“You know, Lacey, Jessica was…well, she was pretty loose.”

Her sympathy for him quickly evaporated, although she could understand his doubt. “Jessica talked a lot looser than she actually was,” she said. “You were the only guy she was…intimate with around that time. And she was sure.”

“A drunk driver,” he said, suddenly returning to the previous topic. “Damn.”

“Yes,” she said.

“So, what's she like? The girl? What did you say her name is?”

“Mackenzie.” Lacey pondered how to describe her. “She's going through a difficult time right now, losing her mother and moving here. Frankly, she's a handful.”

He laughed. “Then maybe she
is
my kid.”

Lacey had to smile. “She's sullen and sulky and obstinate and negative and I'm pretty sure she stole some money from me, and she's demanding and bad-natured and thinks the world owes her for taking her mother. And she's impossible to talk to. And she hates me and everything else in the entire universe.”

The laughter again, but this time much softer. “Yeah, but tell me what you
really
think about her,” he said.

She sighed. “Sorry. I'm not in a good place right now.”

“Well, I hope you never take a job in sales, because you're lousy at it. If you're trying to sell me on this kid, you're not doing the greatest job.”

“I'm being honest.”

“I get that,” he said.

“Bobby, I have to ask you something straight-out, okay?”

“Please do.”

“Sorry if this isn't diplomatic. But you were so crazy when I knew you. What are you like now?”

“Different,” he said. “I'm not your button-down work-in-an-office-cubicle type, but I'm responsible. I own a little house. I pay my bills on time. I'm clean.”

She closed her eyes. That was what she needed to hear. “I don't think there was a drug you hadn't tried when I knew you.”

“I wasn't nearly the druggie I pretended to be. And I haven't used anything in five years. I'm in AA, Lace.”

The use of the nickname touched her, the meaning behind
the words even more so. She knew the change AA had made in Tom. Like magic, Tom turned into a different man, and yet she knew the change had been gradual and had involved hard work. It had been anything but magic.

“That's great, Bobby,” she said. “Are you working?”

“No, Lace, I stand on a street corner and panhandle.”

The image was so close to what she had imagined that it took her a minute to realize he was joking. “Well, what sort of work do you do?”

“I went back to college and changed my major to art, although I never did finish. I got into scrimshaw. I'm a scrimshander.”

She frowned into the phone, picturing the few pieces of scrimshaw she had seen; drawings of tall ships etched in black on ancient whale teeth. “That's what you do for a living?”

He laughed at the tone of her voice. “Actually, yes,” he said. “I'm not living in the lap of luxury, but I love what I do. I work mostly on commission. And how about you?”

“Stained glass,” she said. “And I work part-time as a vet tech in my father's practice.”

“Didn't your mother used to do stained glass?”

“Yes.”

“Like mother like daughter, huh?”

The thought irritated her. “Not quite,” she said.

“I also teach drawing at the adult schools around here,” he said. “Supplements my income a bit.”

“Are you married?” She hadn't considered what this news might do to any relationship he was in.

“Uh-uh,” he said. “I lived with a woman for a few years. She's the silversmith who does the work on the jewelry pieces I make. We split a year ago, but stayed friends. How about you?”