Knowing You (27 page)

Besides, seeing everything with Debbie made it all seem new anyway.

“Come on,” Debbie said, tugging hard again. “Over here is the jellyfish place and it's really pretty.”

“Run ahead,” Stevie told her, laughing. “I'll catch up.”

“'Kay!” With that, she dropped Stevie's hand, turned into the wind, and ran toward the next exhibit at the Monterey Aquarium.

The fall weather had thinned out the tourist crowds quite a bit, but the locals were still strolling around the area. The touch pool, the penguins, and the octopus were big crowd pleasers. The otters, Mae and Goldie,
all sleek brown fur and silly smiles, were cute enough to keep visitors there forever. The little guys stared up at the people looking at them, and just for a second, Stevie had to wonder just who was watching whom.

But Debbie didn't let Stevie stay in any one place long enough to really look at it. The younger girl was so excited to show Stevie the place where she worked, she could hardly stand still.

A cold wind rushed in off the ocean, fluttering colorful flags atop the buildings and balloons tied to the wrists of laughing children. Stevie zipped up her sweatshirt and tugged the collar up higher around her neck.

“Stevie!”

She picked up her speed and smiled to herself at Debbie's excited shout. Her little sister had forgotten all about the tears and near hysterics that had ended Stevie's last visit. And Stevie was grateful. If she couldn't have Debbie living with her, then she at least wanted this closeness.

“See?” Debbie shouted as she came closer. “See? See? This is the jellyfishes. There's lots of 'em and they're all floating and swimming. And everybody likes 'em best, but my favorite's the otter and sometimes I get to feed 'em, too, if I'm careful.”

Stevie grinned at the flow of information. Her heart swelled with love for this girl, for the charm and the warmth and the pure joy of her. Then Stevie noticed the woman just behind Debbie and how she was staring at the girl with pity in her eyes.

And just like that, a small curl of shadows crept into the day. Stevie had to fight the urge to snap at the woman. Her protective instincts were on overdrive. It
wasn't the first time it had happened. Stevie'd caught the sympathetic glances from adults and the snickering from children. But Debbie never seemed to notice. Or if she did, she didn't care. She was simply oblivious to anything that distracted her from her own happiness.

So maybe, Stevie thought, she could learn something from her little sister.

“Look,” Debbie was saying, demanding her sister's attention as she pulled her into the exhibition. “See? Isn't it pretty?”

Stevie stepped inside, stopped dead, and looked at the wall of glass in front of her. Inside the tank, hundreds, maybe thousands of jellyfish danced in the clear blue water, looking like ghosts streaming across a summer sky. They moved with a slow, undulating rhythm that was nearly hypnotic.

“Pretty.” Debbie rested her head on Stevie's shoulder.

“Beautiful,” Stevie said, reaching up to stroke her sister's cheek.

*   *   *

Alone again in her hotel room, flushed with love for the sister who'd been hidden from her for years, Stevie tried one more time to contact her mother. She'd dialed the number so many times over the last week, she knew it by heart. Punching the buttons with one stabbing finger, she waited for the connection to go through, then drummed her fingernails on the hotel tabletop while she listened to the phone ring.

This time, when the snooty butler answered, he put her through immediately to her mother.

“Stephanie?” Joanna's smooth, silky voice carried
over the phone line, and Stevie noticed her mother had picked up a British accent.

“Mother, why didn't you tell me about Debbie?”

“Debbie who?”

A tight groan slid from her throat. “Debbie your daughter. My
sister
.”

“Oh, bloody hell. Deborah.”

“How could you do it, Mother? How could you just throw her away?”

“Don't be so dramatic, Stephanie. For heaven's sake, there's no reason for melodrama.” Impatience came through the line, loud and clear.

But Stevie wouldn't be put off or calmed down. She'd just spent the day with a wonderful kid. A kid whose own mother had handed her off to strangers. Pacing around the generically decorated hotel room, Stevie started talking again, pushing words past clenched teeth.

“Why didn't you tell me about her?”

“What would be the point?”

“Because she's my family.”

“Really, Stephanie. The child is retarded.”

“And that makes her what?” Stevie damn near shouted. “Expendable? Useless? Less than acceptable?”

“Really, Stephanie, there's no reason to be insulting.”

“
You're
insulted? Oh my God.”

“You're being melodramatic again.”

“Mother, the ‘child' is all grown-up now. Have you ever once even visited her?”

“Why would I?” Joanna asked. “The child's father arranged for a trust fund. She's been well taken care of and will be for the rest of her life.”

“And that's all?” Stevie stopped in front of the window looking out over the bay. Fishing boats squatted out on the dark ocean and lamplight shimmered around them, making golden silhouettes on the black surface of the water. On Fisherman's Wharf, lights twinkled, and along the beach walk, couples strolled under the street lamps.

Everywhere else in the world, normalcy ruled.

Here on the phone with her mother, Stevie was in the Twilight Zone.

“What else is there?”

“Haven't you ever visited her?”

“Why would I? I pay people to look after her.”

“That's it?” Stevie went on. “No concern? No curiosity about your own child?”

“If you're going to wallow in hysterics, this conversation is at an end.”

“Hysterics?” Stevie pulled the phone away from her ear and stuck her tongue out at it. Slapping it back into place, she said, “You think
this
is hysterics?”

“Good night, Stephanie,” Joanna said just before the quiet click and soft dial tone told Stevie she was now talking to herself.

“Good night,
Mom
.” She hung up the phone and tried to ignore the cold settling over her. Jesus. Tarantulas made better parents. And she'd
come
from that woman. Stevie rubbed her hands up and down her arms, trying desperately to rub away the chills snaking through her body. She felt so damn …
alone
.

Tears stung her eyes, but Stevie deliberately blinked them back. She wouldn't cry over Joanna. Not again.
She'd wasted enough tears in her childhood. There weren't any left.

She'd planned on staying overnight and going home in the morning. But being in the empty hotel room wasn't what she needed at the moment. What she needed was to be surrounded by the familiar.

To be home.

To talk to someone who knew something about love. About parenting.

She needed Mama.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

M
AMA'S KITCHEN SMELLED LIKE
childhood.

Stevie stopped on the threshold of the open back door. Sunlight spilled into the room, and just for a second, she enjoyed all of the memories that came rushing to greet her.
She and Carla, sitting at the breakfast booth, shelling peas. Mama, teaching the two girls how to make lasagna. Paul and Nick, crashing through the kitchen, snatching still-hot cookies from the cooling trays. Cold drinks and warm hugs and always, always, Mama
.

“Come in! Come in!” Mama shouted, waving a dish towel at Stevie to get her attention. “You're in time to help make sandwiches for tonight.”

“Tonight?” Stevie repeated, walking into the kitchen and dropping her purse on the green Naugahyde breakfast booth seat.

Mama shook her head. “You forgot? End-of-summer picnic on the beach?”

“That's tonight?” How had she forgotten? It was a
tradition. On the last Saturday in September, the Candellanos trooped to the beach, took over a couple of the fire pits, and gave summer a good send-off.

She looked forward to the late-night picnic every year. Until now. This year, though, she hadn't even given it a thought. Not surprising really, considering her brain was just one or two thoughts away from exploding.

“Is tonight,” Mama said, and finally looked up from the mountain of cold cuts she was tossing onto loaves of Italian bread with the panache of a Vegas blackjack dealer. One look at Stevie, though, and she dropped what she was doing. “What is wrong?”

Now that she was here, standing in front of the woman she'd been waiting to talk to since last night, Stevie couldn't think of a good way to start. Thoughts jumbled in her mind, each of them fighting for recognition. There was so much she wanted to say. And so much she couldn't. So she settled for saying simply, “My mother.”

“Ah.… ” Mama nodded, came around the center island, and took Stevie's elbow in a hard grip. Steering her toward the breakfast booth, she gave her a little nudge, and once she was seated, Mama sat down opposite her. “So,” she said patiently, folding her hands atop the scarred tabletop, “tell me.”

And just like that, she did. Like a balloon losing its air, Stevie talked, telling Mama all about Debbie and how great she was and how she'd only just found out about her. She talked about Joanna and shivered as she recounted last night's conversation with the woman.

“Stevie,” Mama said when she finally ran out of steam, “you shouldn't do this anymore.”

“Do what? Talk to my mother?” Stevie reached for a napkin and began to systematically shred it.

“No.” Mama reached across the table and snatched the napkin. Clucking her tongue, she muttered, “You and Carla. So much alike.” Then she took a breath and blew it out again, ruffling one stray lock of steel gray hair. “You must stop waiting for your mother to be who you want her to be.”

Rationally she knew that was good advice. Emotionally was a different story. No matter how often she told herself that Joanna was no
Leave It to Beaver
mom, there was a small corner of Stevie's heart that just never stopped hoping. Of course, that was the same corner of her heart that never stopped bleeding, too. Shaking her head, Stevie said, “I keep thinking that one day, she'll change. Maybe when she's older. She'll realize she wants to be a mother.”

Exasperated, Mama snorted. “She wanted to be a mother or she would have found a way to
not
be.”

“Trust me, Mama,” Stevie said, “she was no mother.”

“Not the one you wanted, yes,” Mama agreed. “But your mother anyway.”

“Great. Born of Spiderwoman. What does that make me?”

Mama chuckled. “Makes you Stevie.”

She smiled in spite of everything. Fine. Having Joanna for a mother had made her the woman she was today. But let's look at that woman for a minute, she thought but didn't say, since she didn't want Mama jumping up to slap
her
on the back of the head.

Yes, Stevie was independent and, generally speaking,
pretty happy. But she was also alone. She'd never wanted to be married because she was so damn afraid of starting up another marital merry-go-round—just like the one she'd seen growing up. She was damn near
terrified
to have kids, for fear mothering instincts were inherited.

Oh, yeah. Joanna had done a helluva job on her older child. Heck, Debbie, if you thought about it, had really gotten the sunshine end of the deal.

“You're a good girl, Stevie.”

“Thanks, Mama.” She smiled and swallowed the sigh crouched at the base of her throat.

“But a foolish one.”

Stevie blinked. “Huh?”

Mama scooted out of her seat, walked to Stevie, and bent down to kiss the top of her head. Then came the loving little slap, just to make sure Stevie knew she belonged.

“Stop trying to make your mother something she is not.”

“But—”

“And stop thinking you're like her.” She wagged a finger in Stevie's face to make her point. “Who loves every stray like a new baby? Who is sitting here in my kitchen not helping me make sandwiches and worried about her sister? Be thankful for your sister—don't waste time thinking about lost years.” She used her fingertips to tilt Stevie's chin up until they were looking at each other. “Enjoy now.”

The icy, hard shell around Stevie's heart cracked and the break was almost painful. Tears stung her eyes again and she tried desperately to fight them back. She
was willing to bet she'd cried more in the last few weeks than she had in her whole life.

“No tears, Stevie,” Mama said, patting her cheek. “You must learn to trust yourself—and those who love you.”

Trust.

If she could do that, she could tell Mama the whole truth. About how she was pretty sure she was dangerously close to being in love with another one of Mama's sons. And that she didn't have a clue what to do about it.

Oh, no.

Couldn't be love.

If it was, then what would she do?

“Oh God.” She dropped her head into her hands and prayed for a stroke.

“No time to bother God now,” Mama announced, tugging Stevie to her feet. “Now time to make sandwiches.”

*   *   *

Paul cleaned his glasses on the hem of his dark blue sweatshirt and turned his face into the howling wind. Standing on the cliffs above the beach, he had a bird'seye view of the sand and the ocean. Moonlight shone down from a starry sky and touched the edge of far-flung whitecaps, making the sea foam glow with a weird green phosphorescence that looked almost ghostly in the darkness. It was low tide and the small rippling waves seemed to sneak toward shore, sending out cold, wet fingers, reaching for the people already gathered around the fire pits.