Mother's Day (3 page)

That’s what you’re being now, she told herself sternly. Greedy. Greedy and self-indulgent. Stop sorrowing for what you lost, and be thankful for all that you have, she told the wistful woman in the mirror. With Jenny’s adoption, they put the sorrow and the tension behind them. Happiness reentered their lives. It was not fair to put Greg through it again. You are blessed, she reminded herself. Think how lucky you are.

She padded down the hall to their bedroom. Greg had finished with his tie and looked to her, as always, for her approval.

“Very handsome,” she said, smiling. She rarely saw him dressed up this way. He was a contractor by trade, and his normal work clothes were sturdy shirts and rugged boots.

“I’ve got to look good for my girls,” he said cheerily.

For the millionth time the unbidden thought flitted through Karen’s mind. Would it have been a girl or a boy? Greg recognized the look on her face.

“Honey,” he said, “if you don’t feel up to this, we don’t have to go.”

Karen narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to do me out of my lunch date? I’ve been looking forward to this all week.” She took his favorite dress out of the closet and slipped it over her head. “Help me with this zipper, honey.”

Greg drew up the zipper and kissed her neck.

“I’m sorry I’ve been such a drag,” she said.

“You haven’t,” he said.

Karen brushed her hair and glanced at the silver frame on the dresser, the gap-toothed smiling child in the picture. “Besides, Jenny would be disappointed.”

Greg looked at his watch. “We’d better get a move on. I told her to meet us there at one o’clock sharp.”

“Does she need a ride from Peggy’s house?” Their thirteen-year-old daughter had spent the night with Peggy Gilbert, a new friend from school. Greg had driven her over there the night before.

“No. Peggy only lives about two blocks from the inn,” he said.

Karen dabbed on a little blusher to brighten her complexion. Her skin seemed drab to her now that the glow of pregnancy had vanished.

“You look beautiful,” Greg said sincerely.

Karen smiled at him. They had met when she was fifteen years old. Sometimes she thought they were like people suspended in time. It was as if they never noticed the passing of the years. When she looked at her husband she still saw the broad-shouldered boy with sandy-blond hair and liquid brown eyes, so like her own, who had dazzled her eye and made her heart race back in high school. Someday, she thought, when I’m completely gray and wrinkled and the mirror cries out “old lady,” I will still be able to look in his eyes and see myself as a young girl. “I’m ready,” she said.

“It feels weird driving your car,” Greg said as he pulled into the parking lot beside the old brick building. Usually he went everywhere in his van.

“I thought it might be nice to show up for lunch without sawdust all over me,” she teased him.

“Well, excuse me, Mrs. Vanderbilt,” he said, coming around to her side to open the door and bowing as he offered her his hand.

Karen giggled as she climbed out of the car and looked up at the inn. During Revolutionary War times, the Bayland had actually been an inn, housing the guests who had made the arduous fifty-mile trek from Boston. These days the Bayland was just a restaurant, and superhighways made the town of Bayland a long but possible commute from the city. Still, the seaside town retained much of its historic charm, was crowded only in the summer, and the Bayland Inn remained virtually the only place in town to go for a dress-up occasion.

Greg took her arm as they went inside and spoke to the hostess. “We’re meeting our daughter here,” he said. “Her name is Jenny. Dark brown hair, blue eyes, about this tall.”

“She’s not here yet,” the hostess said brightly. “I’ll keep an eye out for her.” She led them to their table. It was by the window, overlooking a little waterfall and a stream. Karen sat down and gazed out at the trees fuzzy with new growth, the pastel blue of the sky, and the daffodils and tulips blooming in disorganized profusion on the stream bank.

“What a beautiful day,” she said.

“We do what we can,” he said.

She made a face at him, picked up her menu and glanced at it, and then put it down again. She looked around the room. It was definitely a family day. Every table boasted a mom in her best, some.with corsages pinned to their dresses, husbands and children encircling them.

A stout, henna-haired waitress came up to their table, but Greg indicated the empty place. “I’ll come back,” she said.

Greg followed Karen’s gaze. “I should have brought you flowers,” he said.

“Don’t be silly,” said Karen, returning to the menu.

“I did get you something, though,” he said, producing a small, flat, gaily wrapped box from inside his jacket.

“Oh, Greg.”

“Open it,” he said.

“Should we wait for Jenny?” she asked uncertainly.

“It’s all right. We’ll show her when she gets here. Go ahead.”

Karen couldn’t help but smile. He was always impatient when he got her a gift. Like a kid itching to open a package, it was all he could do not to unwrap it himself.

“I saw this and I felt like you needed it,” he said.

Karen opened the box and lifted the lid. An antique silver locket engraved with a pattern of leaves and vines rested on the black velvet in the box. “Oh, honey, this is beautiful.”

“Open it up,” he said.

Karen fumbled with the tiny button and pressed it. The locket snapped open. Inside were two pictures, carefully clipped from family snapshots, one on each side. Greg and Karen on the left, Jenny on the right.“You see,” he said. “There’s no room for anyone else. It’s a full heart as it is.”

Karen felt tears rush to her eyes, and she nodded. She knew what he meant to say—that he was happy as they were, just the three of them. He always said so. “It’s true, darling,” she murmured. “We’re very lucky. I was just thinking that earlier today. How lucky I am. Thank you,” She smiled at him, knowing there were tears standing in her eyes, but he seemed satisfied as he squeezed her hand. She did not say what she knew, deep down inside—that in a mother’s heart there would always be room for one more.

“Well,” he said, clearing his throat, pleased with the reception of his gift, “do you know what you’re going to have?”

“I haven’t decided,” she said, turning to look at the door. “Have you?”

“I’m thinking about the baby lamb chops,” he said, glancing at his watch. Then he spoke Karen’s thoughts aloud. “Where is that kid? It’s quarter after.”

“Oh, teenagers,” said Karen, forcing herself not to look at the door again. “They lose track of time.”

“I told her one o’clock sharp,” he said irritably.

The waitress returned. “Do you want a drink?” Greg asked Karen. Karen shook her head.

“Just a few more minutes,” Greg said to the waitress.

“Are you sure it was only two blocks?” Karen asked.

“Honey, I took her there last night.”

Karen nodded. She had spoken briefly to Mrs. Gilbert on the phone, just to make sure it was all right for Jenny to spend the night. Jenny, who lately bristled at any questioning of her independence, was angry about the call. “I hate it when you check up on me,” she complained.

“I’m sure Peggy’s mother would have done the same,” Karen had replied calmly. She was not about to mention to Jenny that in fact Mrs. Gilbert had sounded impatient, as if she could not see the need for the call, either.

“You treat me like I’m in the first grade,” Jenny griped.

Karen sighed, recalling the exchange. All their conversations seem to go that way lately. Every decision Karen made met resistance, every suggestion was construed as interfering or dismissed as boring.

“What’s the matter?” asked Greg.

“Oh, you know me and Jenny lately.”

“It’s just a phase.”

“You always say that.”

“No, this one is documented—insufferable adolescence, commonly known as the terrible teens.”

Karen laughed, but then her expression lapsed into a frown. “I don’t know,” she said, trying to sound casual. “Maybe she decided not to come. Maybe she’s mad at me.

“Mad at what?” Greg exclaimed, and then waved the possibility away. “Anyway, she wouldn’t do that.” But he looked grimly at his watch again. It was nearly one-thirty. “Do you want to go ahead and order?”

Karen shook her head. “You don’t think something could have happened to her,” she said.

“No,” he said, too quickly, too definitely.

No, Karen thought. It’s one-thirty in the afternoon. Don’t even think it. The sun is shining. She had only two blocks to walk. But no amount of reason could dispel the memory of Amber. It had been seven months since the skeleton was found at the Bayland Nature preserve. In all that time, despite an artist’s reconstruction of her face, a description of the fibers of her tattered clothes, the combing of the missing persons files, the Bayland police had not been able to identify the remains. In a big city those pitiful skeletal remains would probably have become a statistic in a week or two, but Bayland was a small town. One of the local reporters, Phyllis Hodges, dubbed the dead girl “Amber” in an article she wrote, because it seemed to fit the time of year, the autumn, when she was found. The name stuck. And when it became evident that no one was going to claim her, the town took up a collection to have a proper burial for her in the local cemetery. Although little new information surfaced about Amber, the townspeople had not forgotten her. This was a town where people knew one another’s children, and people did not forget that someone had killed a teenage girl and left her in the marshes. That someone could still be here, in this town, a danger to anyone’s daughter.

Greg frowned at his wife. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “You’re being paranoid. I’m telling you, the Gilberts live two blocks away. You could probably see the house from here if you craned your neck.”

“I’m sorry,” said Karen.

“Don’t borrow trouble.”

“I can’t help it,” said Karen. “Maybe we should just call Peggy’s.”

Greg pushed back his chair. “Well, I’m tired of waiting for her, and you’re about to wring that napkin of yours into accordion pleats, so I’ll call.”

Karen managed a shaky smile. “She’ll be livid with you. At least it’s not me for once.”

Greg stood up and jingled some change in his pocket. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

Karen gazed out the window, her fingers clenched tightly in her napkin as she waited for him to return. Their waitress cruised by the table again, and Karen grimaced at her apologetically. Karen half expected the woman to glare at her for taking up precious time and table space on this busiest of Sundays, but the woman looked at her with a genuine kindly concern that only made Karen feel worse. She turned back to the window. The brightness of the spring day suddenly seemed garish to her. No matter how bad relations were between them, it was not like Jenny to just not show up. She had always been a tender-hearted child, and if that tender heart was less evident in adolescence, Karen knew it was still there. Still, that little face that used to light up at the sight of Karen was now most often a stormy mask. The guidance counselor at Jenny’s school had told them it was an identity crisis, common to all adolescents, especially difficult for adopted children, who had doubts and unanswered questions about their origins that plagued them. After the conference, Karen had tried to bring the subject up with Jenny, asking her if it bothered her, “You mean does it bother me that my real mother gave me up to complete strangers?” Jenny had replied in that familiar, caustic tone that made Karen’s heart shrivel up inside. “No. It’s something I feel great about.”

When Karen had tried to reassure her that she and Greg loved her more than anything, more than they could have loved their own child, Jenny had referred to this, in a bored voice, as “the party line. I’ve heard it before.” Karen shook her head, recalling the defiant look on that small, white, freckled face, the ill-disguised hurt in those blue eyes as she pushed her dark hair back off her forehead in a familiar, unconscious gesture. There was no getting through to Jenny these days. It’s a hard age, Karen reminded herself. It’s harder on her than it is on you. But secretly Karen missed the old Jenny—the winsome, affectionate child she used to be.

Greg appeared in the dining room door, a grim look on his face. Karen’s heart swooped down in her chest. She watched him fearfully as he crossed the room.

Greg resumed his seat and Karen could see at once that he was not worried, but angry. “What happened?” she said. “Was she there?”

Greg shook out his napkin and picked up his menu. He did not meet her gaze. His voice was harsh. “I spoke to Peggy’s father. It seems that Jenny and Peggy went to an afternoon movie.”

At first, all she could feel was relief. And then her cheeks began to burn. Jenny had shunned her celebration on Mother’s Day. There was no avoiding the blow.

Greg lowered his menu. “Wait until I get a hold of her,” he said. His face was stony with anger, but Karen could see hurt and confusion in his eyes.

“Maybe there’s some reason,” said Karen, her voice trailing off.

“Don’t defend her,” he said. “There’s no excuse for this.”

“At least she’s safe,” said Karen.

“Goddammit,” said Greg. “I can’t believe she went trotting off to a movie.”

“Don’t,” Karen whispered as the people at the next table turned to look at them. “It’s bad enough.”

“I’m sorry,” said Greg, leaning back in his seat. “I’m sorry “

“It’s not your fault,” Karen said.

“Maybe she did forget,” he said lamely.

“We both know she didn’t forget,” Karen replied.

Greg stared out the window for a minute. Then he turned back to his wife. “Well,” he said briskly. “Let’s order our lunch.”

“I can’t,” said Karen. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

Greg leaned across the table. “Sweetheart,” he said.

“Don’t let her ruin it for you. Just because she’s not here. It’ll be like a date. Just the two of us “

Karen looked at him helplessly. “It’s Mother’s Day,” she said.

Greg sighed, defeated. “I know.”

“Let’s go home,” she said.