Mother's Day (7 page)

“I wanted to come back and see Mother. And see you, too,” Linda said.

“Linda lives in Chicago,” Alice interjected anxiously. “She tells me she has an apartment there and a good job. We’ve been having a long talk about the past and all that happened. She explained everything to me.”

Linda said, “I know that no explanation is really going to do after all this time “

Alice turned to Glenda, who had her hands crossed protectively over the children’s narrow chests. “You’ve heard about our Linda,” Alice went on. “You may even remember her from years back.”

Glenda shook her head sharply as if to say, don’t suck me into this.

Alice turned back to Bill. “Didn’t you and Glenda used to take Linda along to the beach sometimes when you were all kids?” Alice asked, trying to conjure up some pleasant memories. The air in the room was still and menacing. Alice rubbed her arms briskly. “I’m sure you did. You were always good about taking your little sister along “

Bill did not even seem to hear his mother. “Get out of here,” he said to Linda.

“Now, Bill,” Alice protested.

“No, Mother,” he barked. “No.”

“But don’t you want to even know—”

“Why she left? Where she’s been? I don’t give a flying fuck about any of it. I just want her out of here.”

“Bill,” Glenda exclaimed disapprovingly.

Linda blanched but did not look away.

“Don’t use that language,” said Alice. “Not in front of the children.”

“Well, I don’t want to leave any doubt in their minds about how I feel about this person. Their aunt, I suppose. You’re their aunt, aren’t you?” Bill spat the word out like another curse.

Tears welled up in Linda’s eyes, but she stuck her chin out. “Yes, I am,” she said.

“You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve showing up here.”

“Son,” Alice cried furiously. “Don’t use that word in this house.”

Bill turned on his mother. “That’s what you’re worried about? My bad language? Wake up and live, Mother. Do you remember what this…what she did to us? Have you forgotten that?”

“It’s water under the bridge now, son,” Alice said, trying to soothe him. “We have to forgive and forget.”

“Spare me the platitudes, Mother. I will never forget.” He strode over to Linda’s suitcase, picked it up, and took it to the front door. He jerked the door open and tossed the suitcase out on the front steps. “Get out of here, Linda.”

“Bill, stop it this instant,” Alice cried. “She came to stay for a while.”

“She’s not staying in this house,” said Bill.

“Now, wait a minute,” said Alice. “This is my house. I guess I can say who stays here.”

Bill glared at her. “The only reason this is still your house is because I went to work and helped you make the payments when Dad got too depressed to work.”

“I didn’t realize you felt that way,” said Alice in an injured tone.

“I’m sorry, Mother. I have no argument with you. But she can’t stay. If she stays, I go. It’s that simple. I will not be under the same roof as this selfish…” Bill bit back another epithet.

Alice turned and looked helplessly at Linda. She saw at once that Linda expected her to stand up to him. But Bill was the man of the family now. And what he said about the house was true. “You didn’t actually say you were staying here,” said Alice.

she said, “are you going to throw me out?” Her eyes filled again with tears.

Alice looked hopelessly from Linda to Bill.

“You get the picture,” said Bill with grim satisfaction.

“But I came here to see you, to be with you,” Linda protested.

Alice felt as if her heart were being torn apart. She could not look her daughter in the eye.

Bill was unrelenting. “You should have thought of that about ten years ago. Where’ve you been, in a coma all these years?”

Linda shook her head wearily. “Bill, I wanted this to be a time of healing old wounds. I thought we could try.”

“You thought wrong,” said Bill.

Linda looked back at her mother, but Alice was staring at the floor. “You’re not being fair to me,” Linda said.

Bill snorted derisively. Alice did not reply.

Slowly Linda went over to the door and looked out at her suitcase lying on the front steps. Bill drew back when she walked past him, as if afraid she might brush against him. “I’ll get a room,” she said shortly.

“I’m sorry,” said Alice in a pleading tone.

“Don’t be sorry,” said Bill. “It’s her own fault.”

“I’ll call you, Mother,” said Linda.

Alice wanted to say something. I love you. But she didn’t dare. Not in front of Bill. She tried to say it with her eyes, but Linda did not look at her. She wanted to embrace her again, but it would have to wait.

“Don’t hurry back,” Bill said. Linda looked back at him ruefully as she stepped outside, but he stared straight ahead as though she were invisible, a ghost drifting through the open door.

L

Karen sat in the living room,
an open book on her lap, staring out the front windows into the night sky. From the floor above, there was a continuous muffled thunder of rock music. Greg came into the room and watched his wife intently for a minute before he managed to summon a rueful smile.

“Enjoying that book, are you?” he said.

Karen looked up at him blankly. “What?” she asked.

“That book you’re so absorbed in,” he said, sitting down across from her.

Karen looked down at the book in her hands and closed it with a sigh. She placed it on an end table. “I don’t know why I even bothered to open it,” she said.

Greg folded his arms across his chest. “What’s on your mind?” he said.

“As if you didn’t know,” she said.

“Well, what about her? Specifically. Maybe we’d better talk about it.”

Karen stared beyond him, out the window again. You could see stars glimmering through the trees in their yard. She tried to collect her thoughts. Finally, in a dismal voice, she said, “You’re going to say I’m overreacting.”

“I doubt it,” he said grimly.

Karen was a little surprised by his tone. Usually he did his best to minimize her worries, to explain them away. But tonight his expression seemed to mirror her own. “What if,” she began. “What if this woman wants to take Jenny away.”

Greg shook his head. “She can’t,” he said.

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“Of course I do,” he countered. “This was a legal adoption. That woman gave up all rights to her baby when she signed those papers. Of course I’m assuming that the incompetent Arnold Richardson did have her sign the papers.”

“Don’t say that, Greg.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sure he did.”

“These days it seems as if the old rules don’t apply anymore,” Karen mused. “You’re always seeing these women on ‘Oprah’ and ‘Donahue’ who show up years later and win their natural children back in court.”

“Those are one-in-a-million situations,” Greg insisted. “That’s why they’re on ‘Oprah’ and ‘Donahue.’ I mean, it would be one thing if we were just foster parents, or we bought her on the black market or something. But that’s not the case.”

“It just seems like there’s no limit on how long these women have to change their minds and decide they want their child back,” Karen protested.

“There certainly was a limit, as I remember. It was in the papers, and it was something like a month.”

“It was three weeks,” Karen admitted.

“So, you see, you answered your own question.”

Karen nodded. She could never forget the tension of those three weeks, wondering if a phone call would come from Richardson, reporting the mother’s change of heart. She hardly dared give her heart away to the baby she held so tenderly, fearing the worst. And when the time was up, and the agreement sealed, she rejoiced inside all over again.

“If you want,” said Greg, “I’ll call Arnold Richardson in the morning and explain the situation to him. He’ll tell you himself. She hasn’t got a legal leg to stand on.”

“I hold Arnold Richardson responsible for this mess. He let someone get into our private files.”

“I’m sure he had no idea what was happening,” said Greg.

“That’s no excuse,” said Karen angrily. “He should run a tighter ship.”

Greg took a deep breath and picked up a magazine, impatiently riffling the pages.

“Now you’re mad at me,” she said.

“No, I’m not. I just don’t want you going to pieces over this. The sky hasn’t fallen. You just have to remain calm.”

“Like you,” she said.

Greg did not reply. He rolled up the magazine into a tight tube and whacked it into his palm absently.

r “It’s just that legality isn’t everything, Greg.” “Meaning what?” “Meaning what if Jenny wants to be with her? What if she chooses Linda over us…over me?”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he cried. “Why would she choose a stranger over the family she knows and loves?”

“You saw her reaction,” said Karen. “She was thrilled with the whole thing. It was as if she had been waiting all her life for this wonderful ‘birth mother’ to appear.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“Maybe I am. But I’m scared. She and I can’t have two words in a row these days without a fight. I mean, we are at each other’s throats. Everything I do or say is wrong. And then, whammo, along comes this glamorous, mysterious stranger who says, Tm your real mother and all I’ve done is fantasize about how wonderful you are and you turn out to be even more wonderful than I ever imagined.’” Karen got up and began to pace around the room. “So, on the one hand we have the unnatural mother, Karen, who’s an old witch that makes her pick up her clothes and do her homework, and on the other we have Linda, the all-embracing birth mother, who treats Jenny like some kind of walking miracle. I ask you, which one is more appealing? Which one would you choose?”

“That’s not all that’s involved,” Greg insisted, avoiding her frantic gaze.

“She’s looking for a reason to reject me once and for all. And that reason just walked in the door this afternoon. And I can’t stand it, Greg. She’s all I’ve got. She’s my only baby.”

Greg banged the magazine down on the coffee table and jumped up. “Stop it, Karen. Stop blowing this thing out of proportion. Try and be rational, for God’s sakes.”

Karen glared at him, and then tears came to her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “If I can’t tell my fears to you…”

An anguished expression rose in his eyes. He looked away from her. “Look,” he said. “You are acting as if this whole thing is up to Jenny. As far as I’m concerned, we’ll just tell her that she can’t meet with this woman anymore. We just forbid it. She’s a minor. We’re her parents. And what do we know about this woman, anyway? She could be some kind of a nut. She could be unbalanced. At the very least she has poor judgment, showing up out of the blue like this.”

“That’s true enough,” said Karen. She came back to the couch and sat down beside him.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know why you agreed to this meeting tomorrow in the first place.”

Karen did not reply.

“So, it’s that simple. We simply forbid her to see this Linda anymore and that’s the end of it. I’ll be glad to deliver the verdict to Miss Emery myself. You don’t ever have to set eyes on her again.”

“No,” said Karen with a sigh. “We can’t do that.”

“Believe me,” said Greg, “I’ll tell Jenny too. I don’t mind being the villain.”

“No,” said Karen. “It’s not that. It’s just…we can’t deny her the opportunity to get to know her natural mother. Not now that they’ve made contact. It wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be fair to Jenny. She has a lot of questions, I know. The school psychologist told me that. It’s a critical age for this identity crisis business. And adopted children have it the worst. Maybe it would help her to know this woman. To find out about her. And her father. Whatever Linda wants to tell her.”

“I don’t get it,” Greg cried in exasperation. “First you say one thing, and then, when I offer a solution, you say the opposite. I’m trying to protect you. And Jenny. Let me do this.”

“It’s not a solution,” Karen insisted. “Don’t you see that? If we make a big issue out of it, she’ll just sneak off and see her. Or worse. No, we have to let her go. Or she’ll hold it against us.”

“You don’t know what you want,” he said furiously. “You’re going around in circles.”

“Stop yelling at me. This isn’t my fault. I didn’t ask for this to happen. I’m just trying to cope with it,” she cried. “Why are you mad at me?”

“Because you won’t let me do anything,” he fumed. “You’re predicting doom, and when I try to find a way to head it off…”

“There is no way to head this off,” said Karen. “She’s here. We have to deal with whatever happens. All I was doing was saying how I felt “

“Fine,” said Greg. “If that’s what you want to do, suit yourself.”

“I was hoping for a little support from you,” she said indignantly.

“You want me to hold your hand while you let this woman destroy what we’ve built?” he cried.

Karen looked at him in amazement. She felt dizzy, as if the ground had dropped away beneath her. He was always the cool head, the optimist. “Is that what you think?” she asked. “Is that what you really think?”

Greg shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s this day. It’s been a terrible day.”

She felt a sudden wave of pity for him. Shame, almost, for having voiced all these dire possibilities as if she were talking to some disinterested third party. After all, Jenny was his child, too. Whatever the outcome of this showdown between mothers, it was turning his world upside down, too. “If it hadn’t been today,” she said gently, “it would have been another day. We just have to face it.”

“I guess you’re right,” he said grimly.

She touched his face, which was creased with worry. “We can handle it,” she said.

“That’s my line,” he said.

“Usually,” she admitted.

He looked away.

The woman seated behind the motel desk was so absorbed in her book that she did not notice the wiry, sallow-complected man enter the lobby until he was right in front of her. She started and let out a little cry, clapping a beringed hand to her ample chest. “Eddie, my God. You’re like an Indian the way you sneak up on people.”