Nothing Is Negotiable (36 page)

“Well, none of us expected twins, but there you were. The most beautiful babies I’d ever seen in my life. Kurt was extremely proud, but he couldn’t stand waiting for me to make a decision. I was released from the hospital five days later and Kurt took me home. He told me he wouldn’t wait any longer. I had to choose either him or Nathan. I told him I couldn’t. He told me he would make the decision for me. He said the only fair way to do it was for him to get one of the twins and Nathan would get the other. And if I wouldn’t marry him, he would leave.”

“Oh, my,” Bonnie said. “So, he took me, and left?”

Anita lowered her head and nodded. “He was convinced it was the right thing to do. I never thought he’d leave and not come back. But he did.”

Bonnie tried to imagine what it must have been like, but she couldn’t.

“So, what did you tell Nathan?” Bonnie asked.

“Nothing. Nathan never knew I had twins, and it was too much to tell him while he was in Vietnam. I decided, for the moment, all I’d tell him was that he had a beautiful baby girl named Tammy. He came home about six months later and we got married.”

“Did you tell him then?”

“He was only here for four days and was so happy. I just couldn’t do it. I decided I’d tell him when the time was right.”

“But, how did you... I mean, didn’t other people know?”

“Not really. We had kept my pregnancy a secret, and it was late summer when you were born. Kurt and I were the only ones who knew. As for family, my parents were divorced and I wasn’t close to them. Kurt’s family was back in Texas and his father was a preacher in the Church of Christ, so he didn’t want to tell him. Nathan’s family was from Iowa and all they knew was that he knocked up some girl in college. After we got married, I got to know them, and that’s who Tammy knows as grandparents. But no one ever knew Tammy had a twin sister. Not even Tammy.”

“What happened then?”

“Nathan went back to Vietnam and was killed four months later. He only got to see Tammy once.”

“How sad,” Bonnie said, clasping her hands to her mouth. “What did you do? Did you try to find Dad, or Kurt?”

“No. It just wouldn’t have been right. Nathan’s family was wonderful and they were my family. They’ve always been there for us.”

Anita watched as Bonnie struggled with this information. She had a million things she wanted to know, but there was one question at the top of the list. She looked deep into her mother’s eyes and asked, “Did you ever find out who our real father is?”

Anita looked from Bonnie to Tammy and said, “As far as I’m concerned, your father is Kurt and your father is Nathan. That’s all we will ever need to know.”

“What did you do then?” Tammy asked. The girls watched their mom try to open up the tear-soaked tissue in her hand.

“I couldn’t stay there anymore, I needed to get away. I moved to California where I got a job teaching in Santa Barbara. When Tammy was about three I got married again, hoping it would help me move on. But I guess I wasn’t ready. We divorced less than a year later.

“All these years I’ve carried this secret and I’ve never been able to get over it. Every time I met a man, I just couldn’t... you know, tell him. I dated on and off over the years, but I guess I just never gave any other man a chance. I never did get involved with anyone again.” Anita raised the tissue and dabbed the corners of her eyes. “I decided that when Tammy was old enough, I’d tell her what really happened. But I kept putting it off, and putting it off...”

Tammy wrapped her arm around her mother’s shoulder and looked at Bonnie. “What did your dad tell you about your mother?”

Bonnie closed her eyes tight and tried to find the right words. She looked at Anita, and said, “He told me... you died of breast cancer.”

Tammy looked at Bonnie, a hurt expression. “Why would he do that?”

“I’m not sure, but I think he wanted me to love my mother as much as he did.” Bonnie noticed their puzzled expressions and said, “I don’t know. Maybe if he would have said you were divorced, I would have always wondered why you didn’t have custody of me. Was it because you didn’t want me or what?”

Tammy and Anita nodded. Each understood what she meant.

“He always talked about how much he loved you. If anything ever came up about my mother, would always say good things. He’d talk about how pretty you were, or how much he missed you. I think he wanted me to feel the same way.”

“Do you hate me... for what I did?” her mother asked.

She grabbed her mother by her shoulders and stepped closer. “I’ve loved you all my life. The only thing I have ever hated was the fact that you weren’t here. But now you are and I can start sharing my love with you.”

As Anita pulled Bonnie close, she could feel the love she had missed all those years.

Bonnie pulled away when she heard the door behind her open. Luke stood in the doorway and Bonnie motioned him over.

“This is my husband, Luke. And this is my mother, Anita Owens and my sister, Tammy.”

“I can’t tell you how happy I am to meet you,” he said. “This is absolutely amazing.”

“Yes it is,” Tammy said, looking at Bonnie.

“Bonnie had always said she wished she had known her mother,” Luke said. “But I never thought it would happen.” They were all silent as they looked from one to the other. “Kim’s about to leave and I thought you would like to talk to her before she goes.”

Arm in arm they walked out of the conference room and Anita said to Bonnie, “I heard your dad died recently.”

“Yes, after a two-year battle with cancer.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I hope he didn’t suffer.”

“Not really. At the end, the doctors had him on so many drugs, he was out of it most of the time,” Bonnie thought about his last week in the hospital, and the last conversation she had with him. Goosebumps rose on her arms as she looked at Tammy and Anita.

“But something really strange happened the night he died,” Bonnie said as Tammy and Anita stopped to watch her recall the memory. “The doctors had him on strong painkillers. The last few days he was in bed and very restless. At times he’d ramble on and on, most of it incomprehensible and sometimes I could tell he was hallucinating. Most of the time, he didn’t even know I was in the room. But the last night, just before he died, I had been asleep on the sofa for several hours. I woke up and saw him sitting up in bed. He was watching me. His eyes were focused and for the first time in days his speech was very clear.

“He said, ‘Bonnie, you know your mom isn’t really dead. She’s out there and she’s looking for you. I think you should go find her.’

“I wasn’t sure what to say, so I said, ‘Where will I find her?’ ”

“He said, ‘Might try the west coast somewhere. She told me she loved the beach.’”

“I said, ‘But, I don’t know what she looks like. I’ve never even seen a picture of her. How will I know her?’”

Bonnie looked from her mom, to Tammy. “He said, ‘You’ll know it’s her as soon as you see her. She’ll be with your sister.’”

* The End *

I was raised in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, the third of four brothers. Our dad was a citrus farmer and the summer after each of us turned twelve we went to work for him on the farm. It was hard, tedious work, but it convinced us we didn’t want to do that the rest of our lives. After high school I went to college at Texas Tech University where I got my degree in Range and Wildlife Management. I had dreams of being a wildlife biologist, but unfortunately the jobs were scarce and I settled for a job with a wholesale nursery. That was in 1975 and I’m still there today. It’s been a great career with a wonderful company. I started writing fiction about six years ago and hope to do it for many more years. My wife and I live in Austin, Texas, not far from our daughter, son-in-law and three grandsons.

I will donate twenty percent of the profits of this novel evenly between The Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas in Austin, Texas, and Meals on Wheels.