One Week In December (10 page)

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Authors: Holly Chamberlin

BOOK: One Week In December
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Becca shook her head as if that would help clear away troublesome thoughts. Of course, it did not help. Fingers near frozen and eyes near blinded, she turned around, defeated by the elements, and headed for home. Such as it was.
16
The Rowan family was gathered in the living room. David was standing, his hands on his hips, the self-appointed commander in chief. His parents sat next to each other on the couch. Hank sat on the floor at Julie's feet, his face and attitude alert, as if he sensed that she might need support.
“Dad,” David said, with more than a touch of impatience, “it's the results that count. Look at Rain. She's happy and she's healthy. What we all did was the right thing. You know that.”
Steve sighed quietly. “I thought I did,” he said. “But what about Becca? She's obviously very unhappy.”
David snorted. Naomi had talked to him about that annoying habit, but David seemed incapable of giving it up. “Dad,” he said, “Becca needs to get over her misery and move on. It's not like she never sees Rain. For God's sake, Rain adores her. They talk on the phone, they e-mail all the time, and they see each other at least once a month. And let's keep in mind that Becca is an adult.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “Becca is an adult, now. But when we made the decision to take her baby from her, she was just a child herself.”
“That's right, David,” his mother said. “I tried to talk to her about the adoption, once Becca was back at school. But she always shied away from a conversation. All she would ever say was that she was ‘fine.' Maybe all that time, all those first few years, maybe she was really suffering inside. And we just didn't know it. What if we failed our daughter, after all?”
David gripped the sides of his head. Naomi had rarely seen him act so dramatically. “Look,” he said, “there's no point in rehashing the past. What's done is done, and from what I can see, the results of our actions are overwhelmingly positive. Rain is happy and healthy. She does well in school and has good friends. What more could we ask for?”
Julie gave a long sigh. “Well, I suppose David is right.” Then she looked around at the others as if to command their attention. “And I suppose now's as good a time as any to tell you all that I've been keeping tails on the boy who got Becca pregnant.”
David looked at his wife. “Did she say ‘keeping tails'?”
“Yes, David, I did. And don't look so surprised, Steve,” Julie said in response to her husband's look of wonder. “You're not the only one with connections. And I was perfectly discreet. There's not a way in the world any word of my surveillance—”
“Oh, Lord,” Olivia mumbled.
David rolled his eyes. “Suddenly she's Jessica Fletcher.”
“Of my surveillance,” Julie went on, giving emphasis to the offending term, “could have reached him. And my connections—my sources—are unimpeachable.”
“Why, Mom?” Lily asked. “Why did you keep track of him?”
“To be prepared for just such an emergency. If this turns out to be a real emergency . . . and I refuse to believe that it will.”
“I still don't understand.”
“It's simple, Lily. If Becca were to learn just what a loser this boy—this man—now is, there's no way she'd want her daughter to have anything to do with him.”
“I'm not sure what Becca would want, but Naomi and I sure as hell wouldn't want any contact,” David muttered.
Nora nodded. “None of us would.”
“And,” Julie went on, “I'm afraid that if Rain learns the truth before she's mature enough to handle it without doing something rash, well, she might set out to find her father, and that would be disastrous.”
“I feel as if I'm in some two-bit soap opera.” The words seemed to shoot from Olivia's mouth. “This is getting disgusting. We should just send Becca packing. Ostracize her from the family. Cut off all of her access to Rain. Get a restraining order. Dad, you must know someone who can help with that.”
James put a hand on his wife's arm. As she'd done the night before at dinner, she shook it off.
“Enough, Olivia.” Nora turned to her daughter-in-law. “Julie, where is this man living? Becca's biological father.”
David's lips set in a grim line. He hated to be reminded of the fact that he was not entirely responsible for Rain's existence.
“My latest report indicates—I saw you roll your eyes, Olivia—my latest report indicates that he's living in a trailer in a little town in Vermont. He's generally unemployed, though there have been stints as a bouncer. He has two prior convictions, one involving possession of drugs. Jail time served. I believe the charge involved a meth lab in his garage. No other children that anyone's cared to acknowledge. One domestic abuse complaint, but that didn't stick. When the police showed up, it turned out the woman was the one with the baseball bat. Oh, yes, and his medical records—”
“You got his medical records!” Steve looked aghast.
“Well, no, dear,” Julie answered calmly, “not exactly.”
“Not exactly?” he repeated.
“What I mean is that I'm not in actual possession of them. I simply have access to them when I need them.”
“Oh, my God.” David rubbed his forehead. “My mother the private investigator. Go on, Mom. We might as well hear the worst of it.”
“Well, it seems he's a heavy smoker well on his way to a full-blown case of emphysema. Oh, and he has genital herpes.”
David sank into a chair. “Of course he does. So we're looking at a downright pillar of society here, aren't we?”
“What a creep!” Lily cried. “There's no way Rain or Becca—or any of us—should have anything to do with him. He makes Cliff sound perfect! He's only gotten two tickets for moving violations and neither of them was really his fault.”
Nora frowned at her youngest granddaughter. Cliff-the-dangerous-driver-and-gambling-fiend had no part in this family saga.
“Genetics,” Olivia mumbled, shaking her head. “You can't argue with genetics because that's an argument you just can't win. That's why I would never adopt. Ever. You just don't know what you're getting. You've got to watch Rain closely, David. What we know about the father isn't promising. Naomi, maybe you'd better have her screened for incipient mental illness.”
“Jesus, Olivia, shut up, will you!” No one told David to shut up.
“Nature isn't the only factor in a person's life, Liv.” Naomi knew she sounded almost desperately hopeful, as if trying to convince herself as well as her sister-in-law. “Nurture plays a part, too. A big part.”
Olivia opened her mouth to reply but was silenced by the distinct sound of the front door opening, then closing. Becca was back from her walk. Without a word, the family dispersed.
17
Becca turned from the coatrack just in time to avoid being run over by Olivia, stomping her way toward the stairs and then, probably, to the attic.
“You're excused,” Becca mumbled as her sister charged on.
“Becca.” David stood in the hall. “We need to talk.”
“I'm going to my room.” She knew he would follow her there. She knew that once she had spoken her mind, she would be pursued until the battle was over. So be it.
The encounter with Alex had upset and confused her. Her blood was up. She was primed for conflict. David, too, seemed itching for a fight. Barely had the door closed behind him than he blurted:
“Look, Becca, what the hell is going on? Will you please just tell me so we can get past this whole ridiculous notion you have of disrupting everyone's life?”
“Ridiculous?” she cried. So she was escalating the anger, not trying to defuse it. She had the right to her anger. “Why is it so ridiculous that I should want my daughter to know her real mother?”
“Ssssh! Keep your voice down! I don't want Rain to hear us.”
“
You
don't want? It's always about you, David, isn't it? It's always about what David wants. And it's always been that way. Well, news flash, David. Rain is my daughter, not yours.”
David took a step closer, finger jabbing the air for emphasis. Becca stood where she was, arms crossed.
“I'm not the selfish one here, Becca. You are. You're the one being totally selfish. You're like . . . You're like that woman in the Bible who comes to Solomon claiming a baby is hers, and just so she can get what she wants, she agrees the baby should be cut in half. She's not thinking of the welfare of the child. She's thinking only about herself.”
“Oh, please,” she laughed, “don't start quoting the Bible at me!”
“I wasn't quoting. I was referring.”
“You're such an ass, David, you know that? A self-centered, pretentious ass.”
David looked absolutely disgusted with her. Becca didn't care.
“We seem to be getting nowhere,” he said coldly.
Becca didn't reply. Where was there to go? She couldn't deny that she was standing firm in her decision to tell Rain the truth of her birth before another year passed away.
“We'll resume this conversation later.” David stalked out of the den.
Becca slammed the door behind him. So what if everyone felt the reverberations? She was tired of hiding in plain sight. She was ready to be seen, and to be heard.
18
David had been gone only minutes when there was a knock on the door. Before Becca could ask who wanted another piece of her, the door opened and her mother was inside.
Becca sighed. “Mom, I'm busy. We'll talk later, with everyone. Like we planned.”
“Yes,” Julie said, “we'll talk as a family. Later. But I need to talk to you about something important. Now.”
Becca leaned against the desk and folded her arms across her chest. She was getting used to this half aggressive, half self-protective stance. “Fine.”
“I want to talk to you about Rain's father.”
“What?” Becca almost laughed. “I don't understand. What does he have to do with anything?”
Julie didn't answer immediately. Instead, she moved farther into the room and stood with her hands folded in front of her. It struck Becca as an odd pose for a woman who would never be described as demure.
“Maybe quite a lot,” she said finally. “I think you need to know about him. I think you need to know about what he's been doing all these years. Because if you tell Rain now about her birth, there's every chance she's going to be very upset and want to rush off and find her father, and let me tell you, Becca, that would be a very big mistake.”
Becca shook her head. Frankly, Rain's biological father hadn't at all figured into her thinking. “What makes you think she'd want to rush off to find her father? Anyway, maybe he can't be found.”
“I've found him.”
“You what?” Becca felt flooded with anger. She felt betrayed. No one trusted her to live her own life. No one would let her get past her one big mistake.
“Well, as a matter of fact,” her mother was saying, “he was never lost. I've kept track of him.” And Julie told Becca what she'd told the others earlier.
Becca fought for control of her emotions. It was hard. Shame warred with fear. Shame over her foolish action all those years ago. Fear that the horrible man who had fathered her daughter might one day come to claim her. Finally, she answered with false bravado.
“All right,” she said. “So he's a bum. No big surprise there. I just won't tell Rain his name. None of us will.”
“Becca, be reasonable. You sound like a stubborn child, standing in a puddle of orange juice, holding an empty carton, and refusing to admit you're the one who spilled it.”
“Orange juice?” Was her mother losing her mind? “What are you talking about?”
“Think about it,” Julie said. “First you shock Rain with the revelation about her biological parents and then you refuse to tell her the identity of her father. Consider how absurd that would be. Becca, I really don't think you've thought things through completely.”
“I wish everybody would stop saying that!”
“And I wish you would let me help you. Tell me what's going on. Tell me why this is so important to you right now.”
“I don't need help, Mom,” Becca said firmly. “I need my daughter.”
Julie sighed deeply, walked the few feet to the old leather couch, and sunk onto it. She hadn't wanted to lose her temper or to make Becca angry or, worse, to further alienate her daughter. But she didn't seem to be making a very good job of this conversation.
“Becca, please, sit with me for a moment.”
“I'd prefer to stand.”
Julie paused. It felt as if her daughter were a million miles away, rather than just across the room. “Please,” she said, “for Rain's sake, please try to be reasonable.”
“Reasonable?” Becca glared at her mother. “Excuse me, but is it reasonable to expect a pregnant sixteen-year-old to make such a monumental decision about her future? About the future of her child?”
“No, it isn't reasonable. Which is why the adults who loved you stepped in and helped make those decisions for you. You should be grateful, Becca.”
“Grateful!” Becca cried. “Why? Because you didn't toss me out onto the street? Because you allowed your embarrassment of a daughter to remain part of the Rowan family? How noble of you, Mom. How generous. Wow.”
Becca snatched up her laptop and stormed out of the den. Julie slowly got to her feet. Suddenly, she felt old. She didn't like the feeling. She made her way to her bedroom, the notion of a little nap leading her on. She couldn't remember the last time she felt a situation might just be out of her hands. She felt almost helpless. Almost. Julie Rowan didn't give up hope easily. It was one of her best and, according to her husband, one of her most annoying traits.
By the time she reached the upstairs hall, she'd changed her mind about a nap. Calling to Hank, she headed out for a good, brisk walk.

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