Regrets Only (41 page)

“Ready or not, here I come!” The reply wafted up from the street.

“She wanted us to understand, you know; that’s why she wanted us to meet.” Avery spoke with her back facing the room. “I think she thought if we were together, we’d somehow come to accept the choices she’d made. Kind of a ‘Look, it’s nothing personal. See? I abandoned all my kids.’”

“Safety in numbers,” said Archer.

Archer’s comment prompted Avery to turn back around. “Is there such a thing? But I do know that she didn’t want us to think badly of her. She begged me several times not to hate her.” She lowered her voice. “The problem is that I couldn’t help it.”

“Avery,” Bill cautioned, fearing that she was about to tread into dangerous territory once again.

“It’s okay, Dad. Nothing more can happen to me now,” she said without a hint of defiance. Instead her tone was sad, resigned. “What mattered to me most, my family, has been destroyed. And I’m to blame.”

“Foster’s suicide, your mother’s and my separation, those had nothing to do with you,” Bill said, as if he’d recited that mantra a thousand times.

“And what about Marissa?”

Bill started at the mention of his lover.

“She moved out because I was moving in.”

“It had nothing to do with you or anything that . . . had happened. It was only to make room,” Bill said, unconvincingly. He turned to his guests. “This apartment is quite small, as you can see. But once the Gladwyne house sells, we’ll consider something bigger for all of us.”

Lucy wanted to ask whom “us” included, but she refrained. No doubt the answer was unknowable until Faith’s trial concluded.

“Morgan told me she’d tried to kill herself once,” Avery said, matter-of-factly, ignoring her father’s attempt at comfort. “She showed me the scars on her wrist, as if I needed proof. I think it was her way of demonstrating that her choices had been difficult for her, or at least that they had had consequences. Then she wanted to talk about Foster, his depression, and whether I suffered from it, too. She claimed she’d been taking some psych medications herself. It was as though she wanted to identify with him, with me, with our problems. But all of it made me realize one thing. Being a mother isn’t a job. It’s either who you are or it’s not. Does that make sense?”

Mrs. O’Malley’s image flashed in Lucy’s mind, their conversation about the parable of King Solomon and the story of Michael and the boiling water.
I wasn’t a hero. I’m a mother.
Those had been her words.

“Look at what my mother’s done—my real mother. Giving or not giving birth had nothing to do with the way she treats me or treated us. She’d give up her own life—literally—to help me. I know I am very lucky to have been given parents who wanted me, who would protect me, or at least try.”

Lucy cringed inside. Given Archer’s feelings toward his own father, she knew Avery’s words jabbed. Bill and Faith Herbert had done everything in their power to overcome a biological reality, but she was not at all sure Archer would give Rodman that much credit; he’d done little if anything to compensate for an absent mother. Meanwhile, in many respects she’d taken her own parents for granted. She’d never considered other possibilities or how destructive they could be.

“I should have appreciated what I had,” Avery said. “That was my problem. It sounds Pollyanna, but I feel that way now. I should never have sought more information. The little bit we’d been told destroyed my brother. I should have let Morgan make her overture. I didn’t have to respond. She would have gone away, disappeared into the world she’d been in before. But I thought that knowing some biological truth was the key to unlocking the mystery of my brother and his mental illness. I was wrong. No discovery of some great truth about our bloodline was going to bring him back or make me whole.”

The color had left Bill’s face. He covered his mouth with his fist and looked at the floor.

Avery took a few steps toward the settee and rested her hands on its back. She leaned over the top toward Archer. “But I apologize to
you
. Because of what I did, she’s gone, whether you would have wanted to know her or not. And for that I am really and truly sorry, more sorry than you can possibly know. You should have been able to make your own choice.”

“I already had,” Archer mumbled.

“But you planned to meet her—meet us—on Sunday, or at least she said you hadn’t told her you wouldn’t be there. I went to the Liberty Bell at eleven, wondering whether you’d show up or whether you already knew.” She nodded slightly toward Lucy. “I took away your chance. That’s what I have to live with.”

Avery seemed to collapse beside her father, and she rested her head on his shoulder. Despite the maturity of her words, sitting tucked beneath his wing she appeared young, fragile, and lost.

Nobody spoke. After several moments, Archer reached forward and poured himself some lemonade. He took a long sip.

“Avery will pay her debt to society,” Bill said halfheartedly. “She’ll do community service. Lots of it.”

“What did you work out with probation?” Lucy asked.

“I’m going to be helping kids—little kids—who have difficulty with mobility. They’re on crutches or have braces. One adorable little girl is paralyzed. And I’ll help them learn to horseback-ride.”

“Will you use your own horse?”

“No. It’s a stable where the animals have been trained very carefully. Mine is way too green. Or I should say, wild,” she added to clarify. “These horses are amazing. They have a sixth sense for what the children need. They seem so happy to offer up the use of their own legs, their own movement.”

“It sounds inspiring.”

“I think it is—or will be. I want to be able to give them a sense of freedom and of security at the same time. And a sense of hope.” Her eyes sparkled at the prospect.

“Maybe I should sign up,” Archer said without looking up.

“Shouldn’t we all,” Lucy added.

Lucy and Archer ambled along Lawrence Court and turned east onto Pine Street. The mugginess had cleared, and the late-afternoon sun shone on their faces. The good-bye had been strained, with neither Avery nor Archer suggesting further communication. Archer had said nothing since they’d left Bill and Avery’s apartment, but after several blocks, he reached his arm around Lucy and held her waist. His long legs against her shorter ones made their stride awkward, and she struggled to lengthen her step.

Although there wasn’t a car in sight, at the crosswalk they stopped for a red light.

“Are you angry?” Lucy asked. It had been the question she’d wanted to ask since the day of Avery’s arrest.

“What do you mean?”

“I was thinking about what Avery said, about depriving you of a choice to reconsider your relationship with your mother.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what I feel. Her point was odd, at least to me. I never think of a child choosing a parent. Isn’t it that what you’re born with is what you get? Even in her case, it’s not as though she got to interview the prospective candidates for adoption.”

“There is that adage about picking your friends.”

“And a lot of people do. More and more people I know have cast off their blood relatives because they’re too complicated or too painful or just too awful. They get married and start again.”

“Yeah. And their kids won’t want anything to do with them,” Lucy said, smiling. “It’s a law of nature. It’s called family.”

Archer chuckled in agreement. The light turned green and they stepped into the street. He stared at the pavement ahead of him as he spoke. “For years, I was so filled with rage at what my mother had done to me—and my father, too—that I could almost imagine having done it myself. That kind of pain, the feelings of abandonment and betrayal, could make almost anyone violent.”

“But there’s a difference. You weren’t. You aren’t.”

Archer shrugged dismissively. “And at the same time, yes, I am mad at Avery. I feel victimized by her crime. Whether she intended to kill or whatever the legalism is doesn’t matter because the result is the same. Morgan’s mistreatment of us doesn’t justify what Avery did. Nothing could. Even I’m rational enough to grasp that concept. So I guess the answer to your question is that I’m waffling between understanding and anger. And at this point, I can’t predict where I’ll come out in the end.”

“There may never be an end to how you feel. Or at least that’s what I’m coming to learn. The best you can do is to live with the ambiguity. It’s not in my nature, but I hope for your sake it’s in yours.” She clasped his hand in hers as they walked along, their arms swaying synchronously.

32

October

T
he courtroom was packed every day of the trial. Each morning Faith appeared at the defense table, impeccably groomed, the only sign of her anxiety the ever-darkening rings under her eyes. Each day she scanned the audience for her daughter, not realizing that Avery had spent most of the trial in a jail cell several stories below where she herself sat facing the judge. Avery had been held in contempt of court early on in this proceeding for failing to take the stand against her mother, an act that had made the prosecutor consider petitioning the court for the revocation of the plea agreement.

Ned Sparkman, the lead attorney on Faith’s three-member defense team, hadn’t told his client about the contempt. He feared it would compel her to testify in her daughter’s defense, if not her own. But whether she sensed Avery’s trouble or simply insisted on speaking to the jury, Faith had taken the witness stand, sworn an oath on the Bible, and told her story.

The afternoon after he’d heard her testimony, Judge Wickham dismissed the contempt proceeding and released Avery. At the hearing, he stated that he found the plea agreement reprehensible. “Despite its otherwise favorable terms, no competent member of the defense bar should have accepted a plea that required this girl to assist the government in the prosecution of her mother.” Santoros wasn’t about to file an appeal given the strong language of the court’s decision. Avery’s counsel left the courtroom without even so much as a handshake with her client.

Sitting in the front row, Lucy was mesmerized, listening to Faith’s words hour after hour throughout the last day of trial. Faith’s voice was sweet, and at times she appeared lost in thought, oblivious to the seven men and five women who sat in judgment. “A friend of mine once said how relieved she was that her son was back at school. She wanted him out of the house. She wanted the free time. And I remember thinking to myself, Is she insane or am I? Doesn’t she understand that this miracle of childhood passes so quickly? There’s nothing more precious.” Faith wiped her eyes with a handkerchief. “And that was what Dr. Reese gave me. She’d given me motherhood. And then she wanted to take it away.”

She described in detail all that had transpired. After receiving Morgan’s letter, Bill Herbert had insisted that they share the information with Avery. At first their daughter seemed interested, curious perhaps, willing to listen to an explanation. Much to Faith’s disappointment, Avery wanted to go into the city to see Morgan’s office and to have lunch. Apparently it was on that day that she had told Morgan of her sorrow at leaving her childhood home. Her parents were divorcing; her mother couldn’t afford to stay in the Gladwyne mansion. So Morgan set out to buy it through a secret trust.

“She wanted everything that was mine,” Faith explained. “That included my home. It is hard for me to articulate what a scary feeling it was to see everything I cared about, but most especially my daughter, being taken away. I have no graduate education, no profession. No newspaper was writing of my accomplishments. My husband had already found success and ambition more attractive than shared experience, or caregiving. I feared that I couldn’t compare in Avery’s eyes, that I would fall short, that I would be the inferior mother.”

After a few visits and telephone calls back and forth, Morgan promised Avery that she would produce her biological father, too. It was hard to imagine Avery’s emotions at having her history unlocked. “She seemed excited, or at least intrigued. Who wouldn’t be given the circumstances? Bill had set the relationship in motion, and I had to sit back and watch. It wouldn’t have been fair of me to tell Avery how hurt I was.”

But then Morgan offered a gift: the framed self-portrait of Foster, one of twelve charcoal images he’d drawn not long before his death. After that, Avery’s response changed. It was then that she told Faith what had happened, the disclosures she’d made. She apologized for opening up to a stranger. “I never meant to betray you, Mommy,” she said. That was all Faith needed to hear:
Mommy,
the magical word. And that was when Avery produced the letter.

My dearest Avery—

You’ve always understood me without my ever needing to explain, but I know this final act will be difficult and painful, if not incomprehensible. I’ve never felt I belonged, except with you. I can’t ask you to stay home, to live with me, but you made life bearable, which made our inevitable separation unbearable. I don’t belong in this family. My whole life I’ve had the sense of disorientation, disconnection maybe is a better word, but when Dad and Mom told us about the adoption, it reinforced that in me. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I don’t even know who I am.

I wanted to use my psychiatrist’s gun. He has one in his office. He told me about it as if he were proud. You’d know who said that pride comes before the fall. You’re the brains in our duo. I can’t remember. But I did want it, that handgun. Maybe if I used it, he’d stop apologizing, stop making excuses for everyone. Maybe then he’d blame his stupid advice instead. But I never got the opportunity because he watched me like a hawk, as if he knew I might be considering the very act I was.

I had to do this. I didn’t know how else to get rid of what I couldn’t bear. Whoever that woman was—our real mother—she abandoned us, and I’ve been drifting ever since. I’d say she shouldn’t have had us, except now the world is graced by you, but otherwise I hate her; I hate what she’s done. If you ever meet her, if she ever comes looking for you, be sure to tell her how much pain she caused.