The Sweetest Thing (28 page)

Amazon, but Dad stops me first.

“What is it?”

294

“The butterfly. I need it for the cake. For the top.”

“What butterfly?”

“I made one. For the top. It’s at the bakery.” I know Amazon will kill me, but her back is turned at the moment. I look at Dad, then make a run for it, grabbing my coat on the way out.

So I’m running across the parking lot in Uggs, strug-gling into my coat but not quite making it. I’m blue all over.

The bakery door is locked. I reach into my coat pocket, pull out my cell phone, grab the keys. Jack’s bracelet gets caught on a stray thread. Damn! I wrench my hand out of the pocket and drop my cell phone. Shoot! I stick the key in the lock and swing open the door.

When Amazon finds out I left, she will go ballistic.

Hurry, Sheridan, hurry.

I bend to pick up my cell. One missed call? I run into the bakery’s kitchen, see the butterfly on the worktable. It’s not 100 percent dry, but it will be fine through the shoot. Who called me? I hit the Select key. Grab the butterfly. Put the butterfly back down.

SSM. 8:00 a.m.

Sault Sainte Marie.

She called, an hour ago, and I missed her.

I can’t believe I missed her. I lean against the back counter. My breathing feels a little scary, my throat just a little too tight.
It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. Do not panic.

It’s Saturday morning; she must be at the bakery. What 295

if she is there? What do I say?

I circle the kitchen, walk into Nanny’s office. Think about sitting down. Can’t. Walk back into the kitchen, then to the front of the bakery, so quiet and empty. The phone practically throbs in my hand. I go back into the kitchen.

I take a deep breath. I can do this. I’ve been waiting for this moment for years. I hold the phone and hit the “call”

button. Okay. Another deep breath. I’m ready.

The number dials. I gulp. What if I cry? I think of how mad Frank will get if he sees my eyeliner smeared.
He’ll get
real y upset, so don’t cry, Sheridan. Do not cry.

“Sweetie’s Bakery.”

It’s her.

“Hi.” I suddenly wish I wasn’t alone. Suddenly wish I had a hand to hold. “This is Sheridan.” My voice is high-pitched; almost giddy.

“Oh. Hi.” This is followed by a very long pause. “Did you get my message?” She sounds like she’s at a funeral, talking in low, hushed tones.

“No. I saw you called. And wanted to call you right back.”
Why isn’t she saying anything?
“Mom?” I am smiling.

She’s right there, on the other side of this phone call. “Oh my gosh, I’m so glad you called!” She actually called.

“Sheridan.” A big sigh. I hear her sniff. She’s crying?

“Honey,” she says, “I’m so sorry.”

“No, Mom.” See, I knew she was scared to come back.

“Mom, I’m not mad. Forget everything. I don’t care. I just . . .

would real y like to see you again.”

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“Sheridan. God, you deserve so much better than me. I wish you’d listened to the message.”

I brush a few stray crumbs off the counter. “But I didn’t.

Why, what’d you say?”

She’s quiet.

“Mom . . .” I laugh. If she’s not going to talk, I will.

“This TV show is crazy. Mom? They’re filming it today.

Dad might move to New York. But I was hoping you could come home, like you said in the card. We could work together in the bakery. You said you wanted to come home.”

She doesn’t say a word. But she hasn’t hung up, because I can still hear her crying.

I keep talking. “So come on, come home. I’ve been looking all over for you. How cool is it that I found you?

Or if you can’t come home right now, maybe I could come and visit you?”

“Sheridan, please. Stop. I can’t come back,” she says.

“But why not?”

“Because I can’t. Sheridan. I have people here.”

“It’s okay. I get along with people real y wel . Ask anyone.”

“Not just people.”

“It’s all right. I like everybody.”

“A husband. I have a husband.”

“Oh.” My head begins to spin as the word rolls around inside of my brain. A husband?

“Mom.” I gulp again. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely hold the phone. “I thought you said you were single. In the last card.”

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I can only hear her breathing.

“But that’s okay.” I don’t want to scare her off. “I’m okay with that.” A husband is fine. It’s not like her and Dad getting back together was even a remote possibility.

“It’s not that simple.”

She sounds so businesslike all of a sudden.

“Well . . . what’s not so simple?” I rub at a spot on the stainless-steel counter with my thumb. It’s not going away.

“Because … he doesn’t know about you.”

Doesn’t know about me?
”What? Why doesn’t he know about me?”

“Because. Sheridan, it’s complicated. I met him, I got pregnant. Everything happened so fast. I didn’t have time.”

“To tell him you have a daughter?”

“Sheridan . . .”

Wait, wait, wait. What did she just say?
“Wait, pregnant?”

“Sheridan, let me go now. The bakery is busy. I can’t talk from here.”

“Pregnant? You’re pregnant?”

“No. I’m not.” She pauses. What, did I imagine she said that? “I had the baby. I
have
a baby.”

“Oh.” There’s this taste in my mouth. Heavy, metallic, nasty. “I don’t understand.”

She sniffs, starts crying again. “I’m sorry. It’s just the way life has worked out, Cupcake. . . .”

“What?”

“I’m so sorry. But Sheridan . . . I’ll always be your mom, 298

no matter what. I’ll tell him, someday. But I can’t. Not right now. And I’m sorry about the card. If I had known you’d hold me to it, I wouldn’t have sent it.”

“Hold you to it? It was al I had.” I feel hot; my stomach is churning.

“Honey . . .”

“So that’s it?”

“I should go.”

“Mom.” My voice shatters into a million pieces. “
I’m
your daughter. I need you.”

“I’ve got to go.” Her voice is broken, too, and I am having a hard time making out her words. “I don’t deserve you, sweetheart. You’re better off forgetting about me.” At least I think that’s what she said.

“No . . .” I can taste my own tears, mixed with anger.

They’re bitter. She wants to hang up. Go on pretending I don’t exist.

“You’re my
mom
. How am I supposed to forget you? I think about you all the time.”

“Sheridan. I’m so sorry. I think of you all the time, too.

Your cakes, they’re beautiful.”

My cakes?

“I’m sorry.”

“Mom . . . no, no, no!” Tears stream from my eyes. Frank will kill me. “Don’t go.”

“Sheridan. It’s not forever; just for now. I need you to understand.”

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“How am I supposed to . . . You are my mother. Don’t go. You can’t leave me again! Please don’t go! Mom! Mommy!” I am screaming. I sound like a crazy person. When I don’t hear her, I quiet myself, afraid that she’s hung up.

I inhale a sob. “Mom?”

“I’m sorry,” she says in a tiny voice.

And then she’s gone. Poof. Just like that.

I straighten up. Drop the cell phone. My tears are flowing from some well of infinite sadness deep down inside.

And then somehow I make them stop. In another minute, my breathing evens out, my body stops shaking.

I pick up the butterfly, still sitting pretty on the worktable, and walk out of the bakery into the crisp white air. I don’t have on my coat, but I can’t feel the chill. I walk into the parking lot and throw the butterfly as hard as I can into the sky. I can see its bright yellow wings against the cloudless blue. It falls and shatters.

Then my feet find a patch of ice, and I slip and land hard, my head thunking on the slick concrete. I lie there, on my back, whimpering to no one, watching the cold sky falling down on top of me until I am floating in black emptiness, all alone.

300

I smell lilacs, see the tiny green buds waking up on the trees.

“Sheridan!” Nanny calls me from the dock. I look toward her and smile. She’s got a nine-inch round cake in her hands, and there’s a “Sweet 16” candle on top. Mr. Roz is with her, and so are Jack, Lori, and Dad. They walk toward me and sing, “Happy birthday, dear Sheridan.”

There’s a woman with Dad. She’s holding his hand, wearing a flowing yellow dress, her wavy golden hair hanging loose on her shoulders. My mom. She is so pretty.

When we meet, Nanny hands me the cake and topples into the water. One by one, they all fall off the dock and into the water. They flail, they can’t swim, they scream for help.

But I’m holding the cake. I can’t help them.

My mother, she’s the only one left. She stands in front of me with her arms crossed; a sweet smile flashes across her mouth. “Come on, Sheridan. Al you have to do is let go.”

I wake up in a cold sweat, in the back of an ambulance.

Everything is fuzzy, and sounds are muffled.

“Sheridan! I’m here, I’m here.” It’s Dad. I feel his hand in mine, but I can’t talk.

When I wake up again, I am in an emergency room. There’s something on my finger, and a machine counts off the ticks of my heart. My head throbs and my legs feel heavy.

“Sheridan.” It’s Dad again.

“What happened?” I ask, trying to adjust my eyes to the light.

“You slipped, on the ice. You have a concussion. Just relax, sweetheart.” I feel his hand, gentle on my hand. “Don’t worry, I’m here.”

A man comes in—the doctor, I guess. “Hello.” He doesn’t sound very friendly. I force my eyes open and see that he is looking at a clipboard.

“The scans look good. It’s not the worst concussion I’ve ever seen.” He lowers the chart to his side, walks over to me.

“Do you remember what happened prior to the accident?”

I look down at the blanket on top of me. “I don’t remember slipping.” My brain works hard, thinking back.

The image of a butterfly in the sky. My mother.

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My eyes dart to Dad.

“I remember some.”

“Well, that’s a good sign.”

No, it’s really not.

“I’ll be back,” the doctor says, and walks through the split in the curtain.

Dad scoots up on the stool. “You really scared us.”

“I talked to Mom.”

His head drops. “Why?” The word comes out as a breath.

“Because she is my mother.”

“Sheridan. Did she call you? She promised me she wouldn’t call you. What did she tell you?”

“She told me that she has a husband who doesn’t know about me. And a baby.”

I don’t take my eyes off of him, even though the light in this room is too bright and I just want to sleep.

“Sheridan. I wish she hadn’t spoken to you.”

I squeeze my eyes closed. My whole body hurts. “So you know?”

He looks at me like he’s the one in pain. “I’m sorry, Sheridan.”

“Stop!” I shout, the word echoing painfully in my head.

I lower my voice. “Don’t say you’re sorry. Just tell me the truth.”

Dad nods.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He’s still nodding. I would beg him to stop the nodding 303

and answer me if my head didn’t feel like a ticking time bomb.

“Can we talk about this later?” he pleads.

“No,” I whisper. “Just tell me.”

Then my father, Mr. Super-cool Reality TV Celebrity Chef, cries.

“Stop it. Stop crying. Tell me.”

He looks up, breathes deep. I watch as he pulls himself together, his look of sorrow replaced by the serious, down-to-business face that I know so well. He looks at me, and his eyes are just like mine. Brown, wide, honest, scared.

“All right . . . Okay.” He sits up straight on the stool, wipes his eyes again, crosses his arms, and lowers his head.

“A few years ago, she called; told me she was having a baby and getting married.”

My head is pounding, but I am determined to find out the truth. “You didn’t tell me.” I flinch. My head hurts.

“Sheridan, just listen.”

I look at him and sigh.

“No. I didn’t tell you. Things were going so well. I thought we were okay.”

“That why I didn’t get my card?”

“She hadn’t told the guy about you or me. She was afraid.”

“So she wrote me off?”

“Sheridan. Let’s talk later. You need to rest.”

“No. Not later. Now!” I practically hiss at him.

He leans closer to me. I want to move away. “Not until 304

you hear me. Are you listening?”

I don’t respond.

“Sheridan?”

He reaches over, and his hand surrounds mine in a firm, unyielding grasp. Like when he used to help me onto the boat. I was never afraid that his grip would fail me.

“Before I tell you, you have to hear me.”

“I’m listening.” I feel tears ready to fall, drops of heart-ache building in the corners of my eyes.

“I will
never
leave you,” he says, his gaze intense. “I know my job has been hard on you. And this show”—he shakes his head—“has been crazy. But no matter what happens, I will not leave you.
Ever
.”

Oh, he’s making my head pound. I clench my teeth.

“Just tell me.”

He sighs. “She told me she was going to stop the cards; she couldn’t communicate with you. He doesn’t know, and she thinks he’ll leave her if he finds out.” I can tell he’s furious with her. “Look, I know this is bad. But I do believe she still loves you, somewhere in her heart.” No. I’m pretty sure denying my existence means she doesn’t love me, anywhere in her heart.

I look away. “She doesn’t love me. I could tell.”

“Well.” He grabs my hand tight again. I’d pull it away if I could. But it hurts to move. “
I do
. I do love you.
Believe
that.”

I don’t know what to believe. As I close my eyes, I think 305

of God and the plan for my life. The plan sucks.

I spend the night in the hospital, for “observation.” I’m in and out of sleep. At one point I wake up and Dad is there.