Year of the Monsoon (6 page)

“Aren’t you curious?” Leisa’s friends had always asked when they learned she was adopted. “Don’t you want to find your birth mother?”

“No,” Leisa always answered, laughing at their consternation. “I have two great parents. Why would I want to go hunting for the woman who gave me up?”

She suspected that most people didn’t believe her, but she meant what she said. She’d never been curious about “the incubator,” as she had come to think of the woman who gave birth to her. She felt only a sense of gratitude to the woman for carrying her, especially since abortion was a legal option by then. Leisa was actually grateful the woman had had the good sense to realize she wasn’t prepared to raise a baby. She couldn’t imagine more wonderful parents than Rose and Daniel Yeats. This was especially true after she began working at St. Joseph’s.

Even Nan had been a little skeptical at Leisa’s insistence that she wasn’t curious. “You’ve really never thought about trying to find her?” she had asked.

Leisa thought Nan looked oddly relieved and joked, “What? Were you worried about having to deal with two mothers-in-law?” It was the first time either of them had talked in terms of a future together. It had just popped out.

But this? Leisa ran her hands through her hair. She could feel her heart hammering in her chest.

“How are you doing in there?” Jo Ann’s voice called as she came down the hallway.

Leisa flipped the adoption folder closed and stood up.

“I’m good,” she said. “I think I found all the life insurance policies and investment accounts that will need copies of the death certificate.”

Nan followed Jo into the office. “We got everything in the closet boxed up –” She looked more closely at Leisa’s face. “Are you all right?”

“I’m… I’m fine,” Leisa stammered. “I guess this was just harder than I expected it to be.”

Jo Ann came over and hugged her. “I know, honey. It is hard.” She let Leisa go and wiped her own eyes. “I kept remembering as we took clothes out of her closet, where we bought this and where we were when we found that.”

“Is there anything you want?” Leisa asked. “Any jewelry, or anything of Grandma’s you’d like?”

Jo Ann gave her a tearful smile and patted her cheek. “You are so good. But who would I give it to? You’re the daughter I never had.”

“Come on, you two, before you get me crying again,” Nan said. “Let’s get some lunch. Can Bruce join us?”

Jo Ann nodded. “He said to call him when we were done here.”

They went downstairs to the kitchen where Jo Ann had left a bag containing rolls. “Leisa, would you get the soup from the refrigerator?” Jo asked as she reached for the phone.

“Hello?” came Bruce’s voice from the foyer not long after.

“In the kitchen,” Jo Ann called.

“Hi, girls,” he said as he entered the kitchen. He removed his baseball cap from his balding head and took off his glasses so he could wash at the sink.

“I smell sawdust,” Nan said as she poured water for everyone. “What are you working on?”

“A new hutch for the dining room,” Bruce replied as he wiped his ruddy face with a paper towel. Woodworking was his outlet for the stress of legal work. “Someone keeps buying new china and we’re running out of space to put it,” he said, with a sideways glance at his wife. “As if this family is going to get any bigger.”

There was an awkward silence. Bruce laid his callused hand over Leisa’s in apology. “I’m so sorry, Leisa.”

“It’s okay,” she smiled. “We’re all going to have to get used to it.”

Bruce looked around the kitchen. “Have you thought any more about selling the house?”

“I’ve thought about it,” she admitted, “but I’m not ready to let it go yet.”

There were so many memories attached to this house. Jo Ann and Bruce were just a few streets away, and all her life that she could remember, Leisa had called this house home. She had prayed Nan would agree to look for a house in this neighborhood.

“Are you sure you won’t mind being this close to my family?” Leisa had asked anxiously as Nan caressed the carved oak newel post on the stairway of the house they were touring.

Nan pirouetted slowly in the foyer, taking in the stained glass window on the stairway landing, the built-in bookcases flanking the fireplace, the graceful arches separating the rooms and knew she could fall in love with this house. She looked at Leisa. “Are you absolutely certain they’re okay with us?”

Leisa smiled. “For the hundredth time, they love you! I have to warn you, though, they’ll expect us over for dinner at least once a week.” Her expression became serious. “I know you’re not that close to your family –”

Nan came to her and took her by the shoulders. “I love your parents, and your aunt and uncle. They are so unlike my family.” She took a deep breath. “I can’t deny there have been brief moments of panic,” she said with a wry smile, “but I want us to have a home together. I’ve never been ready to take that step with anyone before.” She looked at Leisa with a hunger that make Leisa’s insides tingle. “I’ve never loved anyone this much.”

Leisa stepped closer and kissed her, her lips soft and open, pressing her body into Nan’s. “I love you so much,” she whispered when they parted.

“Oh,” Nan groaned as Leisa pulled away. “I suppose we should buy the house before we make love in it.”

“Do you want to continue this next Saturday?” Jo Ann offered, snapping Leisa back to the present.

“Sure, if you’re available,” Leisa responded. “I really appreciate having help with this.”

They quickly cleaned the kitchen and Leisa went to get the papers she needed, making sure the unmarked folder was among them.

Chapter 5

“DR. MATHISON? THIS IS
Bill Chisholm. I know you’ve been receiving my e-mails,” said the voice on Nan’s office voicemail. “We need to discuss this matter. Please call my office.”

Nan sat at her desk staring at the telephone number she had written down. She could hear Maddie’s voice in her head, saying, “What would you tell a client who was putting off some unpleasant task they know is unavoidable?”

She glanced at her watch. She had nearly an hour before her next client was due. She might as well get this over with. She dialed the number.

“Mr. Chisholm, please,” she said to the receptionist. “This is Nan Mathison.”

She was put on hold while the call was transferred.

“Dr. Mathison.”

She recognized the voice as the same one she had just listened to. “Yes.”

There was a pause as Mr. Chisholm waited for her to say something more. “Thank you for calling,” he said when he realized she wasn’t going to offer anything further. “I understand this is probably an awkward situation –”

“It isn’t really a situation at all, Mr. Chisholm,” Nan interrupted. “A meeting, a relationship of any kind is out of the question.”

Another pause, then, “I have dealt with many similar cases, and I do understand how difficult this can be.”

“Do you?” Nan winced at the acid tone of her own voice.

“Could you and I meet?” Mr. Chisholm asked, undeterred by her iciness. “Just us, I give you my word.”

Nan closed her eyes. Several seconds passed.

“Dr. Mathison?”

“I have to be in Williamsburg next month for a conference. Can you meet me there?”

“Give me the dates you’ll be there and I’ll be in touch.”

A few minutes later, the conversation was over and Nan sat, staring at the wall.

“What did she do to you?” Nan had blurted as she opened her apartment door to find Leisa standing there, crying. She took Leisa by the hand and led her to the couch. “What happened?”

Those days had been some of the longest of Nan’s life, leaving her cursing herself for falling in love again. Leisa’s old girlfriend, Sarah, had called, saying she needed to see her.

“Why haven’t you told her how much this is hurting you?” Lyn had asked when Nan told her and Maddie what was happening.

“I can’t do that,” Nan protested, sitting at their island. “She has to decide for herself… If she goes back to Sarah, it doesn’t matter that I love her, does it?” Nan’s eyes filled with tears. “I told myself I was never going to do this again.”

“What happened?” Nan braced herself for whatever might come out of Leisa’s mouth.

Leisa wiped her eyes and said, “She said she misses me and wants to have me back in her life.”

Nan’s heart went still and cold. “Hasn’t she said that before?” she asked, trying to keep her voice neutral.

Leisa nodded. “I’ve told you part of this story, but,” She stood and paced, wringing her hands nervously, “there’s more, and it’s all twisted together in my head.”

Leisa forced herself to stand still, but couldn’t seem to look at Nan. “I told you that we got together in college. Even then, I caught her cheating on me. But she always came back, and I always let her. When we graduated, she laughed at me for thinking our relationship could last in the real world.” She reached up and ran her hands through her hair and took a tremulous breath as she resumed pacing. “What I didn’t know then was that she already had plans to get married. She never wore his ring at school, but she’d been seeing her boyfriend every time she went home. She was sleeping with both of us, and who knows who else, but I wasn’t the one she wanted to take home to her family.”

She paused her pacing and wrapped her arms around herself.

Nan hesitantly asked, “So, did she get married?”

“Yes,” Leisa replied bitterly. “But now, she says she’s realized that he can’t love her the way she needs to be loved, the way I loved her. She wants me back.”

She began pacing again. Nan’s eyes followed her back and forth. “Has she left the husband?” Nan asked, although she was pretty sure she knew the answer.

“Oh no,” Leisa laughed angrily. “She wants both of us.”

Nan looked down at her hands, surprised to see how tightly they were clenched. “What did you tell her?” she asked quietly.

“This is the other thing I need to explain,” Leisa said, but she paced for several seconds more, trying to choose her words. “There’s no way I would go back to her, I mean, I wouldn’t with the whole husband thing anyway, but, she… she knows me, knows how to get to me. She came close… it was… we kissed,” she confessed. “She’s bad for me, or I’m just really pathetic. She’s like some kind of drug I can’t kick.” Leisa glanced sideways toward Nan. “You’ve probably never been with anyone who affects you like that.”