Enright Family Collection (86 page)

“Who is Laura?” He asked.

“I just told you. She’s my sister.”

He stared at her, feeling incredibly stupid. “Georgia changed her name to Laura?”

“Ben, my mother had a child when she was barely seventeen years old. Her parents forced her to give the baby up for adoption. She recently located her. Her name is Laura.”

It took a minute for it to sink in.

“You mean, that’s Delia’s news?” He held his breath, waiting for her response.

“Yes.” She nodded, tears welling in her eyes.

“That’s it? That’s
all?”

“That’s
all?”
Zoey’s eyebrows flew to her hairline. “I tell you that my mother had a baby out of wedlock when she was seventeen, that she has found this child that she gave up for adoption thirty-five years ago, and that I just
found out that I have a sister I never heard of and you say ‘that’s
all?”

“Zoey, that’s wonderful!” He lifted her off the old bench and swung her around.

“Wonderful?” Had he lost his mind? “Can you imagine what it’s like to find out that you have a sister you never knew you had?”

“Well, to someone whose father died before he was born, has no siblings, and whose mother died when he was fourteen”—he stopped twirling her and set her down—“finding out
today
that I had a sister would be just about the most wonderful thing that could ever happen to me. And right now, you’ll have to forgive me, but I’m so relieved I could just about pass out.”

She continued to stare at him, still not quite understanding.

“Zoey,” he said gently, “when you and Nick were talking about Delia having news—and judging by your faces, neither of you were happy about it—I . . . well, I’m sorry, but I just jumped to the wrong conclusion. I thought something was really . . . wrong with your mother.”

“You thought that my mother was . . .” she said slowly, not even able to speak the last word.

He nodded.

“Zoey, for the record, I’d sell my soul if I could turn back the years and hear my mother tell me that she had found a child that she had thought she had lost, instead of hearing her tell me that she had six months to live.”

Zoey sat back down on the bench and kicked at some dried leaves with the toe of her black leather flat. “Well, that does sort of put it into a different perspective, doesn’t it?”

“I sure think it does. I don’t mean to
minimize
this, not by any means, Zoey. But in the grand scheme of things, one could get worse news.”

Zoey walked down to the creek and stared in. Small fish, minnows, fled to the safety of small rocks when they
sensed her approach. Clumps of dark green skunk cabbage just starting to unfurl grew along the narrow bank, and harbored some small frogs, judging by the plops she heard as they, too, sought shelter from her presence.

“I just found all this out last night,” she told him when he came and stood behind her. “I had thought that my mother was acting strange, but I passed it off as just being tired, touring with this new book. . . .”

Ben rubbed her shoulders gently, trying to ease out the tension.

“Then someone called in on one of my cooking shows and said something about seeing me in Boston last week with my mother. But of course I hadn’t been there. I called her to ask about it. Mrs. Colson said she was away for a few days and gave me the name of the place where she was staying. The Bishop’s Inn, right near the Delaware-Maryland border. So I drove down there, thinking I’d surprise my mother and find out what was going on.” Zoey shuddered, recalling the moment she had turned to look into Laura’s face. “I’m afraid I’m the one who got the big surprise.”

“You met her? Your sister?” he asked gently.

Zoey nodded.

“What’s she like?”

“She looks like me. A lot.”

“She must be a knockout.”

“She’s taller than me by just a little, and our builds are a little different. We have different mouths, but the same eyes. . . .

“How did you handle it?”

“Oh, badly.” Zoey grimaced. “Couldn’t have handled this much worse if I had tried. I just couldn’t believe it, Ben. . . .”

“I’m certain it was a big surprise, Zoey, but surely—”

“Surprise? Try shock.” Zoey turned on him, her face a map of desolation. “Ben, this is my
mother we’re
talking about. About a part of her life that none of us ever even suspected existed.”

“Poor Delia,” he whispered. “It must have broken her heart, to have given her child away.”

“It did, Ben. And it broke my father’s too, when he found about it. That’s why he left us.”

“Your father left your mother, left all of you, because Delia told him she had had a child out of wedlock?”

Zoey nodded.

“Wow” was all Ben could think of to say.

“Yeah. Wow,” she repeated. “At least I know now why he left.”

“And now that you know the truth?”

“It certainly hasn’t done anything to make me feel more kindly toward him, that’s for sure. It’s been bad enough all these years wondering why he left. To find out that he left because of something my mother did before she even knew him . . .” She wrapped her arms around herself and blew out a long-held breath from between clenched teeth. “I mean, that had nothing to do with us. He could have still been
OUT father.
He simply chose not to be. If anything, it makes me think less of him. If that’s possible.”

“Well, at least in the midst of all this, there is something to celebrate.”

She cast a dubious look in his direction.

“Can you imagine what a joy it must have been for your mother to have found her? She must have ached so terribly, all these years.”

“The Christmas angel,” Zoey whispered.

“What?”

“The Christmas angel. When we were little, there was always an extra Christmas stocking. My mother always said it was for the Christmas angel. We’d fill it with all kinds of things and on Christmas Eve my mother would take it to the church and they would give it to a child who wasn’t expecting much of a Christmas.” Tears started down Zoey’s face again. “I think that Laura was the Christmas angel. I think that Mother hung the stocking for her.”

Ben encircled her in his arms and swayed with her gently, as if rocking a child from side to side to comfort her.

“Laura has a little girl,” she told him through big long sniffs. “A little girl. Her name is Ally. She looks like she is maybe three or four.”

“So. Delia not only found her daughter, she found a granddaughter as well,” Ben murmured. “She must be beyond joy.”

Zoey nodded. “I think she would be, if she wasn’t so afraid of how we’d all react to the news. To Laura.”

Ben reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a white linen handkerchief and blotted the fat tears from her cheeks.

“And of course, I’m afraid I didn’t do much to help her through this. I sort of bolted and ran out the front door.”

“But there’s this thing about doors, Zoe,” he told her gently. “They open out, but they open in, too.”

She leaned back against him, dappled light sprinkling down through the maples that lined the clearing.

“I could go back,” she said softly.

“You could.”

“I could tell my mother”—she bit her bottom lip—“I could tell her how happy I am for her, that she’s found her Christmas angel. . . .”

He held her very close, his heart swelling for her.

“And I could tell Laura”—she swallowed hard—“that I would like to get to know her.”

“I think that would be a beautiful thing to do, Zoey.” He kissed the tip of her earlobe. “And I think that Delia will be very proud of you.”

“I wonder how Georgia will feel, when Mother tells her.”

“What did Nick have to say, by the way?”

“Nicky met Laura last week. On Monday. He drove down to the inn to introduce himself. He spent the day there. He liked her very much.”

“As I’m betting you will. And Georgia will too. How could you not?”

She looked up into his face, the question in her eyes.

“She’s Delia’s daughter, Zoey. How could she be anything less than wonderful?”

For her mother’s sake, Zoey hoped he was right.

Chapter
21
 

Zoey sat in her car, motionless except for the light tapping of her fingertips on the steering wheel. She had, just the day before, polished her nails with a pale dusty rose shade, but already she had managed to chip and peel at the polish so that her nails looked blotched, like a pinto pony. Had she noticed, she would have fled to the nearest drugstore in search of nail polish remover and would have swiped her nails clean. Being distracted by other, more pressing things, however, the sorry state of her fingernails was low on her list of priorities this morning.

She had risen at dawn to drive back to Bishop’s Cove. Now that she was there, she sat in the car, mentally running through all the reasons why she should stay where she was for a while. It was too early to knock on someone’s door. Laura would probably be getting Ally ready for school. She probably had guests to tend to. Delia might be sleeping late. She recited this litany while watching the numbers blink on the digital clock on the dash of the car. It was interesting, watching time pass by, the seconds and the minutes of the day blinking away,
and it held her attention for almost four minutes. Maybe, she thought, she should get a cup of coffee at that little store she passed on her way onto the island. She could get a newspaper, too, and read while she waited.

Waited for what? She sighed and looked across the street to where the Bishop’s Inn reigned over the corner of the long block. This is silly. My mother is in there. There is no reason why I can’t just—

Movement at the inn’s front door caught her eye and she leaned over the steering wheel to watch. Ally bounced out onto the porch dressed in a dark blue jumper and a short-sleeved white shirt. Laura stepped out behind her and held up the backpack that Ally sort of backed into, sliding her arms through the straps and shrugging it up onto her shoulders. As Laura bent down to smooth her daughter’s hair and plant a kiss on the little girl’s forehead, Delia appeared in the doorway. She stood with her hands on her hips and watched as Ally readjusted the backpack. After exchanging a few words with Laura, who patted Delia on the back, Delia took Ally’s hand and walked with her down the steps, down the cobbled walk, down the street toward the corner. Ally danced a step here and there, and their hands swung between them. Zoey felt her chest constrict just a little as she watched her mother walking her granddaughter to school.

It stung a little, and she was trying to figure out exactly why it should have, when she realized that Laura was walking toward her car.

She must think I’m an idiot, sitting here at eight o’clock in the morning, staring after my mother without speaking to her
. . . .

“An idiot or an ax murderer,” she muttered as she turned off the ignition.

“Good morning,” Laura called to her as she crossed the street.

“Good morning,” Zoey called back, her palms sweating and her heart pounding. Had she thought that any of this would be easy? “I guess you’re wondering why I was
just sitting there. Why I didn’t let my mother know I was here . . .”

“Not at all.” Laura reached a hand out to her through the open car window and touched Zoey’s arm lightly. “I know you were just permitting Delia to have that time with Ally. And I thank you for it. That was very generous of you.”

Zoey’s cheeks flushed, knowing that other emotions—embarrassment at being caught watching the inn, combined with a sort of morbid fascination at watching her mother in a totally unfamiliar role—rather than any great generosity of spirit, had kept her from calling out to her mother.

“Actually, Laura . . .” Zoey sought to explain, not wanting to take credit for insights and sensitivities she hadn’t had.

“Come in and have coffee with me.” Laura had taken Zoey’s hand, and had not released it. Now she tugged at it, and Zoey got out of the car and slammed the door. “The staff is already tending to the guests, so we can have some time together.”

The inn was cool, in spite of the rising temperatures outside. Laura led the way into the big stainless steel kitchen where breakfast was being prepared by a young woman in her twenties.

Laura peeked over the cook’s shoulder. “Ummm. French toast. Lucky guests. How many for breakfast this morning, Jody?” She reached into a tall cabinet and pulled out two dark green ceramic mugs emblazoned with the inn’s logo and began to fill them with steaming, aromatic coffee.

“Sixteen. The Bartons in the Green Room left early to go crabbing with Larry.”

“Do you have enough help?” Laura asked.

“We’ll be fine. Jenny should be here any minute, and Clarence will be in before nine to help clean up.”

The young cook turned and smiled at Zoey, then looked back at her again and said, “Wow. You two must be related.”

Laura glanced over her shoulder and caught Zoey’s eye, as if to ask permission. Knowing that she had to, Zoey said, “We are related. We’re sisters,” and found that the admission had not been as difficult as she might have expected.