Ask Mariah (10 page)

"Why don't you tell your dad about your day?" Joanna said to Rose. "I'm sure he'd like to hear what else you did."

Rose looked unsure. Her gaze traveled to Lily, who once again shook her head.

"It's okay, Joanna. I'm used to it," Michael said.

"How could you be?"

"I don't have a choice."

"Do you want us to wash the paintbrushes before we go, Joanna?" Rose asked.

She hesitated. She should probably send them on their way, but she couldn't let Michael go without finding out more about their situation. "If your father doesn't mind waiting a few minutes," she said.

"No, in fact, I'd like to speak to you."

"What did you want to talk to me about?" Joanna asked as the girls ran into the back room to wash the brushes.

"Did the girls tell you that they don't speak to me?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Did they say why?"

She heard the desperation in his voice and wished she could give him a better answer. "No. Rose wanted to, but Lily stopped her."

"Lily always stops her. Damn." His fists clenched at his side, then slowly unclenched. "Someday they're going to come clean. I just have to be patient. God, I hate that word."

"They did tell me something else.  They said their mother told them people might say she wasn't coming back, but that they shouldn't believe it. Do you know what they meant?"

He shook his head, his jaw tightening.  "No, but then I didn't understand most of what Angela said, especially those last few months. We had a fight the day she died. She wanted to go to a party with friends. I asked her to stay home and take care of the girls because I had to work. Angela wanted to find yet another baby-sitter. I had begun to think I was working overtime simply to pay for an endless parade of teenagers who ran up my phone bill and cleaned out my refrigerator. Anyway, I left the house in a fury, and I have no idea what Angela said to the girls after that or what they think happened between us. They've never told anyone."

"Part of some promise they made to their mother. I got that much."

"You're doing better than most of us."

"Mr. Ashton --"

"Call me Michael."

"Michael." His name sounded so intimate on her lips, she almost regretted using it. Despite her best intentions they seemed to be moving from Mr. Ashton and Miss Wingate to Michael and Joanna.

"Yes?" he prodded.

She hesitated, knowing she was about to cross a line, she probably shouldn't cross.  But she couldn't stop herself.  "If you don't mind my asking -- how did your wife die?"

He stared at her for a moment, his expression grim, then said, "Angela fell off a boat. There was a party going on, a lot of drinking." The monotone of his voice slid into anger. "Heavy,  irresponsible drinking." He paused, obviously fighting his bitterness. "The seas were rough that night. If they'd stayed in the bay, they might have been all right, but they headed out to the ocean.  According to witnesses, the waves were so big, they came over the side of the boat. People scrambled to grab on to things. Somehow in the midst of the panic, Angela fell overboard."

"My God," she whispered, putting a hand to her mouth.  "How horrible."

"They never found her body." He drew in a big breath.  "None of us had a chance to say good-bye.  According to the doctors who have spoken to the twins, that's why they're having trouble accepting her death.  Not that I would have let them see her, even if we had found her body.  I wouldn't have put them through that.  I want them to remember her as she was, as their mother."

Joanna impulsively touched his arm, wishing she could say something to ease his pain. "I am so sorry.  I don't know what to say."

"There's nothing to say.  It was a tragic accident, one that could and should have been prevented."

She heard the self-blame in his voice. "By you?  You weren't even there."

"I shouldn't have let her leave the house.  I shouldn't have gone to work that day."  He shrugged away from her hand, pacing restlessly around the small tables.  "If I had stayed home, she'd still be alive.  It's that simple."

"There's nothing simple about it," she said quietly.  "But I know there isn't anything I can say that will ease your guilt."

"No, there isn't," he said flatly.

"Thanks for telling me.  It helps me to understand where the girls are coming from. I just have to ask -- if no one found her body, are you absolutely sure --"

"Yeah, I'm sure," he said quickly, cutting her off.  "Two people saw her fall into the water. Angela wasn't wearing a life jacket.  She was drunk and she wasn't a good swimmer. The Coast Guard circled the area for hours. They sent in divers." Michael glanced over his shoulder to see if the girls had returned, but they were still in the back. "There was no way she could have survived."

She nodded.  "But something she said to the girls that night is preventing them from accepting her death."

He shrugged.  "Whatever that was.  Maybe they'll tell you, because you look so much like her."

"Really?" she asked.  "It's hard to believe I look that much like her."

"There are differences, but there are a lot of similarities."

She frowned. "I need to see her.  Do you have a photo of Angela?"

His jaw dropped.  "Uh, yes, of course.  Not with me, but at the house."

"Can I come over?"

He hesitated. "I suppose you could. When?"

She could have said next week, next month, next year. Instead she said, "Now."

"Now?" he echoed. "Right now?"

She nodded, determined to put an end to the craziness.  She would see Angela's photograph and point out their differences. There was no way she could look exactly like another person. It was impossible. Once that was done, she could go back to treating Michael and the girls like any other family in the school.

"Maybe that's a good idea," he said slowly. "Side by side, it will be easier for the girls to realize you're not their mother."

"Exactly."

Michael turned as the girls walked toward the front of the room, carrying coffee cans filled with clean paintbrushes. "Joanna is coming home -- " he said, only to be cut off by the girls' exuberant cries.

"Just to see a picture of your mother," Joanna warned. 

"Do you want to see our room, too?" Lily asked as she set the paintbrushes down on the table.

"Okay."

"And the backyard?" Rose asked, clapping her hands in delight.

"All right."

"And the treehouse Daddy built for us last year?"

"Yes," she said, feeling herself being pulled into quicksand. "I want to see it all.  And I want you to see that I'm not your mother," she added, but the girls were too excited that she was coming over to their house to listen.  She hoped this trip would make things better, but she had the terrible feeling, it might make things worse.

* * *

"When I said I wanted to see everything, I didn't mean your father's bedroom," Joanna said as Lily and Rose threw open the door to Michael's room.

Michael put a hand on the small of her back, a polite touch that should not have sent a tingle down her spine.

"I have a photograph of Angela in my bedroom," Michael said. "It's the girls' favorite picture. I think that's why they want you to see it first."

"Oh." He had a picture of his wife in his bedroom. Of course. He probably went to bed thinking of Angela, dreaming about her, wishing she hadn't died.

"This is where you and Daddy used to sleep," Rose said, interrupting her thoughts.

Joanna grew hot at the thought of Michael and herself in the king-size bed with the down comforter and the fluffy pillows. But this was not where she and Michael slept. This was where he had slept with his wife,
with Angela
.

For a moment she couldn't move, but Michael pushed her forward, urging her into the room. There was no turning back.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the portrait hanging on the wall across from the bed. She didn't look at it just yet. Instead she concentrated on the room itself, drawing courage from the normalcy of the decor. She wanted something to combat the eerie feeling, the sense of uneasiness that threatened to overwhelm her.

The room was a poignant mix of male and female. The floral curtains were soft and feminine. The exercise bike in the corner was stainless steel. The old Italian lace doilies on the dresser softened the dark, masculine cherry wood. The bright rainbow-colored pillows eased the hard lines of the antique lounger. There were knickknacks on every available shelf, music boxes and hand-blown glass figures mixed with basketball trophies and an autographed baseball.

Everywhere she turned she saw the contrasts, the hard edges, the soft curves. Man and woman. Michael and his wife. She swallowed hard.

"It's there," Michael said quietly.

Joanna slowly turned to face the picture and felt as if she were looking into a mirror. Her heart stopped.

Angela Ashton had dark brown wavy hair. It was shorter than Joanna's, but Angela had parted it on the same side. Joanna stared at the face, wanting to see the differences, but all she saw was a pair of brown eyes that matched her own, the same full mouth, the same straight nose.

"Oh my God." Joanna felt faint, hot, dizzy. The impossible had suddenly become possible. "She looks just like me," she whispered. "How could that be?"

Michael didn't answer, his gaze still fixed on the portrait.

"She could be my sister," Joanna added as she took another look at the photograph. Angela was smiling, but as Joanna stared into Angela's eyes, it seemed as if the other woman was trying to tell her something.  Maybe "
Get the hell out of my bedroom
" and "
Stay away from my husband and children.
"

For a moment Joanna thought Angela might have spoken the words aloud, so clearly had they rung through her head. "I have to go," she said in panic. "I have to get out of here." She ran from the room, hearing the girls call after her in surprise, hearing Michael tell them to go to their room.

Michael caught up with her at the front door. He slammed his hand against the wood as she tried to open it. "Wait."

"No, let me go. Please, let me go." In truth, she was asking him to do much more than move away from the door.

"I can't." His husky voice told her he understood exactly what she was thinking, what she was feeling.

"This is wrong. I'm not her. I'm not your wife. I'm not the girls' mother. I can't stay here."

"Joanna, calm down." He put his hands on her shoulders to steady her. "No one is forcing you to stay. I just don't want you to drive home while you're so upset."

She wasn't upset; she was terrified, scared to death of a photograph of a woman who'd been dead for a year. "I'm going crazy," She put a hand to her forehead.

"You're not crazy. I felt just as shaken when I saw you yesterday morning."

"They say everyone has a twin, but I never believed it."

"Maybe you're a distant cousin."

"There is no Italian blood in our family. My ancestors came from Germany and France, Norway and Sweden."

"It might go back a few generations. Somewhere along the line the blood got mixed."

"I've studied our family history. I know where everyone came from. I know what most of them looked like. No one had hair or eyes as dark as mine." Joanna drew in a shaky breath. "I look more like your wife than I look like my parents."

"You do?" he asked in surprise.

"Yes."

As they stared at each other, a hundred silent questions raced between them. Nothing made sense. Her mind leapt from the realistic to the implausible. Maybe her mother had had another daughter and given her away. But her mother had always said she wanted more children; she wouldn't have given a child away. What if she had been switched at birth with another baby, one who had blond hair and looked more like Edward and Caroline Wingate than she did? Maybe she was really Italian, a distant relation of the De Lucas.

Or perhaps it was all just an incredible coincidence.

"There are differences between you," Michael said slowly. "If you look closely enough."

And damn if he wasn't looking closely, she thought.  "What differences?" she asked with desperation, trying to grab on to anything that made sense.

"Your voice. It's softer. And your build." He put his hand on top of Joanna's head and drew an imaginary line over to himself. She came up to his lips, to his mouth. He could have kissed her forehead if she'd taken a step forward. "Angela was shorter. She only came up to my shoulders. She was wiry and thin, not much flesh on her frame,"

As his gaze ran down her body, her full breasts, her long legs, she felt as if he were undressing her, comparing them both in his mind. She couldn't help feeling she would come up short. Her mother was gorgeous and thin. Models were gorgeous and thin. To her, beauty had a somewhat bony look, not her look, not her curvy look.