Finding Father Christmas (16 page)

“Oh, Miranda, that’s so sad. What a terrible shame.” Ellie pressed her hand over her heart. “I’m sorry to hear that. Have
you any brothers or sisters?”

I glanced at Edward and pressed my lips together.

“Oh, no siblings, either,” Ellie concluded before I had a chance to speak. “That’s really sad. How tragic to lose your mother
when you’re so young.”

Edward leaned forward and asked a final question the way people do when they want to offer the freedom to speak honorably
of the departed.

“What was your mother’s name?”

This was it. I would not hop over the truth one more time.

I paused, drawing in a deep breath through my nostrils. The scent of bayberry from the candles made me nauseous. I knew that
once I spoke her name, nothing in this room or in my life would be the same.

“My mother’s name was Eve. Eve Carson, the actress.”

The room went deathly still.

M
argaret gripped the arms of her chair and stared at me without blinking. Her words came across the table like flat stones
thrown into a still pond. Each word caused a ripple. Together they disrupted the entire ecosystem. “Eve Carson was your mother?”

I nodded, holding my trembling hands in my lap. I could hear Ellie exhaling the name “Eve,” but I didn’t dare look at her.

“Hold on there,” Edward said, rising taller in his seat. “Are you trying to imply that your mother is the ‘beguiling eve’
in the poem?”

My throat tightened. I nodded. With dry lips I at last spoke the words. “I have reason to believe that Sir James Whitcombe
was my father.”

Edward pushed away from the table and stood up straight. Clasping his hands behind his back he said, “I am certain you are
mistaken. And I must say this is not the sort of discussion I would have expected to take place in my home. Certainly not
on Christmas and in the presence of my mother or my wife.” Edward’s scowl deepened. “I’m afraid I must ask you to leave, Miranda.”

Stunned, I started to rise. My foot caught on my purse strap.
I remembered the picture and playbill and went for a last foray into the truth. “I’d really like to show you something before
I go.”

Edward clenched his jaw.

“Edward?” Ellie compassionately tilted her head.

Eye contact with his wife eased Edward’s demeanor from blazing flames to slow-burning embers. Lowering into the chair he said,
“What is it?”

I reached for the blue velvet pouch. Edward and Ellie seemed to recognize it as the purse that caused my panic when Julia
brought it downstairs. Without an explanation, I handed the photograph to Edward.

The embers in his face were being fanned back into a flame. “Where did you get this?”

“From my mother’s things.”

He looked across the table at his mother and then back at me. “Why would your mother have this picture?”

“I think… ” I glanced at Margaret and then down at the velvet pouch. This was so difficult. In a small voice I said, “I think
perhaps my mother took the photo from your father. From his wallet. Many years ago. In Michigan.”

“That proves nothing.”

I slid the playbill across to him. “I was born nine months after this performance.”

He glanced at the playbill and looked again at his mother. She stared across the table without blinking, her expression tightening
into a pinch.

“Nothing here proves my father had any association with your mother. His name doesn’t even appear on the playbill. You
wouldn’t have known about the ‘eve’ in the poem unless we had shown it to you—in confidence, I might add. I don’t know what
kind of a scam you’re trying to pull on us, but I assure you, we will not fall for it. I believe you’ve had your opportunity
to speak, and now I will once again ask you to leave.”

Before I had a chance to point out the mention of the Society of Grey Hall Community Theatre on the playbill, Margaret let
out a weighted sigh. Her lips moved as if she were talking in her sleep. “The play was
The Tempest.
Your mother performed the role of Miranda.”

My heart did a flop. Margaret knew. She knew!

Edward checked the playbill and then stared at his mother. Ellie stared at me. Margaret wept silently. No one spoke.

I pushed back my chair and stood, ready to leave. Swallowing the tears that had puddled in my throat, I said, “Please understand.
I did not come to England expecting anything like this to happen. My mother left only a few clues for me. The name of the
studio on the back of the photo was what led me here. Yesterday, when I stumbled into the Tea Cosy… Well, it doesn’t matter.
All I want to say is I didn’t plan any of this. You have all been very kind to me, and I want you to know that I never intended
to hurt anyone. I’m sorry. I just… I just wanted to find my father.”

That’s when I broke down and cried.

“Miranda.” Edward’s voice carried the same gentle firmness that he used with his children. “Please sit down.”

As I sat down, I tried to breathe, but all I could smell was the bayberry-scented candles.

“I can see how… ” Edward took off his glasses and placed
them beside his paper crown. The defeated prince sat with his hand covering his mouth, leaving his sentence unfinished.

Margaret produced a handkerchief from the cuff of her sleeve and used the rosebud end to blot her tear-moistened cheeks. With
a wavering voice she said, “Miranda, it is clear—”

“Mother, if you don’t mind, I would like to say something first.” Edward cleared his throat. “I believe we can all appreciate
your situation, Miranda. Losing your mother at an early age and not knowing the identity of your father are significant life
obstacles. However, you must know that we are not novices when it comes to accusations and assumptions about my father. As
he used to say, ‘Such is the consequence of a touch of notoriety.’ I may have reacted a bit too strongly in requesting that
you leave. My apologies. We have all enjoyed your company. However, I must say I did not expect such an allegation to come
from you.”

“Edward.”

“Just a moment, Mother. I have one more thing I would like to say.”

He put on his glasses and looked more closely at me through the lower half. “The point is, you see, you have come to the wrong
conclusion with, as you referred to them, the few clues your mother left you. I can guess at what you might have expected
to gain from this, and yet I’m sure you can see how preposterous it is for you to expect any of us to—”

“No.” I blinked away my unstoppable tears. “You don’t understand. I don’t expect anything from you. I don’t even expect you
to believe me.”

“Then why have you brought all of this to the table?”

“I… I needed to find out the truth. And—”

“Well, the truth is that your mother may have had some slight association with my father and acquired the photo somehow. However,
I’m afraid your search for your biological father cannot be resolved here.”

“Edward,” his mother said, her voice unnervingly calm, “I have something I must tell you.”

I watched her words snuff out the fire from my half brother’s face.

Margaret squared her shoulders and spoke in a resolute voice. “Edward, do you remember the summer you were twelve, when I
took you and Marion to my parents’ summer home?”

“Of course.”

“That was the first time either of you had been with me to Sweden. Both of you kept asking when your father would arrive,
and I told you he was working. What I didn’t tell you, and never told either of you, was that your father and I were legally
separated at the time. He had received an invitation from his colleague, Charles Roth—”

“Prospero,” I said under my breath.

“Yes, Prospero.” Margaret glanced at me and then returned her steady gaze to Edward. “Charles was cast for the role of Prospero.
He had some sort of serious back injury a week or so before the play opened. That’s when he phoned your father.”

Edward looked down at the playbill. I knew he would see Charles Roth’s name next to the role of Prospero.

“The playbills were already printed, you see, before your father decided to go to Michigan and take the part. All his life
he spoke of that production as his favorite and his performance
as his best ever. His only regret, he said, was that you children and I weren’t there with him to see it.”

Edward rubbed the back of his neck, slowly dissolving under his mother’s confession.

“When your father returned to England that fall, we worked out our differences. Your father had been told that I was seeing
someone while he was away. It was a lie. There was never anyone for me but James.”

Margaret sighed and continued. “Many years later, perhaps you remember, your father had a bit of trouble with his heart.”

“I remember,” Ellie said softly.

“James believed his life was about to end. It was then he told me there had been a young woman. In Michigan. A very young
woman. An actress. I’ve never forgotten her name. It was Eve. Eve Carson.”

Edward leaned back in his chair, swallowing rapidly and holding his forehead. Ellie didn’t move.

“Perhaps you can understand why I felt it was important never to speak of this to anyone. Edward, your father was a fine man.”
Margaret’s voice trailed off as she turned to me and added, “He never knew… ”

I tilted my head, wanting to grasp what I had just heard. “Are you saying he didn’t know my mother got pregnant? He didn’t
know about me?”

Margaret drew in another breath for strength. “I can tell you this with absolute certainty. If my husband had known he had
fathered another child, regardless of the circumstances, he would have searched day and night until he found you.”

I swallowed the next wave of tears, dearly wanting to believe
her words were true. The longing of my entire life was addressed in what this woman was saying to me—this woman who, of all
the women in the world, had every reason to despise me.

With wobbling arms, Margaret pushed back her chair from the table. Edward rose quickly and strode across the room to help,
but she was standing already. “If you will excuse me, I am going to lie down for a while.”

“I’ll walk with you to your room, Mother.” Edward glanced over his shoulder at me before leaving the dining room. It seemed
he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. I didn’t expect him to. Not yet. His expression made it clear he was processing
all of this as best he could. In the meantime, his earlier request that I leave his house now seemed to be revoked.

Ellie and I sat across from each other, both speechless. I had the sense the two of us were cushioned together in a sort of
soft, gauze-like silence.

Mark appeared in the doorway just then, announcing that he had come to see about the Christmas pudding. “It was Julia’s idea,
really. She wanted me to tell you she’s ready.”

“It will be a few more minutes, love. Tell the others for me, will you?”

Mark scampered off, and Ellie reached her hand across the table. I didn’t know if she meant for me to reach for it or not,
but I timidly stretched out my arm. She immediately gave my hand a squeeze.

I squeezed back.

Her smile floated across the table, making room for me in her heart the same way she had made room for me in her home.

“I feel so awful,” I whispered.

“Oh, but you mustn’t. It’s going to be all right. You’ll see. Give them—give all of us—a little time. That’s all we need.
A little time for this unexpected news to settle in. We’ll come around.”

I nodded hopefully.

“I knew there was something about you when I saw you last night. Now I know what it is. You have his eyes. Did you know that?
You have your father’s eyes. As clear as a blue sky on a spring morning.”

Now it was Julia who burst into the dining room. “Mummy, Mark said I’m not allowed any pud because I didn’t finish eating
all my turkey!”

“You shall have your Christmas pudding, little love. Your brother is only putting you on. You just ignore him.”

With a fist on her hip Julia declared, “But, Mummy, how can I ignore him? He’s part of this family, you know?”

Ellie and I exchanged grins. “Well, Julia, he’s not the only one who is part of this family, now is he? Every one of us has
a place here.”

I drew in the sweet implication of Ellie’s words and held her blessing close. I was accepted. I, too, was part of this family.
I belonged here.

“Mummy, will you please come and tell Mark that I get to have my Christmas pud?”

“Yes, yes, I’ll come.” Turning to me she added, “You will excuse me, won’t you? I’ll be back shortly.”

“That’s okay. I can start clearing the table.”

“That would be lovely.”

Julia grinned contentedly. Just before she left the dining room with her mother, she held up her hand to me with a twinkling
grin. She wiggled her fingers so I would notice she was wearing the pink diamond ring I had given her from my Christmas cracker.
I knew our friendship was sealed.

As I organized the plates and prepared to clear the table, my thoughts touched on all that had happened since I blew into
Carlton Heath with the north wind on my heels. The sweetest impression that rested on me was that I was no longer alone. And
not just because of the connection I now had with the Whitcombe family.

The attachment I sensed was larger than that. Something profound and abiding had happened in me at the heart level with Almighty
God. He was the center of this celebration—the Father of Christmas past, present, and future. He had made himself accessible
to me, to all of his children. I had responded, and now I belonged.

Reaching for one of the silly paper crowns, I placed it on my head and grinned at my reflection in the thick glass that covered
the painting on the wall. I noticed in the reflection that someone else had entered the dining room. Turning toward the doorway
I expected to see Ellie.

A new guest had arrived. A man about my age with a strong jawline and softly questioning eyes stood in front of me. He was
wearing a tweed blazer over a black turtleneck. His light brown hair had a windblown look as if he had just arrived in a sports
car.