Ask Mariah (12 page)

"I think we're already there," he told her. 

She sighed.  He was right.  Their relationship was moving at lightning speed.  "I was involved with a professor last year, and although we seemed to have a great deal in common, we really didn't. He was more in love with English literature than he was with me. I thought it was romantic in the beginning that he could quote poetry, but in the end it just bugged me."

Michael smiled. "It's funny how the things we love about someone can turn into the things we hate."

"Did that happen with you and Angela?"

His smile faded. "Yes. She used to tell me that I changed once we got married. I thought she'd changed, but the truth was that we didn't really know each other that well. We just saw what we wanted to see. In some ways, I think I was her escape route out of a family that loved her and smothered her."

"And for you, she was ..."

He thought for a moment. "She was part of a family that seemed ideal to me. And maybe I thought we could recreate the De Luca's. But Angela had other ideas. She didn't want to live like her parents. She didn't really want to be a mother." He lowered his voice. "The pregnancy wasn't planned, but she loved the girls. I never doubted that. She just felt that being a mother was hold her back, that I was holding her back, and maybe I was."

She put her hand over his. "You can't keep second guessing.  It won't get you anywhere."

"Yeah, I know. I did love her, Joanna. I won't lie about that."

"I wouldn't want you to."

"And I try to focus on the good memories and share those with Lily and Rose. I want them to remember all the wonderful things about their mother. I want that for them. They deserve that. Angela made mistakes, but she was young, and she should have had time to make up for them, to live, to see her girls grow up. But she's gone, and I'm all they have left, and I have to make things right for them."

She was touched by the fierce protectiveness in his voice. "You will. They're lucky to have you."

He let out a breath. "You probably didn't want to hear all that."

"Actually, I really did. I haven't been able to stop thinking about you, about the girls, since the day you walked into my classroom." She paused. "I am attracted to you, Michael, but I don't think anything can come of it. My looks would make things too complicated, too confusing. Right?" she couldn't help asking.

"Probably," he agreed, his jaw tightening.

"So, that's that," she said, feeling a wave of disappointment that shocked her with its intensity. "We'll go back to basics. I'll be your daughters' teacher, and you'll be the father of my students. We'll make it simple."

He gave her a small smile. "In that case, you better let go of my hand."

She suddenly realized her fingers were intertwined with his.  She pulled her hand away. "Sorry."

"Joanna, you're never going to be just my daughters' teacher."

"I can't be anything else, Michael."

"We'll see," he said, his gaze darkening. "If there's one thing I've learned in the past year is that change happens when you least expect it."

* * *

Caroline Wingate stared at the manila envelope in her hand. It had first appeared in her life almost twenty-nine years earlier, shortly after Joanna's birth. She had asked Edward about it, but he'd simply smiled and told her not to worry, the way he'd always done. In the crazy days of taking care of a newborn, she had forgotten about it.

As the years passed she'd seen him take it out now and then and slip a letter inside, a letter  that always arrived at their house addressed to him with no return address, something else they'd never spoken about.

Part of her had hoped that he'd thrown away the letters, that the envelope didn't exist anymore. But Edward had never thrown anything away. Thank God, she hadn't let Joanna go through his things.

She would burn it, Caroline decided. Unopened. She had never felt a need to look through the contents before, and she certainly didn't now.

With a strength and a sense of purpose she hadn't felt in months, she opened the desk drawers one after the other, searching for the gold engraved lighter that Edward had used to light his cigars.

She found it in the bottom drawer. His initials caught at her heart. "Oh, Edward. I did love you," she said softly, wrapping her fingers around the cool metal. "I know you'll understand why I have to do this."

Still she hesitated. Would he understand? Would Joanna understand? Would the letters be important someday? It didn't matter what they said. She would do anything to protect her family. Joanna was all she had left.

Her parents had died years ago. Her older brother, ten years her senior, had moved to Alaska as a twenty-year-old, and aside from an occasional postcard, she rarely heard from him. When she'd written to him about Edward's death, he hadn't replied. Perhaps he was dead, too.

An overwhelming depression filled her at the thought. Every time she turned around, she was confronted with mortality. Several of Edward's friends and business associates had died in the last year, reminding her of her own age, her own tenuous hold on life. But she didn't feel old at sixty-two. Sometimes she still felt as foolish and uncertain as she had at twenty -- like today, like this moment.

She took a deep breath as she stared at the manila envelope. What good could come of it now? Certainly no good for her. And no good for Joanna. Getting rid of it was the right thing to do. She flicked the lighter on, but before she could put the flame to the envelope, the front door slammed and Joanna's voice rang through the apartment. Caroline dropped the lighter on the desktop and shoved the envelope aside.

* * *

"Mom," Joanna called, wondering where her mother was.  She flung open the door to the den, surprised to find her mother sitting at her fathers desk.  "You're going through Dad's things?" she asked in surprise. 

"Yes. Slowly," her mother said, her face pale, her lips tight. 

"Are you all right?"

"Of course. They're just things, papers and books and old bills. You were right. I should have done this a long time ago. I don't know why I didn't."

"It was too soon." Joanna paused, acutely aware of the photograph clutched in her hand. She'd driven home with it on the seat next to her. At every stoplight she'd taken another look, wanting to believe that somehow the photograph would have changed and she would no longer look like a woman she'd never met.

Caroline stood up and walked around the desk. "Are you hungry, Joanna? Do you want to go out for dinner?"

"No. I'm not hungry. I want to show you something."

"What is it?"

She hesitated, then handed the photograph to her mother.

"Is this a picture of you?" her mother queried in confusion.

"What do you think?"

"I've never seen you wear this dress, and your hair is different, and you seem ..." Caroline looked at Joanna, her eyes troubled. "It's not you at all. The nose isn't the same, or the teeth, and the skin is much darker. Who is this girl?"

"Angela Ashton. The mother of the children I told you about yesterday."

"Really?" Caroline's hand trembled. The photograph slipped out of her fingers and fell to the ground.

She sent her mother a thoughtful look, then retrieved the photograph from the floor. "It's amazing, isn't it? We could be sisters."

"You're not."

"No. But it's strange to think that Angela grew up in San Francisco just on the other side of town, and we never ran into each other."

"Where did you get the photo?"

"From Michael, Angela's husband.  His children are students in my class, remember?"

"Yes, of course." Caroline's fingers splayed across her heart as if she were in pain.

"Are you all right, Mom?" she asked again.  Perhaps she shouldn't have dumped this news on her while her mother was in such a vulnerable state from going through her father's things. 

"Tell me more about this woman," her mother said, licking her lips.

"Angela was a few years younger than me," Joanna said. "Her maiden name was De Luca.  She died last year in a boating accident and left behind two adorable twin girls, Lily and Rose. They're six years old. And Michael is in his early thirties. It's so sad." She paused.  "Seeing those lost, lonely little girls, I feel so lucky to have had Dad for as long as we did."

Tears filled Caroline's eyes. "Yes, we were lucky."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you cry.  This isn't a good time for this discussion."

"We were very, very lucky," Caroline repeated in a dazed voice.  "I used to tell myself that almost every day -- at least in the beginning. Then sometimes I'd forget, and days would go by and I wouldn't tell Edward I loved him, and I'd forget to tell you. Now Edward's gone."

"But he knew. He always knew."

"And you?"

"Of course," she said with a reassuring smile. "I know you love me, and I love you."

"Good."

"So, Mom, how do you think this came to be -- this resemblance between me and another woman -- just bizarre coincidence?"

"What else could it be?" Caroline walked around the desk and sat down in Edward's chair. She'd never sat there before today, not as far as Joanna could remember. It had always been her father's chair. If her mother used the room at all, she sat on the couch. Now she seemed to need the support of the large mahogany desk,

"Maybe somewhere in the family tree somebody's baby got switched, or maybe someone gave up their child for adoption," Joanna suggested.

"Don't be ridiculous. That kind of thing only happens in movies. Besides, you charted the family tree years ago."

"I know I did. Someone must have lied. There has to be an explanation."

"It's a coincidence, just as you said," Caroline replied, her voice stronger now, as if she had summed up the situation and dismissed it as being of no importance. Her mother often did that with topics that she didn't want to discuss.

"Is it?  Didn't you ever wonder how you had such a dark child when you and Dad are both so blond?"

"Why would I wonder?" Her mother's voice rang through the room, sharp and clear, "We knew you were our child. There was no mistake."

Joanna hesitated to ask the next question, but she knew she had to. "Are you sure there was no mistake? Are you sure you came home with the right baby?"

Her mother gasped. "How can you ask me that? Do you think we would let our child go to someone else?"

"It's just that -- "

"It's just nothing -- nothing but a coincidence. Everyone in the world has a double. You just found yours. But she's dead. You're never going to meet her or talk to her or know what she was like. Forget about her, Joanna."

She didn't understand the coldness in her mother's voice, the cavalier way she spoke of the other woman's death. Her mother had always been a compassionate woman, but not now, not today, not about this.

"Yes, she is dead, but she left behind two darling children who seem to think I'm her."

"You're not."

"I know that," she said in frustration. "But it would be easier if I could explain why I look so much like their mother."

"You can't. There are some things that can't be explained. You have to accept it, and so do they."

"I'm not sure they can."

"They'll have to. You're not their mother."

"I feel as if they need me."

"They don't need you. They need
her.
"

Her mother's words hit her in the face like a splash of cold water. She wanted to argue, but how could she?

Caroline picked up some papers from the desk and looked through them, ending the discussion.

"Do you want some help in here?" she asked.

"No. I'll do it."

"Are you sure? Most of this stuff looks pretty old. It's probably just junk." She reached for a manila envelope that had been pushed to the side of the desk.

Caroline's hand came down on top of hers. "I said I'd do it."

She stared into her mother's eyes and saw determination, anger, and something that looked like fear. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Why don't you relax? You worked hard all day. I'm sure you could use a break." She patted Joanna's hand where it rested on top of the manila envelope.

Her words were casual, but Joanna had a feeling that if she dared to pick up the envelope, her mother might rip it out of her hand.

"You're hiding something, aren't you?"

"No. These are your father's things. I'm his wife. They don't concern you. I'd like to be alone, Joanna."

It was the first time in years Joanna had heard Caroline request to be alone. "Fine, I'll get dinner started." She walked to the door and paused, still disturbed by her mother's behavior. "I didn't think we had any secrets from each other, Mom."

"We don't."

As she left the room, she couldn't help thinking that her mother was lying, and that was a disturbing thought.  What on earth was she hiding?

* * *

Alone in the den, Caroline took several deep, steadying breaths. She wasn't a bad liar. She was a very good one, and she'd had years of practice.

She placed a piece of newspaper on top of the desk, picked up the lighter, and ignited the flame. Holding it to the edge of the envelope, she let it bum. As the ashes fell onto the newspaper, their heat was put out by the teardrops that streamed down her face, landing on the newspaper like blots on a ledger. She had to do this. She had to protect what was hers.

When there was nothing left but a pile of black dust, she set the lighter down on the desk with a shaky hand. She stared at the ashes for a long time. They reminded her of Edward's ashes, of the urn they had buried just two short months ago.

Finally she picked up the newspaper and dumped everything in the garbage. Then she reached for the telephone and dialed the number for Grant Sullivan, her former employer and Edward's long-time friend and attorney. She had to know if there was anything else that needed to be burned.