Barefoot Girls (62 page)

“Do you understand?”

Hannah blinked. Then she said in a choked voice, “I’m yours? You’re my mother?”

Zo nodded, reached over and took Hannah’s hands. They were long and tapered, like hers, like Michael’s. Nothing like Keeley’s little hands and feet.

“But…who knew? Did Aunt Pam and Aunt Amy know?” Then she shook her head violently. “No, this is too weird. It can’t be true. Mom is my mom. And…” She stared off, away from Zo.

“It’s okay. I know it will be hard for you to come to terms with. We kept it from you all this time. And we shouldn’t have waited so long.”

Hannah’s head snapped back, her thick dark brows lowering over her eyes. “Why? Why didn’t you tell me? I don’t understand.”

Zooey snatched at Hannah’s hands but she pulled them away. “Don’t be angry. It was the right thing, at least when you were little. You got to be the daughter of Keeley and Michael, beloved favorites of the island, a couple everyone knew, even if they were too young to be parents. If I’d claimed you, you would have been a hidden child with all the shame of that terrible night piled on you. The truth would have gotten out and the other children would have been different with you, maybe even the adults. Instead, you were the most loved baby ever.”

“But what about you? Didn’t you miss me? Didn’t you want me for yourself?” Tears glistened in Hannah’s eyes.

“I got to have the most beautiful baby who I adored. I saw you all the time, helped raise you. Keeley never denied me a thing.”

“But how could she? It wasn’t her baby and…” Hannah trailed off, looked down, struggling.

“Don’t you understand? This was the only way to make things right. I stole Michael from her that night, stole him in his drunkenness. With you, I could return life to its natural order. You were supposed to be Keeley’s baby, not mine.”

Hannah jumped to her feet, her chair making a loud rattling noise on the linoleum floor. “I’m sorry, Aunt Zo, I mean – oh! I need to get out of here.” She fled.

Chapter 65

Hannah walked into the hospital elevator carrying daisies. She had never noticed it before, but everyone seemed to love daisies, smiling openly at the white and yellow flowers in their paper cone as she walked through the parking lot to the hospital and crossed through the brightly lit reception area. They were definitely Keeley’s favorite flower and perfectly reflected her perennially sunny mentality.

Hannah pushed the button for the eighth floor and the doors slid shut.

“Oh, daisies! I love daisies,” said a pudgy middle-aged Asian woman wearing jeans and a sweater and standing beside Hannah in the elevator. She craned her neck to look into the cone. “They remind me of this field that used to be behind my parents’ house. My sister and I were always picking them and making daisy chains.”

Hannah smiled and nodded. “They’re for my mom. Well, uh…” 

She started to correct herself and stopped. Keeley was her mother, her adoptive mother. Aunt Zooey was her birth mother. She loved them both, she didn’t have to choose. What a world of difference a few days made. Plus the bated-breath news, what had them pacing the waiting room and running their cell-phone batteries dry checking in with each other when they weren’t there, they had gotten yesterday evening: Keeley had pulled through. She was out of ICU and in a regular room, off of the respirators, healing.

Hannah wasn’t sure if struggling with the truth about her Aunt Zo had made dealing with the fear about her mother’s health better or worse. She only knew it had been like going through a storm. First, there had been the shock. She couldn’t believe it. Aunt Zo was her mother. How had they hidden from her for so long without her guessing? Was she stupid? And why didn’t they trust her with the truth earlier?

That was when she started growing angry and embarrassed. Who else knew? Hannah had been made to look like an idiot, a fool. The Barefooters all talked about love so often, you’d think they were experts, yet they broke her trust, and trust was the most important thing in any relationship. She tried to figure out who on Captain’s knew about her. Had Mrs. McGrath? But no, she had referred to Keeley as Hannah’s mother without hesitation. Maybe it wasn’t common knowledge. The only thing Hannah knew for sure was that she couldn’t talk to Zo while she was still so angry.

To raise the tension even higher, all of them had been called down to the Suffolk County Sheriff’s office for further questioning related to the drowning death of Rose McGrath. Hannah checked in with Aunt Pam, looking for guidance, but all she had to offer was the seemingly-obvious instruction to tell the truth.

“The truth? I don’t even understand what it is. What was going on that night?”

Aunt Pam shook her head and said, “Something that took years to come to a head. Rose had it in for Keeley for as long as I can remember. We never took it seriously, though. I don’t know what happened that night except what you and Zo told me, that Rose attacked Keeley.”

“She set the house on fire, too. I didn’t have anything lit, just that little flashlight you keep on the windowsill, so it wasn’t an accident. Anyway, they’ve already confirmed it was arson. The gasoline.”

“I still can’t believe it. You know, the way they questioned me, you’d think we had something to gain by burning our own house down. It’s nuts.”

Hannah had never been involved with the law, only watched shows about it on television. The reality wasn’t as dramatic or as seedy as the shows she’d watched implied. It was boring, actually. The room where she was questioned looked like a typical meeting room in any office, fluorescently lit, cheaply furnished, and functional. The investigators were matter-of-fact average-looking men she could imagine meeting at a neighborhood party, not tough-bitten characters who fired off questions while shining a bright light in your eyes.

Still, the whole thing was scary and she was glad when it was over and Rose’s death was determined to be accidental, rather than pinned on Keeley as she had feared. She thought that would have been the ultimate irony, her mother charged with the death of the woman who intended to kill her. The investigators wouldn’t get in a conversation with Hannah when she had questions of her own about Mrs. McGrath’s intent that night. Had she gone there planning to kill Keeley?

The only thing that the newspapers revealed was that Rose was responsible for the burning of the Barefooter house, her fingerprints all over the empty gasoline container discovered near the scene. The papers also said that Phillip McGrath, Rose’s husband, was a person of interest in the investigation initially until he was cleared due to his airtight alibi: he was out having dinner with an old college buddy on the night of Rose’s death. A large number of witnesses attested to Phillip’s whereabouts as he and his friend dined and then visited a few bars, socializing until late that night, which put him in the clear.

When Hannah woke this morning, after the first decent night’s sleep she’d had in what felt like weeks, a calm had descended. Part of her feeling of peace was knowing that Keeley would live. An even bigger part had been her hours-long conversation the night before with Daniel, sitting on stools next to the island in his apartment’s kitchen. She had put it all out there, told him everything. Together, they had sorted out a great deal, though most of the conversation was one-sided with Hannah talking and Daniel listening.

After waking the next morning, she crawled quietly out of the bed trying not to disturb Daniel, and found her cell in her bag on the living room floor. Curled up on a chair in the living room, she called Aunt Zo. Her mother. Actually, she hadn’t decided what to call her yet. Zo had answered the phone so quickly it was as if she’d been waiting for Hannah’s call. They talked for over an hour, Zo answering every question – from practical questions about Hannah’s birth to deeper questions about the choice they’d made about her mothering.

“It didn’t matter what you called me. All that mattered was how I felt about you, this pure thing. And I was always there, tucking you in at night, feeding you, holding you. It was the best kind of adoption – your getting a huge pool of love from all of us,” Zo said.

It was an intensely satisfying and sometimes painful conversation. Hannah was amazed to realize how comfortable she was, had always been, talking to her mother. They finished with the details of their plan to meet at the hospital and hung up. The words of love that had always been the final seal on their conversation were awkward, fraught with so much more meaning and need than before.

The elevator’s bell dinged and the doors slid open. Hannah stepped out, nervousness assaulting her. Keeley knew that Hannah had been told the whole story. While Keeley was in ICU, she was always asleep when Hannah visited. It had been convenient. Hannah didn’t know what to say. Now, those tip-tilted big blue eyes would turn to her, wide open, awake, waiting. There were so many questions and so much to explain. Would they ever come to terms with the things that had gone wrong between them? Hannah felt an outpouring of sympathy for her mother and more desire than ever to wipe the slate clean.

Yet, this woman had lied to her for all those years. This woman had abandoned her over and over as a little girl. This woman had summarily shoved her out of her life when Hannah was only twelve, barring her from the Barefooter house, her summertime home, as if it meant nothing. By then, they’d moved into a small bungalow of their own, one that Keeley had saved for and had gotten for a steal because she knew the owners. On that day when Hannah was turned away from the Barefooter house and the comforts she’d counted on there, the jealousy had been born in her heart, a black creeping thing that had continued to grow all these years until it began tearing her apart from the inside out.

Hannah forced herself to walk down the hospital hallway, reading door numbers until she came to Keeley’s room. She took a deep breath and opened the door, bracing herself for the usual crowd scene that Keeley cultivated.

Keeley was alone in the room. She turned to look at Hannah, her eyes widening. She had been almost plump when Hannah had last seen her, which had been a surprise. Now she looked tiny in the hospital bed, a mini-mom. Zo wasn’t there. She’d promised she’d be there to help Hannah through this. A broken promise – a first for the two of them.

“Hi sweetheart,” Keeley said, her voice raspy and weak. “Don’t just stand there, come here and give me a hug. And those flowers! Those are daisies aren’t they?” She smiled and reached for the flowers.

Hannah crossed the room and handed them to her.

Keeley put them down beside her on the bed. “Now, my hug.” Keeley put her arms out wide, opening and shutting her hands like a baby.

Hannah leaned in and hugged her, breathing in the lemony musky smell that was Keeley. “Hi Mom.” When she pulled away, she saw Keeley looking at her sadly.

“Am I still going to be your mom?”

Hannah choked out a nervous laugh, “Of course. You’re always going to be my mom.”

“What about Zo?” She searched Hannah’s face.

“She’s my mom, too. My birth mom. I just didn’t know I was adopted.”

“Not officially,” Keeley said, shaking her head. “That would have been a giveaway. It was our secret.”

Hannah sat down on the bed beside Keeley, trying to push down the bubble of anger that rose inside of her. “How could you keep it a secret for all those years? Why didn’t you tell me?” She was glad to hear that her voice sounded reasonable.

Keeley’s lips trembled and she pushed them together tightly. She looked away. Then she said, her voice wobbling a little, “I didn’t want to stop being your Mommy. Once I had it, I couldn’t let it go. It wasn’t Zo. It was me. I wanted all the things that were meant to be. Me and Michael. You were all I had left of him, of what could have been. And I loved you too much, couldn’t stand the idea that you might run to Zo once you knew, leave me all alone.”

Hannah looked at her still-gorgeous mother. But it wasn’t true, Keeley was never alone, never lacking love, was always surrounded by friends and admirers vying for her attention. “No, I can’t believe that. Too much of what you did says the opposite: that you wanted to be rid of me.”

Keeley looked back at her, eyes pleading. “No, I didn’t. I just… I just didn’t know how to be a good mother. I didn’t even know where to start. All I had to work with was other people’s mothers, TV moms, but that only worked with everyday life, when things were good. When things were bad, when things went wrong, I was lost. So I made promises to myself. I promised I’d never hit you. I promised I’d encourage your friendships, never get in the way. I promised you’d always have a home, I’d never never kick you out.”

“But the Barefooter house, when I was twelve?”

“Oh, but you had a home, only a few doors down. Our little itty bitty place.”

“But the Barefooter house was my home.”

Keeley shook her head. “The Barefooter house was your hideout. You could hang out all day with the grownups and never see a kid your age. The island was full of kids and you didn’t have even one summertime friend. Something was wrong with that picture, and I needed to fix it.”

Hannah looked away. It was true. She hadn’t had a friend on the island until that year, after she was turned away and left to her own devices. Then she became friends with Mary Ellen Hobart and they hung out all summer. Now that she thought about it, she could remember how happy her mother had been about Mary Ellen, how she’d taken them to Jones Beach and the movies many times, encouraged Mary Ellen to stay overnight at their tiny house, offering to make s’mores and tell ghost stories. “Your mom’s a spaz,” Mary Ellen had said, rolling her eyes.