Holding On (Hooking Up) (7 page)

“Oh.” The regret must have been obvious in my voice, because she sighed and took both of my hands in hers.

“Sweetie, I never forgot your face. Every night before I fell asleep, I said a prayer for you, and asked God to keep you safe for me. Never seeing you again was not an option. It never crossed my mind. I lived for the day I could see you again.”

“So, why didn’t you come for me before?”

“I wasn’t in a good place. After I let you go, I went through a—phase, I guess you could say. I ran around with men, I drank, I rebelled against my parents in any way I could. I turned myself into a black sheep, and I reveled in it. I suppose I was punishing them. There was that, and the fact I knew you’d be upset and confused if I re-entered your life. I didn’t want that for you. And I had promised your parents that I wouldn’t.”

I sighed, thinking back to the day I found out my adoptive parents had died. I had been only ten years old. Gran had called me into the room and said, “Caitlin, your parents’ plane went down. There were no survivors.” Back then, I hadn’t known I was adopted, and the news that my parents were gone destroyed me. I sat at my window the whole day, looking down at the driveway, waiting for them to come home, all the while listening to the sound of Gran’s sobs bouncing off the too-empty halls. Then the neighbors started coming, hugging me and staring at me with damp, sorrowful eyes. It was a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from, and it continued through the funeral and even years after, as I suffered through Gran’s indifference and cold disapproval.

“But why now? Why not then?” I couldn’t help but wonder if Gran had been right after all. Did she have an agenda? Why would she suddenly decide to re-enter my life?

“Catie, I didn’t even know Shelly and Keith died until Isamu found me. We never spoke after the day I gave birth to you. They said they didn’t want me in your life. They said they were your family now. They didn’t need me to complicate things. Had I known you were orphaned, maybe things would have been different, but you were still so young and I had a lot of growing up to do myself.”

“Yes, I was young, but I still needed you.” I knew my voice was harsh, as was the message behind it. But it was so unfair. I had a mother who professed to love me, who claimed to think of me every day, but instead of coming to my rescue, she left me with a cold-hearted harridan who refused to even offer me the slightest bit of affection. Alright, so she hadn’t known I was alone, but it still made me angry.

“I know, but I don’t think I could have been what you needed me to be at the time.” She gazed at me through moist eyes, and the anger grew quicker than I could control it.

“How do you know that? You would have been better than what I had.”

“What do you mean? Isamu said you lived with your grandmother after Shelly and Keith died. I remember talking to them about her and how well-to-do she was. It was one of the reasons I chose them for you. I knew you’d be taken care of. I know she provided you with a lovely home. They showed me a picture once, while I was pregnant.”

“A home?” A harsh laugh escaped my lips. “No, she provided a roof over my head and food on the table. And she provided me with constant criticism and ridicule for every single one of my choices. And she withheld love and affection because she resented me. But you couldn’t be what I needed you to be? Anything would have been better than that.  A house isn’t a home without love.”

“Oh, honey. I had no idea. I’m so sorry.” Her expression turned horrified and tears spilled from her troubled violet eyes. I instantly felt bad for unloading on her. I guessed I still had some healing to do after the trauma I’d survived. Had I just blown it with her, or was she willing to work past the grief and build a relationship with her wounded daughter?

“No, I’m sorry. You just got here, and I’m unloading on you. I’m pretty good at that, you know. Just ask Ryan.”

She smiled at that, the shocked expression melting off her face. It seemed I was forgiven yet again for my outburst. “He seems wonderful, by the way. You never did tell me how you two met.”

I smiled at her. “He was a one-night stand.”

“Like mother, like daughter?” she asked, laughing.

“I guess you could say that,” I returned, realizing when Maria said those things, it didn’t feel the same as when Gran said it. When Maria said it, it was actually even a little funny.

We talked long into the night and eventually fell asleep on the couch together. So this was what unconditional familial love felt like. I don’t remember ever feeling so secure, and as I drifted to sleep, I wished such a feeling would last forever.

Chapter 7

Maria’s move into her apartment, only about fifteen minutes away from our place, went smoothly. Ryan was wonderful, enlisting the help of a few of his police buddies to help us.

“Put that lamp over there, Danny. Thanks,” Maria said as he walked past her, shouldering a heavy floor lamp with marble detailing. She gave him a smile and a pat on the arm as he put the lamp down on the right side of the tufted sofa he and Ryan had hauled in moments before.

“You’re welcome, ma’am,” Danny returned gravely, a captivated look on his face I found hysterical. She was a looker, alright, even with the streak of gray in her hair, and it appeared she’d already turned the heads of a few of Ryan’s coworkers.

“Now, Ms. DiCarlo, where do you want this chair?” Waterman asked from behind the large slipper chair he and Jones were carrying inside.

“Right over there is fine. By the fireplace. Yes, that’s it. Thank you so much. I just love to watch men at work,” she all but purred, her voice bursting with southern charm. As she turned around to move a box across the room, the men stared at her appreciatively and blushed when she caught them looking. I laughed. Maria had put a spell on them already, just like she had with Benjie.

We walked back down to the moving truck and as we climbed up and stacked boxes on the edge of the trailer for the men to carry in, I looked around and smirked. It appeared men both young and old were susceptible to a beautiful woman and her many charms. I counted three salt-and-pepper or balding heads peeking out from behind their apartment curtains, watching Maria’s every move with rabid lust on their faces. Ryan approached the truck and I subtly gestured at the other apartments. “Look.”

He looked and chuckled. “Well, at least we know people will keep an eye on her.”

“Yeah. You think you can get some of your friends on the force to drive by every once in a while? I don’t like the leer on Baldie over there.”

Soon the truck was empty and all the pizza we ordered for the movers was gone. The men filed out of Maria’s apartment single-file, each receiving a kiss on the cheek and a hug from my birth mother. I had a feeling they’d be only too eager to come up and help her again, and I marveled at her ability to draw people in the way she did. She was truly a vivacious woman who lit up a room when she entered it. I thought it was cute to see those big, burly men tripping over each other to do her bidding.

Maria had packed a ton of stuff for her trip up north, and we spent the entire evening going through boxes, putting things away and generally making the old brownstone with its airy rooms and high ceilings feel like a cozy home. That is, until I found the photo albums.

“Mom, look what I found!” I exclaimed, dropping down on her comfortable apple-green and dusky-rose plaid tufted sofa and opening the first album. There she was as a little girl, and I was amazed to see how much she looked like I did when I was little.

She looked at me with a queer look on her face, almost like she was in pain. Alarmed, I said, “What’s wrong?”

“You called me Mom. I’ve been wondering if you would. And hoping you could.”

“It just came out,” I told her. “But you are my mom. It just felt, I don’t know, right. Natural, you know?” And it did. At that moment, I fully embraced Maria as my mother, and once I did, I felt such a sense of peace and love. I felt healed, whole.

“I’m so glad.” Her eyes filled and she sat down next to me on the couch and enfolded me in a hug. “Thank you, my darling daughter.”

“You’re welcome, my wonderful mother.” I smiled into her violet eyes.

“You’re going to make me start bawling. I can’t take all this happiness! Here, let’s look at these albums before I get salt all over them. I was hoping you’d unearth these. I’ve been dying to show you.”

We sat close together and flipped the pages slowly. She gave me a story with each photo.  “Look, I think I was about two or three in that picture. That was Easter. I can tell by my dress. My parents were very religious, I think I already told you, and they always bought me beautiful dresses to wear to church every Easter.”

“What were they like, my grandparents?” I was curious, and slightly nervous to ask the question. After all, they were the reason Mom gave me away. I looked down at the photos, studying them, while Mom considered her answer. My grandmother, Edith, was tall, willowy, and had dark brown hair in the picture. It was obvious it ran in my family. There was a firm set to her jaw that looked as though she’d brook no arguments. She wasn’t smiling in the picture, and there was a powerful aura surrounding her. She looked a bit intimidating to me and I wondered if it was a good thing I didn’t end up living with them.

My grandfather, Carmen, was balding, bespectacled, and beefy. He wasn’t fat, but he had the look of a prize fighter, and I wondered if it was where I got my predilection for karate. I could almost hear his voice, which I was sure was gruff, gravelly and stern. His eyes, even smiling in this photo, were strong and full of hard-working conviction. He looked like those old pictures you’d see of Italian immigrants at Ellis Island, fresh off the boat. He looked like a man who’d worked his way up from nothing and was fiercely proud of how far he’d come.

If my guesses were right, I shared some of their characteristics. I wondered if they had ever thought about me, and if they regretted forcing my mother to give me up.  Would they have accepted me eventually? Would they have possibly even loved me? I was part of them, after all. They were my family. But it was weird to think of the people who forced my mother to give me away as my grandparents. I didn’t have much luck with grandmothers, it seemed.

“They were very proper, very religious. They loved me, of course they did, but they were very strict, very devout. Grace at the table before every meal. Church two days per week, confessions weekly, as if they ever did anything worth confessing. The one sin they committed, where they made me give you up, was considered the right thing to do. It’s why I have a hard time with religion. Too many ambiguities. How Christian is it to separate a woman from a child she gave birth to, the child she loves? It’s criminal, if you ask me.”

“Did you ever forgive them?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if I would have been able to, had the situation been reversed. I was having a hard enough time forgiving Gran for her many transgressions. I wasn’t sure I liked what that said about me, but I was human, after all, and if I’d learned anything since all this started, it was that no one was perfect. I’d also learned that unconditional love meant accepting someone’s flaws and loving them in spite of them.

“Eventually I did, after a lot of years and a whole lot of therapy. In their own misguided way, they only wanted what was best for me. They loved me, and I loved them. I know now why they did what they did and I forgive them for it, but it doesn’t mean it was right. Letting them bully me into giving you up was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.”

“It doesn’t matter now. We’re together, and nothing will keep us apart ever again.”

A wistful look crossed her face, but it disappeared seconds later, replaced by a smile. “Here, look at this picture. Don’t you look just like I did?”

I examined the picture and nodded. We did look startlingly alike. There would be no clue to help me find my father in my appearance. I was all Mom.

I glanced at the clock and was surprised to see it was after eight. The time had flown. I loved every minute of my time with my mother, but it was time to go home to my men.

“Will you be ok for the night? I have to go. Benjie likes it when I tuck him in.”

“I’ll be fine. Go home. I’ll see you later. Tell Ryan I said thanks again, alright?” she asked, giving me a gentle pat on the back and a kiss on the cheek.

I let myself out and headed home to my family. They were waiting for me when I let myself in.

“Catie, you’re home!” Benjie shouted, obviously still wound up from the day. He was toting the raggedy stuffed dog Mom had given him while we were unpacking. When she told him she’d had it since she was a little girl, he appeared completely awed and had carted it around the rest of the day, calling it ‘Grammy’s Doggie’ and kissing its worn felt nose. “Daddy says I have to go to bed. Can I have a story first?”

“Sure, come on.” I led him into his room and tucked him and Grammy’s Doggie into bed, inhaling the sweet little boy scent of him, all sun-kissed skin and play and peanut butter. He was delicious, and I nibbled on his neck, making him squeal.

“That tickles, Catie!” He giggled happily. I laughed with him and cuddled him close. I rearranged his blankets and tucked him in tight, just the way he liked.

“What story do you want me to read to you?” I asked him.

“No, no reading. Tell me and Doggie a story,” he insisted, his bright brown eyes eager and full of life.

“What kind of story?”

“One about dragons and princes and stuff.”

“Ok. Once upon a time, there was a little prince named Prince Benjie—“

“Hey, that’s me!” he chirped.

“Is it? Cool! I didn’t know you were a prince. Can I tell the story now, Prince Benjie?”

“I command you to tell me the story,” he said grandly, gesturing widely with his chubby little hand, clunking me in the chin with it.

“Ok. So, Prince Benjie ruled in a far away kingdom called Pittston, and he was regarded as the greatest ruler in the land.”

“Why?” the little mop-top prince asked me.

“Well, he was kind and courageous.”