Hope Street (31 page)

His son, she remembered. She was doing this for his son.

For her daughter, too. Observing the intensity of Claudia’s expression as she studied the man whose sperm had created her, Joelle had to believe she’d been right to tell her daughter the truth. She couldn’t let herself believe anything else.

After several long minutes, Claudia thumbed back a few pages, into the
D
s, until she found Bobby’s photo. Unlike all the other students on the page, Bobby lacked the traditional tentative yearbook smile, and he stared directly at the camera, not at some goal hovering just above the photographer’s right shoulder. His dark hair was long and wild with waves, his eyes dark and burning, his mouth set firmly. He wore a blazer—a corduroy blazer, Joelle realized as she leaned in to study the photo. His father’s jacket, the one he’d stolen when he and Joelle had fled to New Jersey and gotten married.

Claudia had wedged her finger into the book to hold Drew’s page, and now she turned back to that page. She inspected Drew’s photo, then flipped back to Bobby’s page and grimaced. “Dad was so cool. Why didn’t you go out with him?”

Studying Bobby’s photo, Joelle had to agree that he’d been handsome. But she’d known him so long, she’d hardly even
seen
him by the time they were high-school seniors. When she’d looked at him, she’d seen their shared history. She’d seen his wicked grin, his sense of humor, the smell of his cigarettes, the grief darkening his eyes at moments when he didn’t realize she was watching him. Grief over his mother’s death, she’d assumed, or over his father’s drinking, or over the fact that kids like him were denied the opportunity to escape their fate. No wonder he wasn’t gazing into the future in his yearbook photo. The future he’d imagined for himself back then wasn’t one he’d wanted.

Objectively, though, he’d been gorgeous. His hair, his eyes, the stubborn set of his jaw, the fierce defiance in his gaze…Definitely gorgeous.

“I didn’t date your father because he never asked me out,” she answered.

Claudia eyed her dubiously.

“We were friends, but he dated other girls.”

“Who?” Claudia began thumbing through the pages. “Who did he date?”

Quite a few, Joelle recalled. Bobby had made the rounds of available Tubtown girls throughout their high-school years. He’d always been popular. He’d dated one in particular toward the end; he’d been going with her when he’d asked Joelle to marry him. “Margie something,” she recollected. “I think her last name began with an
N.
Newland, maybe?”

Amid the
N
s, Claudia found Marjorie Noonan’s photo. “Her?” She scowled in disapproval.

Claudia looked at Margie’s photo. Joelle looked, too. She’d forgotten how beautiful Margie was, with her long black hair, her round cheeks and her large, almond-shaped eyes framed in thick eyelashes. Her lips shaped a perfect pout as she focused on the space beyond the photographer. Why hadn’t Bobby stayed with her? She was much prettier than Joelle.

“She was nice,” Joelle told Claudia.

“She’s tarty. He could have gone out with you.”

“He wanted to go out with her,” Joelle said simply. The emotion that welled up inside her wasn’t simple, though. Bobby had gone out with Margie and other girls because he’d wanted to—and he hadn’t wanted to go out with Joelle. Surely if he had, he would have asked her out. Surely if he had, she would have said yes.

But he hadn’t loved her, not that way. She’d been his pal. Not the girl of his heart. Even when he’d married her, she’d been aware of that.

And it hurt. After all these years, it still hurt to admit that Bobby hadn’t loved her the way he’d loved all the girls he’d been involved with in Holmdell. He’d married her out of friendship and charity, nothing more. Crazy though it was, she suffered a pang of jealousy for all those girls he’d dated, all the girls he’d chosen. He’d never really
chosen
her. She’d been his good deed, nothing more.

“So he was dating her, and you were dating…” Claudia returned to Drew’s photo amid the
F
s. “Drew Foster.”

“Drew was very nice,” Joelle defended him. “He was smart and handsome and considerate.”
Until the end,
she added silently.
Until he found out I was pregnant and sent me money.

“He looks rich.”

“He was.”

Claudia raised her eyes to Joelle. “Is that why you dated him?” she asked.

“Of course not,” Joelle said automatically, then pressed her lips together. Hadn’t she told her daughter enough lies for one lifetime? “I didn’t mind the fact that he was rich,” she confessed. “He lived in a neighborhood called the Hill, where all the rich people lived. It’s been so long since you’ve been in Holmdell, maybe you don’t remember. But the part of town where Dad and I grew up, where Grandma Wanda lives and Papa Louie used to live, was where all the poor kids lived. And Drew lived up on the Hill, on the other side of town, in a big house on two acres, with cars and a huge allowance and a membership in the country club. I was dazzled, Claudia. I couldn’t believe a boy like him would be interested in a girl like me.”

“Did you love him?”

Joelle lowered her gaze back to the yearbook page. “At the time, I thought I did,” she conceded. She
had
thought she loved him, and not because he was rich. Because he had confidence. Because he had two parents. Because he knew who he was and where he belonged and what he was entitled to. To a bastard child from Tubtown, his life seemed like a fantasy.

Claudia continued to study Drew’s photo, as if trying to memorize it. “You had sex with him?” she finally asked, her gaze trained on the yearbook.

“Obviously.”

Claudia sighed. “Why didn’t you marry him?”

“He…” It pained Joelle to admit the truth, almost as much as it pained her to acknowledge that Bobby hadn’t loved her like
a girlfriend. “He wasn’t ready for marriage and fatherhood. He was in college. He sent me money to get an abortion.”

Claudia shrank from Drew’s photo. “God.”

“He was frightened,” Joelle said, although she had no good reason to defend him. “He wasn’t ready to be a father.”

“And you were ready to be a mother?”

Joelle laughed sadly. “I was so unready. But I wanted you, Claudia. In spite of how young I was, and how unprepared, I wanted you. And your father—your
real
father—wanted you, too. So we got married.”

“Dad’s name is on my birth certificate,” Claudia said. At Joelle’s nod, she asked, “You lied on the birth certificate? Is that legal?”

“You’re the one married to a lawyer,” Joelle reminded her. “You’d have to ask him. I guess we figured that as long as no one probed, what difference did it make? Your father loves you, Claudia. You are his daughter. The reason I never told you about all this—” she gestured toward Drew’s yearbook photo “—is that I was afraid it might make you feel differently toward him. Maybe you’d stop loving him. That would kill him, Claudia. If he lost you, he would die.” Or at least, he would drink and break things and stop being the man he was.

Claudia digested this, then steered her attention back to the yearbook. Her face registered revulsion as she stared at Drew’s photo. “So this boy wanted you to get rid of me. And now, all these years later, he comes back into your life and says he’s my father?”

“He’s grown up, Claudia. He’s not the kid he once was.” Joelle sighed. “God knows, he could have found me years ago and insisted on being a part of your life.”

“But he wanted me dead,” Claudia argued, still staring at Drew’s photo, as if trying to imagine him capable of wishing
such a terrible thing. “He wanted you to get rid of me. And now he claims he has a right to—to what? My bone marrow?”

“I don’t think he believes he has a right to anything, Claudia. He only has hope.”

“And you kept all this from me because you didn’t want me to stop loving Dad.” She shut the yearbook and shoved it off her lap, onto the coffee table. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I ought to know who my father is?”

“Yes.” Joelle sighed and rubbed her face with her hands. “Claudia, Dad and I were so young then. We were only trying to do what was best. It wasn’t like we sat down and said, ‘Let’s keep this secret from Claudia. She doesn’t need the truth.’ We only wanted you to grow up happy and loved, with two parents who were crazy about you. Who never, ever wanted you dead.”

Claudia’s shoulders trembled, as if she were shaking off a chill. “I feel cheated.”

“I’m sorry.” Those words sounded so feeble falling from Joelle’s mouth. “It’s my fault, Claudia. I made a mistake. I got into trouble. Your father rescued me. I was a fool and he was a saint. If you want to hate someone, hate me. Your father…” Her voice faltered and she cleared her throat. “He’s afraid he’s lost you, Claudia, and he doesn’t deserve that. Please don’t hate him.” Tears beaded along her lashes. She ducked her head so Claudia wouldn’t see.

“I don’t hate him.” She sighed. “I hate this man, this Drew Foster…but he’s my father. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to think, how I’m supposed to feel.”

Once again Joelle ached to touch her daughter, to wrap her arms around her and heal her pain with a kiss, the way she used to use mommy kisses to heal Claudia’s childhood scrapes and mosquito bites. But Claudia was an adult, and what was troubling her now couldn’t be kissed away.

“Maybe you could feel a little forgiveness, honey,” she said. “You’re stuck with a bunch of people who did the best we could a long time ago.”

“A long time ago,” Claudia echoed, raising her eyes to Joelle. “What about now?” She was on the verge of tears, too. Joelle opened her arms, but Claudia leaned away. No, mommy kisses weren’t going to cure anything today.

Suffering the sting of her daughter’s rejection, Joelle stood and started stuffing things back into the carton. Her musical jewelry box. The marble egg. The book containing photos of a long time ago, of the people who’d made devastating mistakes with the best of intentions.

B
OBBY’S HEAD ACHED AND HIS
tongue felt like a strip of sandpaper inside his mouth. He’d been drinking water all day, and he’d managed to consume some saltines and half an apple at noon. But the heat and glare of the sun assaulted his brain. Too bad he couldn’t spend the day in his air-conditioned office, but a blue-stone patio had to be installed around a free-form pool in Arlington, and Bobby was better than any of his employees at cutting the stone slabs to mesh with the pool’s amorphous shape. So he was at the job site, exposed to the elements.

The two crew members working with him were sweating like marathoners, their faces red and shiny. Bobby considered telling them they could take off their shirts, but the customer was home, no doubt spying on them through the windows that overlooked her backyard. Bobby thought having the guys work shirtless might be disrespectful. He had never forgotten the lecture he’d received when he’d removed his shirt while mowing the cemetery lawn in Holmdell.

If he could keep his shirt on, so could his crew. They were
good kids, college boys working for DiFranco from mid-May through the end of August. They could probably hold their liquor better than he could, too.

He lifted a twenty-pound slab of stone from the pile, carried it over to the pool and laid it on the sand-and-pebble bed he’d groomed as the patio’s bottom layer. He appreciated the weight of the slab, the way it tugged at the muscles in his back and arms. Sweat burned his eyes. He told himself that a little exertion, a little suffering, might make him less aware of his headache.

As if his throbbing skull was the only thing bothering him. Hell, his hangover was nothing compared with the
real
demons gnawing at him.

Joelle must despise him. Last night he’d turned into someone he’d sworn to himself he would never become: his father. He’d gotten ripped, he’d smashed a vase, he’d crushed a bunch of flowers. He’d let his rage blind him.

Yet he’d been unable to apologize. Last night he’d felt too ill. He’d fallen asleep sometime before eight, and he’d regained consciousness at six that morning, much too early to wake Joelle. He’d remained in the shower a long time, but she’d still been sleeping when he was washed and dressed, so he’d left for work without talking to her.

He wouldn’t have known what to say, anyway. “I’m sorry I got drunk yesterday, but I’m not sorry I destroyed those damn flowers.”

“I’m sorry I made myself sick, but after all these years, we should have left the past alone. We shouldn’t have torn away all the scar tissue and let the old wounds start bleeding again.”

“I’m sorry, Joelle, but it’s killing me that that guy, the big love of your life, can march into our house and make you see things his way.”

In his jeans pocket his cell phone vibrated. He nestled the stone into place, straightened up and dug out the phone. A glance at the tiny monitor informed him it was Mona, his office manager. He flipped the phone open. “Mona?”

“Hi, Bob. You got a call here at the office.”

He shrugged. Mona’s job was to take messages, not to interrupt him at work—unless the call was an emergency. “From Joelle?” he asked. His anger went forgotten. Was she all right? Had she been in an accident? Had something happened to Claudia or the babies?

Of course, if Joelle faced an emergency, she could have phoned him directly. She knew his cell number. But maybe after last night, she was afraid to call him. Maybe she was annoyed about his sneaking out of the house that morning while she slept, instead of waking her up and having it out with her. Not that he knew what the “it” he was supposed to have out with her was. Apologies? Recriminations? Accusations? Howls of outrage?

“No, it wasn’t from Joelle. That’s the thing.” Mona hesitated. “It was from a woman and she said it was personal. I just—it’s none of my business, but you were in a kind of a mood this morning, and…I thought I should let you know about this call.”

A woman? Personal? He might have hit a pothole with his wife—or maybe plunged into an abyss—but he couldn’t think of another woman who would phone him with something personal.