Authors: Holly Chamberlin

One Week In December (8 page)

BOOK: One Week In December

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“I think she's crazy. She should be on medication.” Olivia snapped shut her vanity caseâwhich contained little other than a jar of Pond's cold cream, moisturizer, and lip balmâwith more force than was strictly necessary.

James sighed. Olivia was in one of her less charitable moods. Again. “I think,” he said, “that she's very lonely.”

“She should see a psychiatrist. She's unstable. I always knew it.”

“Let's try to be fair about this. Let's try not to judge.”

“Are you taking her side?” Olivia stood with her fists on her hips, a caricature of the stern wife.

“Of course not. No. I justâ” James reached for a bottle of aspirin. He felt a headache coming on. Lately, he had been getting headaches almost every day. His doctor had told him to address the stress factors in his life. But James didn't quite know how to go about addressing the stress caused by his marriage.

“She's always wanted to be the focus of everybody's attention. When she was a kid, she was always performing, she was always the dramatic one. And then getting pregnant at sixteen by some, some bum. If that isn't the ultimate âlook at me!' I don't know what is.”

“I'm sure she didn't get pregnant on purpose,” James said carefully, thinking that the ultimate “look at me!” would have been a bid for suicide.

“Of course she says it wasn't on purpose, but I never really believed her. Besides, you weren't there. How would you know what she was like?”

James didn't answer. There wasn't much he said these days that Olivia actually seemed to hear.

Still, he was an optimistic man at heart. After a few minutes, during which Olivia had seemed to calm down, he said, “I couldn't help but think that all the talk tonight about motherhood and parental rights and all . . . Well, I hope it didn't upset you too much.”

Olivia turned from the dresser, holding a cotton nightgown, and looked at him blankly. “Of course it didn't upset me. Why should it?”

“Wellâ” he began, but she cut him off.

“Oh, I forget to mention earlier that before we left the office, I got a call from that pain in the ass Toby Stapleton. I swear he's the most annoying client we've ever had. Can't you do something about him, James? I've really had enough of the man.”

“I'll call him the first thing we're home.”

James had wanted to put aside work concerns at least for a few days. He badly felt the need for some peace of mind and had hopedâmaybe vainlyâthat a few days away from the business might, just might, be good for him. For Olivia. For their marriage. He was beginning to feel at his wit's end.

“I thought,” he said, trying to ignore a flash of pain between his eyes, “that tomorrow afternoon we could go to the annual Quilt Show at the Baptist church. I saw the brochure in the kitchen.”

Olivia looked at him without expression. And then she said, “No, I don't think so.”

“I thought you liked the show. We had a good time there last year.”

“I did like it. But I don't want to go this year. You know, you can go on your own.”

There was no nastiness in Olivia's tone. There was no emotion or affect at all. She was simply making a suggestion. Yes, James could go to the Quilt Show on his own. Being on his own was becoming more and more familiar to him. In fact, he was becoming an expert on being on his own. He was becoming an expert at being alone.

When the lights were out and both had settled in bed, James leaned over to kiss his wife's cheek, something he did every night and every morning upon waking.

“I love you, Liv,” he whispered.

“I've got so much to do tomorrow. Do you know there's an entire wardrobe in the attic I haven't inventoried yet?”

It was too dark for James to see that Olivia was looking intently at the ceiling, as if seeing through it and into the attic, the repository of her dreams.

Down the hall in the Lupine Room, David and Naomi were preparing for bed.

David tossed his flannel shirt onto the floor by the painted wood dresser. The women in his life had always picked up after him. “Mom told me that Becca's been avoiding the rest of the family for a year now. I should have known something was up.”

“But you didn't, and neither did I, I'm afraid.” Naomi retrieved the shirt and hung it in the room's tiny closet. “I mean, she has seemed pretty tightly wound lately, but I just assumed work was weighing on her. And I thought that she hadn't seen the others because her schedule was so crazy. You know how dedicated she is to her job.”

David hadn't really heard his wife. He was thinking back to when Becca was a little girl. He saw her at the age of about eight, showing up at school wearing full makeup and a pair of their mother's clip-on earrings. How she'd made it out of the house in that condition David never knew. And instead of sending her to the principal's office, Becca's teacher had just laughed. He remembered the time when she'd climbed up onto the roof of the garage on a dare, and then how she'd made it down unharmed, and was puzzled by her parents' anger and concern. She'd always been lucky. Until she had made that one big mistake.

“She was a wild kid,” he said. “I shouldn't be surprised she's pulling this stunt.”

“What she was like as a child has nothing to do with who she is now and you know that,” Naomi argued reasonably. “Ever since she graduated from high school, she's done nothing wrong or wild. In fact, it seems to me her life has been pretty dull. She's done everything the right way, exactly by the book. Which is why this decision of hers puzzles me so much. It's so out of character.”

“Well, whatever's behind this, we can't let her tell Rain the truth. Not now, not yet. Anyway, it's not her decision to make. This is a family affair.”

Naomi sighed. “I wonder if anyone can actually prevent Becca from doing what she wants to do. She's not planning on committing a crime, after all. We can't punish her for wanting to tell the truth.”

“We can threaten to cut her off from us all if she says a word to Rain without everyone's approval.”

“Oh, David, what good would that do once she's told Rain that she's her birth mother? Becca won't care if she's lost the rest of us because she'll have her daughter back. . . .”

“If,” David said, sounding downright glum, “if Rain will speak to herâor to any of us ever again. You know, there have been cases where kids divorce their parents.”

Naomi slipped her nightgown over her head and sighed. “David,” she said. “Don't be so dramatic.”

“It's hard not to be dramatic. It's hard not to scream and yell andâand DO something.”

“Yes,” she said. “I know. I feel terribly frustrated, too. But we might just have to accept this, David. Not everything in life is within our control.”

“Now you're being fatalistic. You can't be so negative about this, Naomi. There's a solution to every problem,” he said forcefully. “A good solution.”

Naomi shook her head. “No, David, not always. Sometimes there's only another problem in place of the first one. A bigger, nastier problem.”

“I don't believe that. I'm a scientist, Naomi. The things that we don't have answers to or explanations for aren't unanswerable or inexplicable. We just haven't found the solutions to the problems yet. But they can and will be found.”

“Science has nothing to do with human emotion, David,” Naomi said. “You know that. You can't will everything in this world to go your way. I know that might be hard for you to understand, to accept. You're a powerful person. You're persuasive. It's one of the qualities about you I most admire. But the problem is that you don't know when will is not the right tool. Not the right weapon. Now is one of those times. Now we needâfinesse. We need to act with calm and sympathy.”

“Women's tools. I'm not sure I can, Naomi.”

Naomi frowned. “Women's tools? Please, David. Don't be archaic. Anyway, you have no choice. Don't antagonize your sister. It won't help our cause.”

“The whole thing is so damn complicated!” David balled his socks together and threw them into a corner. He wished he had something heavier to throw; he wanted to hear a satisfying thud or smash, but flinging one of his mother's bedside lamps into the corner was probably not a good idea.

“We knew that going in,” Naomi agreed. “But now . . . that knowledge doesn't make things any easier, does it? David, I'm scared.”

David was, too, but it wasn't in him to admit it. Not yet. “I just wish I knew what brought this on. What possible motive can she have? And why now?”

“I have no idea. I wonder what's going on in her personal life.”

David laughed. “Like I would know? She doesn't talk to me any more than she talks to you, to any one of us. Not about anything personal anyway.”

“I suspect she doesn't have much of a personal life. Maybe that's why she's suddenly so keen onâreclaimingâher daughter. Maybe she's lonely. I just don't know.”

Naomi finished her bedtime routine by rubbing a thick lotion into her hands. It was awful how dry her skin could get in the cold weather. She was glad she'd never been vain about her hands. To her, they were tools rather than ornaments. But from somewhere, Rain had gotten the taste for wearing her nails long and carefully polished. Naomi cringed. That's how Aunt Becca wore her nails.

“Well, in that case,” David was saying, “someone had better find her a boyfriend and fast. That or a dog.”

The couple got into bed, David on the left, Naomi on the right, as always. Daily routine was good. It was something you could count on in an unpredictable world where financial markets could crash seemingly without warningâand where out of the blue a family member could threaten to disturb the long-established peace.

“Speaking of dogs,” Naomi said, “the boys have been asking me about when we're getting one.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh. We did promise them we'd visit the pound come spring.”

“Okay, okay. In the spring. Let's get through this crisis before we take on puppy training.”

David turned off the lamp on the bedside table. The room was very dark. The bed was comfortable. The night was quiet. But neither Rowan slept for some time.

The light in the Peony Room was low. Julie had chosen the small, old-fashioned bedside lamps with care. Their rose-colored shades gave a sense of calm and security to the room.

Too bad Steve couldn't feel either calm or secure. Though he had spent over forty years as a high-powered, sharklike attorney, he was a sentimental man at heart. In spite of the fact that he'd suspected that something was troubling his daughter, he hadn't been properly prepared for her announcement and felt terribly stricken. He felt physically ill.

As was her habit, Julie tried to reassure and to comfort him, but this time it was to no real avail.

“Things will appear brighter in the morning, honey,” she said, stroking his cheek with her work-worn hand. “I promise you. They always do.”

Steve squeezed his wife's other hand and said good night. Within minutes he heard the slow and deep breathing that told him she was asleep.

He envied Julie's ability to compartmentalize, to put aside a problem until morning, to be generally imperturbable. He envied her because he was so different. Steve was a brooder, and though he knew the futility of worry, he was a worrier. It wasn't the first night he'd lain awake for hours, futilely reviewing the past.

First, there had been the stunning news of Becca's pregnancy, and her refusal to have an abortion. She'd known she couldn't raise the child on her ownâthe idea was incomprehensible, terrifyingâbut she simply couldn't bear the idea of aborting the pregnancy. Of course, the family had respected her decision. Then, there had been the family meetings to discuss David and Naomi's offer to raise the child as their own. Nora had been the strongest supporter of the plan. Then, there had been the phone calls. The delicate way Steve had tried to put the family's requests. The promises he'd made of future support and the assurances of the most sincere thanks. The lectures he'd listened to patiently from those reluctant to get involved in a scheme not entirely legal. Finally, there had been the financial arrangements. And it had all gone off without a hitch. It was a miracle, really. It was an incredible stroke of luck. It was an example of almost unbelievable good fortune.

But now the universe was seeking its payment. The universe in the form of the person he had most wanted to protect. Becca had become her own avenging angel.

Steve had truly thought he was acting on his daughter's behalf, arranging the adoption that was not a legal adoption but, in reality, a subterfuge. He'd thought he was acting unselfishly. But not for the first time he wondered if all along, there had been an element of self-preservation in his actions. Had he wanted to avoid the embarrassment of having a pregnant teenaged daughter in his home? Had he worried about his professional reputation, what his colleagues might think of him, what the other fathers he knew might say behind his back? Had he been ashamed of Becca? And had what he'd convinced himself to be a kind and humane act really only been the whitewashing of an unpleasant truth?

Steve sighed. Sometimes, he thought, even a well-meaning father just didn't know what was best for his family.

It wasn't until Henry Le Mew leapt up on the bed and curled at his feet that Steve finally slept.

BOOK: One Week In December

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