Rose Harbor in Bloom (22 page)

I met Peggy and Corrie on the sidewalk leading up to the inn.

“Hello,” I said, more than pleased to have company. I could use a few distractions, especially this day. “What are you two up to?”

“We’re heading out for lunch and thought we’d stop by to see if we can do anything to help you get ready for the open house,” Peggy offered.

“Now, that’s a friend.”

“A good friend,” Corrie teased.

“You’re right. It isn’t just anyone we’d offer to help clean,” Peggy added. She looked around and frowned when she viewed the half-completed rose garden. “I thought you said Mark would have this finished by now.”

“That’s what he said.” No one was more disappointed than I. “But it didn’t happen, and now he’s got a broken leg.”

“How long will he be laid up?”

“Can’t say.” Mark wasn’t exactly a font of information, especially about anything personal.

“I hope you aren’t upset with me for recommending him,” Peggy said.

“Not at all,” I assured her. “He does a great job, and his prices are more than reasonable.” For the most part, Mark was a blessing. He was a grumpy one, but still a big help to me in a number of areas. “He’s completed quite a few projects for me now, and I’ve always been happy with his work.”

“Glad to hear it.” Peggy did sound relieved. “Like I said, he’s a bit of an odd duck.”

When I’d first met Mark, I’d thought the same thing, but gradually as I’d come to know him better, I realized he was a private person.

“Do you know his story?” I asked, looking from one woman to the other.

“No,” Peggy said, and just as eagerly asked, “Do you?”

I shook my head. Mark was as much an enigma now as when we’d first met. Perhaps even more so. The more I learned about him, the more I realized I barely knew him at all. We’d played Scrabble and he was good, and he’d recommended a few books that I’d enjoyed.

“All I know is that he does good work.”

I had to agree.

“Do you want to come inside for coffee?” I asked. It seemed a little ridiculous for us to be standing in the middle of the sidewalk when we could be inside.

“Thanks, but not today. We were headed out to lunch when we saw your sign and I remembered the open house. I’m happy to help any way I can,” Peggy said. “Honestly. Seeing that I was the one who suggested this, it’s the least I can do. If you want, I can bring a few appetizers.”

Again, I thanked her, but I had already decided on cookies, and had finished the last of my baking. I wanted to keep it simple and have my guests concentrate on the inn rather than the food.

The two left within a few minutes. My mood had lifted. I had loved my husband, and I would miss him.

Slowly but surely I was learning to build a new life for myself.

A life without Paul.

Mary knew that the news that she’d given their daughter up for adoption had badly shaken George. He appeared stunned, shocked. He continued to stare at her as if he didn’t know what to say or how to react.

Leaning forward, he braced his elbows on his knees and hid his face in his hands as if he was still unable to absorb what she’d told him. He looked like a man burdened with more troubles than one person could possibly bear.

If only he would say something. Mary could deal with anything but this silence. He wouldn’t look at her. She’d rather he shouted, ranted and raved, or even tossed her out of his home. What she couldn’t take was witnessing this pain, this grief, this horrific sense of loss.

Gradually, he looked up. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it again.

“I didn’t expect to have any feelings for her,” Mary whispered. “I tried to think of her as a mass of cells, and then she started to move. I felt her stretch and grow inside of me. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t ignore what was happening to my body, to my heart.”

George straightened slightly and leaned toward her as though to hear more.

“I remember the first time I felt this living being, who was our daughter,” Mary continued, seeing how eager George was for more details. “The doctor told me that I should expect to feel life at any time. The sensation was so slight, so fragile, I thought at first that I must have imagined it.”

He continued to stare at her, again as if he was at a complete loss as to what to say.

Mary moistened her lips and went on. “Over the next several weeks I grew accustomed to her being part of me. I found my hand pressing against my stomach as if to shield her. In some odd way, I think I was reaching out to her … to you.”

She thought she detected a hint of a smile in him.

“After those first few times when I felt her kick, she moved more often, and I knew right away it had to be the baby. I came to expect it, wait for it. No one even guessed I was pregnant, although several people commented that I … had a certain glow about me, as if I’d fallen in love. My colleagues were convinced I had met someone.”

“Had you?”

“Yes,” Mary admitted.

His face tightened.

“That someone was our baby,” she told him.

George wasn’t amused by her little joke, and his look told her so. “You said you grew to care for her?”

Her hands, which had been fidgeting, went still. “How could I not, but it didn’t change what I knew about myself. I simply wouldn’t make a good mother and I knew it. Still she was part of you and me, the very best part. It was because I loved her that I decided to give her a family, a real family.”

It took him a few moments to digest her words. “When did you learn it was a girl?”

“I saw her for the first time after the doctor ordered an ultrasound. Because I was a bit older, the obstetrician wanted to be sure the baby was developing as she should. He told me there were no guarantees, but it looked like a girl to him.”

George nodded. “Tell me more.”

Mary wasn’t sure what she should say. “I used to sing to her at night before we went to sleep … well,” she said and smiled softly, “before I went to sleep. I thought she would turn out to be a soccer player. My goodness, that girl could kick.”

He smiled. “I wish …” He didn’t complete his thought. He didn’t need to; Mary understood.

“I know. I wish you could have felt her move, too.” So often Mary had wondered if she’d done the right thing by leaving George and not telling him of her decision. A hundred times over the course of the pregnancy, Mary had wanted to contact him, especially toward the end of her third trimester, when she’d been so bloated and so terribly uncomfortable. She’d successfully hidden the fact that she was pregnant from her staff. Some might have guessed, but it was never discussed. The last ten weeks she’d taken a leave of absence, letting the company assume she’d gone home to take care of an ailing parent. Those last few weeks of the pregnancy had been dreadful. Her hands and feet had swollen until they felt like overstuffed sausages.

“You were alone when you had her?”

Mary nodded. Because of her age and fear of other complications,
her OB had suggested a cesarean. It was only as a precaution. After weighing her options, Mary had opted for a vaginal birth. This would be her only pregnancy and birth, and she wanted the full experience. And she got it. In spades.

“I would have given anything to have been at your side,” he said.

“No, George, be glad you weren’t there. I was a horrible patient.”

“It was bad?”

Mary shrugged. “For obvious reasons, I didn’t take those natural birthing classes. So I watched a couple of movies and read a few books and assumed I was prepared.”

“You weren’t?”

Mary responded with a short laugh. “Nothing can prepare a woman for what labor is like. After four hours I was thinking this was taking much longer than it should, and I demanded the doctor do something to speed up the process. The labor room nurse went out of her way to assure me it would be hours yet, and I was having none of it.”

“How long did the labor last?”

Mary smiled at the memory. Knowing how sensitive George was, she felt it was best not to fill in the gory details. By the time she’d been ready to deliver, she’d used language that would shock a sailor. This birthing business wasn’t for sissies. Despite the pain and repeated reassurances, she’d held fast, insisting she wanted a natural birth for fear of what drugs would do to the baby. She’d managed it, too. In retrospect, the entire experience had been nothing short of incredible.

“Labor takes as long as it takes,” Mary said, answering his question, “but our daughter seemed bound and determined to stay right where she was. Apparently, it was comfortable and warm and she could suck her thumb.”

“She sucked her thumb?”

“Constantly.”

“In utero?”

“Oh, yes,” Mary said, and then explained, “I felt this rhythmic kicking from her, which kept me up most nights in the last trimester. Then after she was born I watched as she sucked her thumb and I realized that was what was happening when I was trying my best to find a comfortable position in which to sleep.”

George now had a full-blown smile. “I sucked my thumb until I was five,” he admitted. “I had my favorite blanket that I dragged along with me everywhere I went. It drove my father nuts. Mom was smart, though. She washed it every week and cut a small strip away until the blanket was a little more than a ten-inch square.”

“Didn’t you suspect what she was doing?”

“I had my suspicions. Mom insisted it shrank, and after a few months she told me the washing machine had eaten it.”

“Clever woman.”

“I hated that washing machine,” George said, chuckling. “For years every time I went near it, I’d kick it, until I realized I hurt my foot far more than I did that machine.”

How dear he was, Mary thought, as she smiled over at him. Her heart ached with love for him and for the daughter they would never know.

His smile faded. “What did she look like?”

Mary nodded. “Newborns are notoriously ugly. No one will say it, of course, but the birthing process isn’t much easier on the baby than it is on the mother.”

“Our daughter was ugly?”

“No, that’s just it. Despite everything, she was a beauty, George, simply beautiful. I stood outside the nursery window and stared at her for hours.”

“Were you”—he hesitated as if unsure how to say what he meant—“sore?”

“No. In fact, I felt amazing. I wanted to pound my chest like
Tarzan and yell at the world, ‘Look what I’ve done.’ I don’t believe I’ve ever felt more empowered than after giving birth.”

George chuckled a second time and then grew sober. “Did you … hold her, or were you required to give her up right away?”

If only he knew. “I held her every chance I got. It was important that I knew in my heart that I was making the right decision. I was bringing a life into this world. A precious life that was part you and part me. It was up to me to give her the very best future that I could, and I had to accept that that future wasn’t with me.”

Scooting closer, George reached for her hand.

“This pregnancy, this infant, was bigger than just you and me,” Mary said, locking her eyes with his.

“Do you know who adopted her?”

“Yes. I personally chose the family.”

His eyes widened. “You chose them?”

It’d taken her weeks of reading applications and going over family studies before Mary felt ready to make her final decision. “I went through a private adoption agency. One I had researched extensively and had a flawless reputation.”

“Did you meet the … parents?”

“No … not face-to-face. The option was mine, but I chose not to have an open adoption. In retrospect, I feel I made the right decision.”

“How so?”

Mary broke eye contact and looked down. “If I’d had contact,” she said, swallowing against the thickness in her throat, “I think I might have been tempted to change my mind and try to nullify the adoption.”

“You missed her.”

“I didn’t sleep through the night for weeks, agonizing over my decision. Then everything changed.”

“What happened?”

Mary found it more difficult to tell him than she’d ever thought it would be. So much of what she told George had been buried deep in her psyche. As she relayed the details of the pregnancy, birth, and adoption, more memories floated to the surface, like flecks of snow blowing off a fast-moving car.

This was what had been happening ever since she’d been diagnosed with cancer. It seemed as if someone had hit a speed button and she was hurled into a time machine, with her life whirling forward at an impossible speed.

After handing their daughter to the agency representative who would take the baby to her new family, Mary had suffered with doubts and indecision. For a while she considered seeing a counselor. As a private person, she’d never been comfortable sharing herself with strangers, especially something this personal. In addition, she feared this information would get back to the investment firm where she was employed. Seeing a mental health specialist might give the appearance of weakness, and she dare not risk that.

“Giving our baby up for adoption was harder than you expected, wasn’t it?”

She nodded rather than spoke, afraid her voice would give away exactly how difficult that decision had been. After taking a few seconds to regain her self-control, she said, “Everything changed after the agency forwarded a letter to me from the adoptive mother. The family named her Amanda.”

Mary had thought to avoid the details, but the more they talked, the more comfortable she became discussing this painful subject. Besides that, George had a right to know.

“Amanda,” George repeated slowly, thoughtfully. “I like the name.”

“If … If I’d raised her, I would have named her Elizabeth.”

“Elizabeth. After your mother?”

Mary grinned. “She died long before Amanda was born … I
loved my mother; I’m grateful she never knew about my decision; she would have been disappointed in me.”

“Don’t be so sure; you gave our daughter life,” George reassured her.

Mary squeezed his hand, appreciating his words of comfort. “If I needed confirmation that I’d done the right thing, I got it. The adoptive family named her Amanda Elizabeth.”