Wonderful You (28 page)

Zoey sat up and straightened her back. “Whoa, Laura. Where is this coming from?”

“I just don’t want any of you to think that I’m motivated by the thought of material gain.”

“First of all, I know that you hadn’t set out to find her, that she came looking for you—Delia told me that. And I’m happy for both of your sakes that she found you. I am equally delighted to hear that you had wonderful parents and that you had a happy life.” Zoey felt she had to add, “On the other hand, I am just beginning to
understand how much pain my mother has suffered all these years. I can’t imagine how terrible that must have been for her. You have to understand, Laura, she was
the best
mother, she has the most loving heart of anyone I ever knew. For her to have let you go must have been agonizing for her. I can hardly believe that she had the patience to wait this long to find you. Finding you is going to mean changes in all our lives. We’re all going to have to take some time to get to know each other.”

“I was so afraid that none of you would want to do that. Get to know me, I mean.” Laura said softly.

Zoey touched Laura’s arm. “You’re as much Delia’s child as the rest of us are, Laura. Right now, she needs you maybe more than she needs us. She’s been without you for too long. Let her some spend time with you and with Ally.”

“I’ve told Delia that she’s welcome to stay as long as she wants to, but I was just afraid that you’d think I was trying to take her from you”—Laura swallowed hard— “tha
t I was trying to use her…
”

“Laura, what are you talking about?”

“Well, I guess you’ll hear about it soon enough, you might as well hear it from me.” Laura turned to her and blurted, “Three years ago, right after my husband and I separated, we had to place my mother in a total care facility. I had to take a small mortgage out on the inn.”

“So?”

“So, two weeks ago, before I knew what was happening, Delia paid it off.”

“And you think we’re going to hold that against you?” Zoey asked wide-eyed, and when Laura nodded slowly, Zoey almost doubled over with laughter. “And you think that
we’ll
think that you’re just after Delia’s money?”

“Zoey, I swear, I didn’t
want
anything from her. I didn’t
ask
for anything from her. I never asked for a loan, I still don’t understand why she did
it
…
”
Laura, clearly confused by Zoey’s laughter, was close to tears.

“She did it because she’s Delia.” Zoey proceeded to
explain about Delia’s o
verly generous nature when it
came to her children, about Nick’s cabin and Georgia’s condo. “I’m the only
one who was able to outfox her
where the house was concerned, but I had other reasons of my own, and besides, I’ve had more than my share of her generosity over the years. Her paying off your loan was just her way of—of being motherly, so to speak. It’s just Delia’s way, Laura. I think she can’t help herself sometimes, she’s a compulsive giver.”

“And here I was thinking you would all think that I was somehow trying to make her
buy
me
…
”
Laura struggled to explain.

“Not at all. As a ma
tter of fact, I think I’m just
beginning to understand why she is the way she is. Mother always seems to feel that she has to take care of everyone, to do for ever
yone. I’m wondering if perhaps
that might have stemmed somehow from her having lost you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mom always says that she does what she does for us
so that we’ll always know that she was there for us.”

“Because she wasn’t there for me?” Laura ventured.

“Possibly.”

“But I didn’t suffer, Zoey. My parents were there for me. Always. My mother, in particular.”

“What does she think about Delia popping back into your life?”

“If she could understan
d, I would hope that she would
be pleased about it. And k
nowing my mother, I think she
would want to thank her.” Tears beaded in the co
rn
ers of Laura’s eyes. “We have always been very close, my mother and I.”

“You sai
d, ‘if she could understand’…
?”

“My mother has Alzheimer’s. She really is no longer herself. I think she would have liked Delia. And I think if Delia had met my mother years ago, she would have liked her, too.”

“Where is she, Laura?”

“She’s in a home about eight miles from here. I see her
every week, but I know it’s not really her. It’s a terrible disease, Zoey. It takes everything that makes you what you are, and turns you into someone that you yourself would not recognize. If you coul
d remember who you had been…
”

“Laura, I am so sorry.”

“So I guess you see the irony, Zoey. I lose one mother, I find another. I take out a mortgage on the inn to pay for my mother’s care, D
elia pays off the mortgage…
” Laura broke into sobs.

“Oh, Laura
…
” Zoey scootched closer and put her arm around Laura’s shoulders. “Laura, I am so sorry.”

“I feel so mixed up about the whole thing.”

“That’s perfectly understandable. Look, there’s a lot going on in your life right now. Laura, if you need a friend to talk to
…
well, I can be your friend while I’m learning to be your sister.”

“Thank you. You really are everything Delia said you were.” Laura searched through her pockets until she found a wadded-up tissue in the back of her jeans. “She’s so proud of you, all of you.”

“I’ll bet she’s proud of you too, Laura.” Zoey swayed her upper body, rocking Laura just slightly in the process. “And she must be totally beside herself to have a granddaughter.”

“I think she really is, Zoey.” Laura blew her nose in the tissue. “She just dotes on Ally, and Ally is just fascinated by her.”

“That’s because Delia
swoops,
”
Zoey realized that her own eyes had filled up without her knowing it, and she wiped them on the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

Laura laughed. “What?”

“My brother’s soon-to-be daughter, Corri, who is seven now, said that Delia
swoops,
like the character in a book she had read. Maybe Ally sees Delia that way, too.” The two women giggled together, holding the moment and feeling that first brick slide into the foundation of a relationship that was meant to last a lifetime.

“My mother never swooped,” Laura told her. “She is a much more deliberate person than Delia seems to be.”

“Oh, Delia is deliberate, all right,” Zoey told her.
“Don’t let that carefree facade fool you. She rarely leaves anything to chance, and she is rarely caught off guard.”

“She gives the imp
ression of being so nonchalant
about everything. I guess I have so much to learn about
her. About all of you.”

“Well, I’m looking forward to getting to know you, Laura.” She thought back to Ben’s words the day before, about doors opening in. “Tell me about your mother. And you mentioned that you have a brother. I want to hear about him. And about growing up in Bishop’s Cove.
My—
our
—soon-to-be sister-in-law, India, grew up in a shore town, too. In New Jersey. I think you’ll like her. But I don’t want to keep you from
work
…
I guess you have to get back to the inn and start the luncheon preparations.”

Laura laughed.

“I have a cook. Actually, I have three cooks that I hired for different purposes.” Laura lowered her voice, as if confiding a secret. “I’m a lousy cook, Zoey, and I hate it.”

“What a coincidence!”
Zoey laughed. “I hate to cook
too!”

“I know. I watch you on TV and cannot help but think how alike we are in that respect.”

“You know, I’ll bet we have other things in common, Laura.” Zoey gave Laura a little squeeze. “Let’s walk down to those rocks and see what that fisherman just reeled in. It looks like a big something. And then maybe we can take the long way back to the inn and you can give me a little tour of Bishop’s Cove.”

D
elia stood on the front porch watering the hanging baskets of fuchsia that Laura had hung just days earlier from the hooks around the roof line. It was turning into a fine day, sunny with just the faintest hint of breeze,
warm but not yet humid. She hummed an old tune, the title of which escaped her. It was driving her crazy. She hummed the same part over and over, trying in vain to come up with the right words that would give away the name of the song, but it seemed hopeless. The sound of laughter from the driveway interrupted her train of thought, but one glance over her shoulder at the source of the merriment and the tune was forgotten.

I must be hallucinating,
was her first thought. She went to the end of the porch, and watched the two beautiful dark-haired girls as they strolled, arm in arm, up the drive. Her left hand reached out to steady herself against one of the pillars, and her breath caught in her throat.

Laura and Zoey. Laughing and talking like
…
like
friends.
Maybe not quite like sisters, but certainly like friends.

Delia’s right hand flew to her mouth and she covered the sob so that no one would hear. She had been so afraid that these two parts of her life would never come together. She knew she had been wrong not to tell Zoey and Georgia sooner, but it had been so damned
hard.

And until she had gotten to know Laura, how could she have asked her other children to accept someone that she, herself, did not know?

“Mom.” Zoey stopped dead in the drive and looked up onto the porch where her mother stood with tears streaming down her face. “I
…
um
…
stopped in early and you were gone so Laura and I had coffee on the beac
h.
”

“It’s a beautiful day for that.” Delia sniffed.

“Give me your cup.” Sensing that Delia and Zoey might need a few minutes alone, Laura took the mug from Zoey’s hand. “I’ll get you a refill. Delia, would you like a cup?”

“Yes, darling. That would be nice. Why not bring a pot out here on the porch and we’ll sit in these lovely wicker chairs
…”
Delia’s eyes never left Zoey’s face.

“So, you came back,” was the only thing Delia could
think of to say as she watched Zoey climb the porch steps.

“I needed a little time to think it through, Mom.” Zoey embraced her mother.

“I don’t wonder that you did. I’m just amazed that you’re back so soon.” Delia’s words were soft against her daughter’s neck.

“At first I was angry that you had kept this hidden for so long, that there was this big part of you that I knew nothing about. But something that Ben said made me realize that this was not about me and you. At the heart of it, it’s just about
you.
It’s about you finding a piece of yourself that’s been missing for a long time. It must have been so hard for you, Mom. I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to help you somehow, through all of this.”

“Oh, sweetie, there was nothing you could do. When I made up my mind to find Laura, I didn’t know what I would find. If I would like her—if she would like me. But once that decision was made, I promised myself that I would do my best to get to know her before I tried to bring her into the family.” Delia sank into the nearest chair. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but I don’t think I expected her to be quite so
…
so
…
”

“Terrific?” Zoey offered.

“Terrific works, sweetie. Terrific works quite well.” Delia smiled, knowing the worst had passed and she hadn’t even been there to witness it. She sat on one of the wicker sofas and motioned for Zoey to sit in the opposite chair, never letting go of her daughter’s hands. “Once I started to get to know her, I really did want to bring her to Westboro, but I was afraid of moving too fast. So I thought I’d talk to Nicky first.”

“How long has he known?”

“For about a month.”

“That long?”

“I’m sorry, sweetie, but I needed to take this slowly.”

“How did Nick react?”

“At first? Much as you did. I think it’s safe to say he was similarly stunned.”

Zoey thought back to the previous Sunday morning, to the gentle way her brother had ministered to Delia in the garden.

“Laura said she met Nick.”

“And was totally charmed by him. As anyone would be. Nick is one in a million, Zoey. I still sometimes wonder that I have raised such a son.” Delia’s face lit up momentarily, then became somber once again. “But I should tell you that both Nick and India are insisting on having Laura at the wedding.”