Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
L ucas was in the back seat of Roxie’s Chevy Sunfire. Her son, Dean, was beside him in his car seat, making his feet bounce up and down. Sometimes he stared at Lucas too long, sucking on a pacifier that he seemed too old for. Gale was in the passenger seat up front, looking bug-eyed and sweaty. Lucas probably looked the same. He wanted to reach up and touch her hand. He wanted to tell her it was all right; that this was just another step in their quest to discover what had happened to Lilian. But he understood Gale wasn’t accustomed to digging into people’s pasts. She didn’t know that it usually involved several wrong turns.
Still, Lucas respected the fact that she’d wanted to storm up to Roxie’s door and knock like that. She was brave.
It was perhaps the hundredth reason Lucas wanted to kiss her.
This was day three of their trip. Day three consisted of constant conversations, gut-busting laughter, awful road snacks and food that had hurt Lucas’s stomach (but seemed not to affect Gale’s), and late-night chats that seemed to inch toward the heart of something. It was the origin story of a romance. But Lucas couldn’t help but remember everything he still hadn’t told Gale. It felt as though he’d built his personality on a mountain of lies.
Roxie drove them to her mother’s house in what seemed to be quiet rage. It was clear she would have rather done anything else today. But Gale stayed strong. They’d driven this far. She needed more.
Roxie parked in the driveway of a dark green house with white shutters and tropical-looking plants bursting from the porch. Dean started to sing, “Grandma’s house! Grandma’s house!” in a way that made Lucas smile. Even Roxie brightened. Lucas got out of the way so Roxie could unbuckle his car seat and lift him. From the porch came the sound of the screeching screen door, then a call, “Hi, baby!” The accent still had a hint of Nantucket to it.
Lucas turned to find Bethany Cicero on the front porch of her Florida home. She wore a light blue dress that dropped to her ankles with no shoes. Her dark hair hung halfway down her back, and she wore a pair of enormous glasses that seemed straight from the seventies. It was true what Roxie said. Bethany didn’t look so much older than Roxie did. It was like she’d been frozen in time.
Bethany offered a confused smile as they walked up the front steps to greet her. She kissed her daughter and her grandson, then stuck out her hand to shake Gale’s and Lucas’s. Lucas felt like a sore thumb. I don’t belong here.
“Mom,” Roxie began tentatively, “this woman says Johnny is her dad.”
Bethany lost a bit of color in her cheeks and stepped back. “My goodness.” Silence hung over them. “Why don’t you come inside?”
Lucas, Gale, Roxie, and Dean entered Bethany’s little house and cooled off again in the startlingly icy air-conditioning. Gale hovered near the couch without speaking. Roxie settled Dean in another room with some toys and then stood in the doorway between the rooms, watching. She was like a moderator.
Bethany sat in a green chair near the window and removed her glasses. She continued to stare at Gale. It was clear she was mesmerized. Lucas wished he could press pause on this scene and ask Gale what she was thinking. It was so difficult to tell.
“I can’t believe it’s you,” Bethany offered.
Gale’s eyes glinted. Her mouth was in a thin line.
“You were just a little thing when you left Florida,” Bethany continued. “Five years old?”
Gale looked aghast. Lucas gaped at Bethany.
“I was in Florida?” Gale demanded.
Bethany tilted her head with confusion. Seconds passed. A cuckoo clock on the wall clicked.
And then Bethany snapped her fingers. “Of course. You were never in Florida. You’re the other one.”
Gale leaned back on the sofa. She looked on the verge of a panic attack. Lucas went over to sit beside her and took her hand. She didn’t flinch. For all these people know, we’re a couple, Lucas told himself. It didn’t matter what they thought, anyway.
“You took Lilian,” Gale breathed.
Bethany arched her brow. “Is that what your mother told you?”
Lucas didn’t like the way Bethany spat the words your mother.
“My mother hasn’t told me anything,” Gale said. “I just learned who my father was a few days ago. I’m playing catch-up.”
Bethany softened. “Oh, honey. There’s so much you don’t know.”
Gale swallowed and squeezed Lucas’s hand so hard he thought his bones might break. He held on.
“Please,” Gale said, “tell me.”
Bethany burrowed her face in her hands. After a long pause, she said, “It’s insane to me how much damage that man caused.”
Lucas knew she was referring to Johnny.
“We women go crazy for a handsome and arrogant man like that,” Bethany said, speaking to Lucas now. “We women fight each other. Go after each other’s throats. All to try to ‘win his heart.’ But there’s no winning a man like that. He’s slippery. He does exactly what he wants, when he wants. God rest Johnny’s soul.” She sighed. “Of course, Evelyn was no picnic. Nobody would say she was.”
“She raised me,” Gale said.
“So you know better than anyone,” Bethany offered.
Gale was quiet. She wouldn’t betray her mother verbally. But Lucas could see agreement in her eyes.
“Johnny and I came down to Florida in 1978. The same year you were born,” Bethany began, crossing and uncrossing her ankles. “We bought the house Roxie lives in now and fixed it up for ourselves. We had a boat within a few months, and Johnny started making money fixing other people’s boats and their bathtubs and things like that. Johnny was the golden boy back in Nantucket, and he slipped easily into that role around here. People were fascinated with him. We became one of the most popular couples around. Looking back, they really were some of the happiest months of my life. Everything felt possible.
“I should have known better than to trust him. It must have been the next year I caught him sneaking around on me, and I left. But he couldn’t stand being left like that. He came after me. Told me he loved me and wanted to be with me forever. So I came back because I was a fool. I also really wanted a baby. Desperately. I knew he’d cheated on Evelyn when she was eight months pregnant, but I figured she’d forced him out. I told myself I would be a fun pregnant partner. I would be more understanding. I told myself all the lies silly women tell themselves, blaming themselves for their men’s actions.” Bethany waved her hand. “But the problem was, I couldn’t get pregnant. No matter how hard we tried, no baby came. I grew despondent. I hardly left the house for a little while. Johnny didn’t know what to do. I knew I was hurting him. I also knew he was too helpless to help me. That must have been around the time he started calling Evelyn.”
Gale sat up straight and gaped at Bethany. Her hand never left Lucas’s.
“The phone bill went up and up and up,” Bethany said. “I figured out he was making phone calls while I slept, so I pretended to take a nap one afternoon and listened in on him as he talked to Evelyn. They spoke about nearly everything. He told her about me. About how we were struggling to conceive. About our money problems. About how much he missed Nantucket.”
Bethany’s eyes filled with tears. It was clear that the pain was still present.
“It was such a terrible betrayal,” Bethany said. “We’d agreed to start over here in Florida. That didn’t mean I didn’t miss Nantucket, too. I still miss it to this day. But we’d agreed to be together and really make a go of it, and here Johnny was, calling his ex, who was raising his twin babies by herself. I couldn’t believe it.
“I confronted him about it later that day. He broke down and talked about how much he wanted to be a father. We’d been trying for over a year at that point. It must have been 1981. I’ll never forget how he brought up the idea to bring one of the twins down here. He said, ‘Evelyn can’t make ends meet. She’s out of her mind with depression. She wants me to come back.’ I said to him, ‘Then go. Go back to Nantucket. Leave me here.’ I was testing him. But that’s when he said, ‘I don’t want to raise a baby with Evelyn. I want to do it with you.’ And he suggested we go to Nantucket together, offer to take one of the girls, and return to Florida. I didn’t think Evelyn would go for it. But I didn’t know how desperate she was.
“We drove up to Nantucket together, probably taking the same route you just did but the opposite,” Bethany said. “We laughed and sang and joked the entire way. I felt sure we were on the brink of something great. The next big chapter of our lives. When we got to Evelyn’s beach bungalow, we found it to be in incredible disrepair. It was devastating. Another storm had come through and put a hole in the roof. Both of the toddlers were crying. Evelyn was crying, too. She didn’t see me at first and threw her arms around Johnny. I watched Johnny’s body loosen. It was clear they’d been in love with each other, and I burned with jealousy. But Johnny took my hand after that and explained to Evelyn what we were there for. Evelyn was so despondent. I don’t know what she was thinking. But after that, Johnny and I stayed in an apartment so that Johnny could stay a week and repair some of the house. He said he owed it to Evelyn and the twin girls.” Bethany nodded to Gale again. “After that, we took Lily and drove south again.”
Gale’s cheeks were streaked with tears. “How did you choose?”
Bethany cocked her head as though she didn’t understand the question.
“I mean, why did you take Lily and not me?”
Bethany stuck her nails into the jeans covering her right thigh. “Honestly? I can’t remember.”
Gale looked as though she wanted to melt from the sofa onto the floor. Lucas had to be her rock.
“But Lily isn’t here,” he said.
Bethany flared her nostrils. “That’s right.”
“What happened?” Lucas asked.
Bethany tugged her hair. She said, “It’s times like these I wish I had never given up smoking.”
Gale sniffled.
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the new toddler didn’t do Johnny and me any favors,” Bethany continued. “The fights got worse after that. Johnny didn’t take to fatherhood the way I wanted him to, and I was terribly depressed, staying home caring for somebody else’s toddler the entire day. She was a cute little thing, but she really missed her mother. She wouldn’t eat for a little while and dropped a lot of weight. I was always at the doctor. And finally, the doctor told me that I needed to take care of myself, too. I was a wreck.
“About two years after we took Lily from Nantucket, Johnny and I were in the process of breaking up for the last time,” Bethany said. “I wanted to move on. I called Evelyn and said I would bring Lily back so she could be with her sister and mother. I think she was living in Providence by then. She’d moved back. Couldn’t take the island anymore. I told Evelyn Johnny couldn’t be a father; he’d never planned to be. Not really. But Evelyn basically spat in my face and hung up on me. I didn’t know what to do.
“Around that time, a woman in her midfifties contacted Johnny to do some repairs around her house. She wanted to sell it and move out West,” Bethany said. “I went over there with Lily one day because I needed to talk to Johnny about something. I think it had to do with the phone or the water bill. Something needed to be paid. And he barely ever came home anymore, so I had to go find him at work to confront him. Lily was really upset that day. I think she had an ear infection. Maybe I was taking her to the doctor. But while I screamed at Johnny about a bill, that woman took care of Lily. She calmed her down. Lily fell asleep in her arms. It was just a perfect sight. I broke down after that and told the woman the entire story. I explained that Evelyn didn’t want Lily back, either. And the woman told me that she’d lost her son in a swimming accident twenty years ago. She’d always wanted to adopt, but it was tricky since she was single. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I asked her if she wanted to take Lily out West. She said yes without hesitating.”
Bethany pressed her hand over her chest. Lucas turned his attention to Roxie, who continued to hover in the doorway between the rooms. She looked at her mother as though she’d never seen her before.
“I cleaned up my act after Lily left,” Bethany explained. “I met Roxie’s father, and I got pregnant in about five minutes. It’s almost like my body didn’t want me to get pregnant with Johnny’s child. It was a matter of self-protection.” She laughed sadly.
Roxie continued to look at her mother in disbelief. Lucas guessed she was thinking, this woman abandoned a child before she gave birth to me.
It was impossible to ever truly know anyone.
“What was this woman’s name?” Gale whispered.
Bethany got up and walked to the cabinet near the door. There, she rummaged through little boxes and finally produced a few yellowed envelopes. She passed them to Gale and Lucas.
The envelopes were addressed to Bethany. Each one contained a letter and a photograph. They were all from Catherine Hahn—the older woman who’d taken Lily away.
One of them read:
May 17, 1987
Dear Bethany,
It’s hard to believe Lily turned nine the other day. She’s the brightest star I’ve ever known. I get closer and closer to sixty, and it pains me that I’m slowing down as she’s speeding up.
Find enclosed a photograph of Lily at the art competition downtown. She won first prize for her painting of the house we live in. It is a home because we’ve built a lovely world there together.
Yours,
Catherine
In the photograph, Lily wore a bright yellow dress and had her red hair in a braid down her shoulder. She grinned madly at the camera. Behind her was the painting she’d done of the house Catherine had brought her to after she’d left Florida. It was a two-story with a big porch and a swing out front.
Gale felt a pang of sorrow. Lily had a happy childhood with Catherine Hahn.
And then she thought, was it happier than mine?