Chapter 60 Deidre
Deirdre was glad she and Eloise were back in the routine of their morning walks. But now she was going to upset things again.
“I’m not the person you think I am,” Deirdre told Eloise one morning.
“You’re frightening me, Deirdre,” Eloise said. “There are only so many surprises I can take in one summer.”
Deirdre drew a long breath. She still hadn’t told Fred. Eloise, she’d decided, would be the next to know.
“Remember when I didn’t do a good job at keeping in touch that first year of college?” Deidre said.
“Of course I do,” Eloise said. “I figured you were upset I was marrying Gus instead of going to college myself.”
“I wasn’t upset. I mean, sure, I probably was a little. But that wasn’t the main reason.” Deidre hesitated only for a moment.
“I was having a baby.”
Eloise stopped in her tracks. “Deirdre. What are you talking about?”
They sat down on a bench along the shoreline. With thick cloud cover, the water was dark and moody today. Deidre wondered
how many secrets the Great Lakes held. She could hide so much.
“Nolan Plunkett,” Deirdre went on. “My freshman-year boyfriend. He convinced me to sleep with him, promised me I wouldn’t get pregnant.
I did, the first time. I told my mom but no one else, not even Nolan.
My mom didn’t want me coming back to the island, of course—can you imagine the scandal?
—so she shipped me off to live with my great-aunt Carol in Iowa.
She was good to me, God rest her soul. Let me stay, came with me to the hospital, helped me with the adoption paperwork. ”
Eloise took Deirdre’s hand and held on to it. It felt good to tell Eloise, even better than she’d expected. Deidre kept going.
“It was a girl. Baby Lilac, I called her, since she was born in mid-June. Peak lilac season. Not that many lilacs were blooming
in Iowa so late in the season, but I was homesick.”
Deirdre could still see the bundle of cloth in the hospital room. She’d been bleary from the pain medicine, but the sight
had cut sharply. “My biggest regret to this day is that I didn’t ask to hold Lilac in my arms before they took her away. I
don’t even know what color eyes she has. My own daughter.”
Deirdre winced. She’d thought it would be too hard to get even a glimpse of what she was going to miss. But over the years
she’d realized it was much better to get to feel the love and then lose it, rather than never feeling it at all.
“Deirdre,” Eloise said gently. “Why have you never told me this? You know I would’ve been there for you, don’t you?”
“I know that,” Deirdre said, and she did. “It just felt so good, or at least less bad, being the only one who knew about my
daughter. Like I was the only one who got to love her.” She paused. “I know it sounds ridiculous. She must have people now
who love her. She probably doesn’t ever think about her birth mother.”
This was the part that got Deirdre. She could handle driving herself crazy wondering about her daughter, but she could not
handle the thought of her daughter not driving herself crazy thinking about her.
But no one had ever tried to track her down, not once. Deirdre even picked up every sales call, every solicitation, just in
case. She listened to every wisp of gossip on the off-chance something came her way. Nothing had in thirty-six years.
“I just can’t believe I didn’t know,” Eloise said.
“No one knows. Not even Fred. Except I did accidentally tell your mother.” Deirdre briefly filled her in.
There was a break in the clouds. The sun split through, the rays fragmenting like prisms. Deirdre didn’t believe in signs,
but she gobbled this one up.
“You’re going to look for her, aren’t you?” Eloise said.
Deirdre nodded. It was why she wasn’t crumpled over right now. She felt a new sense of purpose. An old sense of purpose, really,
since it had been born the same day as her daughter. But a new sense of moving from imagination to action to make it happen.
Her daughter had always felt real, yet not real too. Separate from her daily life and far away. Now, since she’d told Alice
and then Eloise, something had shifted. Her daughter felt integrated into her island life. Within reach.
“I want to,” Deirdre said.
“You’re sure about this?” Eloise said. “It might not go as you’re expecting.”
Deirdre knew that. But she had to try. She had to get answers, even if they weren’t the ones she wanted.
“It’s the surest I’ve ever been about anything. Tied perhaps with knowing I picked the right person to be my best friend.”
Eloise had stuck by her and loved her every step of the way. Deirdre may have been dealt a tough hand in some things, but
her friendship with Eloise... that was one stroke of luck she’d never deserved.
“Well, you didn’t really pick me, did you?” Eloise said. “Our parents forced us together from the cradle.”
“A match made in heaven.”
“A match made in Mackinac.”
“Same thing.”
“All right,” Eloise said. “I’m going to help you find her. Baby Lilac, here we come.”
Deirdre buried her head in her best friend’s shoulder. She didn’t cry, just shook.
As she lifted her head, the clouds were shifting. All the splintered rays from the sun once again became one.
***
A crowd gathered at the dock the next day to send off Clyde on the 8:45 a.m. ferry. Deirdre arrived early.
She had gotten the best night’s sleep she’d had in many years.
Eloise had been there for her, and now it was important for her to be there for Eloise.
The breakup had caused quite a lot of drama among the islanders. Deirdre wasn’t going to stir the drama like a batch of molten
fudge; she had better things to do these days. But she still had to help oversee Clyde’s departure, just in case anything
went wrong.
Eloise had spread the word that she didn’t want anyone picking sides, that she and Clyde were still good friends, but Deirdre
felt that some level of division was necessary. Healthy, even. If you could be so delightfully civil with the person you were
breaking up with, what was the point of ending things, really?
Naturally, sides had formed anyway (Mackinac was not a place where you passed up a reason to be petty). Just about everyone
was Team Eloise except Camille and her city commissioners. It irked Deirdre enough to make her wonder if she had been too
hasty in pledging her vote. Camille presented Clyde with a Mackinac Island plaque, something large and heavy that he’d never
get through airport security.
Clyde was in good spirits, thanking everyone for welcoming him in, doling out hugs and trinkets he’d collected over the course
of the summer: ties with miniature stallions and sailboats, peanut butter jars repurposed into shell-collecting vases, vials
of sand from British Landing. Deirdre could only detect his pain in the way he didn’t look straight at Eloise.
The ferry horn belted, announcing last call for boarding.
Clyde and Eloise came face-to-face. “What’s fer ye won’t go past ye,” he said softly, whatever that meant.
Their last hug was tender and melancholy, but it held gratitude too. Or maybe Deirdre was just relieved that her best friend wasn’t abandoning her.
“It all feels like a fever dream, doesn’t it?” Deirdre asked Eloise. “Clyde arriving, courting you, getting engaged...
now saying goodbye. An old classic film on double speed.”
“It was a dream, all right.” Eloise was poised as usual, but there was a suppleness to her that hadn’t been there at the beginning
of summer. “One I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”
“Until the dementia strikes,” Deirdre said, trying to shake a laugh out of Eloise. “We need to eat more fish oil.”
Deidre had fresh enthusiasm for fish oil and exercise and anything that would keep her healthy. She wanted to be in the best
condition possible if and when she met her daughter. Which all depended, of course, on whether she could track down Baby Lilac,
and then whether she even wanted any relationship with Deidre. But she had told Fred right after Eloise, and he hadn’t just
been understanding; he’d been genuinely excited. “I always wanted a daughter,” he said. “I just felt bad ever mentioning that
to you since we had sons.” Deirdre kissed him on the spot, and they had a most unexpected night of lovemaking (after which
Deirdre conked out and snoozed a full eight hours).
Dr. Kentwood joined the farewell party, and there was definitely something simmering between him and Georgiana. They could
hardly take their eyes off each other. Georgiana hadn’t stayed over with Dr. Kentwood in the guesthouse yet—at least Deirdre
didn’t think so—but she would keep an eye out through the window (she still hadn’t asked Fred to fix the guesthouse blinds).
“At least you got a boyfriend out of this summer,” Deirdre said to Georgiana after Dr. Kentwood had headed off to work.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Georgiana said. “And either way, I got a lot more than that this summer. I got a friend.” She slung
an arm around Eloise’s shoulder.
Eloise returned the hug. The two of them stood there like Lorelai and Rory in a Gilmore Girls episode.
Deirdre was triggered by such a blatant display of affection. It made her think not just of her daughter but also of her sons,
who had been icing her out, telling her she was overstepping her demands on family time. If she heard the term boundaries one more time...
“Parents and children can’t be friends,” Deidre reminded. “You’ve always said so yourself, Eloise.”
“I’ve reconsidered my stance.” Eloise was no longer looking at the ferry, just her daughter. “When you’re both adults, you
can be great friends.”
Deirdre tried to smile as she watched Eloise and Gigi interact, but she felt it again, bubbling in her stomach, ready to boil.
The envy... it was back. Except this time it came with a thin coating of hope.