Chapter 9
MASON Jane Doe
I had realized decades ago that there was no use telling my family to put on a good front for meeting someone new.
They were who they were, and the chaos would ensue whether I liked it or not.
And, tonight, I wouldn’t have had time for that option even if I’d wanted it.
So, all things considered, this was going pretty well.
Except I was kind of annoyed that the pastor’s wife was here.
Don’t get me wrong, I liked Ms. Theodora.
But she was a little uppity. I zoned out while she told some super-long story about one of her “gifted” daughters—I knew her daughters.
They were gifted. But they were cool, too, and she made them sound horrible—while I waited impatiently for the fried chicken to make its way to me.
“Aunt Tilley.” I signaled across the table.
She looked up.
“Share the wealth, would ya?”
She winked and passed a glass of what looked like totally innocent sweet tea, which I knew from years of experience was actually bourbon.
I poured a finger into my glass and then one into Daisy’s.
Immediately, I was horrified. “That’s bourbon,” I warned her.
“I’m not trying to, like, drug you. I just thought you might need some fortification, but if you don’t drink or don’t want to—”
Daisy put her hand on my leg, at once settling me and sending a bolt of electricity through me. “Thank you,” she whispered. “After a day like today, I need it. Plus, the tea is a little too sweet.”
A little too sweet? Was there any such thing? Who was this woman? Was she even safe to have around my niece and many, many nephews?
It finally registered that everyone was quiet because Mom had said, “Mason, how did you and Daisy meet?”
Tilley added, so innocently from across the table, “Have you been seeing each other long?”
She, my mom, and Elizabeth shared a look. Ah. This—this right here—was what I was talking about. Another reminder that no one here ever expected me to change. I can change! I wanted to scream.
“Daisy and I just met, actually. She’s new to town and doesn’t know anyone, so I thought it would be nice to introduce her to most of Cape Carolina in one fell swoop.” Ms. Theodora laughed heartily and gained like two points in my estimation because of it.
“I just moved in a few days ago, actually,” Daisy said. “Right down the street.” She cleared her throat. “And we met because Mason rescued a newborn baby girl from a dumpster, and I was the nurse who intercepted them in the emergency room.”
The way she delivered that news, so deadpan, so blasé, made me fall in love with her just a little. She grinned and winked at me as the entire table went silent.
“So, you know,” I said, “just another day at Cape Carolina High.”
The thing I loved most about this family was that, around this table that had been in this house for so long that George Washington carved his initials in it, there was such predictability.
I knew from countless previous nights that everyone would be completely silent.
And then, all at once, the noise would erupt at decibels untold as everyone attempted to ask their questions all at once.
“Hey!” I said, putting my hand up. “We will pretend this is a press conference. You will raise your hands, and I will call on you.
“Ms. Theodora, you first since you’re our guest.” And you laughed at my joke.
“How could any parent not know that their own daughter was pregnant, of all the godforsaken things. And does the school allow girls like that to just parade up and down the halls?”
And… there went those hard-won two points. In fact, I was deducting another ten. She was just so self-righteous. Daisy put her hand on my leg again, and she took the wheel.
“You would be surprised, Ms. Theodora,” Daisy interjected for me.
“Some women—and especially some teenagers—can hide their pregnancies completely. Neither their parents nor the school would have any reason to suspect. Sometimes they don’t even know they’re pregnant.
” She paused. “It’s called a cryptic pregnancy. ”
Amelia lightened the tension. “And then there are people like me who can barely fit into a normal-sized vehicle when pregnant.”
Everyone laughed and Elizabeth said, “Darling, you were carrying twins.” And Parker, always the schmoozer, added, “And you never looked hotter.”
The way he looked at her… I kind of think he meant it. Even though, let’s just say, nine months pregnant was not Amelia’s peak hotness.
Hands went up again, and I pointed to Trina, who floated through the world, blond and sweet and cheerful, while four rambunctious boys—plus Robbie!—made mayhem out of the world around her. “What will happen to the baby? Will someone take her?”
“We will not take her, Trina,” Robbie interjected.
She looked at him innocently. “That isn’t what I asked, Robbie.”
“It’s what you were thinking, Trina.” He kissed her temple, and she leaned into him. They were kind of the two most uncomplicated people I knew, and I loved them for it.
I looked at Daisy. She shook her head. “I know that they will do their best to find the baby’s mother—”
“And give the baby back?” Mom protested.
“Will she be in trouble?” Rob, Robbie’s oldest son, asked.
I leaned back and put my arm around Daisy’s chair in a way that, only after I’d done it, I realized probably felt too familiar.
“Babies are a huge gift and a big responsibility,” I said, putting on my best Uncle-Mason-the-educator voice.
“When you have one, you have to put a lot of your time and love into them. And you can never, ever leave them alone.”
“Mason!” Amelia said. “Did you just grasp an adult piece of the human condition?”
I smirked at her, and she smirked back.
I looked over at Aunt Tilley, whose eyes didn’t seem to be quite focused. She was staring at a portrait of my grandmother over Amelia’s head, definitely not paying attention to us.
Dad and Mr. Saxton had their heads together at the end of the table, sipping their bourbon on the rocks and whispering about something. Probably interest rates. Or Carolina baseball. Ordinarily, I would like to be discussing Carolina baseball.
But now I thought about that tiny baby, all alone in that big hospital.
Jane Doe. That’s what they were calling her.
It seemed so impersonal, which was the point, I guessed.
But she was a real person. Not just an anonymous lost baby.
She deserved a family. I looked up at Trina.
Robbie had said no, but Trina could talk Robbie into anything. Hence the four kids.
Daisy held her phone screen up to me with a text with a picture of a sleeping Jane Doe.
I found myself envisioning something brand-new: what a life with a family could be like.
Sure, it would be a huge change and, yes, I would need to step up in ways I never had before.
I looked back down at Jane Doe. And, in that moment, I couldn’t imagine her ever being anything but mine.