Chapter 22
DAISY Truly Local
Never in my life—and I mean literally never—has anyone done anything for me that has meant as much as Mason and Amelia coordinating the town house makeover HGTV dreams are made of.
How they got all that together, I will never know.
In the course of an afternoon, my place had gone from looking like one where a newly separated dad was making Lean Cuisines to a showplace that could have been on the Cape Carolina tour of homes.
It was so generous, so unexpected, that I felt like weeping the minute I crossed the threshold.
The Department of Social Services couldn’t help but be sure that I was a together single woman with a great job and a fabulous home who could foster the baby she felt so connected to.
The new-to-me things had been combined with the treasures I had brought from Charlotte: my favorite photo of my dad and me sitting on the tailgate of his truck, laughing.
The books that I had collected, curated, and were worn from the many, many times I had read them.
The tiny painting my best friend had given me the day I graduated nursing school.
I was overcome with the way my things had mixed in so seamlessly with the ones that were donated by the women.
And I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe that was a sign of sorts.
It’s amazing how one minute you could feel the happiest you have ever felt and then the next—bam!—something so simple can take you from feeling on top of the world to wanting to run away from it.
I knew this was a possibility, of course, when I moved to Cape Carolina.
I hated to admit that I still had that ratty postcard I used to carry around with me like a security blanket with the Cape Carolina return address.
And, yes, if I’m being truly, genuinely honest, I did have to consider at some point that she might still live here.
I knew, way deep down, that hoping she was still here had more than a tiny bit to do with why I had come.
But I had practiced for this moment, prepared for it.
I would be cool, calm, collected, aloof, and polite but noncommittal.
I had not played it the way I had practiced.
Despite my preparation, I was shocked to see her. Stunned.
Which made sense, because I hadn’t actually laid eyes on Julie since I was thirteen years old.
For the first year after she left, I could pretend she was coming back.
For the next two years, I berated myself for what I had done to make her leave.
If only I had been better. If I hadn’t spent so much time on the phone with my friends, argued with her about lip gloss, snapped at her when she tried to give me advice about boys, then maybe she would have stayed.
(All of that was ridiculous, of course. I had been thirteen.) Now, I was a fully formed grown-up, and I never would have admitted it out loud, but that blame I placed on myself for her leaving never left.
“Do you two, um, know each other?” Amelia asked tentatively.
Mason had his arm protectively around me, and, as upset as I was, it was so sweet. This man who barely knew me had already stepped up for me in more ways than this woman ever had.
“She’s my mother,” I said, matter-of-factly.
Yes! There it was. That cool, aloof, I-don’t-care-at-all-about-this tone I was going for.
“Daisy,” Julie stuttered. “You’re here.”
I could feel my even facade cracking. “I am, but I need to go—”
“I’ll go,” Julie interrupted me. I had gotten good at that, of thinking of her as “Julie,” not “Mom.”
As she stepped past me, Julie said, “Look, Daisy, I’d love to talk. I might not deserve it, but I have a lot to say.”
“You’d love to talk?” There was an edge to my voice that I didn’t just love. “Julie, you have barely contacted me in twenty years, and I presume if I hadn’t shown up, nothing about that would have changed. So forgive me if I don’t want to talk.”
She rushed out of the room, and Cheryl said awkwardly, “Um, I will get the boys, and, um, good luck, Daisy.”
“Thank you, Cheryl,” I managed. “It’s perfect.”
“I should leave,” Amelia said. “I know I should. But I don’t think I can function without the backstory here.”
I managed a small smile. I heard the front door close. Mason finally let go of his grip on my waist and said, “Tea. Aren’t you supposed to have tea in situations like this?”
“Yes,” Amelia said. “I’ll go make some.”
Amelia scurried off toward the kitchen, and Mason led me to the couch in the adjoining living room, sitting beside me. “Are you okay? We don’t have to talk about it.”
“She just left!” I exploded. “And now she has the gall to want to talk? Do you know how it feels to be a little girl whose mother has already died and then to have her uncle adopt her and the only mother she ever knew just leave?”
This was not one hundred percent the impression I wanted to make on the new boy I kind of liked. Amelia handed out three mismatched glasses. Mine was filled to the top—with wine, not tea. Well played, Amelia.
She sat on the chair flanking the couch and said, “Wait. She was your adoptive mother?”
I nodded. “I never walk people through this, but since you guys have some unusual family logistics… My birth mom died in a domestic dispute that I was too young to remember and her brother, my uncle, now my dad, and Julie adopted me.”
Amelia put her hand to her mouth. “Your mom died in a domestic dispute?” she whispered.
“I’m lucky I’m alive. I was there alone for two days.”
Mason and that arm again. “Wow,” he said. “But you’re just so upbeat.”
I nodded. “I am. Because I had a fantastic father who raised me so attentively and well and loves me dearly. And I know that I’m lucky to be alive and that I am in charge of my own choices. So, I’m happy. But I won’t lie,” I said, taking a sip of my wine, “seeing her again hurt like hell.”
I remembered being ten and a mean kid at school saying that Julie wasn’t my real mom.
When I asked her about it, she had held me close, stroked my hair, and said, No, sweetheart.
You are my daughter. I am your mother. And that’s that.
As an adult, that resonated with me. My biological mother had died; Julie had adopted me.
She was my mother. But I guessed that hadn’t been enough for her.
I took a deep breath, my mind flooding with thoughts I was trying to push away. I turned my head awkwardly toward Mason since he was sitting so close. “She has a family, doesn’t she?”
Amelia and Mason shared a look that told me everything.
“She’s a baseball mom,” Mason said. “I’m so sorry. If I had had any idea…”
I shook my head and smiled weakly. “Oh my gosh, no. You couldn’t have known. I never talk about it. I probably never would have had she not shown up.”
“Do you think you’ll talk to her?” Amelia asked tentatively.
“No,” I said automatically.
Amelia looked down into her wineglass.
“Do you think I should?”
She shrugged like she had no idea, but she had plenty of idea.
“You think I should.”
“You should do whatever you want to do, Daisy,” Mason said, a little sharply, in Amelia’s direction.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just have a different perspective. You know I do. I’ve lived through some weird stuff, and it’s taught me some hard-earned lessons.”
“Well, then, lay it on me.”
Amelia leaned toward me. “Look, all I know is that I spent some time being really bitter and angry toward my ex, Thad. Forgiving him was really something I needed to do for me, of course, but it led to this great friendship. Yes, we’re still divorced, and, yes, he still lied to me.
But we were able to have this new kind of relationship where he’s a hugely important part of my life.
We get to watch each other’s kids grow up.
” She paused. “I don’t love him the way I once did, of course, and I’d be willing to bet that regaining any type of mom-love for Julie might be impossible, but… ” She trailed off.
I swallowed and nodded. “I’ve had a long time to sit with this, you know? And I really thought I was past it. But I think knowing that she has another family is just so…” I shook my head. “It’s like her adopted daughter wasn’t enough, so she went out and had the real kid she always wanted.”
Amelia nodded vehemently. “I knew I couldn’t have kids, and Thad and I agreed we didn’t want them. And then he left, and he and Chase immediately started a family, and I felt so…” She looked up, searching for the right word. “Insufficient.”
I nodded. “Insufficient. That’s exactly how I feel.”
“But you aren’t,” Mason said. “Her leaving, in all likelihood, didn’t even have anything to do with you.”
Amelia nodded. “Oh! That’s a good point. It almost definitely didn’t.”
“How were she and your dad?” Mason asked.
I thought about that. “She left the summer before I started high school, basically the time when I was the most selfish person in the world.” I shrugged, thinking about how to describe my dad.
“My dad is my favorite person. I can see her being bored with him—which makes me feel horrible. I mean, he works, he comes home, he fishes sometimes. But he’s totally mild-mannered.
He wouldn’t have done something to make her leave.
” Come to think of it… Mason was a little like Dad.
Maybe that’s what I liked about him so instantly.
“You’re sure?” Amelia asked.
I had never seen my dad lose his temper. Not once. “I’m positive.”
“Don’t you need to know?” Mason said. “I wouldn’t have the self-control not to hear what she has to say.”
Amelia sighed. “It’s a gamble. It could make you feel better, or it could make you feel worse.”
“But at least you’d know the truth,” Mason said. “Or her version of it anyway.”
“It would be hard for me to feel worse than I do right now, so there’s that,” I said.
Mason nodded encouragingly, like that was so positive.
“I’ll think about it,” I said. A thought ran through my mind, but I wasn’t sure if I should say it out loud. But, then again, these two people now knew my deepest, darkest secret, so what the hell?
“I guess what gets me is that Maisy isn’t even mine. And I just feel so protective of her, like I would do anything to keep her safe and make her happy. So it’s hard for me to understand how a mother could walk away from a child she had raised from three years old. You know?”
Amelia nodded. “I know. But maybe she had a good reason.”
Maybe she had a good reason. Of course I’d considered that many, many times.
I just couldn’t imagine what that reason could be.
I stood up and turned to Amelia. “Okay. Enough of this! You, missy, have some packing to do. I will get the kids from school tomorrow and then Camp Amelia will be underway!”
She stood up and hugged me. “Thank you. You are giving me the greatest gift.”
I laughed. “Are you kidding me?” I looked around. “You guys have given me the greatest gift. I am so blown away.”
I did a quick mental scan. I’d have plenty of time to meet DSS at ten and pick the kids up by twelve.
Easy breezy. It occurred to me that I was taking my entire four days off this week to keep Greer and George.
But, instead of feeling resentful, I could only be excited.
I couldn’t wait to explore Cape Carolina more through their eyes, take them on adventures!
Mason was still sitting. I turned to look at him. “Oh, I’m not leaving,” he said. “I’m taking you to dinner.”
I raised my eyebrow. “Oh, are you, now?”
He nodded.
“Where will we possibly go that the famous baseball coach won’t be accosted?”
He shook his head. “That’s really only on the day before a game, game day, and after the game.”
“So, four days a week you’re in the clear!”
“Plus, we’re going to Al’s. No one will bother us there.”
Amelia grimaced. “You cannot take her to Al’s. It’s seedy.”
“It’s legendary,” Mason said. “And she can’t truly be a local until she goes.”
Amelia waved her hand. I smiled. But what I was really thinking about was tomorrow. Would all their hard work be enough to convince DSS that I was the right one to foster Maisy? I could only hope and pray that it would.
For now, I would let Mason take me to the seedy local joint that, evidently, had knock-your-socks-off cheesesteaks. And I’d worry about tomorrow tomorrow.