Chapter 44 Daisy - A Day of Miracles
DAISY A Day of Miracles
When I awoke, I felt a nagging pain in my chest. It was the pain of missing the baby who, only hours earlier, had made me feel like I might not survive.
Was this what motherhood was supposed to be like?
As someone who had tons of experience with babies and found herself utterly competent at the whole rigamarole, I had long ago decided that what made mothers so crazy was all the hormones involved with giving birth.
As it turns out, a big part of it must be sleep deprivation, according to my very personal current research.
I wanted to run right back to day care and pick Maisy up, snuggle her, breathe in her intoxicating baby smell.
But I forced myself to take a shower, wash my hair, clean the house, and get prepared and resettled first. What did I remind every mother who was at my hospital?
It’s okay to take a break. You can’t be everything to the baby all the time.
I looked in the mirror and said those same things to myself.
It made me feel a little better. But only a little. Mom guilt was real.
But the separation reminded me that Maisy was not mine. She might not ever be mine. To top it off, I had been so busy mothering and balancing and juggling that I almost hadn’t had time to realize how distant Mason had been. Almost.
He’d texted and stopped by, sure. But he hadn’t spent the night or made any real plans.
Then again, maybe I should credit him with being thoughtful.
Plus, this was an extraordinary situation.
I knew that Mason wasn’t exactly what you would call A-1 husband and father prepared. I was throwing a lot at him.
Even so, on Easter morning, after Maisy and I had explored her Easter basket, filled with stuffed bunnies, bunny pj’s, and a bunny paci, I was so anxious to see him, I decided to leave a little early.
I opened the door—and almost ran right smack into Julie.
“Oh my gosh!” she said. “I’m so sorry. I was just out here pacing, trying to decide if I should knock. ”
She smiled so sweetly that I felt a little bit sorry for her.
“I’m sure you’re busy, but is there any way we could talk? Just for a moment?”
I didn’t want to talk. I wanted a family Easter where everyone loved each other. I wanted my real parent who was always there for me. I didn’t want this.
“Please, Daisy. I just thought that on Easter, a day of miracles…”
I obviously couldn’t argue with that. And, also, maybe I shouldn’t have been, but I was sort of embarrassed by our last exchange. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I owed this woman something even though, from the outside looking in, surely it was the other way around.
I gestured for her to come inside. I sat down on the couch with Maisy’s carrier at my feet. Julie sat in the chair to my left. I knew it would be polite to offer her coffee. But I just couldn’t. “I’m heading to the Thaysdens’ for lunch, so I don’t have long.” There. Words.
“I understand. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for leaving. I’m so sorry for not keeping in better touch.”
Better touch? How about no touch at all.
“This is so hard because I don’t want to make excuses, but I also want to explain myself. You know what I mean?”
I nodded. I wanted excuses. I wanted a reason.
“Your dad and I had just started dating when your biological mom died. I was nineteen, and he was twenty-two, and, yeah, it was unexpected. But I fell in love with you right away. I don’t think I ever would have gotten married at twenty-one, but we were a family.
I wanted us to be a family. And, so, it was just the obvious thing to do.
I don’t even know if your dad and I would have made it long-term, but I loved you so much, and it just made sense. ”
Something low and seething burned in my belly. “So, you didn’t want to marry my dad but you did because of me?”
She sighed and looked down at her hands. “No. I’m just…” She looked up. “You know what? I knew better than this. I’m just here to say I’m sorry. I know there’s nothing I can say to make you understand, and I don’t deserve it anyway.”
She stood up, and I panicked. “No!” I said. “I want to hear it. I won’t interrupt again. I’m sorry.” Stop apologizing, I scolded myself.
“Your dad and I were… I don’t know. It sounds stupid to say now that I’m older, but we sort of coexisted. And I think I reached this point where I didn’t want to live my whole life without love, which, I know, was selfish.”
“That’s not really that selfish.” I wasn’t na?ve enough to think that all marriages were happy ones. I hadn’t gotten that luxury. It was one of the reasons I was so cautious about relationships.
“I had no idea that when I left him, he would fight so hard to prevent me from having any custody.”
In my line of work, I knew a thing or two about custody. “Julie, you moved to Cape Carolina. You couldn’t have imagined that you were going to get custody if you left town.”
She shook her head. “Daisy, I was too dumb to do my homework. Your dad had taken care of me since I was nineteen. I thought I could do things on my own, but I couldn’t. I got in over my head.”
I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t letting her off the hook.
“Your dad had the lawyers and the family name and reputation. No one was going to go against him.”
“Not even you, apparently,” I said.
She took a deep breath. “As hard as it is to say, you weren’t my blood.
I had no real claim to you except how much I loved you.
But love doesn’t hold up in court.” Something pinged in the dark recesses of my brain.
I needed to ask more questions, but I wasn’t sure what they were yet.
She was quiet for a moment. “I’m not saying this well.
I don’t want to make excuses. I only want to apologize, to tell you that I have always loved you, I have always carried you in my heart, and being separated from you was the single most difficult thing that has ever happened to me.
I feel like your being here gives us the greatest chance to make up for lost time. ”
I honestly could not believe what this woman was saying. “So, that’s it?” I asked. “No, like, dark, twisty family secret that made you leave, no hidden scandal that you had to run away from? My dad wasn’t beating you and you had to flee for your life?”
Her eyes widened. “Your dad would never.”
I thought back to Amelia and Mason questioning me. I knew he would never. “I guess it’s just that, all this time I’ve had to think about it, I wanted there to be some big reason you left and never came back.”
She bit her lip. Ah, there was more. My heart raced in anticipation.
Maybe there was something that was going to make me feel better.
She looked down at her feet and then up at me, taking a fortifying breath.
“Look, Daisy. The whole truth… I, um. Well, I had an affair.” She blew out her breath and then started talking very quickly.
“It was wrong, and I know it, but I think my whole life just felt so overwhelming, and I took refuge in a place I shouldn’t have.
Your dad threatened to expose my affair to the entire town if I fought for you.
My family, his family, and, honestly, I didn’t even care that much if they knew… ”
She trailed off. I was an adult. I knew people had affairs.
Hell, I even kind of understood it. I mean, I had been privy to attraction that was very hard to fight, and I knew it was even harder to fight when other things in your life weren’t going well.
But I wasn’t ready to admit any of that.
“So you didn’t fight for me to save your reputation,” I said matter-of-factly.
She shook her head, and, to her credit, she did at least look ashamed. Which wasn’t even what I wanted. What I wanted was for her to go back in time and change it. Was that too much to ask?
“I would have endured the shame and the scrutiny. But I hired a lawyer who told me in no uncertain terms that I had no legal claim to you whatsoever. I would never win any sort of rights to you. And the affair only made that worse.”
No legal claim. That pinging again. “No legal claim?” I put my hand up. “Wait. Are you telling me that you never adopted me?”
This made no sense. The woman had abandoned me years ago. But, somehow, knowing that she had never even adopted me was worse than that pain times about a million.
She stared at me. “Wait. You didn’t know that?”
Maybe it was weird to get so worked up about the semantics of the thing. But, wow, this was a gut punch. “Does this look like the face of a person who knew that?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. “Your dad adopted you before we were married, and then, anytime I asked, he just said there was no need.” She shook her head.
“Which, obviously, was a huge mistake on my part. But I was your mother. I just never imagined he would keep me from you, so I never pushed it.”
I felt my breath getting short.
“I’m sorry, Daisy,” she said. “I have no defenses. I made so many mistakes. I have nothing else to say but I’m sorry. If I could change it, I would. But I cannot. Have you ever done something you regretted? Something you wish you could take back?”
Well, of course I had. Hadn’t we all? Most recently, I wished fervently that I hadn’t ignored a mother after caring for her dying baby.
But I hadn’t abandoned my child. Then something occurred to me.
“The man you had the affair with. Was it…” I trailed off.
I didn’t know Kevin’s dad’s name. But it didn’t matter.
She nodded. I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.
She had cheated on my dad and left me but at least it was real love?
Or she left me and got everything she wanted, so it was worse.
It was too much to wade through. I couldn’t process any of it.
So I stood up. “Okay. Well, thank you, Julie. You came here to say what you needed to say. I hear you, and I appreciate it.”