Chapter 56 Tilley - Town Gossip
TILLEY Town Gossip
Tilley didn’t know that Robbie had told Trina about their bizarre exchange.
She didn’t know that Trina had confessed to Robbie that, deep in her heart of hearts, because of the way Tilley spoke about Robbie, she suspected that maybe Robbie was her son.
Trina was a little ditzy, but women’s intuition was real.
Tilley was totally unaware that when Trina had come by to help her get ready for her dress rehearsal, she had stolen the hair from her brush.
She didn’t know that Robbie had gone to the local Labcorp, where Genna, a woman he had gone to high school with, chattered about her results with Ozempic while she put a needle into his arm.
Tilley didn’t know that, even though Robbie hadn’t had the guts to check the portal where his results had been posted, Genna had heard from her sister, a nurse who had seen the results come through, that they weren’t quite what Robbie was going to be expecting.
She, obviously, had to tell her husband, Ben, what she had discovered.
But she swore him to secrecy. And he told his best friend Davey, who Robbie had played middle school football with.
But, of course, he was sworn to secrecy too.
Davey might not have told his wife, Angela, over the phone if he had known that she was on Bluetooth in the car with her entire book club crammed in the Suburban as they went to see the movie version of the last book they’d read.
Angela’s friend Samantha told her mother, Debra, who had to call her bridge group because hadn’t they known all these years there was something fishy about Elizabeth suddenly appearing with that baby?
They still talked about it sometimes, in the bridge room of the country club.
Sure, Elizabeth had basically hidden away with her sister for months after Robert died.
Who could blame her? She was trying to rehabilitate the poor soul.
But for no one to know she was pregnant? Well… It didn’t add up.
After that, who’s really to say how Pat, Robbie’s barber, heard.
It was all over town at that point yet had somehow managed to miss the entire Saxton and Thaysden families.
But, well, who would have told them? Didn’t they already know?
Pat was a septuagenarian who assumed he’d die standing behind his barber’s chair and sincerely hoped he didn’t slice someone’s ear off as he went down.
He was tall and thin (perfect for seeing the tops of people’s heads), with the overblown, jovial personality better suited to a larger man.
What made him say, “Well, Robbie, how are things in the family since the truth came out?” no one will ever really know.
And maybe it was better for the truth to come from a friend who found it a charming piece of town gossip rather than a lab portal that Robbie had been avoiding checking like it was his full-time job.
At any rate, that was how Robbie Saxton found out, once and for all, that he was indeed the biological son of his aunt Tilley.
He even called Genna to confirm that an aunt couldn’t be so biologically similar as to test as a mother.
She, indeed, could not. And Robbie believed her because, well, a woman who knew so much about Ozempic clearly had some scientific comprehension.
At any rate, that was how Robbie found himself, still in the barber’s cape, one side of his hair cut, the other still in need of a trim, standing on the back patio of Dogwood, his back to the water, with Tilley, Elizabeth, Olivia, and Amelia all in a row, all in rocking chairs, tasting a new brownie recipe Tilley had just tried.
She thought it was her best batch yet, if she did say so herself.
Robbie stood rather neutrally, in the center of all of them, but it was toward Elizabeth that he directed, “You lied to me my entire life about being my mother? Are you insane?”
Tilley and Elizabeth shared a glance. They had prepared for the eventuality of this moment.
Who could keep a secret this big in a day and age of genetic testing?
But, then again, they’d managed to keep it in a town this small for decades, so they had started to get a little cocky.
But, well, then Tilley had had that fit in front of Mason and he had gone to Olivia and Tilley had done her little skit for Robbie, and…
they should have presumed this was coming.
Even so, four faces in front of Robbie remained one hundred percent placid.
“Sweetheart, why don’t you sit down,” Elizabeth said, gesturing to a wrought-iron chair that had been on this patio for at least fifty years and was painted every spring to keep it in good shape.
“I do not want to sit down!”
“Well, could I at least get you a brownie, sugar?” Tilley asked.
“How about a bourbon?” Amelia chimed in. Tilley could see that she was desperate to get away.
Robbie stared into the face of his sister, who was still sitting. He looked ridiculous walking over to her, his barber cape blowing, staring intently into her eyes. “You knew,” he whispered.
“Knew what?” she asked. “Robbie, you’re acting insane.”
Tilley thought she played it off quite nicely.
Amelia had, indeed, known that Robbie was not her brother, but was her cousin.
It was one of the reasons she had felt confident having Greer and George, children who were not biologically hers.
If her mother could love Robbie so fully, as her son, surely she could do the same for her children. And she had.
Robbie began pacing and Amelia escaped for the bourbon.
Olivia stood up and said, “This feels like a family matter,” but Robbie pointed to her and said, “No, ma’am. If I know the three of you, you were all caught up in this scheme. Sit down.” He crossed his arms and planted his feet. “No one is leaving until someone tells me the truth.”
In all the times they had discussed the possibility of this happening, Tilley and Elizabeth had never discussed who would actually explain things to Robbie.
It might have been Elizabeth’s place as Robbie’s presumed mother, but Tilley felt moved to stand up, to go to him, her beloved, her son, the boy she had carried inside her, given birth to, given up because, as much as she didn’t want to admit it now, she had been so mired in grief and pain and the insanity that had caused her that there was no way she could raise him as his mother.
So, instead, she had lived under the same roof his entire childhood, watched him grow into a man with her beloved Robert’s eyes.
Her only sticking point: He would be called Robbie, after his father.
Tilley took Robbie’s hands in hers. “Robbie, darling, please don’t be angry.”
His shoulders dropped. Tilley knew that Robbie had always had a soft spot for her, had always watched after her, loved her a little extra.
Maybe he hadn’t known she was his mother, but he’d felt connected to her in a deep and powerful way.
And she was hoping that connection would shine through now.
“We never wanted to lie to you, Robbie. But I found out I was pregnant with you after my Robert died—”
Robbie did sit down now in that chair. Or, well, sank, rather. “My real father,” he said. “The father I will never know.”
Tilley’s eyes filled then because, oh, how Robert would have loved his son! If she could just go back, if she could have kept him from leaving that day… But, no, she had to stay here. She had a mess to clean up. Her mess.
“Sweetheart, your father is your real father. My sister is your real mother. I might have carried you, but I couldn’t take care of you. I hate to say that, but I think we all know it’s true.”
Elizabeth stood up now and knelt in front of her son. Well, her nephew. Or both. “Robbie, the plan was for Dad and me to take care of you until Tilley got well, until she could take care of you as your mother.”
“Honey, they’re still waiting,” Tilley said gently.
Despite the intensity of the situation, they all smiled.
“We shouldn’t have lied to you,” Elizabeth said.
“We should have told you the whole time. But, when you were small, we still hoped that Tilley would be able to keep you as her own. And then when you got older…” Elizabeth’s voice cracked as she said, “How or when could I ever tell the light of my life, my precious boy, that he wasn’t actually my very own? ”
Robbie’s eyes filled too at the sight of his mother crying.
“Okay, all right,” Amelia interrupted, handing Robbie the bourbon. “Robbie, come on. Let’s not be dramatic here. You’re a grown man. You know this was the right thing to do.”
Elizabeth swiveled to look at her daughter. The one she did actually give birth to. “Because you handled the news so stoically?”
Amelia looked at her brother. “I did not handle it well. But, almost four years later, I’m here to tell you that this is stupid—it’s a blood test, and it changes nothing.
Don’t you dare start calling me your cousin.
” Amelia began to cry too as she said, “Because you are my brother, and it will break my heart.”
Tilley wasn’t sure why his sister moved Robbie more than the two older women before him, but he stood up and hugged Amelia and kissed her cheek. “All right,” he said, his arms still around her. “You’ll always be my sister.” He pulled back as she wiped her eyes. “Okay?”
She nodded, sniffling. He handed her the bourbon, and she took a sip. Then he squatted down a little, to her eye level, and said, “But you should have told me. That was wrong.”
She nodded again. “I know. It was hard. I wanted to. But then the babies were born and… I don’t know, Robbie.
Our whole family is so mishmashed anyway that I kind of started to feel like it didn’t matter.
You are my best friend, and, like, the most important person in the world to me, and who cares if you’re actually my… ”
She trailed off.
“Cousin isn’t, like, a pejorative term, Amelia,” Robbie said.
“Stop it!” she said, pointing at him. “I said don’t call me your cousin!”
He put his hands up, and she handed him the bourbon.
Then he turned back to his aunt and his mother, who were now switched, but maybe not in his mind. “Now what?”
“Well,” Olivia chimed in from the rocking chair where she was still sitting. “For starters, you could take off that ridiculous cape.”
Robbie looked down and laughed the tiniest bit. “Oh. I guess I was kind of upset.” He paused and looked at Elizabeth and Tilley. “To be clear, I’m still very upset. With both of you. Amelia doesn’t get to cry and wash away your sins. Okay?”
They both nodded. “We did what we did because we love you so much,” Tilley said.
Robbie rolled his eyes, but Tilley could sense him softening. He finally ripped off the cape and said, “Do Mason and Parker know?”
“I never told Parker,” Amelia said, “which makes me feel awful because I have this huge secret from my husband, so thanks to all of you for that.”
“Mason kind of knows,” Olivia chimed in. “But not factually. He suspects.”
Robbie shook his head and sighed. “I have to go find Trina.”
“Do you forgive us?” Elizabeth asked.
Robbie scoffed. “Are you serious? I found this out twenty minutes ago, and you want me to forgive you already?”
Elizabeth and Tilley nodded in unison, looking so much alike that Robbie wondered if it even mattered which one was his mother and which was his aunt.
They were a totally codependent unit. And, even in his anger and confusion, he had to admit that Tilley would never have been capable of mothering him.
And Elizabeth had been the absolute best mother.
But he should make them suffer a little.
Although, he guessed they had probably suffered quite a lot already…
Being a devoted son was hard. Having the softest spot for all these women that you loved more than life itself was complicated.
“I am angry with all of you,” he said. “This conversation is not over. But I need to go sort out my feelings.” He looked at his watch. “And the Marlins have a game in half an hour, and I can’t miss that for…” He waved his hand. “Whatever the hell this is.”
“Robbie, language,” Tilley and Elizabeth said simultaneously.
He sighed, exasperated. “You two lied to me my entire life, and I can’t say ‘hell’? For heaven’s sake.”
“Go be mad,” Amelia said. “We have to change for the game.”
She hugged him. “I love you. It’s all going to be okay.”
With that, Robbie walked away, Elizabeth calling after him, “Hey! Why does she get a hug and not me?”
“Or me!” Tilley said.
Without even turning, Robbie yelled, “Because she’s just another victim caught in your web of manipulation!”
Tilley and Elizabeth smiled. “He’s going to forgive us,” Elizabeth said.
Olivia sighed. “Tilley, you’re driving to the game. I, for one, need a drink.”
“Same,” Amelia said.
“I’ll go make us all a roadie,” Elizabeth said.
As the women around her got up and started moving about, Tilley exhaled deeply, a breath she had been holding for decades. She felt in her heart that it was going to be okay. It had to be. They were family, after all. Nothing could change that.
As she sat back down in her rocking chair to process what had just happened, Tilley felt as if something exploded inside her, like light and glass and gasoline colliding in a blazing ball of fire.
It took her breath away. What was this, this thing she was feeling?
At first, Tilley thought that maybe she was dying.
But, no, this feeling was quite the opposite.
For the first time in decades, Tilley was free.