Chapter Forty-Seven
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Germaine takes us back to town a different way, on a footpath through a forest and then across a pasture.
The landscape hasn’t changed, but it feels different now.
I can’t pass any of it, the tufted yellow tops of dandelions, the pale trunks of birch trees, or the clumps of fanned out ferns, without imagining my mother here too, skipping across the field, her little fingers brushing the tips of the tall grass.
It’s disorienting, like I haven’t been here before.
But when we pass through a stile that takes us onto a road, I know where we are.
We’re at the bottom of the hill where Dev and his mother live.
Germaine looks up toward their house and says, “I should stop in. See how Polly’s doing. ”
“Polly?” I say.
“My friend,” Germaine says. “The one you walked home.”
“Penelope.”
“Whose nickname is Polly.”
“Edwina’s friend Polly?” I’m not sure what I’m grasping at.
“Same Polly. Same Penelope.”
“But Edwina said Polly was dead.”
“Why would she say that?” Germaine says. “Polly lives right up that hill. You’ve met her yourself.”
Did I hear wrong? I think back to our conversation. Edwina said that her friend Polly stayed in touch with Sukie for a while. When I asked if I could talk to Polly, Edwina said Polly wasn’t with us anymore. Because she has dementia .
“The Polly who knew your mother is the Penelope who’s Dev’s mother?” Amity says.
“That makes you and Dev practically cousins,” Wyatt says.
“It does not,” Amity and I say at the same time.
Maybe Dev’s mother will have a moment of lucidity and can tell me more. I want to see her and I want to see her alone.
“Let me go check on her,” I say. “Please. You guys go on back.” Before anyone can stop me, I’m running up the hill to the brick house.
I ring the bell and the door opens, and it’s not Mrs. Carlton.
It’s Dev. The morning comes back to me, and I know I should say something about running out so abruptly, but I can’t.
“Are you okay?” Dev says. “Come in.”
I step inside the front hall. The house is too warm. He takes me into the living room and sits me down on the couch.
“Let me get you some water.”
Everything is paisley, the couch and chairs, an ottoman, the curtains. There’s a deck of cards on the coffee table. Someone was playing gin rummy. Does Dev play cards with his mother? He hands me a glass of water and sits beside me. I set down the glass without drinking any.
“Everyone lied to me, my whole life. Even my grandparents, who aren’t even my grandparents. Why didn’t they tell me the truth? My mother’s life was a lie. It makes me feel like mine is too.”
I tell him everything in a rush, a run-on sentence about a girl and a fire, a death, a journey to Indiana, an adoption, a new name. A big fat secret concealed for decades that no one thought I deserved to know.
“The fire down by the viaduct, that was your mother’s house?” Dev says.
Of course he would have heard about it. Willowthrop is tiny.
“That was my mother’s family. Her real family.”
“I’m so sorry, Cath.”
There’s pressure in my chest, a lump in my throat. I bite my lip to stop it from trembling. Dev turns away for a moment—this must be too much for him, he’s afraid I’m going to start bawling—but then he’s facing me again and handing me a tissue.
I sniffle, wipe away the tears that I can’t hold back.
“And my mom knew your mom.”
“What?”
“Edwina said Penelope used to babysit Sukie. That’s my mom. That was my mom’s name. Not when I knew her. Not that I ever knew her.”
“Edwina Flasher?”
“That’s why I came here. I need to know what else your mom remembers. She might be my only link to my mother’s childhood.”
“She’s taking a nap right now,” Dev says. “I hate to wake her. She’s at her most confused after sleeping. I usually give her some time before talking with her about anything important.”
My mother was selfish, flighty, an infuriating puzzle. She’s gone, and she’s still messing with me. I feel anger bubbling up. My neck is tight, my shoulders so stiff they hurt. My head is pounding.
“Do you know why I ran out this morning? It wasn’t because I felt sick, it was because I heard my mother’s voice telling me to stay, that you were someone special, that what I felt for you, and with you, was rare and precious and I should jump in, and hold on and I wanted to, I really, really wanted to, and that scared the hell out of me.
All my life, I’ve refused to be like my mother.
She’d have pushed me toward you: Stay in England, forget Buffalo, move in with this man, get some goats, make cheese.
She was always running off to something, a shinier future, a better chance she wanted to grab, something or someone to be infatuated with.
I swore I’d never rush in the way she did, I’d never get my hopes up, to want something from someone, because it doesn’t work.
People leave you; people let you down; they die. It’s not worth it.”
I stop to take a breath, and it hits me what I’ve just said. What is wrong with me? I wouldn’t blame Dev for wanting to be the one to bolt now.
But he puts out his hand, face up, the way he did on Stanage Edge. My hand is trembling as I put it on top of his, and we sit like that, palm to palm.
“It doesn’t always have to be that way,” he says.
“What do I do with all of this?” It comes out as barely a whisper.
“I don’t know. Maybe you need to give yourself some time.”
“Will that help?”
“It might.”
My mind is too full to think.
“I’m just so, so tired by all of it,” I say. “It’s too much.”
He lets his fingers slip between mine. A gentle squeeze.
“Come,” he says. “I’ll drive you home.”