Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
January 2025
Seattle
C indy held her wineglass with both hands and stood wide-legged in front of the bulletin board covered with photos of Bob from all walks of life: babyhood to boyhood and beyond. Tara watched her mother’s eyes, watching them flit from one version of Bob to the next until they settled on the photo of Bob with baby Tara. Tara’s throat was thick with fear. Cindy was about to hand over dramatic secrets—secrets that could make or break Tara’s ability to forgive Cindy at all. Josie was still asleep upstairs, but there wasn’t time to go fetch her.
Tara guessed that Josie didn’t mind. Josie had made her peace with what had happened. She just wanted Tara and Cindy to mend their broken relationship and move forward—without Josie. In Josie’s mind, she wouldn’t be here much longer anyway.
Tara suppressed a sob. She suppressed the desire to run upstairs, throw her arms around Josie, and demand to take her back to Nantucket Hospital. We’re wasting time!
But Cindy had begun to speak. She’d begun to explain herself.
“You must remember Josie’s birthday,” Cindy offered.
“Just about a year before mine,” Tara said. She’d never forget her older sister’s birthday. It was etched into the walls of her mind.
“Right.” Cindy folded her lips.
“I always thought it seemed difficult,” Tara said. “You had a three-month-old when I was conceived.”
Cindy bowed her head thoughtfully. Tara wondered if she was thinking about Winnie, about the granddaughter she and Bob had never met. It’s too late for that, too , Tara thought darkly.
“You know your father was a marine,” Cindy said. “He joined ranks without asking me, and I was furious. I couldn’t understand why he’d do such a thing. We were in love. We had plans. He went away and then later was sent to Afghanistan after the Soviets invaded, and I had half a mind to divorce him.”
Tara felt as though she couldn’t breathe. Her mother’s eyes were fiery.
“Why didn’t you?” Tara asked.
“I was still in love with him. I thought it seemed terribly cruel to divorce him when he was fighting like that,” Cindy offered. “He wrote me several letters, trying to explain himself. But he never apologized.”
“You said he never apologized for anything.”
“That’s right,” Cindy said.
Tara was suddenly struck with the incomprehensible fact of her mother’s story. Even before she said it, Tara knew what was coming next.
“There was another man in my life when I met your father,” Cindy said. “His name was Philip, and he was everything your father wasn’t. He was very kind to me. He was very funny and had a way with words. I left him for your father because your father was dominant, strong, and passionate. More than that, I was just attracted to your father in ways I never had been before. I couldn’t ignore what my body was telling me. But when your father had been gone for a while, I ran into Philip at the grocery store and agreed to meet for a drink. Philip knew I was married, and I knew he had a girlfriend. But we began a very intense and brief affair. Maybe I’m supposed to say I regret that affair, but I don’t. Not for a second.” Cindy’s eyes filled with tears. “Philip was a beautiful soul, and I was so lonely during that time. Terribly so.”
“Why didn’t you leave Dad for Philip?” Tara asked.
“Philip wanted me to,” Tara admitted. “We had many conversations about it. He broke up with his girlfriend and was prepared for me to move in with him. I told him I didn’t want to stay in Nantucket because Bob would be coming back, and I didn’t know what he’d do to us when he found out. I didn’t know what he’d do to Philip. I figured he’d punch his lights out.”
“That sounds like Dad,” Tara admitted.
“Out of the blue one afternoon, your father was back in the kitchen of our house,” Cindy said. “He was sitting there, eating a sandwich and reading the newspaper. He nearly gave me a heart attack. I threw my arms around him because I hadn’t heard from him for a while and I’d been worried about him. The minute he had his arms around me, he whispered in my ear, ‘I love you, Cindy Lee. I love you to pieces.’ And I knew that something had broken in him when he was overseas. He would never be the same. And I had this strange sense that I needed to protect him from himself. I needed to help him heal. After that, I ignored Philip. I threw away his letters; I didn’t take his calls. I poured myself into helping Bob rebuild his soul after what he’d been through.”
“Did Dad tell you what happened over there?” Tara asked.
“He said he’d made a friend who’d died in front of him,” Cindy said tentatively. “He never went into any details about the accident or the attack or whatever it was. But I think whatever happened affected his hearing. He could no longer hear as well out of his left ear.”
Tara remembered that from her childhood. If she or Josie ever spoke to their father on his left side, he grew irate and annoyed, screaming at them to always speak to him from the right.
“Not long after your father got back to Nantucket, I realized I was pregnant,” Cindy said. “At first, I was overjoyed. For whatever reason, I assumed the baby was your father’s, and I thought this would be a brilliant way to start over. Your father was really happy, too. He was incredibly gentle with me, making me food, letting me sleep in, and even tending to a few chores around the house. He’d never done that before. But I decided to go to the first doctor’s appointment by myself. Maybe that’s proof of something. Perhaps a part of me had begun to doubt. That’s when the doctor told me I was nearly three months pregnant. That devastated me. It meant the baby was Philip’s and not Bob’s. If Bob paid close enough attention, he’d figure that out one day. All I could do was pray that Bob was too distracted with his fears, anxieties, and injuries to notice.
“When I was five or six months pregnant, I was at the farmers’ market with Bob, and we ran into Philip and his ex-girlfriend, who, I suppose, he’d gotten back together with. They both noticed how pregnant I was, and the girlfriend said something under her breath. Bob caught it and said something menacing, like, stay away from my wife. But that night, he disappeared and returned late smelling of beer. I gleaned later that he’d been at the local bar, asking around about what I’d been up to while he’d been away. He was always so scary, you know. And it didn’t take long for people to fess up what they knew. Because I’d planned to leave Bob, Philip and I hadn’t been careful about hiding our affair. We’d kissed all over town. We’d dined al Fresca. We’d lived. When Bob came home that night, he threatened to leave me. But I begged and pleaded with him. I told him I’d only ever loved him. I told him that the timing was just slightly off and that most people in Nantucket would probably just think the baby was Bob’s. But Bob was already packing up a bag. I was so utterly heartbroken. I threw up all over the bathroom due to stress. When I came out, I found Bob in a heap by the bed. He was crying, too. I realized then he didn’t have anyone else, either. His parents were dead. He’d been an only child. He’d lost his friend in the war. He needed me. He needed the baby. So I promised we could have another one immediately, just as soon as I was able to. I don’t know why he agreed. Maybe he regretted it later.”
Tara’s legs were about to give out, so she backed up and slumped into the sofa. She was exhausted. Cindy continued to stare at the photos of Bob on the bulletin board as though she wanted one of the versions of Bob to walk out and explain himself.
“Josephine was born looking too much like Philip, with Philip’s eyes and Philip’s hair,” Cindy explained tenderly. “Bob immediately rejected her and pestered me to get pregnant again as soon as I could. This was an incredibly lonely time for me. I was getting accustomed to motherhood. I was trying to carry Bob’s grief at not being the father and his rage at Nantucket gossip. Meanwhile, I knew people were talking terribly behind my back. After all, I’d been the one who cheated! I was devastated and felt so guilty and under-slept and awful. I asked Bob if we could leave Nantucket and start over somewhere, but he said no. He said he’d come from a long line of Nantucketers and wouldn’t be chased off.
“Not long after that, Philip and his girlfriend left instead, and I’ve always wondered if Bob forced them to. Maybe he threatened them. I don’t know, and I’ll never know. But very soon, I was pregnant with you, Tara. And you were Bob’s shining star. You were his reason to keep hoping. While he ignored Josie, he celebrated my new pregnancy, cooked me elaborate meals, and told everyone how thrilled and in love with me he was.
“It was a new era for us. Bob named you after his mother, whom he’d loved so much, and he did everything he could to take care of you when you were born. This was a welcome relief. Josie needed more and more care; she felt neglected. She could always sense that Bob loved you more. I hated that, but there was nothing to be done about it. Bob wanted to get pregnant again shortly thereafter. He wanted to have more and more children. But for whatever reason, we couldn’t do it again. He was so in love with you that he didn’t care. And soon, time pulled us along. You were growing; you were impressive; you were strong. Josie was amazing, too, but your dad never wanted to hear about that. Maybe that’s why I never supported Josie the way I should have. I didn’t want to get caught by your father. I didn’t want to remind him of what I’d done.”
Cindy bowed her head. “I feel ashamed. So ashamed.”
Tara looked down at her hands. She remembered the immensity of her father’s love growing up. She remembered Josie telling her how “unimportant” she felt in their father’s and mother’s eyes. She remembered telling Josie that Josie was imagining things.
But it was plain as anything. Tara had been loved; Josie had been forgotten and neglected.
It wasn’t fair.
But it seemed that Cindy had really loved Bob. She’d loved him more than Josie.
In Tara’s mind, that made Cindy terribly selfish.
“I’ll never forget when Josie asked if she could go to college,” Cindy went on. “Your dad told her she could go if she paid for it. But why would she put herself in debt like that? Josie was despondent. She moved out to that little apartment after that and hardly visited us back at home. I think she sensed something was really wrong between the three of us and didn’t want to have anything to do with us anymore.
“But before we knew it, you were ready for university. Your father paid for everything, obviously. Nothing was too expensive when it came to his baby girl. But you were so wayward. You never knew what you wanted to do. Your father empathized. He told me how difficult it was to know anything about ourselves when we were twenty-one or twenty-two. I laughed at that; after all, I’d been that age when I’d had you and Josie. But your father wanted the world for you.
“It was November of 2001 when he came home one night and told me Philip was back,” Cindy continued, her tone darkening. “He saw him at that same bar, and Bob tried to fight him. Philip announced he was on the island to ‘make contact with his daughter.’ He said it was obvious to everyone that Philip was Josie’s real dad. What’s more, Philip had heard just how unkind Bob had been to Josie over the years. You know that nothing is ever sacred in Nantucket. It’s all out in the open.” Cindy wet her lips. “Bob and I weren’t sure what to do. I reached out to Philip to ask him to give us a little time so that we could tell Josie ourselves. Philip said we had just a few weeks, and then he was going to approach Josie himself. I was panicked. My biggest fear, stupidly, was that Bob was going to leave me after everything. But I was also worried about how Josie would take it. Would she think I’d wronged her all these years? I’d forced her to be raised by a man who wasn’t even kind to her!
“But it wasn’t so long after that you came home and planned the Christmas Festival and fainted in front of everyone,” Cindy offered. “Your dad was so worried. He nearly got into an accident when we drove up to the hospital to see you.”
Tara closed her eyes. She remembered being so small and frightened and pregnant. She remembered telling herself, Be brave and tell your parents the truth. They love you. They’ll always love you, no matter what.
Anger spiked in her chest. Tara had half a mind to jump up and run out to the rental car and drive away. But she couldn’t leave Josie here.
Cindy began to cry then. She gasped, took a tissue from the box, and dried herself up. “I don’t know what came over him after that. He refused to talk about you, about our grandchild, about the future. He was so enraged. Suddenly, he said, ‘to heck with all of them,’ and started throwing things into suitcases and boxes. I couldn’t understand it. I begged him to listen to reason. But he told me that you and Josie were thick as thieves; he told me the entire island thought our family was heinous and broken. He told me Philip had come back to ruin us. He sounded like a raving, angry man. What could I do? I packed up and followed him. We put up the house for sale and gave away everything we didn’t need. And suddenly, we were living in Dallas, Texas, far away from anyone we’d ever known.”
Cindy sat down on the other side of the sofa from Tara. It seemed as though she was scared Tara would reject her.
Tara wasn’t sure what to do.
“I felt so abandoned,” Tara whispered.
Cindy stared down at the floor and wrung her hands.
“I was pregnant and twenty-one and so, so scared,” Tara continued.
Cindy bowed her head. “It wasn’t right. It wasn’t the right thing.”
“Why did you go with him?” Tara breathed. “He was the problem. He was the one who didn’t love Josie. He was the one who was angry with me for getting pregnant.”
Cindy shook her head ever so slightly. “I was angry with you, too. We’d given you everything. You were supposed to be our perfect child. You were supposed to be our hope, our reason for being together.”
Tara felt irate. “I failed you.”
Cindy turned her head to look at Tara. “I know it sounds crazy. I know it isn’t right. And trust me, I’ve regretted it over the years. I’ve wanted to reach out to you. I’ve wanted to explain all of this.”
“Bob wouldn’t let you?”
It felt delicious to call her father by his first name. It created a wider gap between them.
“I wouldn’t have told him I called,” Cindy offered.
Tara let a long moment of silence pass between them. She closed her eyes and pictured herself, Josie, Donnie, and Winnie during those difficult early years. They’d needed Cindy so desperately. But they’d made do.
“You must hate me right now,” Cindy said.
Tara closed her eyes. She thought about Winnie, reaching out to Tara over and over again, and Tara reacting to her. She thought about Cindy rejecting Tara and regretted it ever since.
It was a vicious cycle. Could she ever overcome it?
Tara looked at her mother and took a breath. “I don’t hate you. I could never hate you.”
“But you’re broken because of me,” Cindy said.
Tara sucked in her cheeks. How could she answer that?
“I think all parents mess up their children,” Tara offered softly. “But we’re both here now. Like Josie keeps telling me, you and I have time to mend things. If we want to.”
Cindy’s eyes widened. Tara became suddenly aware of the sobering and thick smell of lilies. They were overwhelming. She hurried to the door, opened it, and sucked in fresh air. Rain pelted her cheeks and forehead. But now that she knew her mother and father’s story and understood just how messy it all had been, she felt strangely relieved.
The truth was supposed to set you free, she knew. She wasn’t sure if freedom was what she felt. But it was closer to it.
Cindy reached for a bottle of wine and shook her head. Tara closed the door.
“What are we going to do next?” Cindy asked as she refilled Tara’s glass.
Tara let out a soft laugh. “I don’t know.”
“I never know,” Cindy said. “Maybe we should take a page from your father’s book and pretend we know everything.”
“No,” Tara said, taking the glass from her mother. “I don’t want to do anything like him.”
Cindy tilted her head. “I do love him, you know. I always will.”
Tara remembered her many years of loving Donnie. She remembered Josie pleading with her to reconsider her love for him.
She remembered pushing Josie away only because she blamed Josie for Donnie leaving.
Women were complicated creatures. They loved with reckless abandon. Sometimes, they loved in the wrong direction. But was love ever a bad thing?
Tara touched her mother’s shoulder. “I think I understand.”
Cindy’s face crumpled. After a startled gasp, she said, “Nobody’s ever said that to me before. Certainly, he never did.”