“I know you are hurting right now, but believe me, it won’t be long before this will be a distant memory. You’ll have a different perspective and life experience to add to it.” In my heart, a tiny hope bloomed. If she would respond to reason, then perhaps the rest need not be said.
“I wanted him to meet me here. For us to run off together. Get away from this town. He was all for it. He said John would bring him.”
Inside, I trembled. Outwardly, I forced myself to show calm. “Ellen, this is unnecessary. Such a mistake. Is he coming?”
“No, he called me back while I was on my way. He said he couldn’t go. That he’d thought about what his father said and that it wasn’t right for us to be together.”
I bit my lip. My hands were still on her. I felt some sort of deep energy, something more than distress or tension, like a deep-seated earthquake whose reverberations were about to rewrite a region.
“Is it true, Mom? Mr. Bell said he was my father despite what you’d said. He told Braden you’d denied it but that my birth was nine months after . . . The timing was too exact . . . That he’d known you’d never . . . That he was your first.” She shook off my hands and stepped away. “Mom, I know what you told me about Mr. Bell, but is it true? Did you lie to me? Is Spencer Bell my father?” She nodded toward the window, casting a quick look past me toward it. “Who’s buried in my father’s grave?”
She’d been staring out there when I’d arrived. At the cemetery. The deep emotion shaking Ellen rushed into me, through me, and my teeth rattled. I made a last effort to control myself, to keep my voice low and calm.
“Spencer Bell is not your father. I promise you. I swear it to you, Ellen.”
Her hands continued covering her face, but her posture sagged. I tried to pull her toward me. Her hands came away from her face. Her eyes looked haunted, but she held her ground.
“Why would he say such things, Mom? Why would he tell Braden that?”
“Come with me.” I tugged her arm again. “We can sit in here. I see Roger’s chairs in there, and the echo isn’t so bad.”
Ellen walked into the room, but as I entered, I stopped. An object had been set in the sill of the framed window opening—the butterfly pot. Below it, on the floor, was an open duffel bag and a backpack, both belonging to Ellen.
She saw me looking.
“I packed a few things, but I don’t . . . won’t . . . Do you think maybe I can camp out here? Or maybe in the cabin until the house is done?” She picked up the butterfly pot from the windowsill and hugged it to her.
“This is your room, sweetheart, but it’s not suitable for living in yet. We can go home and talk about decorating it. I was going to surprise you when you came home for the first college break, but this is a better idea.”
“That’s over. Everything has changed. I’m not going.”
Roger’s lawn chairs were leaning against the wall. I opened them and placed them near the window.
“Sit here.”
I was out of options. That last suggestion about discussing decorating had been silly and pointless. It wasn’t going to be simple, and I knew it. No matter how difficult, no matter the cost, I had to do this for my daughter.
She sat in the chair, moving like she was in pain. Given time, her youth would restore her. It couldn’t help but do that because it was the nature of youth and health and regeneration. I sat in the other chair. I didn’t know where to focus. On Ellen’s face? The present and future? Or out the window to the past, to my history?
Someone was sitting on the cemetery wall . . . a small figure. I gasped.
I blinked and saw it was a trick of the light. A cloud perhaps, a moment of darkness, but then the sun was bright again. A breeze rustled the branches overarching the cemetery. When the true shadows moved, it became clear no one was up there. But the butterfly pot was now back in the open window space.
“Mom?” Ellen touched my shoulders.
My hands were pressed over my heart, and my chest hurt.
“Mom?” She shook me. My head jolted, and she stopped. “Sorry, Mom. You scared me. You weren’t breathing.”
I gulped. “I’m fine. I’m breathing.” I dragged in a deep breath to prove to both of us I was all right.
Ellen retrieved the pot from the sill and took her seat again. “We’re both having bad days, I think.” She gave me a small, brave curve of the lips that barely qualified as a smile.
I stared at her, memorizing her face, and thinking I’d rather die than . . . I’d heard it said a hundred times at least. I’d rather die than—fill in the blank. Today I understood it could be a real thing—not light words for drama queens or throwaway party conversation. Because, in my cowardice, I would rather die here on the spot than say aloud, “There was a child. Spencer Bell was her father. I lost her when she was five months old. I wanted to go with her. But someone had to stay here and take care of Gran.”
Had I said the words aloud? I thought I might have. I’d tried to watch her face, but there was a big blank space in my memory. Had her expression changed? I had no idea. It was all a blur. Beyond her, the cemetery pulled at me like an irresistible magnet that overruled all other attractants. The shadows played across the stone where the cemetery was perched on the hill. That figure again. Small. Childlike. I leaned toward the window, touching the opening. There it was. I was on my feet now, and the wood beneath my fingers evaporated. It was just gone and I was stepping forward . . .
“Mom!” Ellen yelled.
I snapped back. I was still seated. I hadn’t gone anywhere. The wall was there, and solid. Ellen was in my face, her hands pressed hard against my cheeks.
“I have loved you from the first moment I saw you,” I whispered. “So did Gran. Please always remember that.”
She dropped her hands and stepped away. “What did you say?”
“I have loved you—”
“Not that. Before. A moment ago you said something about losing a child.” Her voice sounded harsh. Her words were like slaps. Incomprehension and disbelief clouded her eyes.
I cleared my throat. I had to do this because I loved my daughter. I had to do this one thing and then I’d be done. I could move on then. But first, this.
“I was planning to go to college, but Grand died.” I faltered, coughing. I tried again, doing my best to sound sane and reasonable despite the pounding of my heart and the ringing in my ears.
“You know I couldn’t leave Gran because her health was poor, and she needed my help. I didn’t know the truth of how my parents had died, but now I understand why she avoided people, town, and society. Others knew and might ask questions. She wanted to avoid that.”
“You said something about a baby. About a baby dying.”
I closed my eyes. How could something hurt so badly after all these years?
“Yes, we lost her,” I said. I forced the words out. “When she was five months old. SIDS, I think. She didn’t wake from her nap. That was all.”
“A sister? I had a sister?”
She was struggling to understand, to put the pieces together in a way that made sense. I shuddered. “Her name was Ellen.”