A Mother's Secret (8 page)

As if nothing had passed between her and Daniel, Rebecca turned off the stove. “Once Daniel is done, we’ll put the bread in the microwave for a minute or two, and then dish up.”

“Did you make a vegetable?” the boy asked.

She smiled at him. “Peas.”

“Yeah!” He gazed confidingly up at Daniel. “I like peas. But I don’t like broccoli.”

“I don’t, either.”

“It smells kinda like…”

“Brussels sprouts. Yeah, it does.”

Rebecca snorted. Except for her pink cheeks, she looked so much like she usually did, Daniel wondered if he’d imagined that earlier moment.

Appearing beside him, Malcolm looked up at Daniel, his freckled face open and friendly. “I can butter, too, if you want.”

Daniel had to swallow before he could speak.
My son
.

“I’m all done,” he said. “It’s ready to go in the microwave.”

“Great!” the boy confessed. “’Cuz—”

“I know. Because you’re hungry.” Daniel grinned down at him, feeling the alien urge to squeeze his son’s shoulder or ruffle his hair. But he kept his hands to himself, because he didn’t know how to make a casual gesture like that.

“Yeah!”

In passing, Rebecca bent down and kissed the top of Malcolm’s head, then whisked the loaf of French bread
away and popped it into the microwave. Resentment stirred in Daniel at the ease of her relationship with their son. She’d denied him one hell of a lot.

She asked him to carry the bowl of spaghetti to the table and followed with the sauce and peas. The microwave dinged, and they all sat down.

While they ate, Rebecca centered the conversation around Malcolm’s interests. Her glances at Daniel were brief, casual and utterly impersonal. He might have been the merest of acquaintances instead of the man she’d all but lived with at one point, the man who had fathered her child. On one level he enjoyed Malcolm’s chatter; the kid was bright, funny and uninhibited. On another level, though, Daniel realized he wanted to talk to
her
. He wanted to know what she’d felt earlier, in the kitchen. What her family thought of her having a baby on her own. He wanted to know how tough it had been that first year, having to work through the pregnancy, go back to her job shortly after Malcolm’s birth. Whether she’d ever had low moments when she considered calling him.

Whether she’d really thought she was protecting Malcolm, or whether she was thinking only of herself. Or, worse yet, of hurting him, Daniel. Taking satisfaction in what he’d lost out on.

The boy might have been hungry, but he filled up fast. His plate clean, he asked by rote, “May I be scused? Can I watch TV, Mom?”

Rebecca shot an apprehensive look at Daniel but said, “Yes, you may. Thank you for asking so politely.”

He slid from his chair and hurried into the living room. The TV came on.

“I don’t let him watch very much,” she said. “But sometimes—”

“Why would you apologize because he watches television? Don’t all kids?”

Her gaze fastened on his face. “Did you?”

“I could watch all evening.” He shrugged. “Nobody cared.”

“Oh.” Rebecca twirled spaghetti on her fork without any seeming intent to lift it to her mouth. “Maybe all single parents rely on TV as a crutch more than we should.” Her voice was tentative, as if she were asking a question without quite wanting to frame it that way.

“Maybe. My mother did raise both Adam and me on her own, except for the few years she and my dad were together.”
The man I thought was my father.

Small lines pleated her forehead. “You always sound…distant when you talk about her.”

He shrugged. “Unlike you, she wasn’t…maternal.” Normally he would have left it at that, but all of this had been on his mind. “Maybe more with Joe when she took over raising him. Either she’d gotten to a more patient time of her life, or she was trying to make up for mistakes. Maybe she thought it was her fault that Adam took off the way he did.”

“Was it?” she asked softly.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t around when he was a kid.”

“Do you ever wish you knew more about her story?”

“I do now.” He put the brakes on. What was he
thinking?
She was…if not the enemy…at least no one he should be confiding in.

Except, he realized, that his biological heritage was Malcolm’s, too. So she did have a right to know.

She had set down her fork and studied him with those too-perceptive eyes. “What do you mean?”

Daniel wished he had a glass of wine instead of milk. He took a swallow anyway.

“This woman named Sarah Carson died last year. Adam was asked to the reading of her will. He took Joe with him.” Bald words for the bizarre experience of being asked to the reading of a complete stranger’s will. “She left a letter,” he continued. “Seems she’d known about her husband’s affair with my mother. She knew Adam was his son.” He paused. There was no way to spit out the rest of the story without feeling at least an echo of his initial shock. “Robert Carson and my mother had a second child. A girl. Mom gave her up as a baby, and she was raised by Robert and Sarah Carson, believing her entire life that she was adopted, never knowing he was really her father.”

After a small gasp, Rebecca pressed her fingers to her mouth. “She gave her
away?
”

He nodded and went back to eating as much to give himself a minute as because he was still hungry.

“But…How could she?” Rebecca whispered. Her gaze turned, as if involuntarily, toward the living room. “I can’t imagine…”

“Adam and the little girl were pretty close together in age. Maybe she thought she couldn’t cope. It would’ve been tough, having everyone know Jenny was illegitimate.”

“But…she could have moved. Started over somewhere else and pretended to be a widow.”

“Yeah,” he said unemotionally. He’d thought the same. “She could have.”

He could see the thoughts whirling in her head. “If she already felt overwhelmed raising your brother, maybe she just couldn’t imagine managing with two children.”

“Could be.”

“What kind of mother was she?” Rebecca asked, straight-out.

The beginning of a headache thrummed in his temples. Funny how reluctant he was to say,
Middling to lousy
. “I didn’t go without, if that’s what you’re asking. She wasn’t abusive. There were times we were happy. Times she was there when I needed her.” He hesitated. “We talked some, before she died. Mom was forty years old when she had me. Adam was twenty when I was born. She didn’t want to start all over with another baby, but she didn’t believe in abortion. I think she got married when she realized she was pregnant. It was a lousy marriage.” Daniel looked down to see he was mutilating a piece of bread with his hand. He brushed his fingers off and met Rebecca’s eyes again. “On some level, she probably held me responsible.”

“That’s…that’s awful!” she burst out.

“I survived.”

“Your father should have taken you with him.”

“It wasn’t done in those days. A teenage boy, maybe. I was only five. Little kids were presumed to need their mothers. Besides…” He moved his shoulders, trying to ease their rigidity. Then he dropped his bombshell. “I’m thinking he suspected even then that he wasn’t really my father.”

“What?” Rebecca leaned forward, her lips parting in shock. “Then who…?” She blinked. “Was it
him?
”

“We think so.” He told her, then, about Christmas Day, and about spotting the birthmark on Bella Carson’s hip when she bent to pick up the earring.

“I remember…” Her gaze flicked lower, before her teeth closed briefly on her lower lip. “It is unusual looking.”

“Hers is in the same spot and identical. Apparently her great-grandmother had one just like it. Robert Carson’s mother.”

“That’s why you’re telling me all this, isn’t it?” she said slowly. “Because that means…”

He nodded. “Malcolm needs to know where he comes from.”

“And…” She was visibly fumbling with all this. “That means there are all sorts of relatives. Not just Joe.”

“No. It’s…bewildering,” Daniel admitted. “This Jenny is my sister, her daughter my niece. Then there’s the Carsons’ only child, who’s my half brother, and
his
daughter. I was trying to stay out of it, but it’s harder now that I suspect…”

“Know.”

“We won’t
know
until the DNA results come back. But, yeah. I know.”

Rebecca sat silent for a minute. The only background was the tinny music from the TV. “And I thought
my
family was a mess,” she said finally.

Daniel laughed, some of the tension leaving him. “Yours is normal screwed-up. Mine could stand in for a soap opera plot.”

She laughed, too, but without conviction. “I’m sorry, Daniel. This must have been such a shock.” She thought about it. “Or maybe not so much.”

It was like her to have read his mind. “Finding out Vern isn’t my father…” He shifted in his seat. “No, that wasn’t a shock. It made sense. Learning that my mother gave up her own child, though…that’s the part I can’t wrap my mind around.”

“No,” Rebecca agreed quietly, her expression soft, compassionate. “I can see why.”

Daniel pushed back his chair. “I seem to be poor company tonight. I appreciate dinner, but I think I’d better be taking off. Can I help you clean up?”

“No, you don’t need to.” She stood, too. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cup of coffee first?”

He was stunned by how tempted he was to stay. But he didn’t like having awakened her pity, and he didn’t like his awareness that talking to her had been too easy. Too natural.

“No. Thanks.”

“Thank
you
,” she said. “You’re right. I did need to know.”

“I’ll keep you posted.”

She walked him to the door, waiting while he said good-night to Malcolm, who was polite but, right that minute, not very interested in this friend of his mother’s. They stepped outside into a cool evening. She wrapped her arms around herself. “You’ll call?”

He nodded.

“Malcolm really likes you. He was excited about you coming tonight.”

That stung, but Daniel hid his reaction. She was being generous about helping him build a relationship with the boy. Not much recompense for what he’d lost, but some.

They stood silent for a moment, awkward. She’d half shut the door, isolating them out here on the porch under the light from the single bulb. He wasn’t more than two feet from her, close enough he could have wrapped a hand around her nape and tugged her to him.

Instead, he curled his hands into fists and made himself retreat to the first step. “Good night.”

She shivered, and her voice was thin as she said, “Good night, Daniel.”

He backed down another step, onto the concrete walkway. She looked so damn lonely standing there.

Or was he transferring his own feelings? Who was really the lonely one?

Daniel swore under his breath and walked away, from self-pity, from her—and from the pull she still seemed to exert on him.

By the time he backed his car out of her driveway, she’d gone inside and turned off the porch light.

R
EBECCA HAD NO IDEA WHETHER
this was a good idea or a truly horrible one, but she was committed now. She’d left her car in a lot and walked the three blocks to Mirabelle’s, the restaurant where Daniel had suggested they meet. It wasn’t far from the offices of Kane Construction near Union Square in San Francisco.

She had e-mailed him:

I think we need to talk when Malcolm isn’t around. There’s a lot we haven’t said, or settled for the future.

His response had been terse and typically Daniel:

Fine. I can meet for lunch Friday if you come into the city. Mirabelle’s at 12:30. Reservations in my name.

Maybe she’d have been smart to go on the way they had been, with surface friendliness for Malcolm’s sake. But she was scared sometimes, by Daniel’s flashes of raw anger, by the emotional chill she saw even more often, and by her own idiotic response to him. And by how she had hated the idea of another woman in his home and bed when Malcolm was with him!

She heard his voice, a little scratchy.
There’s no one
.

Rebecca was ashamed now of her momentary leap of…not just relief. Joy. Because she knew perfectly well that she was reacting not as a mother, but as a woman who hated the idea of
any
woman in Daniel Kane’s bed. Her relief was foolish besides; even if he wasn’t dating right now, he would eventually. No, probably a whole lot sooner than “eventually.” He wasn’t a man to live celibate.

She snorted. Not all the common sense in the world had kept her from aching for him when he told her so matter-of-factly about a mother who hadn’t really wanted him and a father who hadn’t acknowledged him.

The really frightening part, Rebecca thought, was that Daniel could sound so indifferent. Did he really believe he hadn’t been scarred by the lack of genuine affection in his home? Or was he just plain unable to feel love himself? And if that was true, did he want Malcolm the way he’d reclaim a possession simply because it should have been
his?
She felt a clutch of genuine terror at the idea of him taking Malcolm for weekends and longer if he didn’t, couldn’t, really love her son.

She’d justified this talk by telling herself that it might be time for her to hire an attorney. Probably she should have done that at the beginning, when he’d come to her house and demanded parental rights. Instead she’d been conciliatory out of guilt and…oh, face it…the fact that, on some level, she’d never quit loving him. And by letting him into her home and life, she’d put not just Malcolm but her heart at peril. Yes, she had to give him parental rights. But she could have done that by keeping herself at a much safer distance and by defining from the beginning where his rights ended.

While she stood hesitating outside the restaurant door, a man with a long, gray beard shuffled up to her. “Spare a dollar, miss?”

Rebecca had been asked for money three or four times a block since she left her car. She shouldn’t be surprised, as much time as she had spent in the city, but this area not far from Union Square was home to such contrasts: designer boutiques, luxury hotels and law firms, while the sidewalks were populated with the homeless. Even now, as she reached into her purse, a pair of men in expensive suits brushed by her, followed closely by a woman with wild hair and dazed eyes who wore a pink chenille bathrobe and fluffy slippers.

Rebecca gave the beggar a dollar and then went into the restaurant.

Wearing a charcoal-gray suit as elegant as the two she’d seen outside, Daniel waited for her.

“Sucker.”

She made a face at him, embarrassed to realize he’d been watching through the glass while she froze in panic on the sidewalk. “I always have been.”

“You know the guy probably clears more than you make, and he doesn’t pay any tax on it.”

“Maybe. But what if he really is hungry?”

“Or wants his next drink.”

“You never succumb?”

“That guy looked able-bodied to me. He should get a job.” With a glance, Daniel brought the maître d’ hurrying to them.

“You’re ready to be seated now? Certainly. This way.”

Daniel waved for her to follow the maître d’.

She’d forgotten how effortlessly Daniel commanded
service. Waiters never neglected him; taxicabs had a way of whipping to the curb whenever he wanted one, as if the force of his personality drew them from blocks away. Back then, whenever he’d exasperated her, she would close her eyes and imagine him stuck at the curb like normal people, a cold, slanting rain soaking his beautiful suit while fleets of cabs passed, impervious to his raised hand.

Rebecca rolled her eyes as she was led to the table by the window. Of course it had been held for Daniel.

The waiter handed them menus and went to get their drinks. She scanned hers and looked up to find Daniel had already set his menu aside and was watching her, his expression inscrutable.

“Do you have a favorite here?” she asked.

“I thought I’d go for one of the specials on the board.”

All she’d seen was him when she walked in. Forget a board with specials. She wasn’t going to admit that.

“So what’s this about?” he asked brusquely.

“Why don’t we wait until we’ve ordered?”

He slanted a look at her, then summoned the waiter. “We’re ready.”

Giving their orders took about thirty seconds. The moment the waiter walked away, Daniel sat back, contemplating her. “Well?”

“I want to find out what you have in mind,” she said.

“Are you asking whether I intend to contest custody? Or which weekends in the month will be mine to have Malcolm?”

Low and furious, she said, “Just try to take Malcolm away from me…”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Do you really think I’d do that?”

“I…” She was shaking and had to hide her hands on her lap. “I don’t know. I don’t know you!”

Now he leaned forward, his eyes vivid with some intense emotion. “Then why were you so sure I’d make a lousy father?”

She stared down at the place settings, her heartbeat drumming in her ears. Stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid
. They’d gotten past this. She should have kept trying to…to soften him. Not confront him. Once, she’d heard him icily tell someone on the phone, “Don’t try to take me on. You’ll lose.”

I can’t lose
.

“It isn’t that,” she said, lifting her chin. “I told you. It’s not healthy for a kid to have two homes. To be torn between them, always feeling conflicting senses of obligation. It wasn’t that I thought you’d treat him badly. I never thought that.”

The waiter brought their drinks. Both sat silent until he was gone, Daniel’s gaze never leaving her face.

“Tell me.” His voice was quiet but insistent. “Tell me what happened to your family.”

She hated to remember, but he had a right to understand why she was afraid. “It didn’t start with the divorce.” She drew a deep breath. “My parents always fought, but I think they really loved each other.” Her half laugh was bitter. “Well, of course they did. People who feel indifference don’t wage quite so vicious a war, do they?”

“No. My parents just…parted ways.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…!”

He shook his head. “Just an observation.”

Sure it was. She had been careless—cruel even—to remind him that his own parents hadn’t cared enough to battle over him.

Which, Rebecca wondered, would be worse?

“I think,” she said with difficulty, “that after me, my mother didn’t want to have another baby. The pregnancy was really difficult, and she spent the last six weeks of it on bed rest. Maybe she was scared. But Dad really did want more children, and eventually she let herself get pregnant again.”

“To hold on to him?”

Rebecca gave a small, painful shrug. “Maybe. Only then, when she was big and clumsy and probably scared to death, Dad had an affair.”

Daniel swore. “That son of a bitch. And, no, I won’t apologize, even if he is your father.”

A faintly incredulous laugh released some of her tension. “You don’t have to. Mom never forgave him. I never forgave him, and I didn’t even know why they split up, not until years later when I overheard them screaming at each other.”

“How old were you?”

She blinked. “Oh…Maybe twelve or thirteen? What difference does it make?”

“Not a great age to find out what a bastard your father was.” He sounded thoughtful.

“No.” Remembering, she repeated, “No. But I’m not sure there
is
a good age to learn something like that.”

“Couldn’t you have handled it better as an adult?”

She frowned. “Maybe. Yes. Of course I could.”

“Did you decide then and there that no men were trustworthy?”

Jolted, Rebecca argued, “That’s not what this is about.”

“Isn’t it?” He looked at her without pity. “You decided when you found out you were pregnant that your kid was better off without a father.”

“No, I decided my kid was better off without a father
who’d never loved me! Who wasn’t interested in commitment or family! That seems to me to be a reasonable decision.”

They were once again silenced when their food arrived. Rebecca smoldered as Daniel thanked the waiter, gave the napkin a practiced flick and laid it across his lap. He picked up his fork. “The food is good here.”

“I know. You brought me here once.”

His face became even more expressionless, if that was possible. “Ah. I’d forgotten.”

She, too, spread her napkin on her lap and picked up her own fork as if she was actually interested in her pasta.

“Does your sister know your mother didn’t want to have a second baby?” Daniel asked.

“No. I don’t think so. I mean, I can’t be sure, but I never told her.”

His expression was once more grave, the anger banked. “How old were you when your parents split up?”

“Eight.” She gazed unseeing at her food. “They tried to patch things up. Lea was four when Mom finally took us and moved out.”

“And then?”

“And then Dad filed suit claiming she was an unfit mother. She accused him of abuse. Lea and I had a
guardian ad litem
. Judges took us back to chambers to ask what happened when Daddy got mad at us, or whether Mommy went out sometimes at night and left us alone.”

“What did happen when Daddy got mad?” Daniel’s voice was quiet, lethal. “
Did
Mommy leave you alone at night?”

“Nothing happened. No, she didn’t. It was all…all made up. They were both okay parents, when they remembered they loved us.”

“And when they didn’t?”

“Then…” Her shoulders rose and fell, as she remembered desolation as arid and jagged as a field of long-cooled lava. “Then we were weapons, or maybe the battlefield, I’m not sure. Neither of them ever stopped to think, Rebecca is doing great in school this year. Maybe this isn’t the time to reclaim custody. Or, Lea is starving herself to death. Am I part of the problem?”

“Your sister’s anorexic?”

Rebecca nodded. “She’s okay now, but it’ll be a lifelong battle. She’s stayed close to Dad and won’t even return Mom’s phone calls. I’m not sure why. Maybe she senses that he wanted her and Mom didn’t.”

“Or maybe he told her.”

Stricken, Rebecca stared at Daniel. “Oh, God. He would tell her that her own mother didn’t want her. She never said, but I’ll bet he did.” Thinking back, she calculated. “She started dieting right after some judge returned custody to Mom. Lea was maybe fourteen. She didn’t want to go. Well, neither did I. I was a senior in high school that year. I got to graduate from a new one with a class of strangers. So I suppose…”

Now she read pity in his eyes, although whether it was for her or for her sister, Rebecca didn’t know. Very quietly, he said what she was thinking. “She was controlling what she could.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t realize! Oh, it was obvious that getting yanked around one too many times was the trigger. But at least I knew Mom did want me.” She made a sound in her throat. “But if Lea thought Mom didn’t really love her, that she was just trying to hurt Dad…” Her teeth ground together. “I’ll kill him!”

“The thought hasn’t occurred to you before?”

“I try very hard not to think about my parents at all.”

“Eat,” Daniel ordered her.

She looked down numbly. Her food was getting cold. She took a bite, discovered how good the pasta was, and took another bite. Seemingly satisfied, Daniel ate, too.

Until he stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Does Malcolm see much of them?”

She shook her head. “They know I have a son. I don’t see either of them.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” He took the bite, swallowed, and asked, “Lea?”

She was able to smile. “Yeah, Aunt Lea is almost as popular as Aunt Nomi. And she has better taste in clothing.”

His mouth twitched. “No flowered pants?”

“Definitely not. Flowers aren’t slimming.”

“Why didn’t I see much of her? No, wait. She was abroad most of that year, wasn’t she? Tokyo.”

“Right. She works for Thurman International.”

“I do remember that she doesn’t look much like you. Model thin…” He stopped, grimaced. “Is she really a blonde?”

“More or less. She stayed blond through college. I suspect she helps it along these days.”

“There was something…” His brows drew together. “Fey about her.”

Fey
. What an odd word for him to have chosen, and yet…accurate. She’d sometimes thought her sister lacked substance. There’d be moments when Rebecca would glance up and swear she could see right through Lea. As though there was a visible Lea, the one she had made of
herself through the agonizing years of recovery, and then there was the ghostlike one inside, the child and woman who had tried to fade into nothingness.

Suddenly Daniel scowled. “I was just wondering how we’d gotten sidetracked onto the subject of your sister, but you meant her as an object lesson, didn’t you?”

“No.” Rebecca bit her lip. “I didn’t plan…I didn’t actually plan what I was going to say today. But it’s true. I hated my childhood, even though it didn’t destroy me the way it did Lea. I couldn’t protect her, but Malcolm…” Her voice broke. “I can’t let anything hurt him.”