At Home on Ladybug Farm (34 page)

Some of the fire went out of Lindsay’s eyes as she took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she said with a shake of her head, “but this isn’t right. It’s just not right.”

“Maybe there’s a compromise,” Cici said, touching Lindsay’s arm soothingly. “Why don’t you let Noah finish out the school year with us, and spend the summer at the farm while you get settled in your new apartment? He could get to know you gradually over the summer, and by the time school starts in the fall you would be ready to have him move in with you.” As she spoke, Mandy was shaking her head, slowly at first and then with more and more force.

Carrie spoke up. “That’s not a bad plan,” she said. “It might be the best thing for everyone.”

“No,” Mandy said. “No.”

“Why not?” Lindsay insisted, obviously struggling to keep the edge out of her voice. “What difference can a few months possibly make?”

“I don’t have a few months!” Mandy cried. The look in her eyes was desperate and wild, and the next words seemed to be torn from her. “I have cancer! I’m dying.”

Noah said, “Hey.”

Lori did not look up from the laptop computer on her desk. She had several books open beside it and was frowning over the contents of her screen. “Hay is for horses,” she replied. “What do you want?”

He stepped inside her room. The bed was rumpled, magazines were stacked untidily on the antique nightstand, dirty clothes were scattered on the floor. She had a stereo system with big puffy earphones and a forty-two-inch flat screen television set with a VCR and DVD player/recorder combination. DVDs and CDs in colorful cases were scattered on the floor in front of the equipment. Noah had a television and DVD player in his room, too, which he thought had come from Bridget, who didn’t want them in her room, but most of the movies he had been provided with were either chick flicks or Disney, and after the initial novelty had worn off, he didn’t watch it much.

He said, “Here’s that picture you wanted.” He put a sheet of heavy drawing paper on her desk. “I did it in pencil so it wouldn’t smear, like you said.”

“Say.” She turned away from her work and picked up the sheet. “That’s pretty good. Thanks.”

“And here’s the book back.” He returned the book that she had renewed at the library. “What’re you going to do with that picture, anyhow?”

“Well,” she said, and there was a note of carefully repressed excitement in her voice as she tucked the drawing carefully inside a manila folder, “I was going to give it to Mom, and Aunt Bridget and Aunt Lindsay, for Mother’s Day—”

“Mother’s Day?” he repeated, surprised.

“I was going to say it was from both of us,” she defended. “After all, it was my idea, even if you did draw it.”

“But they’re not your mama.” He frowned. “The other two, I mean. How come you give them a present?”

“They may not be my
actual
mother,” she explained, “or mothers, as the case may be, but they’re
like
my mothers. My folks got divorced when I was little,” she added matter-of-factly, “and my mom had to work a lot, so they kind of helped raise me. You don’t have to be related to be a family, you know.”

He didn’t answer; he just stood there, frowning over the concept, so she shrugged. “Anyway, like I said, I was going to frame your drawing for Mother’s Day, because I thought they’d get a kick out of it, you know, but now I have a better idea. A
much
better idea,” she added determinedly, and turned back to her computer. “Of course it would go a lot faster if I had actual access to the Internet from my home computer, instead of having to drive half an hour each way just to Google one thing. Anyway . . .” She hit Save on the computer and closed the laptop. “I guess I can put this off until I can get back to the library. So, are you ready to finish the fountain?”

He was still frowning, but this expression was different from his usual demeanor of sullen discontent. It seemed more thoughtful, and even sad. He didn’t reply right away, and Lori started to repeat herself. Then he said, “You’re gonna have to finish it by yourself.”

Lori sat back in her chair and threw her hands up in exasperation. “Oh, terrific! That’s just terrific. I knew I couldn’t count on you. Didn’t I call it? ‘You’re just a kid,’ I said, ‘you’ll screw it up.’ Well, thank you very much for proving me right!”

He was quick to defend himself. “I didn’t screw it up! I mixed the cement, I patched the holes, I showed you how to set the rocks, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but you’re the one who knows what the pattern around the base is supposed to look like, and how am I going to move that heavy statue by myself? Typical, just typical. This family is in real trouble and I’m working my butt off to try to help, and what are you doing? Bailing, that’s what! You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” She turned away in disgust. “I don’t know why I’m even wasting my breath on you.”

The silence that followed was so lengthy that Lori abandoned her annoyance to slide a glance toward him. He just stood there, looking sad, and that was when she noticed for the first time that he held his backpack by one strap in his hand. After a moment he reached into it, pulled out an eight-by-ten canvas, and looked at it for a moment before handing it to her in a single abrupt gesture. “Here,” he said. “This’ll show you what it’s supposed to look like.”

She looked at the painting of the fountain, and then at him, curiously, until his brows drew together sharply and he added, “Even a stupid girl ought to be able to figure it out from that.”

She laid the painting aside. “Gee, thanks a lot. That’ll make me feel ever so much better when I’m dragging rocks in from the field and trying to lift a two-hundred-pound statue by myself.”

“Yeah, well, you’re the one that signed up for it, not me.”

He turned to go and had reached the door before he looked back. “Hey,” he said. He waited until she looked at him, and then he seemed almost as though he didn’t know what to say. His jaw was set but his expression was uncomfortable and it seemed a long time before he said, simply, “Thanks for not telling.”

Lori just looked at him. Finally, she shrugged, and said, “Whatever.”

He glanced at the floor, around the room, seemed to be searching for something else to say. But he settled on, “Okay. Well, see you.”

Again Lori said, “Whatever,” as he left the room.

She opened her laptop and didn’t think about him again for the rest of the morning.

For the longest time, no one spoke. Carrie sat back in her chair, her expression tight. Bridget’s fingers went to her lips, a quick intake of breath flaring her nostrils. Cici’s hand closed tightly over Lindsay’s and she felt the trembling there.

Mandy’s chin rose a fraction. “I’ve made mistakes,” she said steadily, “and I’ve paid for them. But I’ve been given a second chance. And the one mistake I refuse to make . . .” Her breath caught, and quavered in her throat, and then, with an effort, became strong again. “The one mistake I refuse to make,” she repeated, “is to waste this chance. I’m going to get to know my son before I die.”

“Oh . . . I’m so sorry,” Bridget whispered. Her fingers fluttered to her lap.

Carrie turned a somber gaze on Mandy. “This changes things,” she told her quietly. “You should have told me.”

“It doesn’t change anything,” the other woman replied. Her knuckles whitened. “He’s still my son. You can’t keep him from me.”

Cici felt Lindsay’s surge of breath and she clamped down on her friend’s hand, hard. Then she said, “Ms. Cormier . . . Mandy . . . please forgive me for asking, but—what is your prognosis?”

“There are new protocols being developed every day,” she insisted, meeting their eyes bravely. “I’ve been in remission before. I can fight this thing.”

It sounded like a speech she had given many times before. But there was something in her voice that was not quite convincing, and she must have seen that reflected in their eyes. In a moment she dropped her own gaze and said softly, “It’s spread to my liver. The doctors say less than a year.”

And this time when she looked at them there was desperation in her gaze. “That’s why I have to have my boy with me now, don’t you see? I don’t have much time. There’s so much I’ve missed . . . and I don’t have much time.”

Lindsay said, “But you’re sick and—I’m sorry, but you’re going to get sicker. How can you take care of a teenage boy? Or are you expecting him to take care of you?”

“Lindsay . . .” Cici cautioned. But Lindsay jerked her hand away and gave a single shake of her head, warning both of her friends with the gesture that she would brook no interference.

“All these years he’s believed his mother was dead,” Lindsay went on, holding the other woman’s gaze steadily. “Now he’s going to learn that you abandoned him on purpose, and no matter what you tell him, don’t you see, for the rest of his life he’ll always think that it was because he wasn’t good enough for you to love.” And despite the cloud of hurt and denial that gathered in the other woman’s eyes, she pushed on. “And now, after fifteen years, you come back to claim him—only so that he can watch you die? How can you do that? How
can
you?”

Mandy stammered, “That’s not what I . . . that’s not how—”

“I know that’s not what you meant to do,” Lindsay said earnestly, leaning forward in her chair. “I know you didn’t mean for your life to turn out this way and I am sorry, truly I am, but I’m begging you, think about this. Think about what you’re doing to this child you’ve never met. He could be—so much. He deserves so much. This isn’t right. It just isn’t right.”

“What do you know about what’s right?” Mandy burst out angrily. “I walked away from my own baby to keep him safe and now, just when I’ve found him again, I’m dying! Don’t you talk to me about what’s right!”

“This is not going to change that!” Lindsay cried. “Don’t you see—”

Carrie interrupted, with a quiet authority that belied her youth, “Thank you, Lindsay. I think you’ve said enough.”

She turned to Mandy. “There are some things we have to discuss,” she said gently. “No one means to make this harder on you than it has to be, but, given the state of your health, have you thought about who will take care of Noah if you no longer can? He is still a minor, you know. Perhaps you should consider leaving him in foster care and arranging a visitation schedule . . .”

Mandy pressed her fingertips to her temples, shaking her head slowly. “How dare you?” she said quietly. Then she looked straight at Lindsay. “How dare you set yourself up as judge of what’s best for my child? How dare you judge me?” A breath, a final shake of her head. “No. He’s my boy and you can’t keep him from me.”

“No one is trying to keep him from you,” Carrie assured her. “All we’re trying to do is—”

“He’s my child,” Mandy insisted. “I know my rights.” Two high spots of color stained her cheeks and her dark eyes took on a feverish hue. She rose abruptly, clutching her purse. “I’ve come for my son. You have his bags packed and ready to go today. I’ll be back for him at three o’clock.” She turned to Carrie. “Do I have to bring the sheriff with me?” she demanded.

Carrie said coolly, “That won’t be necessary.”

“Three o’clock,” she repeated. “I’ll be back.”

And with that, she left the office, closing the door hard behind her.

Cici said, “This isn’t happening.” She stared at Carrie. “You really can’t be sending a fifteen-year-old boy away from the only stable home he’s ever known to care for a terminally ill woman he’s never even met.”

“She is his mother,” Carrie said, trying to hide her own distress behind the authority in her tone. “The law is very clear—”

“Then the law is wrong. It’s just wrong.”

“This will change him forever,” Lindsay said. Her eyes had a bleak, unfocused look. “It will change the possibility of who he might have been.”

“Maybe,” Carrie agreed gently. “We have no right to judge, here, and we can’t play God. Every child has a right to know his mother.”

Cici said, “This is not how the system is supposed to work. What about what’s best for Noah?”