Calendar Girl 12 - December (5 page)

“You have to agree to call me, Mia. This Ms. Saunders stuff is getting old.” I held a stoic impression for as long as I could before the piggy snort laugh started.

By the time we were done talking, the entire table was howling. I’d informed the rest of the crew that I planned on reserving their services as well and they all seemed happy about the possibility of working together more in the future.

A
fter lunch
, we hit the third gallery and met with a man who called himself Bob the Woodsman. He whittled wood while sitting in a rocking chair he’d crafted himself. The gallery had placed his chair in a corner by the window. Bob was seventy years young and enjoyed hanging out surrounded by art and meeting new people.

The gallery was a huge draw for local tourists, and since they’d given Bob the Woodsman a space to whittle, they’d upped their sales by thirty percent. He sat in his chair, whittled out small, unique pieces that the tourists could buy on the spot or others the gallery had on display along with additional mixed arts ranging from sculptures to paintings and more.

Interviewing Bob, I found out that he’d served two tours in Vietnam, starting back in 1965. During the long hours of waiting for action, he’d cut chunks out of the trees, and using a pocketknife, he’d whittle small totems or figurines out of the wood. He’d give the bits of art to his brothers-in-arms so they could mail them back to their families, letting them know they were thinking about them. He was discharged in the early seventies because of three service injuries: he’d been shot twice in the leg and once in the hip. The leg didn’t heal as well as they’d hoped.

Far more comfortable in a rocking chair, Bob the Woodsman started making his pastime a full-time job. Happier talking with his family, friends, and the public, and unable to get around easily to work a nine-to-five job, he found something that worked for him, something he loved, and made it his own.

His story was inspiring and uplifting when so much of the world was in strife, dealing with the ravages of war and wanting nothing but peace. Bob’s story had a heaping dose of hope for our nation’s wounded veterans who I knew could use a bit of optimism. Bob’s story wasn’t easy to hear. He had been wounded protecting freedom, and sitting in a window of an art gallery in Aspen Colorado, he didn’t regret a single day of his service.

A beautiful hero who crafted interesting pieces was amazing, but it wasn’t the story that made him special. It was the part of his experience each person he encountered took away with them.

While we chatted, he whittled a small wooden heart surrounded by ocean waves. “Wedding gift,” Bob said when he handed me the piece. It was a four-by-four inch square. The bottom was flat so it could stand up and be displayed.

“How did you know?” I gasped.

Bob waved off my surprise. “An old man knows a woman in love. Besides, the light bouncing off that ring damn near blinded me!” He chuckled.

Together, we laughed, and the gallery owner wrapped my gift in tissue paper and handed it to Wes in a bag.

As I was leaving, I hugged the old man. “Thank you for sharing your story with me. I know I and the rest of the audience that sees this piece will never forget it.”

“People like you, my dear one, make it all worth the risk,” he said, smiling and waving as Wes tucked me under his arm, and we headed out into the cold.

W
orth the risk
.

When we left Bob the Woodsman and arrived at 4M Gallery of Art, I was still reeling. Bob said I made it worth the risk. I knew he meant to fight in a war. Soldiers fought and gave of themselves in ways that civilians could never possibly comprehend. It took a special kind of person to risk his life every day for over three hundred million people he didn’t even know. Pride. Service. To Bob, those things, and each life, were worth it.

His words made me think how anything truly worth having in life was also worth the risks. However, not everyone was willing to take those risks to achieve what he wanted out of life. It was sad when I really thought about it.

Entering the 4M gallery, the scent of lemon, mint, and jasmine mixed together assaulted me. I stopped just inside the doors and let the familiar mixture permeate my senses. I hadn’t smelled that exact combination in years. Fifteen years to be exact.

My heart started pumping hard in my chest, and my mouth went dry. At the other side of the room was a tall woman with shoulder-length bouncing black curls. She wore unrelieved black and was adjusting a painting on the wall across from me. I couldn’t move. Her back was to me, but from the body shape, the fluid movement of her arms—like a dancer—she was not only recognizable, her identity was downright devastating. Like seeing a ghost.

The woman turned around, clapped her hands together, and walked closer. Her pale green eyes narrowed, and she pulled at a pair of thin silver frames that were dangling at the edge of her long-sleeved blouse. She put them on and halted, as if glued to the floorboards. I, too, did not move a muscle, taking in all that was the woman before me. She’d changed a lot over the past fifteen years, but not enough that I wouldn’t recognize her on the spot.

“Mia,” she gasped.

Wes’s warm hand enclosed around mine. The only movement I was capable of was squeezing his hand in a death grip.

“Hello, Miss…” Wes asked.

“Banks,” she said.

I cringed, squeezing Wes’s hand again.

He didn’t let go of my hand, for which I was eternally grateful. Had I not had that single connection to something real, I’d have likely passed out, run away screaming, or a combination of the two.

“Ms. Banks, I’m Weston Channing, and we’re here to interview you about your art and the gallery. It seems as though you and Mia already know each other. As you can see, she’s a bit taken aback, so if you could clear up what’s happening here, I’d be rather grateful.”

My Wes. The peacemaker. What he didn’t know was that nothing was going to clear up this mess. Fifteen years of loss and abandonment wouldn’t scrape clean with a simple explanation. I already knew that. I had been trying for years to solve the mystery behind why the woman who gave me life would destroy my world as I knew it at the tender age of ten.

“Mia, I’d recognize you anywhere.” Her voice shook. It sounded different, calmer somehow. She licked her lips, and I watched in horrid fascination as the woman I’d thought I’d lost forever stood before me, looking better than she ever had. Better than she had any right to.

“Darling girl, it’s been so long.” Her words were like a poison-laced knife, striking the vulnerable, soft parts of me. The restrained emotion was there and more sincere than anything I remembered her saying before, but it still didn’t begin to penetrate the marble wall around my heart I’d built against this woman and her memory all those years ago.

Not knowing what else to do, I said the only words I could muster.

“Hello, Mother.”

W
es’s hand
tightened around mine to the point of pain. I ripped my hand from his grasp and swayed. He caught me instantly, pulling me tightly against his side.

Kathy finally made her way in, shaking the snow off her jacket and lifting her hand out to my mother. “Hello, I’m Kathy, and this is Mia Saunders and her fiancé, Weston Channing. Thank you for having us. Sorry if we’re a bit late…”

“Fiancée?” my mother gasped, her eyes taking in all that was my soon-to-be husband. “Um, congratulations,” Her effort at polite conversation and false felicitations fell dead short on me.

“What are the odds that I’d walk into this very gallery to interview the woman who destroyed me fifteen years ago?” My words held enough malice to cut glass. Indeed, I hoped they would cut right through her black heart.

She inhaled sharply, as did Kathy. The entire room went silent.

Kathy shuffled from foot to foot, looking at me and then my mother and finally, Wes. “Err…I’m guessing we’re done for the day?”

“Kathy, go ahead and head back to the cabin with the rest of the team. I think we have enough with the three artists to get what we need for the segment. Help yourselves to dinner. Mia and I will be along shortly.” Wes had jumped in, saving the day as usual.

Kathy walked over to me and grabbed my hand. She squeezed it in a show of support. “I’ll be available tonight if you need a friend, Mia.” Now, she used my name. Finally.

Her saying those words meant more to me than she realized, but all I could manage was a simple nod as she instructed the guys and she and the film crew left the gallery.

Alone, the three of us stood. My mother licked her lips again, glancing around—probably looking to see if someone else would enter and save her from this nightmare. Because that’s exactly what it was. A nightmare of epic proportions. I had resigned myself to never seeing this woman again, never knowing why—or how—she could leave her children the way she did.

“Uh, how about we go sit down over here and talk?” Her voice and hands shook as she pointed to a sitting area off to the side.

Me? I walked right up to her, looked her in the face, and watched as her eyes filled with tears. In a moment of sheer weakness, I lifted my hand and slapped her across the face as hard as I could. Tears I didn’t know I had poured down my cheeks. She cried out when I slapped her and held her cheek. Her own tears fell like big fat watery lies I didn’t believe for a moment.

Her voice cracked as she replied. “I g-guess I deserved that.”

“You deserve worse than that. So much worse,” I growled through clenched teeth.

She cleared her throat and pushed back her hair. “Please, Mia, I’d like to explain.”

I scoffed. “Explain? You’d like to explain.” My voice rose what seemed like a million decibels but was probably more like a whispered yell. “Explain what…Mother!” I sneered. “How you left your ten-year-old daughter alone. Or maybe, how you left your five-year-old daughter alone. No wait…” I took a step closer. As I was going to strike the vile woman again, Wes grabbed me by the biceps, pulled me against his chest, and backed us both a few steps.

Her face crumbled. “You don’t understand!” she cried. “I didn’t want to leave.”

I huffed. “You have no idea the amount of hell you put Maddy and me through. After you left, Pops turned into a raging alcoholic. At ten years old, I took care of him and my baby sister!”

Her eyes widened.

“Oh, yeah. Bet you didn’t plan on that. Because you abandoned us, my father went off the deep end. Half the time he forgot he even had children. Maddy and I went days with no food. Days!” Wes’s hands tightened on my biceps. I wasn’t sure if it was a show of support or if he was making sure I didn’t claw her eyes out. Either way, it helped keep me grounded.

“I had to steal from casinos and dumpster-dive to prevent us from starving!” I snarled. “You have no idea the damage you’ve done.”

My mother cried and fell to her knees. She put her hands up to her chest. “Mia, my God. Baby, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn’t know!” Her body heaved with sobs. Guilt was thick in the air but it wasn’t mine.

“You’re sorry?” I shook my head. “Sorry you left, or sorry you didn’t do it sooner?” My voice was boiling over with acid and just as corrosive.

“No, I never wanted to leave. I had to. It was for the best. To keep you safe!” She put her hands in front of her face and cried.

“Safe?” I snarled. “Safe would have been having a mother make sure her children had food on the table, hot water in the house, clean clothes to wear.” Emotion clogged my words, but I didn’t care.

“God! I didn’t think he’d take my leaving so hard. I loved Michael. I wanted him to move on…”

I laughed and lunged for the broken down woman again. Wes held me back.

“Sweetheart…” His tone was commanding but gentle. “I understand you’re mad, but physical violence is not the way. Tell her what you need to say, and we’ll be on our way.” His green eyes were rife with anger on my behalf.

I nodded and crouched down to her level. “You were everything to my father. The sun, the moon, the very ground he walked on. We were lousy imitations.”

She shook her head and repeated “No, no, no, no. It wasn’t supposed to be like that.” Her body shook again with a fresh bout of tears.

“Yeah, well, what did you expect? Did you expect him to respond the way Jackson Cunningham did?”

Her head shot up. “You found Jackson?” she gasped.

“Jackson’s dead,” I responded deadpan.

Her body jolted as if she had been shot in the chest. “What?”

“He died a few years ago. But not before leaving a trail. A money trail, with my name in his will. Imagine my surprise when my brother, Maxwell Cunningham, came calling.”

“Max…” she whispered, her face contorting into one of unguarded pain.

I nodded. “Yeah, I know about Maxwell…my brother. And we also know that Maddy is Jackson’s.”

Her eyebrows narrowed. “That is not true!” She shot back.

“You think we didn’t check? Madison is not Michael Saunders’s biological child. She’s Jackson’s. We have the paternity tests to prove it.” I clenched my teeth. “You think I believe you’re surprised by this information? You cheated on my father more than once. I distinctly remember meeting Maxwell as a kid.”

She shook her head and pressed on the sides of her temples with both palms. “No, no, no, no. I don’t understand. I don’t remember any of this,” she cried out.

“Bullshit!” I screamed loud enough for her to cower on her knees.

Wes grabbed me under the arms and hoisted me back up.

A loud bang erupted from behind us, like a door slamming shut. Kent Banks stormed in. Seeing my mother on the ground, he went down to his knees and wrapped her in his massive arms. “What the hell is going on?” he growled.

“You tell me. You’re the one who brought us here! You had to know she was my mother!”

He jerked his head up to meet my gaze. Kent’s nostrils were flared and white, his mouth a deep scowl. “Yes, I knew you were her daughter. She confided that to me when she saw you on TV. Told me about you, your sister, and your brother. I thought I was doing something good. Bringing the family back together…”

I snorted. “Are you insane? This woman abandoned my siblings and me. Hell, my sister and I didn’t even know we had a brother until a few months ago. It would have been nice to learn that
from our mother
!” I sneered.

“Get out!” Kent roared.

Hearing that tone from Kent, Wes pushed me behind him. “I’m not sure that my fiancée is done talking to her mother.”

My mother was muttering something under her breath, cowering against Kent. He lifted her into a princess hold.

“I think you’ve done enough. There’s a lot you obviously don’t know. I’ll call you later.”

I huffed. “Don’t bother. I have nothing more to say to this pathetic excuse for a human being.”

On that, I turned and stormed out of the gallery. Wes was quick on my heels.

I started walking down the street, anger billowing through my veins and pushing me forward. My labored breaths misted in the freezing air.

When I slowed and eventually came to a stop, I wasn’t sure where I was or what I was doing. All I knew was that I was cold and alone. I choked out a sob and felt as though I’d lost my balance when a pair of thick arms hefted me up and held me close.

“I’m here, sweetheart. I’m here. Let’s go home.”

“I can’t face anybody.” I cried against his chest. The pain around my heart shifted, squeezed, and became unbearable—like my heart was breaking in half.

“You don’t have to. I’ll make sure of it. Just let me take care of you,” he whispered and carried me to the car.

Time seemed to pass by in a haze until eventually I was being carried up a set of stairs, stripped of my clothing, and placed into a warm cloud. A heat at my back startled me until I was enwrapped in a warmth I’d know anywhere. I burrowed into Wes Channing. Clung to him, our life, and everything that made me feel safe. His hold was firm and unrelenting. In his arms, wrapped in his love, I closed my eyes.

I
woke
the next day still surrounded by Wes. He’d held me within the safety of his arms all night, never letting go. I blinked a few times and then saw Wes’s face up close and in living color. His breath came in soft puffs against me. Lifting my hand from between us, I ran the tip of my finger down the bridge of his nose. He stirred and lazily opened his eyes. Wes’s eyes were unlike any others. They were a brilliant green, much like fresh cut grass. He smiled softly, leaned forward the few inches that separated us, and kissed my nose.

“How you doing?” His voice was a deep rumble I felt all the way to my toes.

I could lie and tell him I was fine, but he’d know I wasn’t telling the truth. He’d give that to me, though. That was the type of man he was. However, I was done hiding my hurts, done keeping the wall surrounding my heart up around him. The only person who deserved that treatment was my loser of a mother. It didn’t change that I wished things had been different though. Ached for them to be different.

Growing up, a girl needed her mother. Someone who could be there to kiss her wounds, mend her heart when a boy has broken it, teach her about being a woman the world can be proud of, and most of all, teach her how to be a mother, how to care for another soul more than her own.

“I’m not okay, Wes,” I admitted. It took a lot for me to bare my soul, but I’d do that for him, the one person in the entire world who loved me more than he loved himself. I knew that with my whole heart.

“Yeah, I didn’t imagine you would be. What’s going on in here?” He pointed to my forehead.

I closed my eyes, relishing his simple touch. For me, it was more than a gesture. It was a connection. Something tangible that I could grasp, hold on to when everything around me felt as though it were crumbling at the seams.

“Seeing her in her gallery. Looking perfect. Healthy…” I shook my head and gripped his hand between us and put it in front of my mouth.

“It hurts that she’s moved on. Was living a good life when you and your siblings had to suffer by her loss. You and Madison especially. I get it, babe.” His voice was soft and understanding.

I lifted his hand to my mouth and kissed each knuckle.

“Why does it hurt so badly?” Tears formed in my eyes and slipped down my cheeks.

“Because no matter what she did, how bad she hurt you, she’s still your mom. You love her.”

I inhaled sharply. “You can’t love a ghost.”

“Oh, baby, but you can. And you do. I can see it written all over your face, and you know what?”

“What?” I sniffed. I didn’t want to give that woman even one more tear.

“It’s okay to love her. Even when she’s hurt you so horribly.”

And the tears came stronger. I couldn’t hold them back, be the strong Mia I was to everyone else. “Is it? A woman who left me to care for myself and my sister when I was ten?”

“Your dad had a hand in that, sweetheart. If you’re throwing down blame, he’s earned it, too.”

I huffed. “She singlehandedly destroyed him.” I shook my head. “You should have seen him before she left. Doting father, committed husband. He worshiped the ground that woman walked on. And for what? To be left in the dust like so much garbage. She ruined our family. Not only that…she ruined Max’s, too.” I choked on a sob.

Wes’s chin dipped down. “I don’t think that’s true. Max is one of the most loving men I know. Overtly so. He took you and Madison and made you part of his family within mere minutes of finding out you were related. That speaks a lot about the kind of man Jackson Cunningham was. He gave his son everything he could even though he didn’t have a mother. Loved him. Taught him how to love. Max carried that knowledge with him. Loves his wife, children, and his sisters. He may have lacked a mother, but his life was far from ruined.”

I mulled over what Wes said. He was right, of course. Jackson Cunningham may have loved my mother greatly and been hurt by her leaving, but he carried on. Took care of his son, taught him how to be a man. A good man. The best. Showed him the importance of family.

“I need to talk to Max and Maddy.”

Wes shifted and curled me into his chest. “They are going to be here in two days. Do you really want to call and worry them now?”

“Max will be pissed if I don’t,” I said.

Wes grinned. “Now, that is true. He has a hair trigger when it comes to you and Maddy. What are you going to say?”

I shook my head and leaned into him. “I don’t know. The truth. He deserves that much. Then he can decide how he wants to deal.”

“And what about your mother.”

I cringed. “What about her?”

“Are you going to talk to her again? Something doesn’t sit right about last night. She seemed surprised to see you, apologetic, and kept mentioning you not knowing the whole story.”

“Probably because she doesn’t like having to face what she’s done.”

Wes sighed. “Maybe. I don’t know. She fell to the floor pretty quick. Seemed to crack and break on a level you don’t see often, even when faced with a difficult confrontation.”