The Girls on Rose Hill (16 page)

Slowly, she made her way over to the bed and placed the paper into my hand. But it wasn't a piece of paper. It was a photo. An old, creased photo.

"I know," she said. "I found this and Molly told me. I've met him, Denis, and I've heard his side of the story. Now I want to hear yours."

I looked at the photo and smiled despite myself, to see me and Molly looking so young and pretty. "He was a handsome man, your father."

"Is that what happened, Mom? You were carried away, seduced by a handsome man?"

I laughed. "Hardly."

"Well, what then? Were you drunk?"

"I had been drinking, yes, but I wouldn't say I was drunk."

"Well, what then?" Ellen asked, her usual irritation with me seeping through. "Did he force you? Attack you? Rape you?"

"Goodness, no. Nothing like that. He was a lovely fellow, from what I can remember."

"Okay, well, if he was such a lovely fellow, then why didn't you contact him when you found out you were pregnant?"

"I never thought to."

"You never thought to? What do you mean you never thought to?"

"I just stayed home. I had responsibilities at home."

Ellen paced the room. "Why are we playing twenty questions here? Why can't you simply tell me what happened."

"Ellen, sit down. You're making me dizzy."

Ellen took her seat, and waited for me to continue.

"I met a man and got pregnant. Then I had the baby, you obviously, and raised you with my family. That's all that happened, Ellen. I don't know what else you want me to say."

"You can't honestly think that that is an acceptable answer. After all this time, that's it? That's the big reveal?"

I said nothing.

"Why did you, an ex-nun, have a one night stand with a guy you didn't even know? Why? What did you want? To experience sex, was that it?"

"You. I wanted you," I whispered. My head pounded and my vision blurred. "I'll tell you more tomorrow. Get the nurse, Ellen. Now."

Chapter 17

Ellen

Armed with a large coffee and bran muffin, I walked into my mother's room. The blinds were closed, so I quietly made my way to the chair in the corner without disturbing my mother's sleep. She'd been sleeping longer and longer these past few days.

About an hour later she opened her eyes. I handed my mother her glasses and helped her sit up.

"How long have you been here?"

"Not long," I answered. "I'll have them bring in your breakfast."

"Tell them just tea and toast. I can't face those eggs."

After my mother managed to eat her meager breakfast, she said, "Fire away."

"Fire away?"

"Yes. Fire away. Ask me the rest of your questions. Let's finish this."

My mother's cheeks seemed to have sunken even further overnight. I should forget all this, but of course I couldn't. "I've been thinking about what you said yesterday, about sleeping with Denis because you wanted a child, and it still doesn't make sense to me."

"Why? I would think you of all people would understand," my mother said without inflection.

I looked at her, surprised. My mother had never even seemed to notice that my twin boys were born only seven months after my hasty wedding, and she'd certainly never asked me about it.

"True, I was pregnant at my wedding, but I had a wedding. I got married and created a family. There was no groom in your scenario."

"You wanted a husband. I only wanted a child. Something of my own."

"Do you think it was fair to bring a child into the world without a father?"

"I don't know," she said with a somewhat confused look on her face, as if such a question never crossed her mind. "I think fathers are overrated."

Not exactly the answer I'd expected. I continued my interrogation. "But weren't you planning to go back to the convent after Peter died?"

"Of course I wanted to return to the convent, but the doctors said that Peter's heart was strong, that he could live for years. In my day, only young girls were allowed to enter the convent. I thought I'd be too old by the time Peter finally died."

"What do you mean? I thought he died when I was an infant."

She said nothing for a few moments. Then, without looking at me she said, "Yes, well, that was an accident. He choked."

I said slowly, "And then it was too late for you to go back, wasn't it? You were finally free to return to the convent, but you couldn't. Because of me."

She nodded slightly.

"If you hadn't gotten this 'something of your own' then you would've been free to leave that house and return to the convent."

My mother said nothing.

"But instead, you were stuck there. Is that right, Mom? Do I have that right?"

She looked at me unapologetically. "I always loved you, Ellen. I did the best I could for you."

"But you didn't want me. Once you finally realized what you had gotten yourself into, you didn't want me."

"I'll be honest with you, Ellen, I was young when you were conceived. Perhaps I acted rashly. I had some regrets, yes. But, that doesn't mean that I didn't love you."

Tears gathered in my eyes. "My father doesn't want me now. You didn't want me then. Kitty probably didn't want another child in her already overcrowded house."

Rose reached for my hand. "You're twisting my words around like you always do. You're not hearing me. I said I've always loved you. Kitty and my brothers loved you. You may not have had the perfect nuclear family, like the Conroys, like you created for your children, but you had a family that loved you. You have to believe that."

I snatched my hand from her. "I don't know what to believe anymore and I don't know why I even bothered coming back up here. For what? To sit by and watch the mother who resented me and lied to me my whole life? Denis was single when you got yourself pregnant. He seems like a decent guy. He probably would've done the right thing by you. Married you. Been my father."

My mother looked away from me and stared out the window for a few moments, and seemed to focus on the statue of the Blessed Virgin. Without looking at me, she said in a strange hollow voice, "I never would've married him, Ellen. I'd never marry any man. I wouldn't put myself through that, not for anyone. Not even for you."

Feeling slightly hysterical, I shouted. "Why? Because you're a lesbian? Is that it? Is that why you wanted to live with a bunch of women?"

My mother finally faced me. "I'm not a lesbian, Ellen," she said, without rancor. "I wanted to devote myself to God. That's why I joined the convent. After seeing my mother's marriage to Peter, I never wanted to get married myself."

"I don't know what to believe. What if this is another one of your lies or half truths?"

My mother deflated before my eyes. She pulled the covers up to her chin. "I don't know what else I can say to you. Maybe you had better leave."

"Yes," Molly said from the doorway. "I'll stay here with Rose. Ellen, why don't you go home and collect yourself."

"Fine, I'll leave. And I might not come back." I grabbed my purse and pushed past Molly.

Roaring out of the parking lot, I nearly mowed down poor Sister Elizabeth as she pushed one of the residents in a wheelchair. Too angry to stop and apologize, I continued my frenzied ride home. Once there, in the hot, stuffy house, I paced the rooms and randomly rifled through drawers and searched for what, I didn't know. More clues. More answers. What was this family that I was thrust into and what other secrets did these old walls hide?

But, my search turned up nothing. A gas bill from 1982. Kitty's expired passport. Paul and Lisa's wedding invitation. Just meaningless bits and pieces. Nothing to tell me who my mother was. Who I was.

After an hour and nearly faint from the hunger, I went to the kitchen. All I could find was a solitary almost expired yogurt and half a loaf of stale bread. I made a cup of strong tea, took two aspirin and ate the yogurt. It was only eleven and without my St. Francis duties I was at loose ends. I tried to catch up on a few emails, but the letters seemed to float around the screen and I couldn't make sense of them. I finally snapped the laptop shut, took the stale bread from the counter and walked out the front door without locking it. I walked across the road to the Centershore bridge. Whenever tensions between my grandmother and mother ran too high, I would always escape to the bridge. My grandmother used to gently scold me for wasting her fine bread on the swans and ducks, but on some level she realized that the breeze and the waves were my refuge.

I swung my legs over the side of the railing, tore the bread and dropped the pieces aimlessly in the water to the delight of the eager diving fowl. My old haunt provided no solace, however, as the strong mid-day sun scorched my unprotected neck and shoulders. Lost in my own tangled thoughts, I barely registered the roar of the motorcycle.

"Don't do it!" Billy shouted from his motorcycle.

I spun around. "Don't do what?" I asked blankly.

"Jump. Don't jump."

"It's about three feet of water."

Billy turned off the bike and sat next to me. "It was a joke, Ellen." He then touched my face. "Hey, are you all right?"

"Am I all right? Well, let's see. I'm married to a philandering asshole. My children are grown and don't really need me anymore. My long lost father told me that he never wanted to hear from me again. My mother admitted that having me was a mistake and that I basically ruined her life. Oh, yeah, and I accused my sick, dying mother of being a closeted lesbian. So I don't know, Billy, what do you think?"

Billy smiled. "I think you need a ride."

"Oh, I thought that offer was rescinded."

"Not that kind of ride, you perv, A ride on my bike. After my dad died, the only thing that helped was getting on the road. Come on, hop on."

Billy's hair, longer and blonder since I'd last seen him, danced in the hot summer breeze. His muscles strained against his tight faded t-shirt. In an attempt to suppress a sudden wave of desire, I looked down at the water. "Don't you have to work?"

He gently lifted my chin to face him. "Yeah, but who cares. Let's go."

Without another word, I hopped on the back on the motorcycle, snuggled tight against his worn Levis and we roared off. This time Billy wasn't quite so careful and I clung to him tightly when he took a sharp curve. We soon hurtled down the Sagtikos Parkway. Billy expertly weaved between minivans while I held tight. We soon veered off the highway and raced along the backstreets of an unfamiliar South Shore town until he stopped in front of McKee's Waterside Tavern, a ramshackle pub facing the Great South Bay. Billy easily hopped off the bike and offered me his hand.

"I know it doesn't look like much," Billy said, somewhat apologetically, "but they have the best raw bar on the Island. You're not going to believe the oysters."

In vain, I ran my fingers through my hopelessly tangled hair. "Do they have alcohol? Because as long as they have alcohol, we should be fine."

Billy took my hand and led me around to the back of the pub, onto a large deck overlooking the bay. The deck was packed with bikers, boaters and a young family struggling to control toddler twin boys. I smiled as the harried mother, her dish-water blonde hair twisted in a messy ponytail, attempted to feed a chicken finger to the more recalcitrant twin.

The waitress led us to the table behind the young family. "That brings back memories."

"I don't know how you handled three kids. One just about killed me." Billy gallantly held out my chair.

"I don't know either, to tell you the truth. I think I was too young and stupid to be scared."

"Ellen, you're many things, but stupid is not one of them. Now, what do you want to drink?"

"Margarita, frozen, no salt," I said to the waitress who had appeared, "and keep 'em coming."

Billy order a beer and a selection of clams, oysters and shrimp. The sun, still strong, burned through the table's flimsy umbrella. I could almost feel the freckles erupt across my cheeks. While I'm sure I looked like a tomato, Billy stretched his legs out like a cat and his tawny skin drank up the sun.

After our second drink, Billy looked at me uncertainly and said, "So, do you want to talk about your mother."

I sighed. "Quite honestly, no. I've done nothing but think about my mother and our fucked-up relationship for weeks now, and I can't talk about it anymore. You know what I really would like to talk about, though, is why you stopped to say hello to me."

"Well, I felt sorry for you. You looked so sad sitting there on that bridge."

"Sorry for me? Wow, you sure know how to make a girl feel special."

Billy smiled then. He placed his hand on his heart and said dramatically, "I couldn't help myself. You looked so beautiful sitting there, with the sun cascading on your shoulders."

"Burning them to a crisp." I laughed. "Okay, okay, you don't have to tell me why you stopped. But I'm glad you did."

"Me too, Miss Murphy." He swigged his beer. "Me too."

Billy and I practically inhaled the oysters and clams, and then chased them with cold bottles of beer. Billy entertained me with stories of his failed love life: the blind date that tried to convert him to Mormonism, the nymphomaniac who was also his son's English teacher. As I laughed about his latest foray on internet dating, I caught the eye of the harried young mother. Her white t-shirt was embellished with ketchup and chocolate milk. Her eyes, shadowed with tiredness and something else. Envy perhaps? Through her sleep deprived eyes Billy and I must look like a relaxed older couple whose chocolate milk and fish stick days were long behind them. She probably envied me my renewed empty nest sex life with my sexy husband. Oh, honey, I thought, if you only knew.