The Secret of Joy (25 page)

“Well, that
I
can give you. I’ll meet you at Marianne’s at five?”

“Five is perfect.”

As Charlie scampered around his new yard and christened one of the trees, Rebecca made mental notes of what she’d need to buy: new mattresses, for starters. Bed linens. Towels. Cleaning supplies. Kitchen everything, from silverware to pots and pans. Her list was getting so long that she reached into her bag for her little notebook and pen. She was up to
shower curtain
when her phone rang—a New York City number she didn’t recognize.

“Hello?”

“Rebecca, this is Martin Fischer.” Her father’s lawyer. He was a good friend of her father’s, and after the funeral he’d let her know she’d hear from him when the estate was settled. “As you know, you’re the sole beneficiary of your father’s estate. I have several documents that require your signature, and then I’ll have a check for you in the amount of one point three million dollars. And change. Five hundred thousand from his life insurance policy, and the rest from his various accounts.”

Holy shit!
The pen dropped from Rebecca’s hand. She knew her father had a life insurance policy, and she knew he was well off, that he’d made sound investments that had survived the market crashes. Yet she’d never quite believed
Michael when he talked about her father being worth over a million dollars; she’d thought it was financial lingo, money
on
paper, not
in
paper, and when all was said and done, there would be around two hundred thousand or so left over.

“I called your home first,” the lawyer said, “and Michael informed me you were away in Maine and would be there for a while. I’ll need your address to overnight the package.”

Her address. Rebecca raced outside and checked the front door. 44. “44 Elm Street, Wiscasset, Maine. I don’t know the zip code. Oh, wait—Martin, you’d better send the package to the inn I’ve been staying at, just in case. I’m not sure if I’ll be moving into the new place tomorrow or the next day.” She gave Marianne’s address.

“All set, then. If you could read over the documents and sign them and return them ASAP, I’ll have them filed and you’ll have your check within a couple of weeks.”

My check. I’d much rather have my father
.

Rebecca sat on the porch steps. “Martin, I need to know the truth about something. Are you familiar with the name Pia Jayhawk or Joy Jayhawk?”

He wasn’t.

“There’s nothing in my father’s will about them?”

“No, nothing about a Pia Jayhawk or a Joy Jayhawk,” Martin said.

She explained about her father’s deathbed confession, about the letters, about finding Joy, about why she was in Maine. “So there’s nothing in my father’s accounting to indicate he paid child support over the years to Pia Jayhawk or set aside money in an account for Joy Jayhawk?”

Granted, Martin Fischer was her father’s good friend, but he was also a good lawyer. Rebecca understood about confidentiality. Martin would tell her nothing, even if her father had told him about Pia and Joy. He would tell her only what was documented, what was legal. “No, none at all. There is no record of their names whatsoever.”

How could that be? How could he not have sent Pia money, even anonymously? Had he really just turned his back so completely? Emotionally and mentally and physically, okay. Rebecca got that. But how could he turn his back financially? How could he not provide for the most basic of life’s necessities: food, clothing, shelter? Joy was his child, whether he wanted her to exist or not.

Every birthday, he sat and wrote Joy a stupid, meaningless letter about himself, about what he was thinking and feeling, when what she needed, what she must have wished for every year, was an actual birthday card. Contact. A father.

Rebecca felt her stomach churn. Joy more than deserved her share of his money. And she would have it, too. Whether her
own
attorney approved or not. Not that Michael was really her lawyer. She’d never had reason for one.

She’d barely clicked off her phone when it rang again. Michael.

“Did your father’s lawyer get in touch? He called a few minutes ago and I told him you were away, and then realized I didn’t even know your address. Interesting, right, that I don’t have my girlfriend’s address where she’s been for over two weeks.”

“Why are you home at”—Rebecca glanced at her watch—“noon on a Monday, anyway? Are you sick?”

“Do you care?”

“I asked, didn’t I?”

“I have the flu or something. I don’t know. I’ll live.”

She loved how he managed to be such a drama queen when he was insisting he was the opposite. “Michael, you know I’m staying at an inn called Finch’s in Wiscasset. Finding the address wouldn’t be so hard.”

She wasn’t going to tell him about the new house just yet. He wouldn’t understand.
She
barely understood. And it would only start an argument she wasn’t ready to have.

“I assume Fischer is sending you papers to sign for the inheritance? It’s over a million, right?”

“One point three,” she said.

“You’ll be set for life with that much money.”

“Well, half of that much money.”

Silence. Then: “Rebecca, you’re not
seriously
going to give her half. She’s
not
his daughter.”

“We’ve had this conversation before. She
is
his daughter. She was denied his financial support. She deserved to
sue
for it.”

“Why don’t you let her know that, since you’re so set on throwing your future away.”

“I’m giving her half the money, end of story. I hope you feel better. Bye.”

“Rebecca,
think
for once, okay? Just stop and think. You’re an emotional mess right now—”

“Why, because I’m not doing what
you
want? What
you
think I should do? Because I have my own opinion on my
own
life? I have to go.” With that, she clicked her phone shut and threw it into her bag, then noticed a little old lady staring at her from across the street.

She added another mental note to the list of thousands: Do not talk on the phone outside in a tiny town.

Rebecca went a little crazy in Bed, Bath & Beyond. Choosing a down comforter from a selection of at least twenty, with samples to feel and squeeze and varying warmth levels, had knocked her argument with Michael right out of her mind.

“Get the lightweight warmth,” someone said from behind her. “I bought the second level and sweated to death last winter. Trust me.”

Rebecca smiled at the woman and the little girl in her shopping cart. “I’ll take your word for it. Otherwise I’ll be here for hours.”

She grabbed a big plastic-encased queen-sized comforter and put it in her own cart, then headed to the sheets department, where she chose a yellow duvet cover with tiny flowers. And matching shams. And soft cotton and flannel sheets. And between bedding and towels were rows of items that she couldn’t resist, like a radio for the shower, so she could listen to Lady Gaga and Coldplay while shampooing her hair. She spent twenty minutes deciding on a vacuum cleaner (she wanted the Dyson, but couldn’t imagine spending that much) and even longer on her china pattern. She selected soft lavender towels and a fluffy bath mat. Drinking glasses and a set of wineglasses. A corkscrew, too.

And a welcome mat.

When she checked out, she’d spent over eight hundred dollars on stuff for a house she didn’t even technically have the rights to. She glanced at her watch. Only a little after two
o’clock. She’d go back to Marianne’s, call the utility companies, order mattresses, and mentally decorate her new home until Maggie came over.

All her packages barely fit in the little Honda. Maybe she’d buy a Subaru like everyone had around here.

You are getting ahead of yourself again
, she thought, annoyed that she was
not
stopping to think beyond the right now. But who said she had to?

When Rebecca woke up the next morning, she eyed the shiny silver key and lease on her nightstand and scooped up Charlie for a hug. “We’re moving tomorrow! And we have a ton to do today to get our new home ready.”

He licked her chin, which she took to mean he was happy, too. She’d already told Marianne, who’d made her promise to come talk over whoopie pies once in a while.

The whir of a power saw told her Theo was here. After a quick shower and, granted, a bit too long choosing between sweaters for someone who was “just a friend,” she took Charlie for a walk around the back.

Theo turned off the saw and lifted his work goggles.

“Guess what?” she asked.

He glanced up at the brilliant blue sky, then looked back at her. “You rented that cute yellow house on Elm Street?”

“Good guess,” she said, lightly punching his arm. “Talk works fast around here. I’ll have to remember that.”

“Congratulations. I also guess that means you’re sticking around.”

“Looks that way.”

He smiled. “Let me know if you need something. Bookcases are my least favorite thing to make because they’re so boring, but everyone needs them.”

“I don’t have any books. Yet, I mean.”

“Now I know what to get you for a housewarming present.”

It occurred to her that she
could
have a housewarming party. That she actually knew enough people in this town who would actually come. Like Ellie and Maggie. And Joy. Harry. Arlene and Matteo. Victoria and Victor. The Cutlasses. Marianne. And, of course, Theo.

As another guy with a toolbox came into the yard, Rebecca said, “Well, I’ll let you get back to work. Come on, Charlie. Let’s go clean our new house from top to bottom.” She’d never been so excited to vacuum and spray lemon-scented Windex in her entire life.

When she returned to Finch’s, exhausted and wishing she’d thought to buy rubber gloves on her shopping spree, there was a FedEx package waiting for her. She was about to drop it on the bureau to read later when she saw it wasn’t from Martin Fischer, Esquire, but from Whitman, Goldberg & Whitman. Perhaps she was being officially fired. Or sued for abandoning her job. Or her boyfriend.

Inside was a letter attached to two sealed plastic packets each containing what looked like a Q-tip swab and another smaller plastic packet. On one of the many labels Rebecca saw the letters DNA.

What the hell was this? Rebecca sat down on the chair by the window and read the letter.

Dear Rebecca
,

I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me before, perhaps because it’s not Joy who’s claiming to be your half sister or who’s making any kind of claim at all, particularly to your father’s estate. Regardless, who’s to say she is, in fact, the child of Daniel Strand? A woman named Pia Jayhawk, with whom your father had an affair, told him he was the father. Who knows if she was involved with someone else at the time? Who knows who the father really was? She clearly didn’t press the issue, did she? And considering the father was a successful New York City attorney, she likely would have—if he were Joy’s father
.

I highly recommend you and Joy provide a DNA sample herewith and return it to the laboratory (the return address label is on the packet). At least you’ll know once and for all if you’re throwing your life away (not to mention a great deal of money) to forge a relationship with someone who’s not related to you
.

Please note that I have enclosed a personal check made out to the testing company in the amount of $495. Enclose it with the samples and use the enclosed address label on the envelope. It’s that simple
.

Love, Michael

Good Lord. Could he be a bigger blowhard?

Rebecca had always known it was possible that Joy wasn’t
her half sister, that Daniel Strand hadn’t fathered Pia Jayhawk’s child. Of course it was possible. Highly unlikely, though. Rebecca had immediately discounted the idea that Joy wasn’t his daughter. First of all, her father said he was the father. Second, Joy looked like Daniel Strand—had his eyes and his chin and that certain something in his expression. She was Rebecca’s half sister.

But, it was possible that she wasn’t. And years of working in the field of law did make some things black and white, either/or. Paternity was one of those black and white things. Fatherhood, sisterhood, what constituted family—that was something else, that was shades of gray. But DNA and blood were absolutes.

Rebecca’s stomach flip-flopped at the thought that she could possibly be chasing after a relationship with someone who wasn’t her sister at all. There was that slight chance—and the
slight
was enough. Perhaps her father had been able to turn his back on Joy and Pia because he wasn’t 100 percent sure he was the father. No—that was stupid. He could have easily taken a paternity test if he’d really wanted to know for sure. He
believed
he was Joy’s father. Or … he didn’t want to know for sure.

Rebecca let out a deep sigh and shoved the letter and packet back inside the envelope and put it on her bureau.

The only person who knew whether Joy was Daniel Strand’s daughter was Pia Jayhawk. And if she wasn’t so certain, well, maybe Joy would take the DNA test. Just to know. For sure.

And then what? What if Joy wasn’t her sister? Did she pack up and go home? Back to her old life? Did this all just not happen?

How could she pack up and go home when she
was
home now? She’d rented a house. She had a thousand dollars’ worth of stuff and her shiny new mattresses had already been delivered. And she wanted Joy to be her sister. Joy was her sister in her heart, mind, and soul. Period.

She didn’t need to know for sure. Her father had told her Joy was his child and that was good enough for her.

But what if Michael was right? What if Pia had a few lovers that summer? What if she thought Daniel Strand was the father but he wasn’t? What if she chose him because he was the best of the bunch?

Who the hell knew?

She thought of the Maury Povich show, which often showcased a question of paternity, a man and a woman on stage, waiting anxiously the return from commercial break when Maury would finally reveal the results of the DNA test. With the documentation in his hands, Maury would announce, “You are
not
the father,” and the guy often strutted around the stage triumphantly, rubbing the mother’s face in her lie—or her mistake. Or sometimes the guy dropped his head in his hands and cried.