Unbreakable (8 page)

"It wasn't always true," Agnes answered sharply. Then she visibly took hold of her emotions. "And who's pretending? I was talking about another parent for Robbie. One parent, no matter how much they want to, can't be everything to a child. It's impossible."

"I have always preferred women and you have always acted like you didn't hear me when I made it crystal clear that I never intended to find or settle down with Mr. Right."

"Well." Agnes scoffed. "Not with that attitude."

Nina tilted her face skyward. "Why am I being punished?" She lifted her hands in supplication. "I'm a good person. Honest, I am."

Mrs. Chilton ignored her daughter's theatrics. "It's not as though you've ever taken the time to explain how all in one day you went from dating that nice boy Lucas to moving in with that Carol person."

"There were years, not days, between those two events, Mom. And I just–" Nina sighed pushed her plate away, her appetite gone. How could she explain the uncertainty and anxiety that went along with her heart telling her one thing while everyone else she cared about was insisting on another?
Do I even want to try?
Then she thought of Robbie and the life she wanted to build here. "I didn't talk more about it because I was confused myself. Things were never bad with men. They could even satisfy me in bed."

Agnes paled slightly, hoping the conversation wouldn't drift into specifics.

"But something was missing. Always." Her hands flailed in a vague gesture. "Some sort of connection that I found I more than wanted. I needed it. And by the time I really figured out what was right for me… I dunno." Her gaze dropped to the table. "It didn't seem like it was worth the effort to convince you of something you were always going to be opposed to." She licked her lips and dared a glance up, realizing her mother had remained unusually silent. "Aren't you going to say anything?"

"No," Agnes told her gently. "I think this time I need to do the listening."

A little surprised, Nina gave a quick nod. "I needed some time and space to understand myself. I guess I was a slow learner, Mom, and I'm sorry if that somehow gave you an impression that it just wasn't true." She refused to call her brief sexual liaison with Robbie's father a "mistake," because it had yielded the light of her life. "It took me a long time to be happy with myself and who I am. But I am happy."
And don't
forget lonely
, her mind whispered, much to her dismay. "Can't you be happy for me?"

Agnes lifted her chin. "I don't want you happy."

Nina's eyes widened and the older woman shocked her daughter by reaching out and gently cupping her chin. Then she gave her an intense, direct stare. "I know I haven't acted like it, but I want you more than happy. I want you blissfully happy. So…." She gathered her courage and sent a request for Divine forgiveness in case this wasn't the right thing to do. "My friend Joan has a great niece who is a lesbian. Joan assures me she's a lovely girl, no unsightly piercings. I asked about that. Anyway, she's single and–"

Nina's jaw dropped and her hand shot up to forestall her mother's rambling. "Who are you and what have you done with my mother?" she demanded. "Now you're trying to set me up with a
woman
? Sweet Jesus, I'm in the Twilight Zone!" But an incredulous smile was tugging at her coral lips.

Agnes crossed her arms over her ample chest. "Don't act so shocked. It might have taken me 15 years to work up to this, but now that I'm here, you're in big trouble, young lady. We should have had this talk years ago, but your visits were so short and every time I broached the subject… Well, things never seemed to go very well."

Nina gave her a pointed look that said "not my fault." And Agnes nodded, accepting the gentle rebuke graciously. Then her hazel eyes twinkled. "The phone just never seemed like a good place for me to hatch my devious plan."

"Oh my God." Nina blinked slowly as the full force of what her mother was saying hit home. "You're going to check out every woman with jeans and a short haircut in the supermarket and ask them if they're gainfully employed and single, aren't you?"

Agnes leaned forward interestedly. "Is short hair and jeans a secret code for being gay? I've always wondered how you all knew."

Nina continued to stare at her mother as though she'd grown a second head.

Agnes's brow creased. "But you don't have particularly short–" Her gaze suddenly darted downward and her eyes shaped twin moons. One hand moved to her own head while the other went to the neatly pressed denim covering her thigh. "Oh, my. No wonder the checkout girl with the skull tattoo from Lane 3 is always so nice to me!"

Nina's head swung towards the back of the room and waited for the Candid Camera crew to come bursting through her pantry door. "You can come out now," she demanded, her eyes narrowing. "I know you're in there."

Agnes looked towards the back of the room, too. But, of course, there was no one there. Then she focused on Nina's glass. While Nina's attention was on the pantry door, she covertly lifted her daughter's glass and delicately sniffed it. "What are you drinking, dear?" She sniffed again, her nose wrinkling. "Alcohol, by any chance?"

Nina turned back and scrubbed her face. "No, but that's not a bad idea," she murmured into her hands, her mind still reeling.

"Are you all right?" Agnes stood and took her daughter's hand, squeezing it gently.

Nina sucked in a breath and took stock of herself. "I am." She squeezed back, feeling the unparalleled reassurance of her mother's love that came in the form of a small but strong hand wrapped around hers. "I'm just confused. I… I don't understand why you haven't acknowledged the fact that I was a lesbian for 15 years and now all of a sudden you're playing matchmaker. How am I supposed to react to something like that?" Every ounce of confusion Nina felt showed on her face and in her voice and her mother's heart clenched in response. "I feel like my head is going to explode!"

Agnes sighed, her eyes conveying true regret. "I needed some time and space to understand you, too. I guess I was a slow learner."

Nina made a face at her mother as her own words were lightly tossed back at her. "God, I hate it when you do that."

Agnes allowed a small smile to appear. They were going to be all right. "It's a gift." She leaned over and pressed her lips into her daughter's soft hair, kissing the dark blonde head several times before resting her cheek there. "I can see life hasn't given you everything you want from it, Nina. Granted, I don't understand the way you feel you have to live. But whatever it is that you so desperately want… I want that for you, too."

A lump grew in Nina's throat and as she blinked, the room began to blur.

"Time for me to go home. You know how I hate driving past dark. We'll talk more when you get over the shock of my being reasonable." Another kiss. "Give Robbie a hug for me."

Nina stood and pulled her mother into a tight embrace. "Thanks, Mom," she whispered, hearing a note of hoarseness in her own voice.

Agnes closed her eyes. "Even if we disagree or I don't understand your choices, I love you no matter what. I know I hurt you, but I want things to be better between us. I'm so sorry, Nina." She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, struggling to express herself and still maintain her composure. "Moms make mistakes, too," she finally murmured. "You know that, right?"

Silently, Nina nodded. She did know that. One of the many blessings of her becoming a parent herself was the realization that, as impossible at it was to really believe, parents were just people, too, full of imperfections and good and bad choices waiting to be made. "Good night, Mom."

On her way to the door, Agnes tossed her paper napkin into the trash and caught sight of a white card and envelope that had been delivered earlier in the day. "What did that turn out to be?" She carefully extracted the crumpled card from the trash, shaking off several sticky spaghetti noodles as she examined it.

"Hey!" Despite, or perhaps because of, the emotional moment they'd just shared, Nina's temper flared. She marched across the room and stood toe-to-toe with her mother. "I think I'm entitled to a little privacy."

Agnes's eyes widened and she had the good manners to look embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean–"

"No, no." Nina winced. "It's okay." She groaned inwardly, knowing she'd overreacted. "It's nothing secret. I apologize for being such a bitch. I don't know what's wrong with me today."

Agnes picked up her purse from the kitchen counter and adjusted the strap on her shoulder. "You're never a..." she lowered her voice, her lips thinning in disgust, "the ‘b' word."

Nina couldn't help but laugh and wonder how well her mother really knew her after all. "Aww, Mom, I wish that were true."

"You're not yourself today," Agnes allowed thoughtfully, suspecting that whatever was bothering Nina was contained on the mysterious white card. She waited for a moment, hoping that Nina would tell her what was wrong and forcing herself not to read what was in her hand.

The younger woman was well aware of her mother's struggle and she didn't make her wait long. "The card is an invitation from an old… a former friend. You probably remember her. Gwen Hopkins? She wants me and some other girls from Hazelwood to get together for a long weekend next month." Nina shook her head, her gaze going a little unfocused. "She's crazy," she whispered, not realizing she'd spoken the words out loud.

"I could come here and watch Robbie so that you could go." An enormous smile exploded onto Agnes's cheeks. "I'd love to, in fact. You don't start work until early November."

"Mom, please…."

"Are all the girls from that club of yours going to be there?"

"Mmm," she hummed softly. That was the real question. Would they all show up? "I doubt it."

"Still, how sweet of Gwen." Agnes nodded her approval. "She always did have good manners, not that those overbearing parents of hers didn't pound them into her." After a bit of one-handed searching, she extracted her keys from her purse. "It would be wonderful for you to have some friends here your own age."

"It would." Nina swallowed thickly and then kicked herself for feeling the mixture of anxiety and anticipation that flooded her belly at the thought of the Mayflower Club reuniting, but mostly at the thought of laying eyes on Jacie again. "But it doesn't matter, because I'm not going."

Agnes's thin eyebrows lifted. "Why ever not? These are your friends." Confusedly, she shook her head. "You were inseparable as children. Especially you and that Jacie Ann."

A flash of pain swept across Nina's expressive face at the mention of her friend's name, but Agnes plowed ahead, oblivious. "At one point your father and I considered clearing out your bedroom and adding another bed. You had so many sleepovers I felt a little guilty about those girls spending all those nights in their raggedy sleeping bags."

Nina's jaw set as she quickly turned away from her mother, busying herself by turning on the faucet, then hunting below the sink for the dish soap. "You can't go home again, Mom. I haven't seen any of those women in 20 years. If we'd wanted to get in touch before now, we would have." Not quite true. She'd searched for Jacie for several years before giving up completely. "What could we possibly have in common now?"

Agnes made a clucking noise. "What more could you have in common? A shared past is a powerful thing, Nina. Those girls were like sisters to you. Not that Janet wasn't a good sister, but there was such an age gap between you... you never really played together as children."

Nina stood and leaned against the sink, her mind easily skipping past the sounds of running water and Robbie's footsteps upstairs to the soft-spoken sister she'd lost so many years ago… and the friend who had held her so tenderly when she cried.

Halloween 1973
Hazelwood, Missouri

Nina pressed her face against the glass of Jacie's kitchen window and peered inside the modest split-level home. She had to stand on Audrey and Gwen's shoulders in order to see inside the high window and even then she had to stretch up on her tippy toes.

With her arms crossed petulantly over her chest, Katy leaned against the house in a cave woman costume, complete with a bone in her hair and a large brown club made from papier-mâché. The day had been sunny and warm enough for shorts, but as the sun disappeared the air took on a typical autumn chill. Katy's mother, in a move so evil that Katy could barely contemplate it, had ruined her outfit by forcing her to wear a zip-up-the-front sweatshirt over her fake fur clothing. She'd tried to take the sweatshirt off as soon as she went outside, but Mrs. Schaub had been peeking through the window in anticipation of her daughter's deception. Ten minutes of threats later, a thoroughly chastised and partially grounded Katy was still allowed to go trick-or-treating, but to the girl's disgust, the sweatshirt was zipped clear up to her chin and safety-pinned closed.

Nina took the rare chance to just look at Jacie unobserved. The group of girls was together so often that it was easy to almost envision them as a pack and forget the strong, individual personalities that populated the club. Jacie was, Nina decided, different looking…pretty even, with thick wine-red hair so dark that it almost appeared black except in the direct sunlight and large brown eyes whose corners curled upward mischievously when she smiled. She was tall, but not as tall as Gwen and she always fiddled with her long ponytail when she was nervous.

"Well?" Audrey said impatiently, trying to straighten the enormous purple clown wig that was falling onto her face. "What do you see?"

"Ja-ja-jacie eatin' d-dinner. Alone. She won't eat them a-again, I think."

Jacie sat at the kitchen table, dressed in her pirate costume. The slightly grungy plaster cast on her left arm, gotten when she'd failed at her most recent world record attempt, detracted from her tattered leggings, sword, and black eye patch. She glared evilly at the large serving of vegetables that was still on her otherwise empty plate, taking the time to occasionally poke at it with her fork.

This was a common battle at the Priest house. Jacie couldn't leave the table until she'd cleaned her plate. If she didn't like what was for dinner she would steadfastly refuse to eat it.