What Mother Never Told Me (15 page)

Until she met Michael, she’d always felt that what she deserved were things: new clothes, shoes, a seat on the bus, a good job, a window seat at a restaurant, to walk down any street and not be scorned for who her mother was and the color of her own skin in the wrong place. Those were the things she thought she deserved because they replaced the one thing she knew she’d never have or wasn’t worthy of receiving, the love of her mother….

A roar of thunder shook the heavens and jolted Emma from the depths of her torturous sleep. The entire building vibrated and the sky illuminated with a searing bolt of lightning. Emma’s tear-filled eyes looked heavenward, seeing only darkness, a reflection of what she felt inside. She had no more tears to shed. Her throat was raw, her limbs stiff from sitting curled in the corner, rocking, thinking, remembering. She couldn’t live like this. She couldn’t endure the depths of this nothingness. How? How?

Slowly, painfully, she rose to her knees, gripped the walls for support, and stood. She looked around, momentarily confused by her surroundings. How did she come to be here? She shook
her head, tried to make the fleeting pieces fall into place and make sense. Her throat clenched. It wasn’t a dream.

She looked down at her clothes, her blouse that clung to her from tears and sweat, the slacks that were bunched, damp and wrinkled and her wet shoes that she’d never taken off her feet. One by one she peeled the items away from her body and tossed them in a pile in the center of the floor. Like an automaton she collected her toiletry pouch from her suitcase, walked to the bathroom and turned on the tub, following her nightly ritual as if doing the familiar would somehow restore her life to normalcy.

She stood over the tub, watching the water slowly rise. Had she not been interrupted that night, had the call not come, oh, how different her life would be. She looked into the rising water and the images of what she’d almost done mocked her from the depths….

She’d taken Michael to the airport. He’d been called back to duty. Although he’d insisted that she stay home with her being so close to delivering their first baby, she insisted just as strongly that she wanted to see him off. As she’d stood in front of the window at the airport watching his plane roar down the runway, she was overcome with dread. She’d convinced Michael not to send for his mother; he was now gone and she had no real friends. She was truly alone. And as that day wore on, the fleeting pains that had begun earlier that morning, that she told her husband nothing about, returned in short bursts, but became more intense each time. By nightfall she was pacing the floor in agony, sweat beading on her forehead. At times the pains nearly bent her in half.

She remembered thinking that it was too soon, too soon, and during a momentary reprieve from the searing pains she almost made her way to the door when another onslaught of torment slammed into her, bringing her to her knees. The only thing that kept her from falling to
the floor was her grip on the knob as a flow of blood and water ran down her thighs. Tears of agony rolled down her cheeks. Her body shook as she curled into a fetal position on the cool wood floor. She realized she’d never make it to the hospital. She tried to think how far away was the phone. In the bedroom. She squeezed her eyes shut as an unbelievable urge to bear down overwhelmed her. Something inside seemed to rip and she screamed in agony as the building pressure widened her…. She would have to do this alone….

Hours later, weak with exhaustion, she looked down at the tiny little girl she’d wrapped in a clean sheet. When she stared at the perfect features, the wisps of curly dark hair and miniature fingers, she realized with complete desolation that everything she’d worked for, sacrificed for, was over. Forever. Her little brown baby. Her Negro child. Her heart squeezed in her chest. Her greatest nightmare had come true. But when she nursed her infant daughter during the hours after her birth Emma began to feel something she didn’t want to feel—a connection, a surge of warmth and tenderness. And as her baby nursed, Emma touched the wiry curls, ran her fingertips along the cottony skin. She suddenly felt full, her heart seeming to swell with a joy she’d never before experienced. This was her and Michael’s daughter, what they had created out of their love. “I don’t want to love you,” she’d said. “I can’t. Don’t make me.”

She wouldn’t let herself feel, wouldn’t let herself fall in love with the child she had borne of love. She was sleeping so peacefully, her small face, so much like her own, created a tender picture. For a moment doubt froze Emma, made her second-guess herself.

Maybe she could leave, she’d thought, disappear with her baby and build a new life in another place. Her gaze slowly rose and her reflection in the dresser mirror stared back at her, the face of a white woman. She lifted the baby to her breasts, pushing out a breath of resolve. She took the baby to the bathroom and turned on the tub.

While the water slowly rose, Emma unwrapped the baby, the cord
still protruding from her navel, the lifeline that connected them. She wouldn’t think about that. Couldn’t allow herself the luxury of being distracted by sentiment. She knelt down by the side of the tub and lowered the baby toward the water. And then her daughter’s eyes squinted open, and jade-green eyes, just like hers, gazed back at her. Emma’s heart rocked in her chest as the baby’s tiny fingers grasped a loose curl of hair and held it. Her stomach seesawed. The baby whimpered….

Marie and Marc sailed through the front door, dripping wet and giggling like school children. They shook off their wet coats and hung them by the door.

“We’re home!” Marie sang out.

Franchesca appeared from the sitting room with an armful of clean towels. “Welcome back. From the looks of you a good time was had, I would say.”

Marie grinned up at Marc. “And you, my dear child, would be right.”

She sauntered into the reception area, took a trained look around her precious space and concluded that all was well. “How have things been in my absence?”

“Fine, madame. One guest checked out this morning and one checked in a few hours ago.”

Marie clapped her hands in delight. “See, life is a balancing act.
Oui?”
She came behind the desk and pulled out the registry. Of course, when Franchesca was not looking she would check the finance sheet and the inventory. She was a sweet girl, but one could never be too careful with the help. She flipped open the registry to the current date and scrolled down the short list of names. She frowned at the name.
Travanti.
She peered closer at the printed name.
Emma.

“What is it, sweetheart?” Marc asked, seeing the look of distress on her face.

Her gaze flicked up to meet his inquiring one. She was about to say nothing when a bead of water plopped down on the page in front of her. Her head jerked back. The trio looked up and an artery of water crept across the ceiling.

“Oh, my goodness,” Franchesca cried out.

“I’ll go up,” Marc said, clearly annoyed. “I’m sure there will be a mess to clean.”

Marie felt a sudden swell of heat in her center and her pulse picked up speed. She glanced down at the register. The letter
E
was being washed away on an inky river. That last conversation with Parris raced through her head.
She was here
.

Marie flew from behind the desk and hurried toward the stairs, leaving Marc and Franchesca in her wake. The room was directly above the reception area, the second door on the right. She pounded on the door. “Madame Travanti, open the door.” She pounded again.

Marc and Franchesca had just reached the top of the landing. Marie turned and said, “Get me a key! Hurry.” Franchesca raced back downstairs to retrieve the key. Marc came up behind Marie.

“It’s all right. The guest probably feel asleep and left the water running,” he said, trying to soothe her and ease the absolute look of panic from her wide-eyed face.

Marie ignored him and pounded again. “Madame, open the door!”

Franchesca returned with the key and handed it to Marie, who quickly opened the door. The trio practically tumbled into the room and was greeted by a trail of water that led to the bathroom. The bedroom was empty. Marie hurried to the
bathroom and halted to a stop at the door, expecting the worst and finding it. For an instant she lost her breath as she focused on the body in the tub, blood streaming from her wrists, her skin as pale as a sheet of paper.

Franchesca screamed and didn’t stop.

“Quiet!” Marie demanded, her eyes filled with fear and fury. “Be quiet before you alarm the guests.”

Franchesca pushed her fist to her mouth but was unable to tear her eyes away from the sight before her.

Marc and Marie pushed into the bathroom. He checked the pulse in her neck, trying to feel for some form of life. Marie turned off the water.

“Well?” she asked anxiously.

He shook his head. “I can’t tell. We need to get her out of this tub.”

Marie turned to Franchesca, who was still as a statue. She needed to get the panicked girl out of the room. “Go and get me those towels. Bring me some sheets and some scissors.” Franchesca stood frozen as Marc carried the wet, cold body of Emma out of the tub and to the bed. “Now!” Marie yelled. Franchesca jerked to attention and hurried out.

Marie wrapped the icy cold body in blankets while Marc dumped the pillow out of its case and began tearing it. He handed several strips to Marie. In unison they bound her wrists where the ugly, ragged cuts still oozed, not needing instruction as if they’d always worked together saving the life of a perfect stranger.

“Who is she?” Marc asked, tying off the strip.

“The mother of that young woman who was here. Parris.”

Marc gave Marie a quick glance and then looked at the body on the bed. “Are you sure?”

“Oui.”
She reached over to check for a pulse. The faintest beat tapped against her fingertips. “She’s alive,” she whispered. “Barely.”

“She needs a doctor. I’m going to call the ambulance.” He got up to reach for the phone. Marie grabbed his arm.

“No. No hospitals.”

“What are you saying? She could die here. Is that what you want?”

“Listen to me. We can’t take her to a hospital. This is an attempted suicide. They will commit her.”

“That is what she needs.”

“No,” Marie said, “it is not what she needs.” She looked at the alabaster face, the chest that barely rose and fell. “She needs forgiveness.”

“Marie—”

“
Chérie,
I promise, I will explain it all to you. Trust me.”

Marc looked into Marie’s eyes, saw the conviction there that she would do this with or without his help. “All right,” he finally conceded.

“Good. We will need to call a doctor. I know someone who is discreet.”

Franchesca appeared in the doorway, still pale and panicked, with the requested supplies.

“Come in and close the door,” Marie quietly ordered. “We need to talk.”

D
r. Lamar, an old and trusted friend of Marie’s from her entertainment days, finished the last suture on Emma’s right wrist. He covered it with a light ointment, gauze and sterile tape, identical to her other wrist.

Marie and Marc held hands and watched in silence. Lamar checked Emma’s pulse and shone a light in each of her eyes before putting his instruments away. He angled his body on the bed to face his audience. “She is very lucky. Had the water been warm rather than icy cold, you would have called the coroner.” He stood, his belly jutting out in front of him. “Without the proper tests I can’t tell if she took any drugs. Did you find any empty bottles?”

“No,” Marie answered, although she didn’t think to look.

“I can’t take the risk of giving her a sedative until we know for sure. But for the time being I’m certain she will sleep for a
few hours. I would caution against leaving her alone. When she wakes, she will be disoriented and probably very frightened.”

Marie nodded her head.

“Keep her warm and calm. Call me if you need to.”

Marie rose and squeezed his plump hands between hers. “Thank you, Jean.”

He bobbed his bald head. “For you, anything.” He gathered his bag and coat and Marie walked him downstairs and to the front door. He turned to face her as he donned his hat against the still pouring rain. He took a small bottle from his bag and handed it to her. “In the event that she needs something to help her sleep. It’s a mild sedative. But keep it with you at all times,” he warned. “How much do you know about this woman?”

Marie drew in a breath. “Only what I’ve been told.”

He wagged a stubby finger at her. “I won’t say don’t get in over your head because you have already done that. Those who attempt to take their lives are very desperate, Marie, very sad, very lonely. Without help, she will try again. Hopefully, she will not be your burden.”

“I will keep that in mind,” she said, clutching his arm. “Travel safely.”

He gave her one parting look then turned and hurried to his car as quickly as his thick legs would take him. Marie waited until the car was out of sight then returned to sit vigil over her guest.

Between the three they took turns watching over Emma throughout the night. She didn’t stir until midafternoon the following day. Marie, who was resting in the chair pulled to the side of the bed, heard Emma’s moans. She jerked up in the chair, her head pounding and her eyes burning from a series
of mini-naps. She leaned over Emma. Her eyes fluttered open, then closed. She moaned again and slowly opened her eyes, tried to focus.

“Don’t try to move around,” Marie said, stroking Emma’s forehead. “You gave us a bit of a scare.”

Emma blinked, trying to make out the image in front of her.

“Do you know what happened?”

Emma lifted her right arm, the white bandage illuminated in the afternoon light. She dropped her arm to her side and turned her head away from Marie.

“My name is Marie…Emma. May I call you Emma?”

Emma didn’t respond. She only stared at the wall. The pulse in her throat, Marie noticed, thumped at a rapid pace.

Marie sighed, stood up slowly and stretched her stiff limbs. “You’ve been sleeping for quite a few hours.” She spoke softly as she moved around the bed and adjusted the covers. “The doctor said you need your rest. You can stay here until you are well enough to leave.” She paused. “Unless there is someone you would like me to call.” She saw Emma’s hands clench into fists and she gritted her teeth as the pain shot up her arms. “You shouldn’t do that,” Marie said with practiced calm. “You have stitches.”

Emma’s narrow lips tightened. She blinked rapidly to stem the tears that welled in her eyes but failed.

Marie gingerly sat down on the side of the bed. “Whatever the trouble, you can get through it. Fate brought you here to us.”

“You should have let me die,” she said, her voice dry and cracked.

“Perhaps. But I’d rather not have a suicide in my brochure as a tourist attraction.”

Emma closed her eyes.

“Nothing is so dreadful as to want to end your life.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“Perhaps I know more than you think.”

“No one knows,” she said in a faraway voice.

Marie watched the tears fall and dry on her cheeks. The resemblance to her daughter Parris slowly took shape, like watching a transformation in a movie. The curve of the face, the sharp nose and sweeping brows, but it was the arresting green eyes—one set in a face of alabaster, the other in brown sugar—that linked them, that and the weight of their private pain. Her heart ached for them both.

She was uncertain of how much she should say, how much this woman was willing and ready to hear. Instead she spoke of inconsequential things: the running of her inn, the string of guests who’d visited over the years, the coming of spring and her days as an entertainer. She spoke in low, soothing tones as one would to a child while telling them a bedtime story. She watched as Emma struggled to stay awake before finally drifting off into another deep sleep.

A light tap on the door drew her attention. It opened slightly and Marc stuck his head in. Marie tiptoed away from the bed.

“She woke for a little while, but just went back to sleep.” She pushed her hair away from her face. “I want to bathe and change clothes.”

He kissed her forehead. “I missed you in bed last night.”

Her cheeks glowed. “But of course,” she teased. “As I missed you.” She eased past him, making certain that her body connected with his. “I’ll be back shortly.” She stroked his cheek and went down the hall to her room.

Marc took up his post next to the sleeping patient and wondered how long she would be their burden.

It was two days before Emma was willing to get out of bed and sit on the terrace. All during that time, she spoke little, no more than asking for water or a sip of soup. She was like a ghost living in a human body, devoid of energy or essence, merely existing because she’d been forced to. So Marie took it as a good sign that she agreed to get some air. Perhaps she was coming back to the land of the living.

“France is always so beautiful after the rains,” Marie was saying as she looked out onto the hillsides. The sky was a crystal blue and the landscape beyond resembled a work of art, with the rich brown and green colors of the mountains, and the outline of the city’s brilliant colors. “Don’t you agree?” She ladled seafood bisque into Emma’s bowl and her own before taking a seat. “I have traveled all around Europe but I don’t think I could ever live anywhere else.” She raised her soup spoon to her mouth and took a sip. She closed her eyes in delight then looked at Emma. “You must try the soup. It is Marc’s special recipe.” She watched, mildly satisfied when Emma finally lifted her spoon to her mouth. “Excellent,
oui?”

“Yes,” Emma murmured.

“Where is your home, Emma Travanti?” she asked gently.

Emma glanced for an instant at Marie then said, “I have no home.”

Marie tossed her head back and laughed. “We all have a home. Somewhere. It may be a place we will never return but we all have a beginning.”

Emma’s eyes stared out to the world stretched in front of her, beyond the Loire Valley, beyond the borders of France, across the oceans, deep into the bottom of America along the
winding roads, rippling rivers, towering trees, ramshackle homes and voices laced with molasses, thick and sweet.

“Mississippi,” she whispered.

Marie’s heart thumped. She schooled her expression. “Ah, I have only heard and read about Mississippi. But you must have come here long ago. I don’t hear that, uh, how do you say, ‘Southern drawl’ in your voice.” She smiled at Emma, hoping to encourage her to talk. She needed to be absolutely certain before she said too much.

“Thirty years,” she said wistfully.

Marie nodded. “That is a long time. You must have come as a young girl.”

“I…came with…my husband.” Her face tightened as if the words brought her excruciating pain.

“Ah, a husband. I have never been fortunate enough to be caught by one of them.” She laughed lightly and was pleased to see the glimmer of a smile on Emma’s lips. “But they are good to have I’ve heard.”

Emma turned somber eyes on Marie. “They are. Michael is a wonderful man.” Her throat worked up and down. Her nostrils flared. “He doesn’t deserve what I’ve done to him.” She shook her head back and forth and her body shuddered. She sniffed hard and reached for the linen napkin on the table. She dabbed at her eyes and nose. “But I didn’t know what else to do,” she blurted out. “Do you know what it’s like never to be loved? Never? Not even by your own mother?” Her voice cracked with pain. “To walk down the streets of the place where you live and be whispered about, mocked? To have your mother be the source of ridicule because of you? All your life!” Her face flushed. She stood and went to the railing of the terrace. Marie flinched, ready to grab her if need be. “And
then one day you see a way out.” She stared at Marie. Her voice took on a sense of urgency. “A way to live. And you find someone, someone who finally loves you. Gives you what you’ve been searching your entire life for. Makes you feel whole and worthy. And you realize that you will do anything, anything to keep it.” She looked away. Her chest rapidly rose and fell. “And then everything changes. The one thing you dreaded. A baby. A child that could take it all away because she doesn’t look like you. She doesn’t look like him. She is a black baby. Because you are black. And he doesn’t know. And he must never know,” she rambled, growing more agitated with each revelation.

In fits and starts Emma told Marie of the night of Parris’s birth and her terror. Of taking the infant to the tub with the intention of drowning her, but the phone rang, telling her that her husband had been captured in Germany, but the army was working to get him out. She’d made up her mind at the moment to take the child to her mother, back in Mississippi to be raised. She made her mother swear that she would never tell the child about her, only that she died. She walked away from that house and never came back. Everything would have been fine. Michael would have never known until the letter came from her mother as she lay dying. Her mother needed to cleanse her soul before she left this world, the letter read, so she’d broken her promise, she’d told her daughter the truth—that her mother wasn’t dead. She was alive and living in France. She said she’d named her Parris after the place Emma had chosen to live.

Marie’s chest tightened.
So it was true
.

Emma slumped down in her seat. “She came to France,” she murmured, seemingly spent by her confession. “I saw her for
the very first time since she was two days old and I…turned her away.” Her eyes wandered. “And then she was there, on my doorstep and…Michael…saw her. And, and I denied her, three times. Like Judas.” She covered her mouth to hold back her sob. “He…he told me I had to leave. Our marriage was over.” She frowned. “I…had nowhere to go.” She looked at Marie with a confused cast to her eyes. “My life had been with Michael. My whole life. When…I got into the taxi, I looked in my purse and found the card for this place.” Her bottom lip trembled. “She’d given it to me when she came to my bistro.” A tear slid down her face. She looked into Marie’s eyes. “I had nowhere else to go.” She covered her face with her hands and wept.

Marie rose from her chair, knelt down beside her and gently put her arm around Emma’s shuddering shoulders. Fate is such a mischievous bitch, she thought.

By the end of the week, Dr. Lamar had returned, checked Emma’s wounds, changed her dressing and advised her to keep them dry for at least another week, to avoid infection.

“How has she been?” he whispered to Marie as she stood with him at the door to the inn.

“She’s been talking a bit. Eating a little. I’ve gotten her to go as far as the terrace.” She forced a smile.

He sighed. “Does she have any family that she can call?”

“No.”

“Well, my dear, at some point you will have to make a decision. Unless you intend to hire her, she can’t stay here forever.” His cheeks puffed as he smiled. “Take care of yourself.”

Marie waved as he drove off. She gazed upward to the floor
above. He was right. She couldn’t stay there forever and she had no clue as to what Emma Travanti’s plans were for her future.

The sun was warm to the skin. Birds hopped and chirped from treetop to treetop. The air was crisp and clean. Spring was on the horizon. It was the time of year Marie loved most, when new life began to bloom. She spent hours in her garden, nurturing her plants and vegetables, talking to them like old friends.

“Do you garden?” Marie asked Emma, who sat in a lawn chair off to the side.

“My mother did. We had a patch of land behind the house. She’d always try to show me…”

Marie glanced at her. “It’s very relaxing, turning the earth, tending the leaves, watching the buds spring to life.” She extended a small shovel. “Come. I’ll show you.”

Emma hesitated then finally pushed up from her seat and came to kneel down beside Marie. She took the shovel and followed Marie’s soft-spoken instructions on digging small holes where she would plant seeds. “Push the shovel in and twist.” She watched her student complete the first hole. She clapped in appreciation. “Perfect!” That made Emma smile.

They worked side by side with Marie telling her what each seed was, how long it took to bloom and the care that it needed to survive. “Plants are like people,
oui?
They need the hand of someone to care for them from the first bud of life until they are strong enough to stand on their own. And even then they require nurturing.”

“I never had that,” Emma said softly. “Oh, my mother gave me
things
. Always things. But never her love. It’s all I ever wanted.”

“Perhaps that was the only way she knew.”

“It made me selfish and resentful,” she went on. “I wanted her to pay for not loving me. I would see her coming home from cleaning other people’s homes, beaten and tired, and I didn’t care. All I knew was that I would never be like her.”