Not My Daughter

Chapter 24

People reached mailboxes on Friday. The story was written by three correspondents, not just Melissa Randolph, so that while Susan wasn't quoted, others in town had provided enough information to fill an entire page. The good news was that the story was at the end of the issue. The bad news was that the word pact grabbed the reader first, making it hard not to want to finish the piece. Moreover-in Susan's mind, at least-pulling up the rear after the mothers of the drunk and the thief, she came across less as a besieged innocent than as a woman who was guilty as hell-and a lousy mom, to boot.

Add lousy principal to that. Or so Phil implied. He faulted her for allowing reporters into the school, and pointed out that he had been called but refused to talk. When he suggested that her ability to do her job was compromised, she listed all she had done that week. And when he again raised the idea of taking a leave, she repeated the argument she had made in November when word of Lily's pregnancy first leaked out-that her dealing firsthand with students and parents was the best way to go.

She held an emergency faculty meeting that afternoon to alert her staff, which was uniformly supportive.

Evan Brewer had a prior commitment and didn't attend.

Susan went to bed early that night. She was lying awake in the dark when Rick slipped in and sat beside her. He was fully dressed.

"This has taken a toll," he said softly.

"It's cumulative. I feel weak."

"Angry."

"That, too. I can't sue People, because they didn't print anything false or defamatory. I can't strangle these three girls, because I love them too much. I can't fire Phil, because he's my boss." She paused and reached for his hand. "And I can't fault you for what you said. You may be right. I may be giving Lily the wrong message. I may have given her the wrong one all along. I thought I was teaching her to be strong and self-sufficient. I thought I was teaching her responsibility-that she was in charge of her own life."

"You have. You've produced an incredibly strong, independent, responsible young woman."

"Who's afraid of being hurt, like I was," Susan admitted and waited for his reaction.

He was quiet for a time, studying their hands. "You had reason. We rely on our parents for unconditional love. Yours took theirs back. So you built a wall. I'd have done the same."

"That doesn't make it right. Walls are isolating. The thing is, we have such good friends here that we don't feel isolated."

"Maybe that's all you need," he said. Before she could respond, he stretched out on the quilt with his forehead to her cheek and her hand near his heart.

There was so much to say that she didn't know where to begin, and she was suddenly too filled with emotion to speak. So she slept.

Kate woke up at two. She might have heard one of the boys coming home from a date, but there were no footsteps on the stairs. Slipping out of bed, she checked the window. The driveway was full of parked cars, everyone in for the night.

Arms around her waist, she stared out at the dark for a bit. When she began to feel chilled, she thought of returning to Will. But other thoughts-new thoughts-had come to her mind.

Taking her robe from a hook on the back of her door, she went down to the kitchen and brewed a cup of tea. Setting the mug on the table, she settled sideways on the bench and tucked her feet under her robe.

Five minutes passed-or was it ten? The microwave clock had died six months before. But she heard footsteps in the room over her head and knew Will was coming.

"Hey," he whispered moments later. He was a big, gentle guy in a frayed T-shirt and boxer shorts. "You okay?"

"Maybe."

Will didn't normally sit on the bench, preferring the openness of a chair. But with surprising grace, he folded himself there now and tucked Kate's feet under his thighs. "Why am I guessing you're not thinking about People?"

Chin on her knees, she smiled. "I wish I was. People is irrelevant. It stays for a week, then gets thrown in the trash. It's the important stuff that stays."

"Like babies."

"Like moms and the things they say. I've said things I wish I could take back. I haven't been the best mother in the world."

He made a dismissive sound. "You're too hard on yourself."

"Maybe. But it's how I feel. I'm not happy Mary Kate's pregnant, but I'm not about to give the baby back. I know how to roll with the punches. And Mary Kate's baby is healthy. We're very lucky." More so than Susan. Lily's situation had shaken her. It put things in a new light. "Her little guy's in rough shape."

"They'll fix him up."

"We hope."

"Heeey. Weren't we always positive when you were pregnant? Jason was breech, and they delivered him fine. The twins were a month early."

"This is different," said Kate. "Google CDH, and the picture you get is serious. If they decided on surgery, that baby has to be pretty bad. The prognosis may be good, but it's scary. What if this was Mary Kate's baby? I'd be sick." She looked around her kitchen. "We need a new microwave. The oven struggles to light, and the fridge is on its last legs. All petty. Just like me. And they're going after Susan for being a bad mom?"

A movement at the door drew her eye. Mary Kate was a waif, standing there in her nightgown. While Kate loved all her children, this one was still her baby. There was something to be said for that.

She patted the bench, and seconds later, her baby was there. "Did we wake you?"

The girl gave a quick headshake. "I keep thinking about how things go wrong. I don't know what happened, Mom. Last summer everything sounded so easy, and now all this?"

"No day at the beach."

"If I'd imagined the half of it, I might not have gone ahead."

It was a life lesson, Kate realized, but in what? Kate often acted on impulse without thinking things through. Was Mary Kate all that different?

Thinking that her own hair, loose for the night, was every bit as wild as her daughter's, she touched the small mound of Mary Kate's belly. "Still, it's my grandson in here." They had just learned it was a boy.

Mary Kate covered her hand. "A little Jacob." She teared up. Kate guessed she was missing Jacob badly-a sad life lesson there. "What if my baby has problems?"

"Your sonogram was perfect," Kate said. "We had them look closely."

"Okay, but what if he's an impossible baby?"

"We'll have to make sure he isn't."

"How?"

"By giving him care and understanding. By letting his uncles earn their keep by playing ball with him in the yard. By giving him love."

"Love isn't enough when there's a physical problem."

"When it's all you have, it's enough." Will's hand was warm on her leg.

Mary Kate studied them. Finally, with hopeful innocence, she asked, "You're really okay with this?"

Kate decided that she really was. Life wasn't about a crowded kitchen or bedrooms crammed with beds. In pleasing her own baby, Kate felt the kind of satisfaction she hadn't since Mary Kate had broken the news. Pulling her daughter close, she held on tightly.

Sunny hadn't slept well for weeks, but the last two nights were the worst. She wanted to blame it on the media. Talk about public humiliation? As punishment went for her sins, this was harsh.

Not so harsh, though, as what was happening with Lily's baby. When she awoke in the dark now, she thought about this. Birth defects were always sobering, but when they happened to someone you knew? She wasn't sure whom she felt most sorry for-Susan, Lily, or the baby.

As she tossed restlessly, her thoughts drifted back to Jessica. The girl was shaken, no longer as smug as she had been when proudly announcing her pregnancy. She was less quick to talk, less glib when she did, and, notably, less critical of Sunny. Approaching the end of her fourth month, she had her own sonogram next week. Suddenly, she was brooding over a list of possible problems, previously ignored.

Just punishment for having blithely become pregnant? Sunny had thought it for a while. But she was increasingly concerned about her daughter. Lately, Jessica was looking pale and drawn. And Sunny felt bad.

Shortly before dawn, she gave up on sleep and went down to the kitchen. Deciding that a special breakfast was the way to go, she began mixing batter for Belgian waffles. Both girls loved them; Sunny usually saved them for holidays. But Jessica needed fattening.

Pulling the waffle iron from her small-appliance bin, Sunny put it on the counter, fished a huller from her gadget drawer, and was heading to the refrigerator for strawberries when there was a knock at the door. There, to her horror, his nose pressed against the glass above the cafe curtain, was her father.

"Omigod," she whispered. "Not them, not now."

But, of course, she couldn't ignore that face-or the fuzz of a hat to its right that would mark the top of her mother's head. When she didn't react quickly enough, one of them rang the bell. Twice.

Sunny opened the door in a flash. "Do you know what time it is? It's barely seven, and it's Saturday morning. My family is sleeping. And anyway, how did you get here at this hour?" They lived twelve hours away by car. Usually, Sunny thought that was far enough, but not this time.

"We drove all night," said Samson and gave her a peck on the cheek.

Delilah followed with a two-cheek peck. "Hello, Sunshine. I can't tell you how psyched we were to see your light on. Your French press makes the best coffee." She looked around.

But Sunny hadn't gotten to coffee yet. "If you'd called to let me know you were coming, I'd have had it on."

Her mother dismissed that with a short sputter. "If we'd called first, you'd have said you were going away for the weekend. I'm actually surprised you didn't. After the article in People, I'd have thought you'd run off somewhere to hide."

"Ah, yes," Sunny said, recalling their last discussion. "Timid, with a capital T." She raised her chin. "No, Mother. You're wrong. We're here."

Delilah smiled and dropped her coat on a chair. "Well, so are we." She rubbed her hands together and spotted the iron. "I love waffles."

"That was quite some article, Sunshine," said Samson, who had taken a banana from the basket and was peeling it. "You should have warned us." He tossed the peel in the sink, uncaring that it straddled the faucet. "We were wallowing in oblivion when the calls started to come."

"What calls?" Sunny asked, fearing for an instant that People would run a prequel that included Samson and Delilah, in which case Sunny would run off somewhere.

"Friends," Delilah said with a chiding look, then glanced at the hall door and broke into a grin. "Well, hello, Darcy. Did we wake you up? Come give us a hug." She opened her arms.

Darcy, who had never been as enamored of her grandparents as Jessica, was cautiously complying when Jessica appeared.

"Hey," the girl said from the door. "I didn't know you guys were coming."

Delilah's eyes lit up. "Nor did we until dinner last night, but after going back and forth about all of the ink you folks have generated here, we knew we had to help."

"Help?" Sunny asked. "How?"

Her mother was suddenly looking smug, so much like Jessica that Sunny felt a tiny jolt.

"We think Jessica should come live with us," Delilah announced, "at least until after the baby is born. That way she'll be out of the limelight your friend Susan is generating."

Not so long ago, Sunny might have accepted. Now she was just amused. "Why would I let my daughter live with you?"

"It would be easier."

"Easier?"

"Well, you clearly don't want her here."

"Who said that?"

"Sunshine. Please. We all know that this pregnancy upsets you."

So does a physical abnormality, Sunny mused, but Susan wasn't asking Lily to abort her baby. "Y'know, Mother, I really am not as small-minded as you think. I can handle things."

Samson wandered out of the kitchen, leaving Delilah to her skepticism. "But pregnancy? Think about it, Sunshine. All those people staring at you? Talking behind your back? Wouldn't it be better if we just took Jessica home with us?"

Sunny didn't miss the ridicule and should have been hurt. But another emotion had come into play. The world could fault her for being angry enough to want to banish her daughter from their home. But Lily's problems and Susan's remarkably responsible response had been a wake-up call for Sunny. Thinking of Jessica now, she felt protective. Protective and possessive-this was the kind of mother she wanted to be.

Jessica hadn't moved toward her grandmother. Sunny took courage from that. Wouldn't it be better if we just took Jessica home with us? Delilah had asked. "Actually, no," Sunny answered. "I want my daughter with me."

"Why don't you discuss it with Dan?"

But here was another emotional shift. For nearly twenty years, Sunny's husband had held her responsible for having a mother like Delilah. But he had to move on, and she had to give him a push. "I don't need to discuss it with Dan," she said, never as sure of anything as she was of this.

Delilah looked hurt. "Do you hate us that much?"

"No, Mother," Sunny scolded, feeling an odd affection. "I've never hated you. This has nothing to do with who you are, but with who I am. I'm Jessica's mother." She moved closer to the girl. "I want my daughter here."

"She doesn't embarrass you?"

Inching closer still, Sunny said, "No. I need her with me. She has friends who need her here, too."

Jessica leaned into her just enough to say she agreed.

"But we traveled all this way to get her," Delilah argued and looked around. "Samson? Samson? Where are you?"

Samson was asleep on the living room sofa. He still had his coat on, but he had kicked off his boots. Not that, just then, Sunny cared. There were other things that mattered. Besides, she had the Bentley of vacuums in her broom closet right down the hall.

By late Saturday, Susan's little house was full. Kate and Will were there with Mary Kate and one of the twins; Sunny and Dan had driven over with Jess and Darcy. Sunny was cooking up a storm in the kitchen, and if she was occasionally frustrated not finding a little something she wanted-No lemon zester? Every kitchen needs a lemon zester!-Susan forgave her.

Likewise the mess in the bathroom, where Kate and five girls were playing with Kool-Aid-Great Bluedini, Blue Raspberry, Ice Blue Island Twist. The point was to dye skeins of yarn suitable for boys, and if Jess learned she was having a girl, they would repeat the exercise using Pink Lemonade.

The tub was a mess, which might have bothered Sunny if she hadn't known to steer clear. For Susan, it was a vote of confidence, friends saying that Lily's baby would be fine.

Buoyed, she was returning to the kitchen when the phone rang. "I'm being pressured," Phil said, his voice tense. "You have to help me here. The school board wants to see you Wednesday night at six. Can you make it?"

"Of course," Susan said. What choice did she have?

Actually, there was one. She thought about it long and hard through dinner in her busy house, but it wasn't until they were having coffee and dessert in the living room, kids mostly on the floor with the seating space full, that Rick said a soft, "You're only half with us. What're you thinking?"

She met his gaze. "Maybe I should resign."

"You're not serious."

"The board's going to ask me to. Phil might have, if he hadn't felt so bad about the baby, but if the board does it first, he's off the hook. Maybe I should keep my dignity and volunteer to leave."

The room had grown gradually quiet.

"Did you just say what I thought you said?" Kate asked, pausing with her elbows up, midway through tacking a handful of curls to the back of her head.

Susan didn't deny it. "There are times when I feel like I'm swimming upstream."

Kate pushed the knitting needle into her hair. "No. Absolutely not. Do not resign."

"I'm tired," Susan said. "There's part of me that would love to go back to teaching. The English department has an opening for fall. I could hire me before I resign."

"And let Evan Brewer take over? No."

Susan had considered that, too. "Evan is too obvious. Phil knows he would use my job as a stepping-stone to his. Besides, there's plenty of time to do an outside search for a replacement."

"No." This from Sunny.

"For the sake of the kids," Susan argued. "This media stuff isn't good for them."

"Are you kidding? They love it."

"We love it," piped up Darcy, whose innocence made Susan smile, albeit sadly.

"It's a distraction. I'm imposing my own problems on the students. That makes me a not-so-great principal."

"Wrong," said Lily with a ringing echo from Jess.

But Susan wasn't so sure. "I thought I was a good principal. I thought I was a good mother-"

"You are."

"Maybe good, but not good enough. If I'm going to be fired, I should resign now and spare us all the agony." She turned to Rick.

Lips compressed, he shook his head. "Not a good message," he whispered.

"About dignity?" she cried. "What message should I send?"

"That you fight for what you want."

"That you believe in yourself," Kate picked up.

"That there's more than one way of doing things," Sunny put in and turned to her husband. "Can they fire her for this? Actually, don't answer. She can't resign."

If Dan had a reply, he chose not to give it. Same with Will.

"Resign now," Kate said, "and you'll be letting down every mother in town. You'll be admitting blame for having done nothing wrong. Know that phrase 'Don't go near the fire if you can't take the heat?' That's what they'll say. You'll be setting the women's movement back years."

"Totally," declared Mary Kate, but Lily's were the words that struck home.

"I remember when you were in school, Mom. Maybe I was three, maybe four, but when I woke up at night, you'd be studying. If I was sick, you worked in my room. You didn't have to tell me how much it meant to you to get a good job. I could see it. So now I'll be doing the same thing you did, only it'll be easier for me because of you. People will accept me more because of you. It's my future, and you're paving the way. If you turn back now, it'll be like pulling the yarn at the tail of a sweater and unraveling the whole thing. You've worked too hard for that. Don't? Please?"