“Mother.”
“We weren’t expecting you. How did you get here?”
“Train. Three of them, actually. I wanted to attend the funeral but didn’t know how to reach you.”
“Yes, yes, of course, how nice.” All that youthful color had suddenly drained from her cheeks.
“Who’s this?” I asked, though as I said it, I felt my legs start to tremble under me.
“This?” She seemed stunned, as if I’d asked an absurd question. “This? This is Adeline…” She paused again. “Your cousin.”
“Addie,” the girl said, peeking back at me, smiling, reaching her hand out again to touch me.
“My cousin? Whose daughter?” I asked, but my mother ignored the question. I placed one hand on the door frame to steady myself and reached the other out to the girl. “Well, hello there, Addie,” I said, giving her hand a gentle shake. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Come in,” my mother said. “Your father’s going to be surprised. You come in and take a seat, rest for a minute, you’ve had such a long journey. I’d better go and let your father know you’re here,” she said, flustered—panicky, it seemed, at the thought of sharing this news. I couldn’t take my eyes off the girl, and she didn’t take her eyes off me, looking over my mother’s shoulder as she was whisked out of the room.
Several minutes later, my mother reappeared with my father byher side, the little child no longer on her hip. They stood stiffly in front of me.
“Hello, Olive,” my father said.
“Hello, Papa.” I was so tired and wished I could hug him, but I could see it wasn’t going to be that way. He was angry about my aborted wedding, just as I knew he would be.
“Good of you to come,” he said, as if I were some random neighbor coming to pay my respects.
“Yes, it’s so unexpected and sad,” I said.
“It certainly is.” There was a cold tension in the room. “Well, I’d better get back to the yard, it’s a mess,” he said, and he turned on his heel to go back out the way he came in. I looked at my mother questioningly.
“Papa,” I said, “you have to forgive me—” But he was already leaving the room.
My mother and I stood in the room in silence as I watched the door he’d walked though.
“He has a hard time understanding your choices,” my mother said. “Quite frankly, we all do sometimes. You tend to make decisions that have vast repercussions for your life and ours too. Some people can adapt to that kind of thing, and others can’t. Your father, I would say, cannot.”
I sat back down again; a swirling, unsettling feeling had come over me.
“Can I have something to drink?” I said.
“Of course.” My mother left for the kitchen, but after a few moments I got up and joined her.
“It’s so hot in here,” I said. “Can I open the window?” I leanedover the kitchen sink and opened it a few inches, feeling immediately refreshed by a rush of cold air. Outside in the backyard, my father was hammering nails into a fence post, and the little girl, wrapped up now in a hat, scarf and coat, was playing with a woman I didn’t recognize. The child’s face was striking and remarkably familiar.
“Who did you say the little girl is?” I asked, not taking my eyes off her.
My mother clanked about, opening the tin, spooning the tea into the pot, getting the cups down from the cupboard. The kettle began to whistle, and she seemed to let it go on longer than necessary.
“Who is she, Mother?” I asked, more insistent now.
“Your cousin,” she said in a low voice. Then she finally looked at me. “Your aunt adopted a little girl.”
I felt my stomach drop, and a wave of chills coursed through my whole body. I went back to the kitchen window and leaned toward it. She was laughing now, playing hopscotch in front of the lady. Adeline. It was a beautiful name.
I looked back to my mother. “She’s mine, isn’t she.”
“Keep your voice down,” she scolded.
“She is. I could see it the minute you opened the door. How? How could she have my baby? How could she not tell me? I signed the papers. I left Birdhouse Lodge without her. Aunt May wasn’t even there. I don’t understand. Mother, please!”
