Tilley felt so fulfilled by her moments with them, so encouraged that their interaction meant that Amelia was seeing the progress she was making, the hard work she was putting into staying here in the moment with them, that she forgot she had not read the paper.
When she opened the front door, the tightly rolled newspaper was still on the porch. She scurried back up to her room, removed the green rubber band, and, as she did each day, unrolled it and snapped it open. It always made her think of her dear departed daddy, those rustling pages. And Tilley wondered how anyone could live a life without the simple luxury of the particular scent of newsprint.
The front page of theCape Carolina Chroniclewas generally a cheery affair, unlike the news in so many towns. Articles announced the upcoming Splash and Bash, Tilley’s favorite weekend-long event of the year, profiled an exciting new handmade toy vendor at the farmers’ market, and reported on Monday’s town council meeting, where the mayor and councilors agreed to discontinue paid summer parking. (It felt sounwelcoming.) And then, her heart did a little pitter-pat, as it did each time the front page held this particular call to action: The Cape Carolina Playhouse was hosting an open casting call for the role of Dolly Levi inHello, Dolly!Tilley gasped when she saw the age bracket: 45–65. There weren’t too many roles for a fifty-nine-year-old woman, so this was of particular interest.
Tilley allowed herself to imagine, for a moment, wearing a sequined dress and elbow-length gloves with Dolly’s signature feather hat. She looked at the dates and realized it was a pipe dream. Elizabeth would never, ever let her audition. And Amelia would try to talk her out of it, maybe even refuse to drive her. This was a frequent happening in Tilley’s life. Imagining herself onstage and then realizing it could never be.
But then Tilley remembered: Amelia and Parker were leaving. Amelia wouldn’t drive her. Elizabeth wouldn’t drive her. But Tilley had the feeling that she knew just exactly whowould.
DAISYTruly Local
Never in my life—and I mean literally never—has anyone done anything for me that has meant as much as Mason and Amelia coordinating the town house makeover HGTV dreams are made of. How they got all that together, I will never know. In the course of an afternoon, my place had gone from looking like one where a newly separated dad was making Lean Cuisines to a showplace that could have been on the Cape Carolina tour of homes. It was so generous, so unexpected, that I felt like weeping the minute I crossed the threshold. The Department of Social Services couldn’t help but be sure that I was a together single woman with a great job and a fabulous home who could foster the baby she felt so connected to.
The new-to-me things had been combined with the treasures I had brought from Charlotte: my favorite photo of my dad and me sitting on the tailgate of his truck, laughing. The books that I had collected, curated, and were worn from the many, many times I had read them. The tiny painting my best friend had given me the day I graduated nursing school. I was overcome with the way my things had mixed in so seamlessly with the ones that were donated by the women. And I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe that was a sign of sorts.
It’s amazing how one minute you could feel the happiest you have ever felt and then the next—bam!—something so simple can take you from feeling on top of the world to wanting to run away from it.
I knew this was a possibility, of course, when I moved to Cape Carolina. I hated to admit that I still had that ratty postcard I used to carry around with me like a security blanket with the Cape Carolina return address. And, yes, if I’m being truly, genuinely honest, I did have to consider at some point that she might still live here. I knew, way deep down, that hoping she was still here had more than a tiny bit to do with why I had come. But I had practiced for this moment, prepared for it. I would be cool, calm, collected, aloof, and polite but noncommittal. I had not played it the way I had practiced. Despite my preparation, I wasshockedto see her. Stunned.
Which made sense, because I hadn’t actually laid eyes on Julie since I was thirteen years old. For the first year after she left, I could pretend she was coming back. For the next two years, I berated myself for what I had done to make her leave. If only I had been better. If I hadn’t spent so much time on the phone with my friends, argued with her about lip gloss, snapped at her when she tried to give me advice about boys, then maybe she would have stayed. (All of that was ridiculous, of course. I had beenthirteen.) Now, I was a fully formed grown-up, and I never would have admitted it out loud, but that blame I placed on myself for her leaving never left.
“Do you two, um, know each other?” Amelia asked tentatively.
Mason had his arm protectively around me, and, as upset as I was, it was so sweet. This man who barely knew me had already stepped up for me in more ways than this woman ever had.
“She’s my mother,” I said, matter-of-factly.
Yes! There it was. That cool, aloof, I-don’t-care-at-all-about-this tone I was going for.
“Daisy,” Julie stuttered. “You’re here.”
I could feel my even façade cracking. “I am, but I need to go—”
“I’ll go,” Julie interrupted me. I had gotten good at that, of thinking of her as “Julie,” not “Mom.”
As she stepped past me, Julie said, “Look, Daisy, I’d love to talk. I might not deserve it, but I have a lot to say.”
“You’d love to talk?” There was an edge to my voice that I didn’t justlove. “Julie, you have barely contacted me in twenty years, and I presume if I hadn’t shown up, nothing about that would have changed. So forgive me if I don’t want totalk.”
She rushed out of the room, and Cheryl said awkwardly, “Um, I will get the boys, and, um, good luck, Daisy.”
“Thank you, Cheryl,” I managed. “It’s perfect.”
“I should leave,” Amelia said. “I know I should. But I don’t think I can function without the backstory here.”
I managed a small smile. I heard the front door close. Mason finally let go of his grip on my waist and said, “Tea. Aren’t you supposed to have tea in situations like this?”
“Yes,” Amelia said. “I’ll go make some.”
Amelia scurried off toward the kitchen, and Mason led me to the couch in the adjoining living room, sitting beside me. “Are you okay? We don’t have to talk about it.”
“She just left!” I exploded. “And now she has the gall to want totalk? Do you know how it feels to be a little girl whose mother has already died and then to have her uncle adopt her and the only mother she ever knew justleave?”
This was not one hundred percent the impression I wanted to make on the new boy I kind of liked. Amelia handed out three mismatched glasses. Mine was filled to the top—with wine, not tea. Well played, Amelia.
She sat on the chair flanking the couch and said, “Wait. She was your adoptive mother?”
I nodded. “I never walk people through this, but since you guys have some unusual family logistics… My birth mom died in a domestic dispute that I was too young to remember and her brother, my uncle, now my dad, and Julie adopted me.”
