Tilley was totally unaware that when Trina had come by to help her get ready for her dress rehearsal, she had stolen the hair from her brush. She didn’t know that Robbie had gone to the local Labcorp, where Genna, a woman he had gone to high school with, chattered about her results with Ozempic while she put a needle into his arm. Tilley didn’t know that, even though Robbie hadn’t had the guts to check the portal where his results had been posted, Genna had heard from her sister, a nurse who had seen the results come through, that they weren’t quite what Robbie was going to be expecting. She, obviously, had to tell her husband, Ben, what she had discovered. But she swore him to secrecy. And he told his best friend Davey, who Robbie had played middle school football with. But, of course, he was sworn to secrecy too. Davey might not have told his wife, Angela, over the phone if he had known that she was on Bluetooth in the carwith her entire book club crammed in the Suburban as they went to see the movie version of the last book they’d read. Angela’s friend Samantha told her mother, Debra, who had to call her bridge group becausehadn’t they known all these years there was something fishy about Elizabeth suddenly appearing with that baby?They still talked about it sometimes, in the bridge room of the country club. Sure, Elizabeth had basically hidden away with her sister for months after Robert died. Who could blame her? She was trying to rehabilitate the poor soul. But for no one to know she was pregnant? Well… It didn’t add up.
After that, who’s really to say how Pat, Robbie’s barber, heard. It was all over town at that point yet had somehow managed to miss the entire Saxton and Thaysden families. But, well, who would have told them? Didn’t they already know? Pat was a septuagenarian who assumed he’d die standing behind his barber’s chair and sincerely hoped he didn’t slice someone’s ear off as he went down. He was tall and thin (perfect for seeing the tops of people’s heads), with the overblown, jovial personality better suited to a larger man. What made him say, “Well, Robbie, how are things in the family since the truth came out?” no one will ever really know. And maybe it was better for the truth to come from a friend who found it a charming piece of town gossip rather than a lab portal that Robbie had been avoiding checking like it was his full-time job. At any rate, that was how Robbie Saxton found out, once and for all, that he was indeed the biological son of his aunt Tilley. He even called Genna to confirm that an aunt couldn’t be so biologically similar as to test as a mother. She, indeed, could not. And Robbie believed her because, well, a woman who knew so much about Ozempic clearly had some scientific comprehension.
At any rate, that was how Robbie found himself, still in the barber’s cape, one side of his hair cut, the other still in need of a trim,standing on the back patio of Dogwood, his back to the water, with Tilley, Elizabeth, Olivia, and Amelia all in a row, all in rocking chairs, tasting a new brownie recipe Tilley had just tried. She thought it was her best batch yet, if she did say so herself.
Robbie stood rather neutrally, in the center of all of them, but it was toward Elizabeth that he directed, “You lied to me my entire life about being mymother? Are you insane?”
Tilley and Elizabeth shared a glance. They had prepared for the eventuality of this moment. Who could keep a secret this big in a day and age of genetic testing? But, then again, they’d managed to keep it in a town this small for decades, so they had started to get a little cocky. But, well, then Tilley had had that fit in front of Mason and he had gone to Olivia and Tilley had done her little skit for Robbie, and… they should have presumed this was coming.
Even so, four faces in front of Robbie remained one hundred percent placid.
“Sweetheart, why don’t you sit down,” Elizabeth said, gesturing to a wrought-iron chair that had been on this patio for at least fifty years and was painted every spring to keep it in good shape.
“I do not want to sitdown!”
“Well, could I at least get you a brownie, sugar?” Tilley asked.
“How about a bourbon?” Amelia chimed in. Tilley could see that she was desperate to get away.
Robbie stared into the face of his sister, who was still sitting. He looked ridiculous walking over to her, his barber cape blowing, staring intently into her eyes. “You knew,” he whispered.
“Knew what?” she asked. “Robbie, you’re acting insane.”
Tilley thought she played it off quite nicely. Amelia had, indeed, known that Robbie was not her brother, but was her cousin. It was one of the reasons she had felt confident having Greer and George,children who were not biologically hers. If her mother could love Robbie so fully, as her son, surely she could do the same for her children. And she had.
Robbie began pacing and Amelia escaped for the bourbon.
Olivia stood up and said, “This feels like a family matter,” but Robbie pointed to her and said, “No, ma’am. If I know the three of you, you were all caught up in this scheme. Sit down.” He crossed his arms and planted his feet. “No one is leaving until someone tells me the truth.”
In all the times they had discussed the possibility of this happening, Tilley and Elizabeth had never discussed who would actually explain things to Robbie. It might have been Elizabeth’s place as Robbie’s presumed mother, but Tilley felt moved to stand up, to go to him, her beloved, her son, the boy she had carried inside her, given birth to, given up because, as much as she didn’t want to admit it now, she had been so mired in grief and pain and the insanity that had caused her that there was no way she could raise him as his mother. So, instead, she had lived under the same roof his entire childhood, watched him grow into a man with her beloved Robert’s eyes. Her only sticking point: He would be called Robbie, after his father.
Tilley took Robbie’s hands in hers. “Robbie, darling, please don’t be angry.”
His shoulders dropped. Tilley knew that Robbie had always had a soft spot for her, had always watched after her, loved her a little extra. Maybe he hadn’t known she was his mother, but he’d felt connected to her in a deep and powerful way. And she was hoping that connection would shine through now. “We never wanted to lie to you, Robbie. But I found out I was pregnant with you after my Robert died—”
Robbie did sit down now in that chair. Or, well, sank, rather. “My real father,” he said. “The father I will never know.”
Tilley’s eyes filled then because, oh, how Robert would have loved his son! If she could just go back, if she could have kept him from leaving that day… But, no, she had to stay here. She had a mess to clean up. Her mess.
“Sweetheart, your father is your real father. My sister is your real mother. I might have carried you, but I couldn’t take care of you. I hate to say that, but I think we all know it’s true.”
Elizabeth stood up now and knelt in front of her son. Well, her nephew. Or both. “Robbie, the plan was for Dad and me to take care of you until Tilley got well, until she could take care of you as your mother.”
“Honey, they’re still waiting,” Tilley said gently.
Despite the intensity of the situation, they all smiled.
“We shouldn’t have lied to you,” Elizabeth said. “We should have told you the whole time. But, when you were small, we still hoped that Tilley would be able to keep you as her own. And then when you got older…” Elizabeth’s voice cracked as she said, “How or when could I ever tell the light of my life, my precious boy, that he wasn’t actually my very own?”
Robbie’s eyes filled too at the sight of his mother crying.
“Okay, all right,” Amelia interrupted, handing Robbie the bourbon. “Robbie, come on. Let’s not be dramatic here. You’re a grown man. You know this was the right thing to do.”
Elizabeth swiveled to look at her daughter. The one she did actually give birth to. “Because you handled the news so stoically?”
Amelia looked at her brother. “I did not handle it well. But, almost four years later, I’m here to tell you that this is stupid—it’s a blood test, and it changes nothing. Don’t you dare start calling me your cousin.” Amelia began to cry too as she said, “Because you are my brother, and it will break my heart.”
Tilley wasn’t sure why his sister moved Robbie more than the two older women before him, but he stood up and hugged Amelia and kissed her cheek. “All right,” he said, his arms still around her. “You’ll always be my sister.” He pulled back as she wiped her eyes. “Okay?”
