Raising Hope (33 page)

My heart leaps into my throat as she continues. “You said you loved him. That day in the garden. And I was just wondering if . . .” She lifts her head and looks pleadingly at me, like she wants something from me, something like the truth.

“Yes.” I take a running leap and jump off a pier into the waters of my murky past. “I did.”

She closes her eyes for a moment, and I wonder if I’ve made a terrible mistake in telling her. “Oh, wow,” she says softly.

“I loved your father.” I’m surprised to hear my voice break, and I stop a minute to take a deep breath. “And sex was part of that love.”

“Why did you stop loving each other?”

I make a noise somewhere between a laugh and a cry. “Oh, Hope . . . it’s complicated. There’s a part of me that’ll always love Bobby. And I have to believe he feels the same way about me. He gave me you, after all.”

Hope’s mouth twists as if she’s in pain. “But what about my mother? Did he love her?” she asks.

“Oh, my gosh, yes,” I assure her. I wish I’d known Sandra, that I had something to tell Hope about her mother. All I have is what I know about Bobby, though. “You . . . you can love different people in your life at different times. Nothing that happened with me took away from your father’s love for your mother. He was . . . he was absolutely grief-stricken when she died. It’s why he left. It just broke his heart.” It’s the right thing to say, and it doesn’t hurt as I thought it would to acknowledge a fact I’ve avoided for thirteen years: Of course Bobby loved Sandra.

“Is his heart still broken?” Hope asks in a low voice.

“What do you mean, honey?”

“Is that why he’s never come back?” Her eyes are shining with tears, and I see the longing in them.

“I imagine so,” I tell her quietly. “I imagine so.”

She scrambles up from the bed, goes over to her desk, and pulls a folded piece of paper from the drawer. She hands it to me wordlessly, and I unfold it.

It’s a letter Hope wrote to her father, a beautiful, touching, perfect letter. “Fucking blind again,” I murmur.

“Huh?” Hope asks.

“I . . .” I point at the letter. “I should have seen this. Should have seen what’s been in front of me. You want to see your father.”

Hope’s lower lip trembles, and she nods slowly. “But what if he doesn’t want me?” she whispers. A tear leaks out of the corner of one eye and runs down her cheek.

“Doesn’t want you? Is that what you think?” Oh, poor Hope. If only she’d known Bobby, she’d realize that couldn’t be true. But, of course, if she’d known Bobby, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. “Oh, honey. Trust me when I say he wants you. I’m absolutely sure of that.”

“Then why . . . ?”

“Why hasn’t he come back?” I throw my hands in the air. “Fear. Shame. Pride. Grief. Every reason except that he doesn’t want you. That I promise.”

“Really?”

“I’ll prove it to you. I will.” I stand up. “I should have done this a long time ago. Come on with me.”

“Where are we going?” She stands up next to me, looking dazed, following me out of her room.

“I’m calling a detective right now. We’re going to find your dad.”

“Just like that?” Hope asks incredulously.

“Just like that. Come on downstairs now. We’re making some phone calls.”

She slips her hand into mine as we walk down the stairs. My God, she’s growing up so fast that soon she won’t need my hand at all. I want to stop and hug her tightly to me, but I just give her hand a quick squeeze, closing my eyes for a second so I’ll remember what it feels like as she squeezes back.

Chapter 25

W
hen Ruth comes home, it’s still pouring rain. She’s soaked as she comes in the front door, patting her wet hair with her hands.

“Ruth!” I’ve been watching for her car, waiting for her.

“Hmm?” She keeps patting her hair, trying to dry it, I guess. “Oh, hi, buttercup! How are you?”

“Well, I’m good.” I can’t stop smiling at her, and she stops patting and looks at me.

“What’s going on?”

“What makes you think something’s going on?” I ask, practically dancing around.

She shoots me a suspicious look and says, “Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because you haven’t been too happy this past week and today you look like you’re ready to burst from joy? Call me crazy, but—”

“You’re crazy,” I tell her, laughing.

She laughs with me. “All right. I set myself up for that one.”

“Guess what?” I ask, hardly holding my news in.

“What?”

“I got my period today.”

“Aaaaaaahhh!!!!” she screams loudly and gives me a big, wet hug.

“And that’s not all!”

“Sweet Jesus, be careful what you tell me. Remember I’m carrying a baby here. I’m in a delicate condition.”

“No, it’s good news. I’m talking to Sara Lynn again.”

Ruth’s face softens. “I’m so glad. She loves you, Hope.”

“There’s more.” I take a deep breath. “She hired a detective to find my father.”

“O-kay. That I need to sit down for.” She marches to the kitchen and pulls out a chair. I follow her, talking all the way.

“See, I wrote this letter to my father. Only I didn’t have an address, so I couldn’t send it. And I showed it to Sara Lynn. You know, seeing as how she had sex with my father and all.” Oops. I clap my hand to my mouth.

“What?!” Ruth hoots. “She told you that?”

“You knew?” I’m a little disappointed. I thought I was the only one to know.

“No, no,” Ruth says hastily, and she sort of twists her lips, like she’s trying not to smile.

“It’s probably private,” I whisper, “but I think it’s good I told you.”

“Why’s that?” Ruth asks.

“Because it makes Sara Lynn more connected to us,” I tell her. “I mean, you and I are connected by blood, but Sara Lynn’s connected too now, on account of, you know . . . her and my father.”

“Oh, she’s connected all right,” says Ruth, patting my shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry about that.” She shakes her head and laughs. “Good God. I’m gone eight hours and the whole house goes flipping mad. Where is Sara Lynn, anyhow?”

“Seeing Sam,” I reply.

Ruth’s mouth drops open, and she looks at me hard. I can feel my cheeks get hot as I say, “It’s not a big deal to me anymore. I mean, it is, but I better get over it, right? I told her I was big enough to stay here alone with Mamie until you came home, and that if she had anything she wanted to do or anyone she wanted to see, she could just go on ahead.”

“You know what, Hope?”

“What?”

She nods and smiles at me with her eyes. “You’re all right, kid. You’re all right.”

Ruth makes me a really nice dinner—chicken and dumplings with baby peas in the gravy. She sets up a tray for Mamie, who’s been taking her meals upstairs lately to avoid Sara Lynn, and I say, “Can I take that up to her?”

“You sure can,” she says. She gets out a white linen napkin, folds it real pretty, and places it on the tray. “All set.”

I walk up the stairs slowly and carefully, setting the tray down in front of Mamie’s door and knocking.

“Yes?” she says.

“It’s me. Hope. I have your dinner.”

“Oh. Come in, then.”

I open the door and then pick the tray back up, carrying it in and setting it on the table by her chair.

“Thank you, dear,” she says.

“Do you want to come downstairs to eat tonight?” I ask.

“No, I think not.”

“I have something to tell you,” I say. She raises her eyebrows expectantly. “I’m talking to Sara Lynn again. I’m not mad at her anymore.”

Mamie’s mouth tightens, and she looks away. I can see she doesn’t want to discuss Sara Lynn with me.

“Listen, Sara Lynn’s a good person. She couldn’t help it if she fell in love with Sam. He’s very likable.” I snort out a laugh. “Trust me.”

“There are things you don’t know, Hope.” Mamie picks up the napkin from the tray and shakes it out, placing it on her lap. “Things you can’t possibly understand.”

“Maybe not, but I do know that whenever I fight with my friends at school, Ruth says, ‘Life’s too short to hold grudges, Hope.’ And I think she’s right. I feel so much better since I stopped holding a grudge against Sara Lynn. There’s more room inside me for other feelings, better feelings that don’t hurt so much.” It strikes me that I’m being exactly the kind of person Sam believed I could be. I’m speaking out about what’s right and wrong. I’m taking a stand. And right as he comes into my mind, I know what the word
bittersweet
means; I know how it feels to have something sting your heart and soothe it, all at the same time.

“Thank you for your thoughts, my dear, but I’m afraid it’s time for me to have my dinner now.” Mamie picks up her fork and knife.

“Just promise me you’ll think about it, Mamie,” I say, walking to the door. Dang, she’s stubborn. But at least I’ve said what’s inside me; at least I’ve spoken up for Sara Lynn. Even if she did cause my heart to get broken, she’s still my . . . my what? Sort of mother, I guess. But that’s not right, because I already have a mother, even if she did die.

It’s okay,
my mom’s voice says from inside me. It’s her spirit again, her spirit that visited me that night I wrote to my father.
I’m glad you have Sara Lynn and Ruth to love you,
she tells me.
It’s okay that you love them back.

“Thanks, Mom,” I whisper, relieved because she understands and I don’t have to choose, relieved because I can love everybody.

Chapter 26

W
hen Hope leaves my room, my shoulders start shaking and I sob without making a sound. I push my supper tray away. How am I supposed to even think about eating just now! I could just wring Sara Lynn’s neck for putting me through this again. I can forgive her for taking up with that Teller boy. After all, she wasn’t in her right mind after her father’s death. But she’s a grown woman now, a grown woman responsible for raising a child. There aren’t any excuses I can think of that would justify her running around town with some young tennis player. What kind of an example is she setting for Hope, for heaven’s sake? She needs to let herself be courted by a nice man, a mature man who’s in a position to be a father to Hope. In case she’s forgotten, that first love of hers abdicated that responsibility.

I put my face in my hands, and as happens sometimes, I’m surprised to feel the slack, wrinkled quality of my skin.
Whose skin is this?
I ask myself, puzzled, and in the same flash of feeling, I realize it’s mine.

When I was pregnant with Sara Lynn, I was sick to my stomach every day and happier than I’d ever been. “The nausea is a good sign,” my sister reassured me over the phone. “It means your hormones are working right this time.”

“You’re sure?” I asked her.

“I’m crocheting you a baby blanket as we speak,” she replied firmly. “I’m sure.”

I’d had four miscarriages during my first three years of marriage, four instances of holding a baby inside me like a secret, a secret told too soon, a secret ruined. “This just happens sometimes, Aimee,” Eliot said after the first miscarriage. He brought me flowers and warm tea and held my hand while I wept. “We’ll have other babies.” The second time it happened, I screamed while I cried, cursing the God who’d put me through this pain yet again. The third time, I expected nothing good to occur and felt the familiar cramping without emotion, as if I were watching someone else. It was Eliot who cried this time, his head in his hands.

“We can’t keep going on like this,” he said in a broken, husky voice.

“We have to,” I snapped, staring straight ahead and willing myself not to think, not to feel. “There’s nothing else we can do.”

I carried my fourth pregnancy for two and a half months, the longest I’d ever managed to keep a baby. And then I lost her—isn’t that a ridiculous expression? As if I’d carelessly misplaced my infant and were just waiting for her to turn up.

That fourth baby was a girl. The first was a boy, and the rest were girls. “Now, you don’t know that, Aimee,” Eliot said.

“Yes, I do,” I replied, sitting motionless at the kitchen table. “A mother knows.”

I’m afraid the pain was too much for me. My mind buckled under it, and I’d wake up every morning earlier and earlier, weeping as if I’d never stop. When it got so that I wasn’t sleeping at all, Eliot sent me home to St. Louis, hoping a change of scene would do me good.

Mama and Julia Rae met my train, Julia Rae’s wide hazel eyes filling with tears when she saw me. “You’re home now,” my sister whispered, hugging me and stroking my hair. “You’re home now.”

Mama gave me something to make me sleep, for how could I be expected to recover when I couldn’t rest? She was indignant about my lack of sleep, as if I were a wayward child who hadn’t followed directions. “For goodness’ sake,” she scolded as she fussed with the blankets covering me and plumped the pillow under my head. “A body needs sleep! It’s that simple!” Just before she shut my bedroom door, she said, “I don’t want to hear a word from you until you’ve slept a good twelve hours.”

I spent a month at home—a month of sleeping late, of Mama’s cooking, of Brother and Baby Caroline coming in and out with their noise and their laughter, of Julia Rae coming by the house every day to rub cream into my hands or brush out my hair or massage my shoulders. “You’re getting better, Aimee,” she remarked one day. We were sitting on the porch, rocking and talking, and I had laughed at something she’d said. She put her hand out and touched my arm. “You’ll be going back east soon.”

I didn’t know if I was ready to go home. What if I fell into the same despair that had sent me back to Mama’s house? What if being at home reminded me of all that sadness, all those babies I didn’t have?

“You’re ready,” Mama said, brushing a strand of hair from my forehead. “Eliot misses you, and you need to start living your life again.”

“I’m too scared,” I practically whispered to her.

“No more babies,” she said firmly. She touched my cheek as if to soften her words. “No more trying. It just isn’t meant to be.”

I nodded and went back to my marriage with a new resolve. If babies broke my heart every time, then there would be no more babies. “I think that’s wise,” Eliot said when I told him. “We’re fine as we are.”