The Abduction of Mary Rose (3 page)

The funeral parlor was filled with flowers from co-workers, friends and neighbours. At home, saran-wrapped food covered the counter-top and was crammed into every available space in the fridge.

Over the years, Lillian Waters had been a fearless advocate for better working conditions for nurses, and a friend and mentor to many. The letters and cards at home from grateful patients gave testimony to the fine nurse she had been.

Naomi was reading the note on one of the cards tucked into a lovely basket of summer flowers positioned at the foot of the casket when a voice said softly behind her shoulder, "She looks so lovely, doesn't she?"

Naomi could only nod her agreement. She felt drained and constantly on the verge of tears, and doing her best to keep it together. Mrs. Devers smiled sympathetically through the dotted veil of her little black hat. Connie Devers ran one of the last surviving corner stores in River's End, and was a fount of information on its inhabitants, both living and dead.

"You know, Naomi," the woman said, lowering her voice conspiratorially, "I didn't know you were adopted until I read it in this morning's paper."

Naomi looked at her, at a loss. "Adopted? I'm not adopted, Mrs. Devers." What was she talking about? "What paper?" she asked foolishly.

"The local paper, of course, dear. Your mother's obituary. Oh, dear." She thrust out a hand in a futile gesture of self-correction, then drew it back. "Oh, I'm so sorry. You didn't know, did you? You haven't seen it yet." She leaned closer to Naomi. "You know, dear, I didn't think you wrote that piece up when I read it. It seemed very odd to me that you would have put your own name last in the list of survivors, even if you were adopted...."

Mrs. Dever's mouth was still moving behind the dotted black veil but Naomi could no longer hear anything she was saying, as though all sound had been sucked from the room. And then she heard herself saying, "There's obviously been some mistake, Mrs. Devers. They must have gotten it mixed up with someone else's obituary."

The woman blinked pitying eyes at her. "Yes, yes, dear. Of course. That would explain it. God knows they make plenty of mistakes in that newspaper."

It was then that she caught Edna's eye across the room. Edna quickly turned her head away and began talking to a woman next to her.

* * *

Naomi let herself into the house, picking up the newspaper from the hall floor on her way to the kitchen. She dropped the paper on the table, took two Tylenol for a throbbing headache and plugged in the water for tea. She had slipped away from the parlor shortly after talking to Mrs. Devers. The woman had obviously made a mistake, yet Naomi needed to reassure herself.

She sat down and opened the paper. The pages rattled as she turned them, seeming to echo in the empty house. Strange, she'd been living alone in this house for weeks now and this was the first time it seemed empty, as if its owners had been away for a long time. It was as if even her own presence made little impact. She might have merely been the woman who had come to water the plants and feed the cat. Speaking of which, here she was now, silent as a little shadow. "Hey, girl. How you doin'?" She reached down and scratched her behind the ears. She was grateful for Molly, a sweet-natured grey and white ball of fluff who, one night in the dead of winter ten years ago now, had shown up on their doorstep, cold and hungry.

Molly wandered over to her empty dish and looked expectantly up at her. Naomi left the paper and went to the fridge. "Hungry, girl?"

Opening the door, she retrieved the can of Whiskas from behind a saran-wrapped plate of brownies. The cat wove her silky soft self around Naomi's ankles, purring like an old washing machine as her mistress dished out her food.

The water bubbled in the kettle and she made a pot of tea. The Tylenol was kicking in, taking the edge off her headache. Leaving Molly contentedly eating her dinner, Naomi sat down again with her cup of tea and turned to the obituary page. At once saw the picture of her mother that Edna had taken into the paper. Taken months after she was diagnosed with cancer, she looked older than she was, drawn, the illness already taking its toll. It was not the photo Naomi would have chosen. There was nothing of her mother's achievements in the obituary, either. Only a brief paragraph stating that she'd been a nurse at River's End General Hospital for many years and that she died after a lengthy illness, survived by a younger sister, Edna (Harold), Bradley, two nephews, Brian and Theodore (Ted), niece Charlotte, and an adopted daughter, Naomi Lynne.

Adopted? She had to read the word a few times to be sure she'd read it correctly. Mrs. Devers was right. But it made no sense—she wasn't adopted. Why was there no mention of Naomi's father, Thomas Waters, Lillian's late husband, a war hero? Why was his name excluded? Confused and frightened in a way she'd didn't yet understand, she got up from the table.

Her hand was shaking so hard she had to punch in her aunt's number twice before she got it right. Why did she write it up this way? She thought of Edna watching her when Mrs. Devers was talking to her, and a cold, hard fear slid just beneath her rib cage.

Her aunt picked up on the first ring.
She's been waiting for my call. Of course she would be. She must have left the parlor right after me.

"I just read Mom's obituary, Aunt Edna. I don't understand...."

"No, I don't suppose you do. I know this isn't easy for you, but it's time the truth be told, Naomi."

"Truth. What truth? What are you talking about, Aunt Edna? What's going on?" The headache was back full force.

"Lillian was remiss in letting you live a lie all these years, in living one herself, and making the rest of us go along. It wasn't fair to you, to any of us."

Her hand tightened on the receiver as she tried to ignore the chill around her heart, the lump of fear that worked its way up into her throat. "What do you mean, Aunt Edna? What are you talking about? What lie?"

After a hesitation, she said, "Ask Frank Llewellyn. He handled everything at the time. Lili always could wrap him around her little finger. I have nothing more to say on the matter, Naomi. I'm sorry if you're upset, but I know I'm doing the right thing and one day you'll thank me." With that, the phone clicked in Naomi's ear. She could only stare in disbelief at the dead receiver in her hand.

She's making this up. She just wants to hurt me.
The latter was no doubt true. But as much as she wanted to believe she was lying about the rest of it, needed to believe she was, she couldn't deny the ring of truth in Edna's words. Naomi was about to dial Frank's office when the doorbell rang. She opened the door to see her mother's old friend standing there, looking both miserable and furious, clutching the rolled-up newspaper in his hand and unwittingly confirming everything. Yet she could not take it in. It wasn't possible.

"I'm so, so sorry, Naomi," Frank said. "I don't know why Edna did that. She's a spoiled, wretched woman and I'd like to kill her. It was a terrible way for you to find out."

Each word was a hammer striking her heart. It was true then.

She took in Frank's familiar features beneath the prematurely white hair—Frank, who had always reminded her a little of Dick Van Dyke, without the shtick. He was a smart man, a tough lawyer, but also a good man. An honest man—or so she had always thought. But it was clear he'd been part of the conspiracy. Lili
could
always wrap him around her little finger.

"Come in, Frank. I've made tea. I hope you're hungry." In times of stress, people eat. She'd read that somewhere. Silently, she proceeded to set out small plates of sandwiches and cakes from the array of food the neighbours had provided. She was glad to have something to do with her hands, some distraction from the bomb that had just been dropped on her. As she poured the tea, steam rose invitingly from the cups. But, sitting across from Frank, the cup of tea held in both her hands, its warmth could not penetrate the coldness that had gripped her since reading that obituary. No. Correction.—since
 
Mrs. Devers approached her at the funeral parlor. It should have softened the blow. It didn't.

She set her cup of tea down on the table and folded her hands under her chin. The round maple table at which she and Frank sat was still the same, still solid under her elbows. The eyes of the owl clock ticked back and forth back and forth as they had for years. The wallpaper with its geometric pattern of randomly spaced tiny orange squares hadn't changed. Yet everything was different now. The earth had shifted beneath her feet, and she was hanging on for dear life to keep from spinning off into space.

"So," she said, with just the slightest tremor in her voice. "Lillian Waters was not my real mother."

She saw him wince. "Don't say that, Naomi. Don't even think it." He leaned forward and looked deeply into her eyes to give his words added weight. "She loved you more than life itself. She may not have given birth to you, but no could have loved you more—wanted you more." He tried to smile and fell short. "Even before she laid eyes on you."

In a kind of frantic move, he was opening his briefcase, producing what she recognized as her mother's will. He slid it tentatively across to her, like a peace offering. "But for some generous bequests to Edna and her children, and a couple of charities, everything she had in the world she left to you, Naomi. Including this house, of course. I've made some decent investments for your mother over the years. You're far from wealthy, but we're still talking about a considerable amount of mon—“

"Surely you can't imagine I care about any of that, Frank. Tell me everything now. Please. Enough lies." Edna was right about that much at least.

Frank sighed, raked a hand though his hair and slid the will back into the briefcase. He sipped his tea, then set the cup down on the saucer; it rattled lightly. He sighed. "It's an old story," he said finally. "A teenager gives birth to a child she can't take care of. Your mother was working on the maternity ward at the time. She wanted you. It's as simple as that, and as … complicated. Nothing would do until you became hers. I made it happen. She took some time off and went away. When she returned, she told everyone she'd been secretly married to Thomas Waters, and that he was killed in the war. No one questioned her. Lili was a pretty straight arrow. I suppose there were any one of a dozen ways the truth could have come out, but strangely it never did. Her only mistake was confiding in Edna."

"I see." But she didn't. She didn't see at all. Such a bizarre story. "My birth mother. Who was she?"

After a long pause in which he stared into his tea cup, he said, "I knew. She admitted herself into the hospital under a false name. And the day after you were born she slipped away in the middle of the night. Just disappeared into the streets, and no one ever heard from her again. End of story."

Naomi didn't think so. The story as it stood held a false note, seemed too pat.

"One good thing has come out of this," he said, trying for a cheerful note and not quite managing it.

"Oh? And what would that be, Frank?"

He pretended not to hear the sarcasm in the question as he said, "You can cut all ties with Edna Bradley. And without any guilt whatsoever. I don't think anyone would blame you if you never spoke to the woman again. In fact, if she phones you, I'd advise you, as both your friend and your lawyer, to hang up on her."

You're not my lawyer,
she thought.
You were Lillian's lawyer. And why don't you want me talking to Edna?
"Edna was against the adoption, I take it."

"Sometimes I think she was against Lili, period. It was a kind of love/hate thing. She's always been jealous of her older sister while at the same time she looked up to her. It's complicated. Lili practically raised Edna after their mother died, you know. Edna was nine, Lili seventeen at the time."

"Yes, Mom … she told me."

"Lili spoiled her rotten, I'm afraid. I'm so sorry, Naomi." He shook his head in dismay, then glanced at his gold Bulova watch. "I have an appointment. Will you be okay?"

"Sure. I'm great." The bomb had exploded, and she felt as if she were standing in the middle of the debris, recognizing nothing, most of all herself. She nodded, then asked the question to which she already knew the answer. "Then my father. Thomas Waters. He's a lie, too. Waters wasn't really Mom's name. It's not my name."