The Abduction of Mary Rose (4 page)

This had to be a bad dream. Any minute now she would wake up and find out she'd had another of her dreams. A different one. Worse than any so far.

"No, it is. I legally had it changed to Waters. It's what she wanted." Frank's eyes had shifted from hers. She felt her heart breaking into pieces. She wanted to claw his unspoken answer from her brain. As Lillian Waters was not her birth mother, neither was Thomas her father. Her mind flailed about for an answer she could accept.

"But his picture, the medals...?"

Seeing the misery on Frank's face, she just shook her head, waved a hand at him to stop his talking. "Okay, don't stress yourself, Frank. I think I've got it. Mom invented an entire history for me and went to great lengths to make me believe it. Including the lie about meeting and falling in love with Thomas. Their marrying, his going off to war, finding herself pregnant. All of it, a lie."

How often as a child had she gazed into the face of that young man in the photograph and imagined she saw traces of her own features there? Not in Lillian, who was fair and quite unlike her physically, but like Thomas, with his dark hair and eyes, and his crooked smile. The cleft in his chin. Her hero father who died in the war. The father she took into her heart and soul, wove into the very fabric of her being. The whole thing was a charade. A joke. A horrible joke. How could she?

She interrupted Frank in the midst of another feeble apology. "Who was he? The man in the picture?"

"Lili picked him out of a photo gallery of boys missing in action back then."

"But the medals?"

"They weren't that hard to come by," he murmured, his head down. He swirled the tea in his cup, looking as uncomfortable as she hoped he was.

She was relentless. "A second-hand shop? Or was it a garage sale? EBay wasn't around then."

"I don't even remember," he said helplessly. "It was a long time ago. What does it matter? She made a poor judgment, Naomi. One of the few poor judgments of her life. But she did it for you. She wanted you to be proud of who you were."

"Proud?" Her laugh held a bitter, hollow sound. "My life is a lie, fashioned out of whole cloth, and you helped design the pattern. I don't even know who the hell I am, Frank."

"Hey, you're Naomi Lynn Waters," he said, laying a hand over hers and giving it a brief squeeze of encouragement. "The same terrific girl you always were, and don't you forget that. Honey, I can only imagine what a shock all this has been for you. You need time to digest it, live with it awhile. And please try to remember that your mother did what she thought was in your best interest. She did the best she knew how. Try to understand how it was for her."

"Why didn't she just tell me I was adopted? I would have accepted that, and been grateful she chose me." Why such an elaborate fabrication? And why did she still get the feeling Frank was holding something back, that this was only the tip of the iceberg. Who would have thought her mother was such an accomplished liar?

Chapter Four

Upstairs in her room, Naomi picked up the small framed picture of Thomas from her nightstand, trailing her fingertips over his face. Instead of losing one parent, she had lost two. She may have known him only from his picture and her mother's stories of him, but he was her father, in every way that mattered. Growing up, she'd had many conversations with the young man in this photograph: told him her problems, listened to his advice. Like talking to God, in a way. But now to find out he was a stranger to her, chosen at random to fit a scheme, seemed unthinkable to even grasp. She felt as if she'd been cast asea with no stars to guide her homeward. Even the medals she'd been so proud of were picked up at an estate sale. At least Frank had the good grace to look ashamed when he'd told her that.

She set the picture back down on the table and heaved a sigh.
No wonder Mom told me you were an only child and that you'd been orphaned as a boy. She was making sure I wouldn't ever try to look up your family.

You know all my secrets. My teenage angst. My dreams.

Now she wondered who she'd been talking to throughout all those years. Did he have other family? Yes, of course he would have. But she was not among them. She was nothing to him. He'd merely been cast in the role of her father, without his permission.

Naomi lay awake for most of that night, staring at the ceiling, thinking, questioning, trying to come to terms with this new reality she'd been handed. A mirror to see herself in, as she really was. She'd been duped, made a fool of, given a background that didn't belong to her. A family that was not hers.

 
At a sudden weight at the foot of the bed, she looked down to see Molly making her way up the blanket like a stalker. The cat licked her face, as if to say, I know who you are. A stray, like me.

"Love you too. We're each other's family, aren't we, Molly?" she said, and kissed the soft, furry face.

Faint morning light was filtering through her lace curtains when Naomi slipped out of bed and padded across the hall to the bathroom. Passing the medicine cabinet mirror, she caught a glimpse of herself and the hollowed, dark circles under her eyes. Ignoring them, she stripped off her pajamas and stepped into the tub. Turning the shower on full force, she stood beneath the needle hot spray and let the water beat down on her, turning her face up to it until the water ran cool and she thought she might be able to get through the funeral service with some semblance of composure, providing Edna steered clear of her. They should be comforting one another, and would have been if they had had a normal aunt/niece relationship, if they were a normal family, but they didn't and never would. And now she knew why. She supposed she should be grateful to Edna for laying the truth out there for her, but she wasn't. Not even a little bit. Which didn't mean she would have wanted to go on living a lie. It was the way she did it—using the obituary to lash out at her. To let the world know that she was of no significance in this family: that she didn't belong.

The memorial was scheduled for ten o'clock. The service would be short, and that was something to be thankful for. Though her mother Lillian believed in God, she wasn't particularly religious and rarely went to church, so a religious ceremony didn't seem like something she would have wanted, although she never said one way or the other.

Dressed in a navy suit over a plain white blouse, her hair brushed into a loose twist at the nape of her neck, she drove to the parlor.

Throughout the solemn proceedings, her emotions ran the gamut of confusion, anger and grief: the sadness at losing her mother undercut with the pain of betrayal.

The profusion of flowers in baskets and bouquets of every kind and size emitted a cloying sweetness. It was hard to breathe. A drone of soft murmurs, occasional sniffling issued from various corners of the room. She herself remained dry-eyed. Defensive.

Through a small clot of people, she got a glimpse of Charlotte standing at the casket, recognizable by her mane of kinky blond hair. She was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, accepting condolences from a friend who had a comforting arm around her shoulders. I should go to her, she thought. But she couldn't make herself move from the spot where she stood, near a huge brass planter spilling over with large leafy greenery that looked artificial, not so different from the way she felt herself. She felt cut off. Like an outsider.
Charlotte actually is more family to Mom than I am. She's Edna's daughter. She's blood.

But she managed to smile at those who offered their sympathy, who hugged her and said they were sorry for her loss. At one point, Charlotte came over and put an arm around her. "You okay, Naomi?" she asked, her voice filled with sympathy, and Naomi knew she was talking about more than the death of her aunt, which after the months of suffering was really a blessing. Naomi said she was fine and Charlotte nodded, patted her arm, and said she'd see her later.

Near the close of the service she spotted Edna, an expression of defiant self-righteousness on her face, heading in her direction. What more could she possibly have to say to me? Before panic could blossom fully, suddenly Frank was there whisking her away, for which she was thankful, despite not feeling too warmly toward him at the moment. Yet, looking at him, her heart softened. The man looked like he had aged ten years overnight. This was rough on him too, even if it was his own doing, at least in part.

"We need to talk again," he said quietly, his hand at her elbow. "Come on. I'll follow you home." He glanced at his watch. "The crowd isn't due at your place for another hour. We'll have some quiet time."

Crowd? And then she remembered that she'd invited people back to the house after the funeral, to partake in the food people gad brought to the house, to thank them for their kind condolences. But that was before she'd read the obituary. She was quite sure she couldn't possibly face more people today. Would Edna show up? Apparently she still had more she wanted to say to her. Uncle Harold? Even though she'd always been fond of him, she didn't want to see him, nor anyone else today. She didn't want to feel their pity. Poor little orphan girl. No, she didn't need that.

Despite mixed feelings where Frank was concerned, she was glad he was a take-over kind of person. She sensed his resolve, and tried not to think about what more he needed to tell her. Deep down, she knew it wouldn't be anything good.

She sensed that whatever it was, Frank wanted to get it out in the open before Edna got to her. At least he'd be able to control how she heard it. Naomi couldn't imagine what more there could be that would make her feel any worse than she already did, but another part of her braced itself for an aftershock.

This time around, they sat in the living room on the plush olive sofa with its curved legs, Frank with his forearms resting on his navy pin-striped clad thighs as he stared at the rug with its soft, faded shades of olive and rose, then up at the photo of her mother hanging above the fireplace, as if he was hoping she might offer him some advice on how to handle the situation. You should have thought of that sooner, she thought bitterly. Mom had to know the truth would come out eventually. She knew her sister better than anyone. Or maybe she really didn't, and didn't expect the viciousness Edna was capable of.

She let her own gaze drift to the photos on the mantle, which were mostly of herself taken at various stages of her life. At seven, standing with a baseball bat poised for a home run, the peak of her hat casting a shadow over her small face. Next to it, her high school grad picture. She'd worn a blue satin dress she'd ached to wear and her mother had gotten for her, surprising her with it. She went with David Callaghan, a nice kid who had since become a lawyer and married one of their classmates. She had wished them well.

And there was one of her with her mother that Frank had taken the summer they went to Old Orchard Beach. She had just turned fourteen. They looked happy. It was so long ago.

Frank's own attention had shifted to the little wooden clown on the parallel bars, sitting on the coffee table, a birthday gift Naomi had given her mother years ago. Sighing again, he idly flicked the top of its red hat and as though on command, the clown went into his series of somersaults. "Naomi…."

"For God's sake, just say it, Frank, please. I think I'm pretty much past being shocked by anything."

He looked skeptically at her. "Don't be so quick to say that. But yes, I suppose there is no easy way. I wasn't entirely forthcoming when I told you your birth mother walked out of the hospital never to be seen again."

This wasn't exactly a revelation. She waited. He was obviously not looking forward to telling her whatever it was he was about to tell her, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know either, but she needed to hear, needed to know all of it.

"She died just five days after you were born. I knew if I told you that, well, you'd want to know more about her and that would lead to what I'm about to tell you."

"Then you know who she was. You know her name."

He nodded his head, barely perceptive, then said, "Yes. Her name was Mary Rose Francis. She was a Native girl … Mi'kmaq. She lived on Big Salmon Reserve with her grandfather. The reserve is no longer there, of course. As you know, the land was confiscated by the government in the late eighties when they built the dam up there, and the band dispersed to other parts of the country after that. Some migrated to the States. But that's where she lived."

Naomi said, "Then I'm part Native Indian. She must have been ashamed of my origins, not to tell me."

"C'mon, honey. That's not fair and you know it. Nor true. You know your mother didn't have a racist bone in her body. No. That wasn't it."

Interesting for him to talk about what was fair.
"Then what?" He had steepled his fingers and appeared to study them. His deep sigh seemed to hold all the weight of the world. Then, in a monotone, as if he'd needed to remove himself emotionally from the story, he began to speak again.

"She'd been visiting at a friend's house after school. It was getting on to dark when she left to catch the bus home. A car drove up beside her, began to follow her. There were two men in the car."

He stopped and cleared his throat. Naomi sensed what was coming and didn't want to hear it. "Go on."

"One of them forced her into the car. They drove to the outskirts of town … no point in my trying to sanitize this, you can read the write-ups in the paper yourself … she was beaten, raped. When they finished with her, they tossed her out of the car, left her for dead. I'm sorry, Naomi. I'm so sorry to tell you this."

"I know. I know you are, Frank. Go on, please."

He sighed again. He stared down at his fingers in his lap, intertwined, now spreading them helplessly, and resigning to his unpleasant task. "A man out walking his dog discovered her the next morning, lying unconscious by the side of the road. He called an ambulance, and she was rushed into the hospital where she remained in a coma for eight months. At the end of that eighth month, with the help of labour-inducing medications, she delivered a baby girl. Routine tests had already revealed the pregnancy. It was a rare case, but not unheard of. They'd considered a Caesarean section, of course, but it was decided that that would pose more hazards because of the risks of anesthesia and the potential difficulties of healing after the surgery. Not that it would have mattered. As I said, she died five days later, never regained consciousness. Almost as if she willed herself to stay alive long enough to give life to the precious child inside her. That child was you, Naomi."

I am a child of rape.

"Mary Rose's grandfather?" she said. My great-grandfather, she thought, trying to take it in.

"He died months before you were born. Of a broken heart, Lili said. He never knew about you. Matthew Francis was a fine man, Naomi, gentle, strong, kept his grief private. Anyway, there was no one left to take you in. You would have gone into an orphanage, and who knows where you would have ended up. The girl's parents were dead, which was why she'd been living with the grandfather. Your mother begged me to start adoption proceedings.

He seemed to be waiting for her to make some comment or ask another question. When she didn't, he looked down again at the fading rug under his black, shiny shoes. Strange, she'd never noticed before how faded the rug was, even a little threadbare here and there. The old Persian rug had been here as long as she could remember, centreing the hardwood floor. It belongs here, she thought, as Frank began to speak again. As she listened to his words, Naomi had this strange sensation of being in a far corner of the room watching the scene unfold, like a scene in a movie in which she'd been unwillingly cast.

"It wasn't as common then for single mothers to adopt children as it is today, and bring them up alone. I wanted your mother to marry me so we could raise you together, but she turned me down." He smiled sadly, self-deprecatingly. "She was a dear friend. But she didn't love me in the same way that I loved her."

Naomi touched his arm. Being mad at him seemed almost silly and certainly futile. He'd done what he did out of love for Mom. But it was a house of cards bound to fall. How could they not know that? With the silence broken, the words hung in the air, setting up a strange buzzing above her head. Then, even that stopped, bringing more silence. The silence after a bomb blast. Not so far off.

The one part of the story Naomi couldn't quite absorb was that her father, rather than being the war hero she had grown up adoring, was in fact a vicious rapist, and ultimately a murderer. That one was just a little too heavy to take in all at once. But yes, that might be something you'd want to hide from your child. Knowing that didn't make her feel any better.

"Thanks for telling me the truth, Frank. Even if it has been a while in coming."

"Don't thank me. I wouldn't have told you at all if not for Edna. I knew she'd tell you all of it, eventually. Maybe not today, next week, or even next month. But she would tell you. It was just too delicious a secret for someone like her to keep."

"You'd think Mom would have known that."

"Your mother loved Edna. She saw her through a big sister's eyes. Though she wasn't oblivious to Edna's faults, she would never have expected this kind of betrayal."