The year She Fell (2 page)

I didn’t know what Tom had to do with that taunt, besides fathering the child in question. But grimly I decided that surprise was my best weapon in ferreting out the truth from the man who had somehow hidden it for almost two decades, all the while letting me believe that we were that rare married couple who knew each other totally.

All I said was, “There’s someone waiting to meet you.”

He followed me down, silent now. He was prepared for something . . .
 
but not, I thought, for what waited in the front parlor.

The boy was standing by the window, looking at the view—a spectacular one of the valley, green and pink and purple under the afternoon sun, and worth the hassles of owning this old house. But he turned quickly as I entered, Tom right behind me.

“This is my husband Tom O’Connor,” I said.

Tom stopped just inside the room. He nodded at the boy, but warily. “What’s going on, Ellen?”

The boy was watching us carefully, and I saw his eyes widen when he heard Tom’s voice. Tom had spent most of his childhood in
Ireland
, and traces of the accent still livened his speech. I switched my attention to my husband. Did he recognize himself in the boy? Did he have that moment of realization that I’d just had? Did he even know Brian existed?

“This is—” I couldn’t say Adam O’Connor. “Brian Warrick. He has something to ask you.”

Tom was regarding both of us with that wary neutral regard he always assumed when he didn’t know what was going on. He didn’t see himself in this young man. Maybe I was the only one who could see the resemblance. But it was there—the square jaw, the perfect straight nose, the gray-green eyes. The boy wasn’t as tall as Tom yet, but he had that same wary leanness. But Tom didn’t see it. And neither, I realized, did the boy.

“Go ahead,” I said gently.

Brian—Adam—hesitated. He jammed his hands into his jacket pockets and I heard the crinkle of paper, but he didn’t pull out the birth certificate and fling it in my husband’s face. I realized I was the only one who really understood what was going on here.

I held out my hand. “Give me the birth certificate.”

He responded to my teacher’s voice, the authority one, and slowly withdrew his hand from his pocket. I grabbed the certificate, unfolded it, and handed it to my husband.

I could see the moment when comprehension dawned on his face. But still he said nothing, only studying the paper as if there were secrets encrypted in its watermark.

Impatiently I said, “Do you see the date? And do you see the name in the mother field?”

“Yes.”

“And you know what that means. I’m not the mother. You know that and I know that, and this young man knows it too.”

“I know that this is wrong,” he said. He glanced up at Brian, standing tense by the door, and then back at the birth certificate, and finally back at me. “You couldn’t be the mother.”

His face gave nothing away. That was his prisoner face. I’d seen it before, on the rare occasions I confronted him—remote and controlled and ungiving. Had he known about this child? You’d think I could tell from his face, but I saw only wariness. He was closing himself off again.

I couldn’t let him do this, pretend this way. “Brian. This is your father. Tom O’Connor. I’m sure he can tell you more.”

I don’t know what I expected. But I knew what Brian expected, and he didn’t get it. Tom just studied him, as he might study someone who looked slightly familiar. No greeting, no comment, no explanation.

The boy just stood there with a stricken look on his face. He couldn’t even speak. I realized he never expected to find a father, only a mother, and he had prepared nothing for this eventuality. I felt an unwilling sympathy for him. I’d never expected this either.

So, grimly, as if I were counseling a dysfunctional family, I said, “I’m sure there are some things you want to ask, Brian.”

He looked at me, surprised—grateful, I thought. “Yes. I want to know—if—if you are not my mother, who is? And where is she?”

I directed the question where it belonged. “Yes, Tom, who is she?”

Tom moved then, just an uncoiling, as if he’d been drawn in by tension. He looked down at the birth certificate again. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “We didn’t get as far as names.”

I gasped. It sounded so cynical. And the way he said it revealed something terrible about our marriage. I was bleak suddenly, as if an abyss had opened up a few inches in front of me. He knew what this was about; maybe not her name, but at least when she must have slipped into his life. And never, in eighteen years, had he told me anything about that, or about the son he had given away.

Brian’s face suggested the same vertigo had overtaken him. “You don’t know her name? Then how—how can I find her?”

Tom regarded the birth certificate more closely. Now his voice was helpful, mildly concerned. “There must have been an adoption agency involved. I’d suggest you start there.”

“But—but that’s how I got the birth certificate.”

Tom nodded, judicious now. “Maybe they have more information.” He held out the birth certificate, and Brian automatically stepped forward and took it.

I couldn’t stand this strange spectacle. “Tom!” I said sharply. “Tell us what happened. How this came to happen.”

He’d started towards the archway back to the front hall, but stopped and turned as I spoke. “The usual way, I suppose.” He’d gone back to callous again. He sounded bored.

“The usual way.” I almost choked on that. It was too vague and too graphic, all at the same time. “When? And where?”

He shook his head. “
Washington
, I guess. It’s hard to remember. When I started at the
Post
.”

“Where did you meet her?”

“I don’t remember. A bar. Look—sorry, kid,” he said, flicking a glance at Brian. “It wasn’t a relationship. You understand? It was just a one-night stand.”

“How do you know it was a one-night stand?” I demanded.

“Because that’s all I had that summer.”

That hurt—stabbed deep. That summer . . . that summer I’d been so devastated after our pre-graduation breakup. I’d been so foolish. I’d turned down even a date with my high school boyfriend, because I couldn’t imagine being with anyone but Tom. And he was having one-night stands all over
Washington
.

“But—” Brian said hesitantly, “but if that’s all it was, then how—how did she know about your wife?”

“Ellen wasn’t my wife then,” Tom said quickly. “We weren’t even together.”

This apparently he wanted on the record, as though that technicality was all that mattered. It was aimed at me, I knew—an excuse, not an explanation.

“But she said you two were married. When I was born. How would anyone know to put her name on the birth certificate, if she didn’t know you and didn’t know you’d gotten married?”

This stopped Tom. It stopped me too. I didn’t know what it meant.

Tom recovered first. “I said I didn’t know her. She might have known me. She must have known me. I had bylined articles in the
Post
even then. And marriages—that’s public record. Maybe she looked me up in some database and found the marriage record.”

Database. It sounded so impersonal. Not to mention implausible. In 1991, you couldn’t just do an Internet scan for someone’s name.

Besides, no woman whose name he didn’t know would go to this much trouble to implicate him. “Tell us the truth.” My voice, embarrassingly, quavered with intensity.

But Tom didn’t even seem to notice. He shook his head, impatient, I gathered, with us both. “I’ve told you all I know.”

Brian’s eyes narrowed. I was reminded of that first, frightening impression I had of him, when he emerged from the shadows of the church sanctuary. Carefully he said, “Do you know even which one she was?”

“Which one?”

“Which one of your one-night stands?”

“No.” Now, finally, there was some emotion in his voice. Regret. “No, I don’t. I was drinking a lot then. I don’t remember much at all.”

I saw Brian’s eyes, wide with something like shock, and I wanted to tell him it was a lie, that my husband was lying, that this woman meant something to him, so much that even now, when it couldn’t matter except to us, he protected her identity. But I couldn’t say it. I didn’t know if that was because of some stupid residual marital loyalty, or because the boy would be better off thinking Tom truly didn’t know—but I couldn’t accuse him outright of lying.

Brian made an abrupt gesture with his hand and started towards the door. But he stopped under the staircase and looked up. “Where is Sarah? My . . . sister?”

Oh, God. The realization hit Tom as it hit me. He wouldn’t just walk out the door, this boy, and disappear. He wouldn’t. He was bound to this family of ours—and he wasn’t going to let us forget it.

And he was right, I told myself. He owed the boy something—an explanation, at least. And he owed me that explanation too.

I just didn’t want Sarah involved—not till we had sorted this out to my satisfaction. Before Tom could respond, I said quickly, soothingly, “Oh, she’s a camp counselor this summer. We won’t see her for weeks.” And then pleasantly, to defuse any threat, “Are you staying in town?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t decided.”

“You could stay here. We have room.” It was an insane idea, I knew even before the words were out. But I suspected he had no money and would end up sleeping in that beat-up Escort.

He stopped at the door, turning to look at me. His eyes were wary but bright now. Then he glanced over beside me at Tom, and Tom stared back, giving nothing.

“No. Thank you.” Brian opened the door. “I’ll contact you if I want to.” And then he was gone.

Tom walked off in the other direction, towards the kitchen and the back door.

“Wait! Goddamnit, Tom, you’re not going to walk out now.”

He stopped in the doorway to the kitchen but didn’t turn around. “I’m sorry if this hurts you. I’m sure it does. But it doesn’t have anything to do with you or our marriage. It happened before we married. Just a stupid mistake.”

In a couple quick steps I was next to him, and I grabbed his arm. “Don’t you say that to that boy. He’s not a mistake, and he won’t want to hear his own father say that.”

“I’m not his father,” Tom said, gazing through the kitchen, out the big window to the meadow. “He has a father—whoever adopted him. I’ve got no claim on him, and he has no claim on me.”

“It doesn’t work that way! Not anymore!”

“When someone’s adopted, the original obligation is severed.” The cool legalism gave way to his more usual gentle tone. “Your own sister is adopted. And if you’ve given two thoughts in twenty years to where she came from, I’d be surprised. Families live together. How they got into the family isn’t important.” He wrenched away from my hand. “Look, whatever this is, it’s between me and the boy. Not you. I’ll handle it.”

“You’ll handle it?” It sounded like some logistical problem, how to sneak a video camera past Libyan customs officials, or get a fake passport for a valuable source. “But it’s not just your problem. Our marriage—do you understand? I’ve never known about this, and if I had—” I stopped short. I couldn’t finish the thought.

“What? You wouldn’t have married me? For something that happened before?”

“For not telling me. It’s something I deserved to know.”