Watching Amanda (2 page)

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Authors: Janelle Taylor

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Finally, the woman emerged. And Amanda froze.

It was her sister.

Her half sister, acutally. Olivia Sedgwick.

Without looking in Amanda's direction once, despite the fact that Amanda was standing a foot in front of her sister, Olivia dashed onto the curb, saying something into the phone about a “layout.” As Amanda stood there open-mouthed, her hand barely still touching the cab's door, the man pressed something into Amanda's hand, then joined Olivia on the curb and escorted her into the hotel.

Amanda opened her fist to find a five dollar bill.

Well, isn't that humiliating,
Amanda thought, darting into the taxi and giving the driver her destination. Olivia's companion clearly took Amanda, dressed in uniform, for a front-door valet, whose job it was to greet arriving guests.

As the driver flipped the meter and pulled away from the curb, Amanda glanced out the window just in time to see Olivia and the man greet some well-dressed people who were seated at a grouping of plush sofas in the lobby. She watched Olivia smile and laugh and shake hands, and then as the taxi swerved into a lane that was actually moving, she lost sight of her sister and turned back around.

Whoa. Olivia Sedgwick in the flesh. She felt a stab of envy and longing that startled her. She thought she had accepted the very different lives her sisters led and put them in their proper perspective years ago.

When was the last time I saw her?
Amanda wondered.
When was the last time I saw my other half sister, Ivy? Or the only person we all have in common: our father, winner of the I-Can't-Be-Bothered-To-Be-A-Father award, William Sedgwick.

It had been years since she'd spoken to her father, but Amanda could pinpoint the exact day she had last spoken to her sisters: eleven months ago, on the day her son, Tommy, was born on a snowy January morning.

Because he'd been premature, she barely had a look at him before he was whisked away to the neonatal intensive care unit. And while they were separated for that short while before she could go see him, she was so overcome with longing for her familyâand overcome with longing to provide her newborn son with familyâthat she picked up the phone in the room and called Olivia and immediately got her answering machine. Amanda had left a message, informing Olivia that she was a brand new aunt and that mother and child were doing well at Lenox Hill Hospital.

Amanda had left the same message for their other half sister, Ivy. And then she called her father's office, which was the only number she had for William Sedgwick. Though it was only eight o'clock in the morning when she'd phoned, William's secretary had answered. William had been in, but in a closed-door meeting and had asked not to be disturbed for any reason. Amanda didn't want to reduce the birth of his grandson to a message on a While You Were Out pad, but she wasn't sure William would call back if she didn't leave a message of magnitude. The secretary, a very pleasant-sounding woman, congratulated Amanda heartily, and assured her she'd let William know the great news the moment the conference room door opened.

It must have been some long meeting.

CHAPTER 2

From the beginning of her pregnancy Amanda knew that Tommy's extended family would have to come from her side; there was no other side. Tommy's father wanted nothing to do with her or their child.

Don't think about him
, Amanda cautioned herself. But of course she did. Too often. Paul Swinwood's good-looking face, his warm brown eyes, that one dimple in his left cheek, appeared before her mind's eye. And as always, she had to blink back the sting of tears that accompanied any thought of him.

She'd loved him.

She'd known him only a few months, but she'd been crazy in love with him.

“I can't, Amanda,” he'd said when she told him she was pregnant with his child. “I'm sorry, but this isn't what I want. I am so sorry.”

That was it. She'd told him she was pregnant, and five minutes later he'd left her apartment. She never saw him again. She'd tried to call him during her pregnancy, and when Tommy was born. His phone had been disconnected. And her letters had come back marked “Return To Sender.”

Amanda had always considered herself a smart woman, a good judge of character. She'd truly believed that Paul had loved her too.

Yeah, so why did he abandon you the minute you told him you were pregnant? Why did he change his phone number and flee his apartment? Yet she had refused to phone or visit him at his company.

“Maybe he was just too scared,” her best friend, Jenny, had said. “Jerk! Coward! I don't care if the two of you were only dating for a few months. So what? A decent human being doesn't run away from something like that! Jerk!”

Jenny sounded off on the issue of Paul Swinwood for days, weeks, months. Finally, right before she had given birth, Amanda told Jenny to let it go. Paul was gone, and that was the only issue on the table. Amanda's future and her baby's future were what Amanda had to focus on. Not the merits or lack thereof of a man she didn't know as well as she thought she did.

And so, with no father handing out cigars the moment Thomas Sedgwick came into the world, with no grandmother knitting baby bootiesâAmanda's beloved mother had passed away several years agoâwith no family in the world other than her long-estranged father and her long-estranged half sisters, Amanda wanted desperately for her son to have the family that Amanda had never had.

And so she'd called her half sisters. And she called her father.

And she'd received the same response from all three.

A “Congratulations On Your New Baby” card, inside which was a check. One thousand dollars from William Sedgwick, and one hundred dollars each from Olivia and Ivy. In addition to the checks, her father and sisters had also each sent flowers and a stuffed animal. A plush teddy bear from William and one from Olivia and an adorable giraffe from Ivy.

Tommy loved all three.

Neither sister visited Amanda in the hospital or asked to see Tommy, their nephew. They had both called back the day Tommy was born, each congratulating her, and each with a reasonable excuse as to why she couldn't come to the hospital. Olivia, a features editor of a national women's magazine, was going on location somewhere for an important photo shoot with a supermodel. And Ivy, a police officer in New Jersey, was working around the clock on a stake-out.

And Amanda's father, the venerable William Sedgwick, simply sent another check, this time for two thousand dollars, when Amanda left a second message telling him she would love to see him, would love for him to meet his grandson.

Amanda had sent back the first check, hard as it was to turn down a thousand dollars. Perhaps he'd thought its return meant Amanda was saying a thousand bucks wasn't enough. Perhaps the second check, which she also returned, was simply “please leave me alone” money.

Amanda didn't know. Couldn't know.

Because she didn't know her father at all.

The wealthy William Sedgwick, a man her mother never married and a father Amanda barely saw her entire life, had never been interested in Amanda or any of his daughters as far as Amanda could tell. If he were a true father to her, as she always dreamed, she might have kept the first check and opened a college fund for Tommy. But to accept what seemed like guilt money, not that William Sedgwick appeared to feel guilty for anything, was just wrong to Amanda.

She'd hoped the birth of an innocent child would sway her sisters into forging a new relationship. But neither Olivia nor Ivy seemed interested.

Born to different mothers, only one of whom was married to William, the three Sedgwick sisters led very different lives. Amanda's mother, a former secretary of William's until her pregnancy and lovestruck gazes got her transferred to another office, also refused his “keep quiet” money and raised Amanda single-handedly in Queens. Olivia's mother, a wanna-be socialite, furious when William wouldn't marry her when she became pregnant, famously sued him for millions in child support and won a comfortable living. Ivy's mother, who often bragged that her daughter was the only legitimate one, divorced him when his frequent affairs humiliated her to the point that being his wife was more embarrassing than prestigious. She too made out handsomely financially, and was able to raise Ivy in style.

William never married again. A brilliant businessman with no interest in family life, William rarely saw his three daughters except for a two-week summer vacation at his cottage on the southern coast of Maine. The mothers were not permitted on the property, and as each woman had her own motive for wanting her daughter invited back every year, the mothers complied.

Despite her negative feelings about William, Amanda's mother felt it was important that Amanda get to know her sisters. Olivia's mother wanted to make sure her daughter was exposed to her father's rich-and-famous lifestyle. And Ivy's mother wanted to make sure the other Sedgwick daughters,
illegitimates
as she called them, received no more, preferably
less
, than Ivy.

Over the summers, Amanda got glimpses of goodness in both her sisters, but generally, the three girls treated each other as rivals.

And grew up as strangers.

What different lives we lead
, Amanda thought as the taxi sped through the Midtown Tunnel toward the New York City borough of Queens, where Amanda lived. Olivia was as glamorous as her jobâbeautiful, stylish, and very well-off in her own right. Ivy, much to her snooty mother's dismay, was a policewoman in a small New Jersey town and was also beautiful, but in a different way than Olivia. Ivy was earthy and natural, preferring jeans and sweaters to Olivia's cashmere and gold.

And then there was Amanda, who could hardly make ends meet, but whose son Tommy was worth the heartache his father had caused. If Amanda let herself think about it, the parallels between her own situation and her mother's love affair with William Sedgwick so many years ago would be particularly painful.

The family's lack of interest in getting to know Amanda and her baby was also painful, but Amanda was so fulfilled by motherhood that she stopped feeling so alone in the world.

I have my son. I have good friends. I have a roof over my head
, Amanda told herself.

Well, I have a roof over my head if I can convince Anne not to fire me
, she amended as the taxi bumped and swerved its way along.

Tommy was going to be all right. He'd been admitted to the hospital and had been kept overnight for observation and treatment, but it was just a bad virus.

As Amanda watched him sleep in his crib, which was against the wall in her bedroom, Tommy stirred and pressed his tiny fist against his cheek. Her heart squeezed in her chest.

I love you, my sweet boy
, she whispered.
I love you so much.

Leaning against the crib, on the baby blue round rug on the floor, was the big giraffe Ivy had sent and sitting next to it, the bear from Olivia. The sight of the stuffed animals sitting side by side made Amanda happy, made her feel as though her sisters were almost in the room, in spirit, if not physically. When she looked at the giraffe and bear she believed her sisters did care about Tommy, did want to know him, did want to be his aunts.

There was simply too wide a gulf between them for her sisters to put aside years of estrangement simply because a child had been born. But if not a child, an innocent baby, a new Sedgwick, then what?

Amanda bent over Tommy's crib and kissed his forehead, which was cooler now. He was still wheezing a bit, but at least his cough didn't sound so dire, Amanda thought as she watched his little chest rise and fall under his blue-and-white pajamas.

Amanda glanced at her watch. It was almost eight-thirty. Anne worked until nine on Fridays. Perhaps if she called her boss now, beggedâyes, beggedâfor her job back, Anne could be swayed. This was busy season at the hotel, and perhaps Anne needed Amanda at work tomorrow more than she needed to train a new hire.

Amanda picked up the phone and dialed. A receptionist transferred her to Anne's direct line.

“Metropolitan Hotel, front desk manager Anne Pilsby speaking.”

Amanda took a deep breath. “Anne, it's Amanda Sedgwick. I wanted to tell you how sorry I am for what happened yesterday. I understand how important it is for your staff to be reliable, and I want you know I'm taking new steps to ensure that I won't have to leave work again.”

That was true. Even if those steps were baby steps. Lettie, her neighbor and Tommy's sitter, felt terrible that Amanda had gotten herself fired.

“I feel so guilty!” Lettie had said. “I should have just taken Tommy to the hospital and left you alone. The result was the same, whether you had been there or not.”

But it wasn't. At the sight of his mother, Tommy had stopped crying and had sagged into her arms. If Tommy had had a bad cold or a mild fever, Amanda would have stayed at work. But a fever of one hundred four was dangerous, as was dehydration. And besides, Lettie had children in school; it wasn't fair of Amanda to ask Lettie to bring home Tommy's illnesses to her own kids.

Amanda had assured Lettie that she'd work on her boss or try to find a job that would pay the rent and allow her more flexibility. She'd yet to find one of those, though.

Please be understanding
, Amanda prayed into the phone.
I need the benefits. I need the week's vacation I have coming to me.

“I'm sorry, Amanda,” Anne responded without a shred of feeling in her voice. “But I have already replaced you. Please empty the contents of your locker within a week or they will be removed and discarded. You may pick up your final paycheck, which will include your vacation pay, docked from the extra personal days you've taken this year. Human Resources can tell you how to extend your health insurance. Good-bye.”

Amanda listened to the click and the buzzing dial tone for a few moments and then finally replaced the phone. She stared up at the ceiling, mentally subtracting the four extra personal days she'd taken.

Well, one day's vacation pay would still cover the electric bill and a few small Christmas gifts.

I'll get through this
, she told herself.
I'm a resourceful person. If I nursed my mother through the final stages of cancer, I can do anything.

That was hard. And at least her mother had still been alive, her warm hand still able to hold Amanda's. Her mother had been sick for over two years, and Amanda had dropped out of City College after only three semesters in order to care for her mom and also work full time. She'd never built up any kind of longevity in one industry because she needed flexibility to deal with the fluctuations of her mother's treatment. Once, she'd wanted to be a nurse, but the requirements were more than Amanda could sign on for at the time. And then her mother lost the battle and Amanda got pregnant. On her own in every sense of the word, she couldn't very well afford to go back to school for any kind of career training.

The phone rang, and Amanda jumped to answer it. Perhaps it was Anne, calling back to say she didn't want to be such a Scrooge, after all.

“Amanda Sedgwick?” asked a male voice she didn't recognize.

“Yes, this is she.”

“My name is George Harris. I'm an attorney at Harris, Pinker and Swift.”

Was Anne suing her? For being a bad employee?

“We represent your father, William Sedgwick,” the man continued. “I'm so sorry for bothering you at this sensitive time, Ms. Sedgwick, but I do need to inform you that the reading of the will is scheduled forâ”

Amanda blinked. “Excuse me?” she interrupted. “The reading of the will?”

Sensitive time?

“Your father's will,” Mr. Harris explained.

“My father's will? I don't understand,” Amanda said.

Silence.

“Ms. Sedgwick,” the man continued, “I am very sorry. I was under the impression that you knew that Williamâthat your fatherâhad passed away.”