Colin draped himself over the armchair. “What’s up?”
Lucy looked at him from across the room. She couldn’t understand it. He didn’t seem suspicious at all. Wasn’t he wondering why his mom called him downstairs? Why Lucy and this strange man were here?
“Colin,” Esther said, smiling nervously. “This is Lucy’s father, Mr. Tapper.”
Colin gave a quick nod. “Hey.”
“Uh, hey.” Lucy’s dad mirrored Esther’s nervous smile.
“We,” Esther started, then stopped. “I mean I. I have something to talk to you about.” Her voice trembled slightly and Colin’s dad reached over and squeezed her shoulder.
Lucy’s insides felt all twisted and knotted up. Oh, no. This is really happening.
As if picking up on Esther’s serious tone, Colin sat up a little straighter in his chair. “Like what?”
“Um. Something I should have told you a long time ago.” She kept clasping and unclasping her hands. “Something I hope you’ll be able to forgive me for.”
Lucy’s heart was ricocheting around inside her chest. She wished she was anywhere but here and had to stop herself from hiding behind the nearby curtain.
“Just start at the beginning, Scotty,” Colin’s dad coaxed. “I’ll be beside you the whole way.”
She reached up, covered his hand with hers, and took a deep breath. “Remember when I told Lucy about her mom being engaged before? To Dean?”
“Yeah,” he said slowly.
“Well. I said he called off the wedding because he got cold feet. But there was a bit more to it than that. Laura was pregnant. That was the real reason.”
There were a few seconds of silence, then Esther continued. “You’d think that would make Dean want to marry her more. But I guess he wasn’t ready to be a father. He took off.”
Lucy looked around the room to see if anyone had a reaction. There was nothing.
“Laura didn’t have a clue what was she going to do,” Esther went on, “and she was too terrified to tell her mother.” She shook her head. “God, Irene would have had a heart attack.”
Lucy thought of something and she said it out loud without thinking. “Did Gran Irene find out? Is that what made her sick? Made her have a stroke?”
“That would sort of make sense, wouldn’t it? But no. She had her stroke right after the wedding was cancelled. And of course, that made the idea of Laura telling the truth even more out of the question. She was too worried Irene wouldn’t be able to take it, that it would affect her recovery.”
Colin looked confused. “But Mom. What does—”
Esther put up her hand. “Please. Let me get this all out.” She took another deep breath. “Then to top it all off, Dean died. I was out west and had just started a new job. I couldn’t come back. Laura was in a bad way, at the end of her rope, and there was nothing I could do to help. I knew that she was running out of time—there was only so long she’d be able to keep the secret. I still can’t figure out how she managed to hide it for as long as she did.” Esther went over and sat in the chair next to Colin. “Then finally I had an idea.”
Lucy watched the confusion on Colin’s face deepen.
“I got Laura to start telling everyone that I was pregnant,” Esther told Colin. “The expectations for me here were already pretty low, running off with my boyfriend and all that, so no harm done.” Esther smiled weakly. “Dan and I were married at City Hall as soon as we got to Banff, but no one knew or cared except Laura. Anyhow, I made her spread the word that I was having a really hard time and that I was begging her to come. It was my idea to pawn her engagement ring and buy a train ticket. I knew if I just got her out there with me, it would all be okay. She arrived in August and stayed with me and your dad until she had her baby. Three weeks early. On Halloween.”
Everything stopped. Silence enveloped the room like a heavy wool blanket. Then someone cleared their throat. Lucy didn’t know who because she was staring at her feet. She didn’t want to look at Colin; it would be too brutal, like an invasion of privacy or something. Finally she got up the nerve to glance sideways. She could tell he was processing. A second later it happened. He’d put it together.
“You’re not my mom,” he said hoarsely. “Lucy’s mom is.” He kept blinking over and over, like he couldn’t make sense of the words he was saying.
“I’m so sorry,” Esther said and buried her face in her hands.
There were a bunch of different expressions flickering across his face. They kept changing. At one point, Lucy saw him mouth the word no.
Colin’s dad, Dan, took a step towards him. “Son—”
“You’re not my dad. Don’t call me that!”
Dan looked stung.
Lucy felt her own dad’s hand encircle hers and give it a squeeze. But her hand just lay there limp. She sort of felt numb, like all this was her fault and she wanted to take everything back.
“Colin,” Esther pleaded. “We really thought we were doing what was best. Laura couldn’t raise you. Your dad and I could. It all made sense. Back then.”
Dan knelt down beside Colin’s chair. “Colin. I can’t imagine what you’re feeling.” He put a hand on his arm. “But just remember we love you. We couldn’t love you any more if you were our own.”
Colin yanked his arm away and stared back at his dad like he didn’t recognize him.
“You are our own,” Dan added, his voice breaking with emotion.
Then, as if all of a sudden remembering she was there, Colin swung his head towards Lucy. “Did you know? Were you in on this?”
Lucy’s lips parted in a gasp.
“No,” Esther said quickly, answering for her. “She didn’t know a thing. We, me and your dad, and Mike”—she gestured to Lucy’s dad—“we were going to tell you both together this summer.”
“Oh. Well I guess that makes everything okay then,” Colin mocked. “Since you were going to tell us this summer anyway.”
Esther shoved her hair back off her forehead. “You probably won’t believe me, but it wasn’t supposed to be a forever thing. It was only supposed to be until Laura figured out what she wanted to do.”
“You mean until she figured out if she wanted me!”
“You don’t understand. After Laura came home, Ellen wasn’t speaking to her. Irene wouldn’t even look at her. They both felt betrayed and angry that she just up and left them when they needed her most. Laura couldn’t bring herself to tell them the real reason she left.”
“They may have understood,” Lucy said softly.
Esther frowned. “Ellen, perhaps. But your gran?” She stood and wiped her palms on her shorts. “Who knows. I’ve been wrong about pretty much everything. Maybe it would have been all hearts and flowers.”
“So you guys did nothing?!” Colin exclaimed. “You kept me, and she let you?”
“We were waiting for the right time. It just never came.”
“That’s your excuse?”
“You were happy with us!” Esther’s eyes were wet with tears. “Laura knew that, knew you had a good home. Like your dad said. You are our son. In every sense of the word.”
“Stop calling me that!”
“But you are. Time kept passing. The twins were born. You are part of the family, our family.”
Colin’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not part of any family. I’m an orphan,” he spat. “Both my parents are dead.”
Esther’s hand flew to her stomach like she’d been punched. Then she lifted her chin. “Yes, Laura was your biological mother, but I am your mother in all the ways that matter. You are my son and I love you. You don’t know what it was like waiting for the day to come when she’d ask for you back, how terrifying it was.”
“That obviously never happened,” Colin said sarcastically.
“It’s easy to look back now and say what we should have done, but sometimes doing the right thing is hard,” she said, sweeping her fingers across her cheeks.
“Well, we wouldn’t want you to do anything hard, now would we?” Colin’s eyes darted around the room. “I gotta get out of here.”
Esther stepped sideways and tried to block his way.
“Let him go,” Dan said gently.
She moved aside.
Lucy watched Colin storm out, heard the screen door bang shut.
Esther sank back down onto the chair.
“He’ll need some time,” Lucy’s dad said to Esther.
“Promise me, Mike, that you’ll stick to what we discussed,” Esther whispered. “That you won’t take him.”
“Of course.”
“Because you have more claim to him than I do,” Esther pointed out.
“I told you,” Lucy’s dad said, “I would never dream of taking him from you.”
Esther leaned her head back and closed her eyes. A tear trickled out of the corner of one eye. “I don’t want him to think Laura didn’t want him. She did.”
“He’ll come to understand that. In time,” he said.
“I feel guilty I kept him. I feel guilty I didn’t make more of an effort to have them spend time together, get to know each other.” She twisted up her mouth. “Maybe I should have encouraged her to come clean, tell Colin she was his mother, take him and make him part of her life, her family.” She let out a high-pitched laugh. “Who am I kidding? There’s no way I would have ever been able to do that. What kind of person does that make me?”
“I’m not defending anybody,” Lucy’s dad said, “but it’s not all on you, Scotty. For whatever reason, Laura never asked to take him back. Not that I would have wanted her to, but she could have at any time—and she didn’t.”
The room fell quiet again. Her dad’s words could be taken in more than one way. There was an uncomfortable awkwardness that went along with that, and Lucy felt it.
“I can only assume it was because she couldn’t bring herself to tear apart our family,” Esther said softly. “How does one go about doing something like that without destroying everyone’s lives? In the end, we were both just giant cowards.”
Lucy found her voice. “Is that why you took Colin to Mom’s funeral? Because you felt guilty?”
“Partly, maybe. I knew it was only a matter of time till he found out the truth. I wanted at least to be able to tell him he got a chance to say goodbye to his mom, even if he didn’t know it at the time.” A fresh tear leaked out and dribbled down Esther’s cheek.
Lucy was conflicted. Should she feel grateful to Esther for everything she did to help and protect her mom? For some reason Lucy couldn’t quite get there. “If Mom had never gotten sick, would you guys have ever told?”
Esther opened her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. She did get sick. And she told. She told your father.”
“That’s not what I asked, though.”
“Secrets like this rarely stay secret.” She shrugged her shoulders. “But honestly? I don’t know. I certainly never pushed for it. Laura wanted me to move closer to home so at least she could see Colin more often. I was afraid, though. Partly because I didn’t want to see them bond. That would hurt too much. And also because I didn’t want to come back here. I had this strange—I dunno, this strange feeling that if Irene ever laid eyes on him, she’d know right away. He does look a lot like her, you know. I managed to convince Laura of that too. I think it sort of scared her and she stopped asking.” She raked her hands through her hair. “But I was probably just looking for an excuse.”
“Oh.” It was all Lucy could think of to say. Esther still hadn’t really answered her question. Something dawned on her. “Gran Irene died without knowing she had a grandson.”
“Not to sound cruel, but I can’t help but think that it was for the best.”
Lucy wasn’t so sure. It did sound cruel to her. But then she thought about all those trips to the nursing home, how Gran Irene barely knew who they were. Throwing Colin into the mix wouldn’t have helped anything.
A concrete weight seemed to be pushing down on Lucy’s chest. Feeling the need to escape, she let go of her dad’s hand and slipped out the back door. Colin was nowhere to be seen.
“He headed for the path,” a voice said.
It was Kit. She was dangling off the tire swing in the yard.
“What are you doing here?” Lucy sputtered.
“You didn’t come to the hole this morning,” Kit said. “After lunch I went to Josie’s to see if you were okay. I thought you might still be sick. She told me your dad was here and that you were at Colin’s, and then she told me I should just go home and wait to hear from you.”
“So you came here.”
“Well, my Spidey senses were tingling.”
Lucy glanced towards the open window. “You heard everything?”
“I got the gist. I don’t even know what to say.”
“That’s good, because I don’t want to talk about it.”
“So it’s true? Your mom is Colin’s mom? You guys are like…brother and sister?”
“I thought you said you didn’t know what to say.”
“Sorry,” Kit mumbled.
The screen door swung shut and Lucy’s dad hurried down the back steps. “Are you ready?” he said to Lucy. Then he looked at Kit. “Hi. You must be Kit. I’m Lucy’s dad.”
“Nice to meet you. What’s your first name, though?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Uh, Mike.”
“You’re my uncle. I’m going to call you Uncle Mike.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he said, then turned to Lucy. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
“It’s okay, I’m leaving,” Kit piped up. “I’m gonna go find Colin.”
“I’ll catch up,” Lucy said as Kit took off towards the path.
“Well.” Lucy’s dad scratched at his stubble. “All that with Colin. That went, uh….”
“Not so great,” Lucy finished.
“You hit the nail on the head,” he said. “How much time do you need?”
“For what?”
“To pack your stuff.”
“Pack my stuff?”
“You didn’t think I was just going to leave you here, did you?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“I assumed you’d be happy. Going home early. You didn’t want to come in the first place, remember?”
“Yeah, I know, but—”
“Listen, pumpkin.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I think you should come home. We need time, just the two of us, to figure this out, get our heads around it. We need to decide how all this is going to fit into our lives, how we want it to fit into our lives. And I don’t think we, or you, can do that here.” He paused and looked over his shoulder at Colin’s house. “Not with it all around you every day.”
There was something about his tone that made Lucy frown and tilt her head. There was an edge to it.
Suddenly an imagined mental image swam before her eyes. Her dad standing at her mom’s bedside while she wrote him notes explaining everything—explaining Colin. Was that really how she did it? Lucy had only found that one note. Were there others? Hopefully her mom had told him when she could still talk. What was it like for him when he found out? Like her, he probably would have been just fine with this staying a secret forever. He must have felt awful—to be blindsided when it was really too late to do anything about it.
“Okay, Dad,” she said quietly.
“Good.” His face filled with relief.
“It’s just that I can’t go right now, like today.” The thought of rushing through a goodbye to Josie and possibly not even being able to say goodbye to Colin and Kit….
“Can I have a week, maybe?”
“A week?”
“Yeah.”
He gave her a tired smile and placed a hand on her hair. “To get your affairs in order?”
She nodded. She knew Colin was going to have a hard time adjusting to what he had just found out, harder than her. But like it or not, he was part of her family now, and she might be the only one who could help. She had no idea how, but some tiny voice was telling her she should stay and at least try. Maybe the voice was her mom’s.
“I guess you could call it that.”
“Should we head back to Josie’s?”
“You go. I’m going to track down Kit. Who hopefully tracked down Colin.”
“Okay. Good luck.” He hugged her tight. “See you in one week.”
“Love you, Dad.”
“Love you, too.”
Lucy could see a flash of pink through the trees—Kit’s T-shirt. She was crouched down behind a bush a little way away from the hole. Lucy ducked down and joined her.
“I just got here,” Kit said. “I checked the beach first. Thought he’d go there to contemplate life and stuff. But then I found him here. Digging. I didn’t know what to do, so I’m spying.”
Lucy spied too for a moment. “He’s not digging. He’s putting the dirt back in the hole.”
“That’s what I thought he was doing, but I told myself I was probably just hallucinating.” She looked over at Lucy. “Why would he do that? He spent forever digging that hole.”
“I’m not sure,” Lucy said slowly. Then she backed up into the trees and stood. “Come on.”
“Where?”
“To get some shovels.”
“Why?”
“We’re going to help him fill in that hole.”
Kit’s jaw dropped. “How many times have I told you, I have very delicate hands.”
“Exactly zero times,” Lucy said folding her arms.
“Fine.” Kit hung her head in defeat. “Let’s go get some shovels. And gloves,” she added.