Finding Home (17 page)

When I was young I’d made up a story about my
mother to comfort myself. I’d begun with my only clue, my name,
Lucienne. From that I’d developed her into a good Middleford girl
who’d gone to France as an innocent exchange student one summer.
Instead of learning the language she’d been swept off her feet by
her dashing, romantic teacher, and come home pregnant. There’d been
no question of marrying the man, who didn’t even know about me. Her
parents refused to fund her education if she kept me. The social
stigma of being an unwed mother was strong back then, and she
wouldn’t have had any way to support me.

I considered myself a child of lust. I
figured my mother would keep me a secret the rest of her life but
wanted my French name to be her one memory. I’d lived with my
invention so long I believed it and had almost forgotten it was
pure fantasy. Not that it mattered what the truth was. I’d never
gone through the nagging need to know my birth parents so common to
adopted kids. But then, I’d never been adopted. I’d only ever been
a crown ward, given the generic surname Smith.

And really, I didn’t want all the details
about my mother now. I just wanted someone older and wiser to guide
me. For instance, how could I get myself out of this situation? How
could I keep my child and find the money to buy Auberge Ciel? I
couldn’t see what to do. About anything.

Back at Malagash I took Jay’s package up to
my room to open. Inside was a stenciled Christmas card made from
recycled paper, sold in support of a Vermont ecology group. The
message was simply:
Forgive me
. There was also one of Jay’s
drawings of Auberge Ciel, a view of the lake, matted and framed. I
almost cried when I saw it, it made me long for the lodge and Jay
so much.

I lay down on my Fox and Geese quilt on my
blue spool bed, wondering what to do. I was almost tempted to call
Jay when I felt something under my pillow. What on earth?

It was a parcel wrapped in pink tissue, tied
with a fountain of curly silver ribbon. The tag read:
Couldn’t
resist.

I couldn’t resist either. I forgot Jay and
ripped at the wrapping madly.

Out fluttered a nightgown, definitely not the
kind you wear for sleeping. The shiver of white silk was long and
full, trimmed with lace and a rosebud of pink satin at the plunging
V of the neckline. There was no question who it was from. It had to
be Nick.

I jumped up and slipped it on right away. The
fabric felt heavenly slithering over my skin. In the mirrored door
of my pine armoire, the shapes of my pregnant belly and breasts
were just barely visible. I’d never worn anything quite so
lovely.

But I had to take it off immediately. The
longing it aroused was too much to bear. I pulled on my plaid
flannel gown and hung the new one away carefully. Would I ever wear
it for Nick?

I placed Jay’s drawing on my mantelpiece. He
was forgiven, I decided. But he was also history.

* * *

The next morning at breakfast Kiera
suggested, “Let’s put all that baby stuff Nick bought away in the
guest room.”

“Oh,” I said. “I was kind of enjoying looking
at it.”

“I’m not.” Kiera sliced a grapefruit in two
and loosened the sections with a curved knife. “It scares me. He’s
never done something so extravagant for anyone but himself.” She
served us both a half grapefruit with a light sprinkling of
cinnamon. “It makes me worried,” she said, “that he might actually
put up a fight for the baby.”

I felt my whole body tense. “Yeah, I know.
Actually, it’s been bothering me a lot Kiera, him not knowing
what’s really going on. I keep getting this feeling I just have to
tell him.”

Kiera set down her spoon and pushed her
grapefruit away. “Oh don’t, don’t, don’t.” She waited until I met
her gaze to add, “Please don’t.”

I finished my grapefruit before I answered.
“But Kiera, oh, I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right.” I got up
to prepare myself a bowl of berry yogurt with muesli. What I really
meant was it didn’t feel right not telling her I was wanting to
keep the baby myself. I was deceiving Kiera as much as she was
deceiving Nick.

“But think what could happen,” she said, a
hint of threat in her voice. “If Nick found out about Angus and me,
he might realize he’d never get custody and just back out
altogether, and not even pay you.”

I decided I wasn’t hungry after all and
busied myself clearing the table. When I sat back down I said, as
if it had only just occurred to me, “Maybe I’ve changed my mind.
Maybe I don’t want the money anymore. Maybe I want the baby. Maybe
I want Nick and the baby. After all, I am the natural mother, and
he’s the father.”

“Lucienne!” Kiera looked as if I’d just
announced my plans to murder them both. “You can’t be serious.”

“And why the hell not?” Who did Kiera think
she was? So she’d lead a privileged life – that didn’t mean she
could have everything she wanted. This was my baby we were talking
about. Yes, I’d agreed to help her and Angus out. But I no longer
wanted to let them adopt my baby or get custody of her.

Still, I didn’t know how I was going to
manage on my own. So I couldn’t tell her my plans. I had to be
careful. I had to play both sides.

Kiera leaned across the table and grabbed my
hands. “Oh Luce,” she said, “don’t get involved with Nick. He’s not
what he seems.” She paused and sniffed back tears. “I know that
sounds sort of melodramatic, I know how impressive and exciting and
attractive he can be, but don’t be fooled like I was. He’s mentally
unbalanced.”

I pulled my hands away. “Really? Well maybe I
have a different opinion of who’s unbalanced. I happen to think
he’s being cruelly tricked. I think he deserves to know what’s
going on.” I pictured Nick on Boxing Day, holding baby Blair. He
had looked so right and content. “Just because his motives are a
little mixed-up doesn’t mean he doesn’t really want a child or that
he wouldn’t be a good father.”

“A good father? Nick?” Now Kiera grabbed hold
of both sides of her head, as if it hurt badly. “If that’s what you
think, you really are delusional. I thought you were some kind of
social worker? Don’t you realize he couldn’t do it? You’ve seen how
much he works. That’s normal for him. He’d never be home. A child
would never see him.”

Of course I’d thought of all that. I just
wasn’t going to admit my doubts to Kiera. “People can surprise
you,” I said. “Don’t forget I knew him years ago, even before high
school, he used to hang around the group home where I lived. And he
was great with the little kids there, always ready to play cards or
ball or take them to the movies.” I had an image of Nick, maybe
thirteen, with a black eye and a split lip, pretending nothing had
happened, pretending we were his family. I knew he had a
vulnerable, loving side and was sure it would surface when his baby
was born. “You don’t know what he’d be like with his own child,
Kiera.”

She brushed back her cornsilk hair. “And you
to help him raise it? You’d be stuck with it, you know. And heaven
help you if the poor kid wasn’t perfect. Nick doesn’t like losers.”
She looked at me with real distress. “Don’t you understand? Nick is
just like my father. He has to control everything and everybody.
And he’ll do it any way he can.”

I stared at her for a long time, wondering
how to react. Was she just worried because she knew I could ruin
her little plan? Or was she trying to tell me something? Finally I
asked her, “What exactly are you saying, Kiera?”

She burst into tears. “Oh, I’m sorry it ever
happened, any of it,” she sobbed. “That’s what I’m saying. We never
meant it to turn out like this. We just wanted a baby so much.
Please, please, don’t say anything to Nick.”

Totally confused, I left her sitting there
and went out for a walk. This time I headed up behind Malagash,
following the trail through the firs Nick and I had run along at
Thanksgiving. I’d been tormented with childhood memories the past
few days and now one more forced itself on me.

I had been placed in yet another foster home,
a stately Tudor-style house in old north Middleford. The parents
were far more affluent than any I’d ever been with. They felt sorry
for me being almost an
orphan
, they said. They wanted to
give me a chance
.

The day I arrived was their daughter
Vanessa’s ninth birthday. Her gift was a new bicycle. They promised
I too might get a bicycle, for my eleventh birthday in a few
month’s time, although not a brand new one like Vanessa’s. After
all, I wasn’t their real daughter, was I? All I had to do was be as
good and perfect as she was.

But I knew I wouldn’t last the day.

When Vanessa came riding for the hundredth
time down the sidewalk, having promised me a turn each time, soon,
soon, I took a stout stick from the garden and stuck it into the
spinning spokes. The bicycle’s back wheel flipped up and over,
throwing Vanessa high into the air before landing her on the cement
with a dull thud.

I was sickened by the sight of her limp body,
and threw up in the bushes. But it was worth the accusations and
rage and guilt to be free of that foster home. I was returned to my
group home within the hour.

Now I stood in the clearing high above the
sea, trying to figure out what to do. Was there some connection
between this memory and my present situation? I stared down at my
current foster home, Malagash.

Telling Nick or Kiera everything would be
like poking a stick in the spokes. It could upset the balance and
crash land me. Someone was bound to get hurt, and there was no way
of knowing what either of them might do. But what I did know, for
absolutely certain, was that I needed the shelter of Malagash while
I was pregnant.

I didn’t have a group home to run back to
anymore.

So once again I decided to bide my time. I’d
just have to wait and see what happened. And I’d have to be ready
for anything.

In early January I saw Dr. MacLaren for a
check-up. Kiera was supposed to come with me, but was called to the
school at the last minute. So I dropped her off, then drove on down
to his office. While I waited I flipped through some magazines, but
nothing interested me. I simply didn’t care about politics and
world events, or food and fashion. Being pregnant made me feel like
I was living on another planet, where only a few people
existed.

Nick. Kiera and Angus. My baby and me.

When I was shown into the doctor’s office I
greeted him with, “That was quite the step-dancing show you gave us
on Boxing Day.”

Dr. MacLaren fumbled for my file and studied
it. “Um, I’m afraid I don’t remember too much about it. Fine party
though, wasn’t it?”

“For sure. That house is made to be filled
with people. Is that what Malagash was like when Kiera’s parents
used to entertain?”

“Kiera’s parents?” He indicated I should step
on the scales. “Oh, the Mackenzies. Well,
nothing
could be
quite like that.” He fiddled with the weights, smiling as if
remembering something most wonderful. “You’ve put on fifteen pounds
already.”

“Christmas,” I said.

“Hmmm.” He pumped up the arm band and took my
blood pressure. I lay on the table and he felt my stomach,
carefully, carefully. I thought about the tiny head, the little
curled up limbs inside me. “Okay, good, I think you’re due date,
what was it, June 29, still holds. Any problems? Questions?”

I hadn’t been planning to say anything about
Kiera. But then I’d expected her to be with me. So when he asked, I
said like a caseworker, “Well, actually, there is a bit of a
problem.” I pushed myself up to a sitting position. “What’s going
to happen to this baby?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Kiera’s told me the two of you plan to keep
it.”

His face flushed, losing its composed,
professional look. “Oh,” he said, “that.”

“Yes.
That
”

“Well.”

“
Well?
”

“What can I say?” He ambled over to his desk
and sat on the edge, swinging a leg casually, as if I’d merely
asked him how much calcium I needed. “You’ve obviously discussed
this with Kiera,” he said, picking up his pen and tapping the
desktop with it. “I’m sure whatever she’s told you is, ah, is
true.”

“But what’s your side of it?”

He seated himself in his chair properly then
and began writing in my file. When he finally looked up at me he
said, “My side is Kiera’s side. I love her very much and I’d do
anything for her.” His voice was so serious he might have been
telling me there was something terrible wrong with my baby. “Come
in here a minute.” He stood and opened a door behind him, ushered
me through.

I entered a second office and he followed.
Three walls were lined with bookshelves, holding what I guessed
must be his collection of early Canadian medical books. On the
fourth hung an intricately carved gilt frame which held an oil
portrait of Kiera as a child. Surrounding it, in antique frames,
were black and white photos of her at various ages from infancy up
to late teens.

Only one, in color, had another person in it.
In that photo two children posed in front of a Christmas tree.
Kiera sat with her ruffled dress tucked under her knees, showing
lacy ankle socks and patent leather shoes. Angus sprawled beside
her, hair untidy, a truck in one hand, a hockey stick in the other.
Written on the photo was:
Christmas, 1975.

I turned to look then at the leather-topped
desk, which was covered with recent photos of Kiera. “Oh,” I said,
“I see.”

Angus cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said,
“that’s how it is. I’ve always loved her, ever since I was a little
boy going up to Malagash with my mother.” He traced the outline of
Kiera’s face in the Christmas photo. “Kiera was a real fairy-tale
princess to me, beautiful and rich and so sweet. I thought I’d
gotten over her, but when she came back last spring, after all
those years, I realized you never really forget what was precious
to you in childhood. I loved her even more.”