Deep Blue Secret (23 page)

“I might be able to forgive you,” I hinted, lifting one eyebrow. “If…”

“Anything; just name it.”

“If you give me a
kiss
.” He looked at me dumbfounded. This was not the answer he was expecting. I laughed and tapped the side of my face. “On the cheek of course.”

His lips moved close to mine and landed gingerly on my cheek.

He looked into my eyes. “Anything else?”

“No. You’re off the hook for now. But you still owe me. You can make it up to me later.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said with a smirk. He took a step back. “I’ll talk to you later then?”

I nodded and grinned. Then somehow my legs skipped eagerly in the direction of my house. When I opened the front door I found my mom perched on the edge of the couch, positioned toward the window. She wasn’t even trying to conceal her spying.

Her eyes widened with interest. “What was all
that
about?”

Despite my truly devious intentions, I put on my most innocent face. “What was all
what
about?” I turned without letting her reply and pranced to the garage to find my bike.

It was cool enough that I wore a sweatshirt but it was a beautiful afternoon. Mom and I didn’t talk about anything particular on our bike ride. We just took in the fresh salt air and breezed down the beach path side by side. Being outside in the sunshine brought renewed strength and energy.

I found myself deep in contemplation as I pedaled. Rayne had told me things he knew about my mother and the strange circumstances of my birth. I couldn’t help but wonder more about my father. Was he there when my mom found out she had cancer? She always told me he left before she even knew she was pregnant, but did he know about anything else? Did he know she would recover and if so, was he somehow involved?

My mother was always reluctant to talk about him. Either she was trying to protect me from a difficult truth or the subject was just too painful for her. The closest she ever came to discussing it was the fairytale version of their meeting she’d used as a bedtime story when I was a child. She preferred to bury negative emotions deep inside and put on a cheerful face rather than face the truth.

I knew it would be hard to accomplish, but I had to find out what my mom knew about my father. It wouldn’t be ideal to talk while riding our bikes, there were too many distractions and people around, and I might have to really push her to open up. It would have to wait until we got home.

On the drive back we stopped for some takeout and rented a movie. I suggested we save the movie for later, explaining that I was hoping she’d do my nails in preparation for the dance this weekend. Having nice nails would be a plus, but what I really wanted was to ensure there would be plenty of opportunity to talk.

My mom absolutely loved the idea of course—she was thrilled to do anything to help me get ready for my date with
such a cute boy,
as she put it. I wondered if she actually knew who Rayne was, if she would still be quite so excited.

As much as I wanted to know, I was struggling to bring up the subject of my father. I knew it would be a tough conversation and I felt myself putting it off. After we ate, my mom went overboard with my nail idea and pulled out enough beauty products to perform a full body makeover, including a manicure, pedicure, several face masks, eyebrow tweezing, teeth bleaching, and leg wax.

I thought I might draw the line at the leg wax. Who was she thinking would see my bare legs that night anyway? I certainly wasn’t planning to show them off—although I never knew when Heather might suddenly invite everyone over for a soak in her hot tub. Maybe it was better to be prepared just in case.

It was too bad we didn’t invite Heather to join us for the makeovers. She would’ve loved it for sure. I could picture her and my mother gabbing about boys and shades of nail polish all night. But I knew there would be no chance whatsoever that my mom would open up about my father with Heather around.

We sat on the floor of my mom’s bedroom listening to the radio and taking turns filing each other’s nails. She wanted to know all about Rayne and our plans for the weekend.

According to him it wasn’t a bad idea to let her believe we were dating or at least headed that way. It did seem the most believable explanation why we were spending time together, so I decided to go with it. I even told her about my duet with Rayne during our ride home from school and how he’d offered to pay to fix my car. She ate up every bit of it with glee.

The afternoon turned into evening and I still hadn’t gotten the nerve to bring up my father. I just finished washing dried, purple goo off my face when she handed me two clear strips used for whitening teeth. I took the strips without hesitation and started towards the bathroom to use the mirror, but realized I would have to leave the strips on my teeth for thirty minutes, making it very difficult to talk.

I couldn’t put it off any longer. I turned about-face and said, “Mom, do you—” but I stopped mid-sentence. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. I didn’t know how to start.

“What’s that, sweetheart?” she said, not looking up from the bottles of nail polish she was sifting through.

I wanted to chicken out, but I couldn’t. I had to get this off my chest.

I sat back down next to her on the floor. “Mom, will you tell me the story about Dad again?”

Her mouth tightened, being taken off guard. She laughed nervously. “You’ve heard that silly story a thousand times. Aren’t you getting a little old for that now?”

I knew she would try to brush the question under the rug, but I had to hold my ground.

“I mean the real version, Mom. I’m almost eighteen. I thought maybe, now that I’m older, you could tell me what really happened between you two.”

She jumped up off the floor. “That was a long time ago; I can barely remember the details myself. It’s better to focus on the future.” She moved away from me towards the bathroom. I had to leap off the floor and physically block her to keep her from running away.

I grabbed her shoulders and stared straight into her eyes. “Please; this is my father we’re talking about. I need to know where I came from. It’s not fair to make me go my whole life without knowing at least something about him.”

Her voice shook. “All you need to know is, you were conceived out of love and I’ve never had a single regret for having you. You’re the most precious thing in my life.”

Her sentiments were sincere but I needed more. “I know. You’re the most important thing to me too, but it’s not enough this time. Please, just open up to me this
one time
.”

Mom’s face wrinkled in pain.

I didn’t relent. “You’ve always told me that I can tell you anything; that you don’t want there to ever be secrets between us. But why should I tell you everything if I know you’re not doing the same for me.”

She looked at the floor. “I want you to feel like you can trust me, but some things are too painful to talk about.  It took everything I had to get over your father. It’s not a good idea to stir up those feelings again.”

I grabbed her hand and dragged her towards the bed. “I heard it’s not good to bottle things up inside either. If you talk about it and let it out, you might actually feel better; and if not, then I promise I’ll never bring it up again. We can pretend it never happened.”

She sat on the edge of the mattress with a sigh. “I know you were little, but do you remember how hard it was for me when your grandparents died? They were the only family I had besides you.”

My memories were blurry, but I did remember it was a difficult time. Suddenly I put two and two together and realized why my emotions had been triggered at the book store yesterday. The song playing at the store was the same song that was sung at my grandparents’ funeral. My mom must have listened to it a thousand times the month after they died.

A few suppressed memories managed their way to the surface. They were mostly vague images and flashes in my mind; a crowd of people staring as I clutched my mother’s hand and walked up the isle of a small church, gathered adults speaking in hushed tones over my head, taking a ride to what seemed like a strange park that I now understood was the gravesite, being given two flowers and urged to place one atop each of my grandparents’ caskets.

I remembered my mom crying—so much crying. There were people at our house, coming and going, bringing us food and talking with my mom for what seemed like hours. After a while the people stopped coming and all that was left was me and my mom. The house felt strangely cold and empty.

I remembered waking up that night alone and running fearfully to my mother’s room. I found her lying in bed with the light on, curled in a ball, fresh tears on her pillow. I climbed up beside her. Her arm wrapped around me without speaking.

I didn’t quite understand what happened at the time, but I did understand my mom was sad. She hugged me tight for a moment as a few quiet sobs shook me from behind. Then her crying stopped. She quietly sang the song from the funeral, the one I heard at the bookstore, stroking my hair until I drifted to sleep.

My mind shifted back to the present. “I remember a few things,” I said. “I remember how sad you were for a while.”

Mom’s tone was rigid. “That was nothing compared to when your father left. If you thought that was sad, losing him was a hundred times worse.”

“You must have loved him a lot.”

“I can’t explain it,” she said, expression grave. “It was like I died inside. I didn’t think I would be able to go on. It was too painful to exist without him.”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

“My parents were the only reason I was able to keep going, at least at first. I was a complete mess, but they did everything they could to help me. Your grandma came over every day to take care of me, forcing me to eat and get out of bed. I would’ve lost my job if it wasn’t for your grandpa and his connections at the hospital.”

“So how did you finally get over it?” I asked.

“When I found out I was pregnant, everything changed. It was like I still had a small part of him here with me. When you were born, I stared down into your helpless little eyes and suddenly I had a reason to live again.”

I paused a moment and gazed at her, smiling. She gave me reason to live too.

“So, what about the good parts?” I said.

Her brows pinched together. “What do you mean?”

“If you were madly in love then there had to be some really good times, before he left. I want to hear about the good stuff. Like, how did you guys meet?”

She smiled faintly. “There were definitely good times. I guess the truth’s not too far from the simplified version I used to tell you as a child. I met Lin, your father, at the hospital. You know he spelled his with an
i
, not a
y
.”

“I know his name, Mom.”

She shook her head. “Anyway, he was visiting a sick patient in the hospital during one of my shifts. I walked in the room and I saw him…he took my breath away. He had the most beautiful blue eyes I’d ever seen. But they looked so sad, I couldn’t help myself. We’d never met, but I walked right up to him and hugged him.”

“What did he do?” I asked surprised.

She smiled as if reliving the moment. “He hugged me back.”

“Really?” I said becoming more intrigued. I couldn’t believe she was finally talking to me about this. 

“I remember thinking how strange it was,” she said. “To feel so connected to someone I was just meeting for the first time. It was amazing. It felt almost like—like magic.”

I didn’t think it was strange
at all
. I knew exactly how she felt. “So did you guys talk? Did he ask you out on a date or something?”

“Well not exactly. We talked in the hospital room for a while. The patient’s name was Frank. He was in a coma and there didn’t seem to be much hope for him.” She shifted her other leg on the bed. “I’m glad I changed departments when I went back to work at the hospital. I don’t think my heart could survive Intensive Care anymore. I tried to offer comfort to Lin, but somehow he was the one that ended up comforting
me
.”

I chuckled. “I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I know you too well. You care so much for your patients.” She couldn’t deny it, so she nodded in agreement.

“He seemed so sure of himself,” she continued. “He assured me that Frank would recover. I thought he was just in denial, but his resolve couldn’t be shaken. And sure enough, within a few weeks Frank was awake and moving around again. It seemed like a miracle to me, but Lin seemed to know all along.”

Her description of Frank’s recovery made me think of my own miraculous healing. His may have taken longer than mine, but we both had been in bad enough shape that it seemed impossible to recover—and yet we both did. His miracle sounded like the work of a Keeper, just like mine. If I was right, could that be the same Keeper who healed my mother from her cancer?

“So during all those weeks did you see Dad again?”

“Every day,” she said with a hint of whimsy. “That first night I got called out of the room and had to go back to work. I remember being so worried I would never see him again, but when I walked out to my car at the end of my shift, he was waiting for me. After that we spent every free moment together, talking, laughing, walking on the beach…”

“Wow, Mom; that sounds so romantic.”

She rested her chin in her palm. “It was. It was the most amazing two months of my life.”

“I just don’t get it. Why would he leave?” I said. “It sounds like you guys were so in love.”

“Believe me, I’ve been asking myself the same thing for eighteen years.”

“Didn’t he give any hints?” I asked, frustrated. “Was he from around here? Did he have to leave for work or something?”

She laughed without humor. “I don’t really know. Honestly, I barely knew Lin. I didn’t know where he was from, what he did for work, if he had family. I probably tried to ask at some point, but he always had this way of sweeping me off my feet and making me forget I asked in the first place. He was just so exciting and romantic…and thoughtful and kind. I couldn’t get enough. I guess that was all I needed to know.”

“He sounds like a wonderful person,” I said. “I wish I had the chance to know him.”

 She patted my back. “He really was. But the whole thing was probably stupid of me. From the beginning I was setting myself up to get hurt. I was just a silly girl in love.”

“I don’t think it was stupid,” I said. “I think love makes people do things they wouldn’t normally do.”

“Maybe you’re right, but it’s all in the past now.”

“He didn’t say
anything
before he left? He didn’t even say goodbye?”

“No,” she sighed. “We went to bed in each other’s arms and when I woke in the morning my arms were empty.”

“What about the note and the flower from your bedtime story. Was that stuff all true?”

“Hold on,” she said. She stood and walked to her closet, returning with a small wooden box, a carving of a flower at the center of the lid.

“Your grandpa made this box,” she said.

“Really? Wow, good job grandpa.”