Authors: Barbara Freethy
"She's coming around," Alex said.
Sure enough, her grandmother was moving her arms and legs. She blinked a few times, then opened her eyes, her expression more dazed than before. "What- what happened?"
"You fainted," Alex said gently, as he knelt beside the couch. "Right after we told you about Sarah."
Susan stared at them both, then struggled to sit up. "I don't understand any of this. Who are you people? Why are you here? Is this some kind of a cruel joke?" Anger entered her voice.
"It's not a joke." Julia sat down on the other end of the couch while Alex stood up and backed away, giving her grandmother some space. "My name is Julia DeMarco. My mother, Sarah, told me years ago that her parents disowned her when she got pregnant with me. I always believed that to be the truth until Alex called you this morning and you said that Sarah died twenty-five years ago."
"She died in a fire," Susan began, then stopped. "But that picture you showed me… Can I see it again?"
Julia handed her the photo and watched the myriad emotions cross Susan's face as she studied the picture. She traced Sarah's figure with a shaky finger.
"This is her, my baby, but she's so much older than when I last saw her."
"She was fifty-one then, fifty-eight when she died this year."
Susan started shaking her head again. "She was thirty-three when she died. I know, because it was right after her birthday. We got a call from Chicago," she said haltingly. "A woman we didn't know. She said she was Sarah's next-door neighbor and that she had horrible news. There had been a fire in their apartment building. Sarah didn't get out. There was nothing but ash when it was over." Her voice caught and she struggled for control. "I couldn't believe Sarah was dead. I thought it was a nightmare, and I would wake up, but I didn't." She turned to Julia, her brown eyes big, pleading, filled with pain. "Why? Why would anyone tell me that she was dead if she wasn't?"
Julia swallowed hard, her heart breaking at the agony on her grandmother's face as she relived the moment when she'd heard her daughter was dead. Only now she had to grapple with the fact that Sarah hadn't died then. She'd lived for another twenty-five years, but she'd never gotten in touch. Why not?
"My mother said that you turned her away when she got pregnant," Julia said again. "Do you know why she would have told me that?"
Susan's face was a portrait of confusion. "I don't know. Sarah was pregnant once, when she was twenty-seven years old. She had an ectopic pregnancy, in the tubes, you know. She had a lot of complications. The doctor said she'd never have children after that. She was devastated by the news. Her boyfriend left her. He couldn't bear the thought of marrying her and not having kids. It was a very sad time."
Julia couldn't believe what she was hearing. "But she had me, and she had another child, too, my little sister, Elizabeth. She had two pregnancies after that" one."
"How old are you?" Susan asked.
"I'm twenty-eight. My mother was thirty when she had me. How could you have not known about me? That would have been three years before she supposedly died in that fire."
Susan started to speak, then began to cough, choking on the emotion, Julia thought, as her grandmother's cough turned to sobs. Susan struggled to get up. "I have to…" She didn't finish her sentence, but they could hear her crying all the way to the bathroom.
"This is awful. We're killing her," Julia whispered. "I don't know what to do."
"You can't stop now," Alex said. "You're in the middle of it, and she deserves to know the truth, too, don't you think?"
"Maybe she would have been happier not knowing. I'm ruining her life. Her daughter lied to her and never visited her or spoke to her in twenty-five years." Julia shook her head, not understanding how her mother could have done such a thing. The woman who had raised her had been kind, gentle, compassionate. How could she have turned her back on her family? Unless there was some misunderstanding… That had to be the reason. Sarah had obviously believed the
Davidsons
didn't want her. Why?
"I wish my grandfather was still alive," she said to Alex. "Maybe he knew more than he shared with his wife."
"Somebody knew something," Alex said. "If we ask enough questions, maybe we'll get to the truth."
"This is hard."
"Just stay focused on what we're trying to accomplish."
She eyed Alex thoughtfully. "Is that what you do when you're in a difficult situation-you simply put your heart on hold?"
"It's how I survive."
"I don't know if I'm made that way. I hate hurting people."
"In the long run you might be helping her. She may have lost her daughter again, but she's gained two granddaughters. That should be worth something."
She smiled at his attempt to make her feel better.
"That didn't work, but I appreciate the effort." She rose as Susan walked back into the room with a box of Kleenex. Her eyes were red and swollen now, and she appeared to have aged ten years since they'd arrived, but she wasn't crying anymore. That was something. "Are you all right?" Julia asked.
"I don't think so. But I want to hear the rest of your story."
"I'm glad," Julia said, offering her a thankful smile. "It means a lot to me."
"You're really my granddaughter?" There was a note of wonder in her voice, but no sign of anger or disappointment.
"I think so. Why don't we sit down. We can start at the beginning, wherever that is."
"Why don't we start with Sarah and her years at Northwestern," Alex suggested as Susan and Julia took seats on the couch.
Susan twisted a Kleenex between her fingers as she considered Alex's question. "Sarah was in Chicago a long time. After she got her bachelor's degree, she went to graduate school to get a master's degree. She wanted to work at the United Nations, something important like that. She always had big dreams of changing the world. She used to sit with my mother for hours, listening to her stories of life in the old country. I think that's where her passion for the language began. She would often call my mother on the phone just to practice her accent."
Julia's heart skipped a beat. She had the terrible feeling she knew what accent Sarah had been practicing. She looked to Alex and saw the same gleam in his eyes.
"What language did Sarah speak?" Alex asked.
"Didn't I say? I'm sorry. My mother was Russian. Sarah spoke fluent Russian."
Chapter 9
Julia couldn't stop the gasp that slipped through her lips. "Your mother was Russian?"
"Yes, my mother came over to this country right before the revolution. She never lost her accent or her desire to speak her native language. I'm afraid I didn't share that desire. It embarrassed me that my mother spoke a foreign language, but Sarah was different. My mother came to live with us when Sarah was a teenager. They loved each other very much. They had a special bond." Another tear drifted down her cheek. "My mother died when Sarah was twenty-four. It was a very difficult time for her. They were so close." She wiped her face with her tissue.
It was too much to take in, Julia thought. She had so many questions, she didn't know which one to ask first. She got up and paced around the living room, too restless to sit. She walked over to the mantel and picked up a photograph of Susan and a man who was obviously her husband.
"That's Henry," Susan said. "He died last year."
Julia picked up another photograph, one of Sarah as a little girl, sitting at a piano-the same piano that was in the corner of the living room. "She told me she didn't know how to play the piano," Julia murmured.
"Really? Sarah was very good at it," Susan said.
"It's strange. I've seen the picture, but I don't feel as if we're talking about the same person."
"I don't, either," Julia replied.
"Tell us what happened after Sarah got her master's degree," Alex interrupted. "What kind of work did she get?"
"She got a job teaching Russian at a university," Susan replied. "She fell in love with a professor there. He was the father of the baby she lost. After he broke up with her, she quit her job, and I'm not sure what she did next. She told me she was traveling, taking time for herself. We didn't see her much, a handful of visits in three years. Then she was-gone."
"You never had a fight or disagreement that harmed your relationship?" Julia asked.
Susan shook her head. "Nothing. The last time we spoke she said she loved me very much."
"When was that conversation?" Alex asked.
"About two weeks before they told me she died."
Alex frowned at her answer. "Didn't you ask questions? Didn't you inquire into the circumstances of her death?"
"Alex, give her a chance to explain," Julia said quickly. Alex wasn't nearly as emotionally involved with Susan as Julia was, and she wanted him to take it easy on her grandmother.
"I'm sorry. I don't mean to push you. I just wonder how you came to believe Sarah was dead."
"Henry asked all the questions. He went to Chicago, and spoke to the police. They said the fire was due to a spark near a gas can. There was an explosion. By the time the fire department got there, the town house was engulfed in flames. Sarah was the only one at home. Her roommate was actually out of the country at the time. So she escaped…" Her voice broke, and tears began to stream down her face once again.
"It's okay. You don't have to say any more," Julia told her.
"When Henry asked to see her… they said there was nothing left to see." Susan drew in a deep, painful breath. "We buried her ashes in the cemetery down the road. I've gone there every year on her birthday. I pray for her and I talk to her and tell her about our family, our life." She sniffed as her mouth crumpled once again. "How could she have been alive and not let me know?"
Julia had no idea how Sarah could have let her mother suffer the way she had. For twenty-five years she'd kept her silence, allowing her mother to believe she was dead. Unless… was there another explanation? Had there been a third party involved in the deception? Had Sarah been told her parents didn't want her at the same time her parents were being told she was dead? Was that even remotely possible? There was a time discrepancy. And that time was what bothered her the most. Sarah had supposedly died when Julia was three years old, about the time that photograph was taken. But Sarah had always told Julia that her parents had disowned her when she became pregnant.
"I just can't understand why Sarah would have hurt me that way," Susan added, dabbing at her eyes. "I thought I'd cried out all my tears, but they just keep coming."
"I'm so sorry," Julia said, feeling helpless in the face of such terrible grief. "I shouldn't have come here and dropped these revelations on you."
"You said I have another granddaughter, too?"
Julia nodded. "Elizabeth. I call her Lizzie. She and I have different fathers. I don't actually know who my father is, but my mother married Gino DeMarco when I was five years old, and nine months later Lizzie came into the world. She's twenty-two now. And she's beautiful. She looks a lot like our mother."
"You don't look anything like Sarah," Susan said.
Julia knew Susan didn't mean anything by her somewhat harsh words, but they still stung. "She used to say I had her nose and her long legs, but you're right. We really didn't look much alike."
"And she told you that we disowned her?"
"That's what she said."
Susan shook her head in disbelief once again. After a moment, she asked, "Where do you all live?"
"San Francisco."
"That's so far. How did Sarah end up in San Francisco?"
Julia could only shrug. "She never spoke of her past. She said it was too painful. And she kept her silence up until the day she died."
"How did she pass?"
"She had breast cancer. She fought hard for two years before she lost the battle."
Susan's eyes
teared
once again. "My mother had breast cancer. They shared that, too." She paused for a long moment. "I'm glad Sarah got to be a mother, that she found love." Her voice was heavy with sadness. "I'm sorry she didn't want her father and me to be a part of her life. That I'll never understand."
Julia looked to Alex for help. She didn't want to say any more. It seemed as if every word that came out of her mouth only brought her grandmother more pain.
"Maybe we should go," he suggested.
"No, don't go," Susan said suddenly. "Not yet. I have so many questions to ask. Do you have any other photos of your mother?"
Julia nodded. "Yes, I brought several with me. I was wondering if you had any pictures of her when she was a little girl."
"Upstairs." Susan stood up. "I'll show you everything I have, and you'll tell me about your life together. And maybe somewhere we'll find some answers."
***
It was after midnight by the time they left Susan's house and checked into the hotel near the airport. Julia was exhausted but also wired. She'd seen her mother's bedroom as well as dozens of photographs of Sarah as a little girl. She'd learned about her grandfather, grandmother, and assorted relatives. They'd shared stories and tears. Alex had been as patient as a saint through it all. She glanced at him now as they took the elevator to the third floor and walked down the hall to their adjoining rooms, wondering what he was thinking.