While Justine showered, Jenny went into the bedroom and changed Justine’s stale and wrinkled sheets. She gathered up miscellaneous items of clothing for the laundry hamper and stuffed even more bags and boxes of junk food into wastebaskets. The surfaces of the end tables, dressers, desk, and bookcase were thick with dust.
“Miss Havisham, I presume,” Jenny muttered.
Justine had a closet full of silk robes and kimonos to swish around in back in the days when she watched Rory eat breakfast as she drank her juice and green tea. Jenny chose a kimono in
what she knew was her mother’s favorite shade of lavender. She wanted Justine to feel well groomed and serene. She handed the kimono into the now-steamy bathroom, waited a few moments, entered the bathroom, and found Justine combing out her long, dark hair.
It shocked her that so many gray roots showed on her mother’s head. Jenny hadn’t realized her mother colored her hair. Hadn’t realized her mother was getting older.
She dropped a pair of feathered mules by her mother’s feet.
“Let’s go downstairs for some coffee,” Jenny suggested.
For an hour, Jenny treated her mother with the attention and kindness due a grieving widow. She made a pile of cheesy scrambled eggs and toast and set the plate in front of her mother. She phoned the agency and asked that a substitute housekeeper be sent over. She arranged for a hair appointment, facial, massage, manicure, and pedicure for Justine. She punched in the numbers of several of Justine’s good friends and set up lunch dates. She watched color appear in her mother’s cheeks and the glaze disappear from her eyes.
When she’d done what she thought she could for Justine and sensed her mother had achieved some kind of self-control, Jenny said, in a smooth, sweet tone, “Mom, I need to tell you why I’m here.”
Justine smiled. “Oh, Jennykins, you know you’re always welcome.”
“I know, and I’m glad. But I have a specific reason for coming here today.” Her pulse throbbed uncomfortably in her throat. This was harder than she’d expected. “Mom, I want you to tell me who my biological father is.”
“That doesn’t matter—” Justine began, moving her hand as if brushing away a fly.
“But, you see, it does matter. Rory will always be the man who cared for me and raised me, but another man’s genes are in my body, and I need to know who he was.” When Justine’s lips shut tight, Jenny’s temper flared. “Were you promiscuous? Were you sleeping with so many men you can’t narrow it down, or you didn’t know their names?”
Justine’s eyes blazed. “Jenny, what is wrong with you? How can you be asking me these hideously insulting questions!”
“I’m asking you because when I was a little girl, you told me you didn’t know where my father was, and I had to be satisfied with that. But I’m older now, Mom.”
Justine shifted on her chair, folding and refolding the fabric of her kimono about her. “Of course I knew your father’s name.”
“Tell me.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to know his health record. Does he have a family history of diabetes, cancer, mental illness …?”
With a start, Justine’s face changed. She went white. “Jenny. Are you ill?”
“I’m fine, Mom. Not ill. Perfectly healthy. But I’ve been talking with Meg and Arden, and they encouraged me to find out who my biological father is.”
With a sniff, Justine flipped the brilliant silk sails of her kimono over her legs. “Those girls always make trouble.”
“Please. Don’t start. Don’t try to sidetrack me. I don’t want a grand sentimental reunion with my birth father. It’s a reasonable request. I need to know about his medical history.” She crossed her fingers behind her back. There was so much more she hoped to learn. Merely to see his face would be a dream come true.
“He’s perfectly healthy.”
“He is? How do you know?”
“Well, I don’t know
now
. But he was, back when you were … conceived.”
“Mommy, I’m not trying to embarrass you or make you sad. I just want you to tell me his name, and anything else you remember about him. I’ll search for him. I’ll do the investigation. It might be that I can do this all online. I won’t even have to meet the man. But I can e-mail him about his family medical stuff. Don’t you see?” When her mother didn’t answer, she played her ace. “I mean, what about when I have children? Some traits skip a generation.”
Justine’s head whipped up. “Are you pregnant?”
“Are you kidding? I haven’t had sex in months.”
With a momentary flash of her normal charm, Justine said, “A simple yes or no would have sufficed.”
Jenny exhaled a sigh of relief and leaned back in her chair. She sipped her coffee and waited.
With a decisive little shake of her head, Justine faced Jenny straight on. “All right.” Her face softened, and a gentleness brightened her features as she allowed herself to remember. “I was in love with him, Jenny. I want you to know that.”
Jenny only nodded, not wanting to stop her mother’s words.
“He was in med school. I was just nineteen. I was in college at Tufts. I was a virgin. Saving myself.” Tears sparkled in her eyes, but now she was smiling at the same time, and she let her head fall back in a kind of luxurious swoon as she surrendered to her memories. “William Chivers. Willy. We met in a coffee shop in Harvard Square. He was my first real sweetheart, and I was his. Oh, I’m sure I was not his first sexual encounter, but I was his first real love. He was tall, dark, and handsome, all of that. Only”—she laughed, and her long hair swung from side to side—“he always smelled like antiseptic. Well, med school, you know.”
Jenny was breathless at this image of her father, her real father, a medical student named Willy. Gooseflesh broke out all up and down her arms and legs. She could almost
see
him.
“He was enchanted by the technology of medicine,” Justine continued. “I’m sure that’s where you got your affinity for computers. He wasn’t brilliant, though; I mean he had to work hard to keep up with his studies. We both knew that when he became a resident, the work would be relentless and we wouldn’t see each other as much.” She hugged herself, and now the words flowed as she gave herself over to memory. “Six months. We were together six months. Jenny, we loved each other so much. We were so romantic with each other. We said such exaggerated things, like ‘Our passion will last till the end of time,’ you know the sort of things young lovers say, but I meant it and I know he did, too.” A shadow crossed over Justine’s face. Her eyes closed. She murmured. “I was fortunate in my first and last beloveds.”
Jenny waited. She had his name. She could start there. She wanted to hear more, though.
At last, with a little shiver, Justine said, “Well, I got pregnant. I was on the Pill. I don’t know how it happened. He was interning at Mass General. His supervising doctor was ruthless, a perfectionist, a bully and a tyrant. Will and I saw each other less and less. He was so stressed-out. He was always
exhausted
. But Will had such enormous ambition. He wanted to become a transplant surgeon; his grandfather had died of liver disease.”
Jenny’s hand flew to her mouth. Justine was so caught up in her thoughts, she didn’t realize what importance her words might have for Jenny.
“I was nineteen, Jenny, remember that.
Nineteen
.” She nodded, and now the tears that came were tears of sorrow. “For three months I hardly saw him. When I did see him, he was nauseated
with fatigue, which was kind of funny because I was nauseated for a completely different reason, although he didn’t know it. He could hardly see straight. We didn’t fight, but we … drifted apart. I broke off with him. I left school and went to live with my grandmother in western Massachusetts. I suppose he could have found me if he’d tried, but he would have had to make an effort to do it. In my heart I wanted him to try to find me.”
Jenny reached over to touch her mother’s hand. “You must have been terrified.”
Justine nodded. “My grandmother helped. She absolutely thought you hung the moon. The early years were sweet, really. But when Gran died, I had to find a way to make a living. You were old enough to go to school. I returned to Boston to work. I did try to find out where Will was—and I finally located him. By then, he had married someone else.” She pressed her hand over her eyes. “I’m sorry you didn’t have a father when you were a little girl.”
Aiming for lightness, Jenny said, “Oh, I think I turned out all right.”
Gratefully, Justine smiled. “And Rory was a wonderful father to you.”
“Yes. Yes, he was.” Jenny waited a few seconds. “Do you know where Will Chivers is now?”
Justine averted her face. “Google,” she mumbled.
Jenny laughed. “I know. It’s irresistible. I’ve looked up all my old boyfriends.” Quickly she added, jokingly, “Not that I
ever
slept with any of them!”
Justine was still in her own world. “Will’s in Boston. He’s at Mass General. He’s married, he has two children. He lives in Back Bay. I’ve walked past his place, a row house on Beacon Hill. Very posh.”
“You’ve never seen him again in all these years?”
Justine shook her head. “No. Kind of odd, really. Boston isn’t such a big place. But I’m glad I’ve never run into him. I went on with my life. I had you. And I wouldn’t have missed being with Rory for anything in the world.”
“Mom, I’m going to go see him.”
Justine had stopped weeping, but she looked very tired. “I suppose I can understand that. Fine. Someday. Perhaps in the fall, when—”
“No. I mean I’m going to go see him today.”
Shocked, Justine choked out a harsh laugh. “Goodness. Couldn’t you write him a letter first?”
“I have to get back to the island. I have work to do. Plus, the whole legal matter of staying on the island for the summer.”
Justine drew her fingers over her forehead. “Jenny, this is a lot to throw at me, especially right now.”
“I know, Mom. But you’re okay, really, aren’t you? I mean, you’re grieving, but you’re okay?”
Justine’s face reflected her struggle to be honest. “I feel better with clean hair and some real food. I don’t want you to worry about me or think I’ve gone off the deep end. I’m just sad.”
“I’m sad, too, Mom. I miss Dad every day. But I’m going to try to see Will Chivers.”
Emotions flickered over Justine’s face. “When are you going back to the island?”
“I’ll stay here tonight. We could go out to dinner. Maybe even a movie. There’s a new comedy with Steve Carell. You like him, don’t you? Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“I guess.” Justine sagged in her chair. “God. Will Chivers.” She closed her eyes. “I think I’d like to take a nap now.”
“I’m going to try to see Will Chivers,” Jenny repeated.
Rising from the table, Justine waved a listless hand. “Fine. You can tell me about it later. I don’t think I can take anything more just now.” She left the room.
Jenny took her time cleaning the kitchen. She washed the skillet and dishes by hand, letting her thoughts settle. Then she sat down at her mother’s computer on the small kitchen desk and searched for liver transplant physicians in Boston. And there he was.
William Chivers, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital, chief of transplantation.
He was thirty minutes away. Her biological father.
A small photo on the hospital website showed a slender balding man with glasses and a kind face.
There was a phone number, but she didn’t want to phone him. That didn’t seem right. Nor did e-mail. She didn’t want to wait, either. Now that she’d come so close, she didn’t want to wait another second. She looked at her watch. It was a little after two o’clock.
She hurried out to her rented car and drove.
Again, she played music to cover the panicky absence of thoughts, or perhaps it was a collision of thoughts, like white being all colors. Urgency pressed on her skin, pinched her lungs, abraded her lips against each other as she drove along the crowded roads, carefully not speeding, but still deftly steering around slow-moving vehicles, sputtering trucks, and old people clutching the steering wheel with both hands.
The Longwood Medical Area along Brookline Avenue was a complicated stretch of brick buildings, parking garages, fast-food restaurants, medical supply stores, pharmacies, and doctors’ offices.
She parked on the fourth floor of an echoing garage, took an elevator to the street, and crossed over to the entrance to the hospital.
Inside, at the information desk, they told her the location of Dr. Chivers’s office: wing L, second floor.
Jenny marched through the long corridor, head high, aiming for a resolute and slightly officious walk, as if she were supposed to be here. No one stopped her. No one even looked her way. Probably he wouldn’t even be in his office, she thought. It was summer, after all. Probably he wouldn’t be back from vacation for weeks. Maybe months.
Still, her heart tripped and fluttered. Her breathing went wonky, uneven. She could feel her toes, fingertips, and lips going numb. Well, if she had a heart attack, at least she was in a hospital! A nervous giggle rose in her throat.
There was the door. Transplantation Offices.
She ran her fingers through her hair. What was she wearing? God, how did she look?
All right, all right, calm down
, she told herself. She was wearing a simple blue linen dress, no jewelry, and sandals with a low heel. She looked
fine
.
He wouldn’t be there anyway.
She opened the door.
She stepped inside a room filled with chairs and coffee tables littered with magazines. Almost every chair was occupied. Her heart sank. Of course patients were waiting to see him. Well, she’d waited thirty-one years. She could wait a few more hours.
The reception counter was in the middle of the room. It was high and forbidding. Behind it, several women tapped on computers and barked the names of medications at each other.
“May I help you?” one of the women said.
Jenny was trembling. “I’m here to see Dr. Chivers.”
“What time is your appointment?”
“I don’t have an appointment. This is personal. I’m a relative.” She waited to be stonewalled, refused as a fraud.
“Down the hall, turn left, past the water fountain.” The woman went back to her computer.