Kindred Spirits (20 page)

“Lynne didn’t speak highly of me.” Eunice brushed away her tears with her knuckles. “She didn’t speak of me at all.”

That was true, of course. “She loved you very much.”

“I have no daughter. My daughter left in the middle of the night and never told me where she was going. Years of sleepless nights, I waited for a phone call, a note, anything to indicate she was alive. But none came. None ever came.” Turning to them, her eyes red-rimmed, cheeks damp, she said, “My daughter went off into the darkness and disappeared. My daughter has been dead for years.”

“Lynne turned out fine,” Beth said. “She married a man named Sean and became an art teacher and had twin boys, Kevin and Kyle. Your grandchildren.”

“Grandchildren,” Eunice whispered, shaking her head, as if refusing to hope. “It’s been so long, so very long. You don’t know how I’ve dreaded a visit such as this.”

“I understand,” Beth said. “I’m a mother, too. We’re all mothers. And our heart goes out to you.”

“We’re here because Lynne loved you,” Mary Kay said, leaning close. “Therese said you should think of Dorney Park and the day you found out you were pregnant.”

Eunice rubbed her brow. “How would Therese have remembered that? Dorney Park. I couldn’t go on any of the rides.”

“Please read the letter,” Carol said, getting up and handing her the envelope for another try.

Turning again to the window, she said, “One of you do it. I can’t.”

Carol opened the envelope, removed the folded, white, lined paper, and read a bit. “Why don’t you do the honors,” she said, handing it to Beth. “Lynne would want that.”

Holding the paper firmly between her hands, Beth cleared her throat:

Beth folded the letter and set it on the Bible on Eunice’s lap.

Eunice ran her arthritic fingertips over its edges, smoothing them. “I loved her,” she said. “I loved her as much as any mother could love a child. She was my angel. I used to rock her on my lap at night and roll her hair in rag curls and sew her dresses. I made her paper dolls. She was my darling. And now this is all I have left of her. This is all that’s left of my only child. Words.”

Mary Kay took Carol’s hand.

“Lynne never realized how proud I was of her. Even after the baby.” Eunice straightened the pink cuff folded over her white blouse. “All I wanted was for her to have a normal life. She deserved that.”

Mary Kay said, “Do you know what happened to . . .?”

Eunice wasn’t listening. “I never wanted her to be a mother at such a young age, to be saddled with that responsibility. I wanted her to be able to truly enjoy motherhood when she was ready.”

“She did enjoy motherhood,” Beth said. “She was the best mother ever and her children made her incredibly happy.”

“Lynne got it into her head that I was ashamed of her. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Eunice went on. “I was frightened and acted hastily, bossily, which I tend to do when I’m scared. I went to our priest, who suggested a lawyer, Douglass Andersson. Mr. Andersson suggested I send Lynne away to spare her humiliation. So, I called Therese and we found Dr. Dorfman and it was done. Mr. Andersson arranged everything.” Eunice bowed her head, ashamed. “Lynne hated me for what I did. Hated me. But why she had to run away and never come back, that I’ll never understand.”

What was it about mother/daughter relationships that made them so complicated? Mary Kay asked herself, not for the first time. Was it because women feel too much? Or that they expect too much? Look at Eunice and Lynne. Years lost over a stupid misunderstanding. Grandbabies never held. Christmases never celebrated. And now Lynne was dead and nothing would be the same. Ever. Memories could not be recaptured.

Mary Kay went over to kneel in front of Eunice. “Lynne didn’t hate you, she emulated you. Like Beth said, she was a hands-on mother. She helped the boys build tree houses and took them camping. . ..”

“And she made your cupcakes!” Beth just remembered. “They had frosting an inch thick. She used to say they came from her mother’s recipe.”

“Yes, those are my buttercream.” Eunice put a hand to a gold pin on her sweater, near her heart, pleasantly surprised. “That recipe was handed down from my own mother. Oh, my. The things you never think will matter. . .”

“Are the things that do.” Mary Kay stroked the woman’s hands. “Your daughter remembered those small gifts and she passed them on to her sons. Her only regret was that she couldn’t pass them on to her own daughter. Do you suppose there’s a way we can fix that?”

Eunice thought about this. When she spoke, her voice was thick and dull. “I don’t know exactly what happened to Julia, but I know this much: She stayed nearby. That’s what Mr. Andersson assured me. Go ask him. He knows where Julia is. His son took over the firm, but it’s still on Main Street, right by the courthouse.”

Mary Kay rose, sensing that Eunice might want to be alone. “It’s too bad you and Lynne had a falling out, Mrs. Swann.”

Eunice smiled weakly as she slid the letter into the Bible. “Lynne wrote me this because she never stopped loving me, just as I never stopped loving her.” She cleared her throat. “Do you have a daughter, dear?”

“I do,” Mary Kay said. “Her name is Tiffany. She was my niece and I adopted her when her parents died in a car crash, but I love her as my own.”

“Then you’re lucky. Sons are a godsend, but a daughter stays with you through thick and thin, fire and rain, life and even death.” She placed her hand over the gold pin over her heart. “Here.”

T
he women burst from Beckwood’s stifling heat into the refreshingly cool evening air.

Beth felt light-headed, like she might faint. “I don’t know how you nurses do it, Mary Kay, breaking bad news to families day after day.”

“Bad news is what we try to avoid.”

“Even so.” Beth unlocked the car and climbed in, eager to get away—far, far away. She felt guilty about not staying longer. They should have at least accompanied Eunice to dinner, but she insisted on being alone and April gently suggested that Eunice should be given space. She assured them that her doctor had been alerted, as had the staff, to check on Eunice frequently and offer support.

The situation was so awful. So sad and lonely and . . . hopeless. Beth couldn’t conceive of twenty-four hours of not speaking to her mother, much less thirty years. Sure, sometimes their closeness was suffocating. It was impossible for Elsie to resist weighing in if Beth so much as rearranged the furniture, and it would be nice to pack on a few pounds over the holidays without her mother discreetly pushing the grapefruit.

But Elsie was so much a part of her life that when she and Chat left for a two-week cruise, Beth found herself automatically picking up the phone to call them, forgetting they were incommunicado. It was the longest two weeks of her life. She missed not being able to brag about David and hear Elsie gasp in admiration or ask how to get her hydrangeas to bloom in pink instead of blue. She felt almost disembodied.

It made sense now, why Lynne was so reserved when every spring Elsie swooped in with a trunk of annuals so she and Beth could spend a glorious warm afternoon digging, weeding, and planting. It hadn’t occurred to her until meeting Eunice and reading that letter that Elsie’s presence must have made Lynne long for her own mother.

“What do you think will happen to Eunice?” Beth asked as they pulled out of the Beckwood parking lot. “Her husband’s dead. Her daughter, too. She doesn’t have any children. Who will be there for her?”

“Seems like Beckwood’s been preparing for this,” Mary Kay said, heading across the parking lot. “Eunice might have talked herself into believing that her daughter was dead as a coping mechanism, but obviously Lynne maintained close contact with the staff. They knew she was alive and knew she was dying, too. You heard April say they had professionals on call to help Eunice deal with the shock.”

“It wasn’t shock.” Carol, who’d been quiet in the backseat lost in thought, suddenly piped up. “I’ve had a glimpse of what it’s like to be estranged from your child and even if you’re separated physically, that doesn’t mean you’re apart spiritually. I would know if Amanda were dead, perish the thought. I could feel it in my bones.”

Beth turned around in her seat. “And you think Eunice felt that too?”

“I think Eunice knew a lot more than she let on. I bet she suspected that we—or someone—was coming to tell her Lynne had died.”

Which would explain the pearls and frills, Beth thought, and possibly the Bible in her lap. Not because it was Sunday, but because by the time they arrived, Eunice was ready to mourn.