Karina Bliss - What the Librarian Did

“Steady, mate,” advised the purser, who was standing near the exit. “Calm down, eh?”

They both ignored him.

“At seventeen, you see your choices as black-and-white, right and wrong,” said Rachel. “I did, too. And I thought if you didn’t know you were adopted-if I broke all ties-it would be easier for both of us to get on with our lives. I was wrong, Mark.”

“You think?”

The gangplank rumbled down; in relief the dozen passengers debarked, heads down in embarrassment. A couple sent back curious glances.

Mark went to follow, but Rachel barred his way. “Your parents tried to talk me out of it-until I made it a condition of the adoption. I’m just sorry that they kept their word, though it shouldn’t surprise me. They’re good people.”

“Better than you,” he said, wanting to hurt her. But she only nodded.

“That’s why I chose them.”

She wasn’t even going to fight.

He shoved all the contempt he could into his next words. “I don’t want you in my life.”

Rachel seemed to shrink. “That’s your choice.” Even her voice was small as she stepped aside to let him pass.

“Yes,” Mark said savagely. “It is.” Buoyed by righteous anger, he marched down the gangway, then turned. “How does it feel being the one rejected for a change?”

Except Mark was wrong. Rachel had plenty of practice at being rejected.

All the color leached out of her life. For the first time in her life she was rudderless and bereft of the capable, cheerful identity she’d built block by painful block from the age of seventeen.

Worried that Mark would quit university if she remained on campus, Rachel rang her boss first thing Sunday morning. She told him everything so he’d accept an immediate resignation. He refused to accept it and insisted she take a week’s leave to think things over. Rachel didn’t have the energy to argue, but knew she’d never go back. It was too hard.

And thinking things over-every scathing, scalding denouncement-was killing her.

Even hating her, Devin hadn’t told Mark. How could she ever have doubted him? She’d worried that love blinded her to his faults. Instead she should have worried about how love triggered her own deep-seated insecurities.

The truth was, she’d launched into a blind attack the first excuse she got. Because she’d wanted to shut Devin down before she got hurt. It was ironic that the one time he’d tried to deceive her-stripping for the spa with Dimity-Rachel had seen right through him. He was a good man, struggling to make a new life for himself, and she’d used his imperfect past against him.

Hurt him. And hurt her son.

For the first time in five years, Rachel canceled her Sunday lunch for students. Bowed by a grief so bone-deep she couldn’t cry, she spent the day hunched up in an armchair, or lying in bed staring at the ceiling.

When she’d been a scared teenager living in an Auckland youth hostel, ostracized by her parents and community, the conviction that she’d done the right thing-no matter the personal cost-had saved her. More than that, it had fueled her drive to sit up half the night studying for her library degree while working two dead-end jobs.

With that belief shaken, Rachel felt as if someone had let the air out of her.

The phone rang incessantly with voice messages from Trixie, but she didn’t pick up. She had no expectation of hearing from Mark or Devin. Not only had her past lost its meaning, her future had become meaningless, too.

On Sunday night a stormy sou’wester rattled the windows and hammered on the corrugated iron roof of her cottage. Rain stripped the petals off the roses and littered the path with twigs and leaves. The world became the damp, gray chill of her childhood and adolescence, reduced to the clock ticking, light and dark, snatches of restless sleep. Blankness finally settled over her, and even that small inner voice shut up.

When she first heard the banging on the front door at six o’clock Monday night she thought the wind had shaken something loose. It persisted. Despite everything, hope propelled her out of her armchair and into the hall. But when Rachel opened the door it was Trixie standing outside, like a bedraggled black cat. “About bloody time!”

Though her immediate impulse was to shut the door, the maternal part of Rachel wouldn’t let her. “How can you go anywhere in this weather without an umbrella? Come in. I’ll get you a towel.” She headed toward the bathroom.

Squeezing water from her long black hair, Trixie followed. “Why haven’t you answered my calls?” Her abrasive tone grated Rachel’s nerves. “I’ve been worried sick about you, particularly after Mark’s rant.”

She’d forgotten that Trixie knew. In the midst of handing over a towel, Rachel paused. “Is he okay?”

“If foaming at the mouth is okay.” Trixie dried her face, her voice muffled through the towel. “He was furious with me for not telling him as soon as I found out you were his mother.”

“I’m sorry.” The fallout of this just went on and on, and her feeble apologies felt as useful as a Band-Aid on a severed jugular. “You two were good friends.”

Emerging from the towel, Trixie said gruffly, “Why didn’t you tell him as soon as you knew?’

“Because I’m an idiot… Did Mark mention whether he got my message?” She didn’t tell Trixie what it was. If she knew Rachel had resigned her job she’d be here arguing all night. And already Rachel was restless to be alone again.

“He didn’t say,” said Trixie. “He feels like you really did a number on him.” There was accusation in her tone.

Rachel said nothing.

“I still can’t get my head around the fact that Mark’s your son or that you had a baby when you were seventeen and adopted it out. I mean, you love kids so much, I don’t understand how you could have brought yourself to do it.”

Again she waited for an explanation; again Rachel remained silent.

“Now if it was me, I’d understand it,” Trixie continued blithely, “because I’m the hard-nosed one.”

Something inside Rachel snapped. “You’re a child playing at dress up. If you ever came up against real hardship you’d fold like a pack of-” She stopped, controlled her breathing. What was the use? Leading the way to the front door, she opened it. “Please go. I don’t want to hurt you, too.”

But Trixie stood her ground. “I’m sorry, I had no idea… I speak without engaging my brain sometimes.”

“Was Mark at university today?”

“No. Yesterday he talked about going home for a few days to spend time with his par…” Her voice trailed off.

“I’m glad,” said Rachel. There was a chill to the wind blowing through the open door. She hugged herself. “At times like this, you need your family.”

“What about you? Your family?”

“I’m not important. Mark is.”

“Oh, Rach.” Trixie stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her.

“I’m okay.” Out of courtesy, Rachel waited a few seconds before she tried to free herself. Trixie only tightened her hold.

“He said you and Devin broke up, too.”

“I’m okay,” she insisted again, but they both knew that was a lie.

Trixie started to cry. “You’re giving up, I can tell.”

“No, I’m not.” Giving up implied you had something to give up. And both Mark and Devin had made it clear she had nothing left to fight for.

RACHEL’S MOTHER LIVED in an affluent part of Hamilton, a midsize city bisected by the Waikato River. Her house reminded Mark of his grandparents’ home-his adoptive grandparents’ home-in Cambridge.

At least fifty years old, it was brick and tile, with immaculate paintwork and ornate flowerbeds full of old people’s plants-purple hydrangeas; pink and white roses, standard or climbing over freestanding arbors. Even the trees had to be flowering varieties-magnolias and camellias.