Anna Adams - Her Daughter's Father

India lifted her shoulders, uncomfortable with omissions in the picture she’d drawn for Nell. But she might learn more about Colleen here, and then she could go home as she’d told Nettie she was going to. “I’m glad you can use me.” They turned together to the door of Nell’s small office. “I’ll see you on Saturday morning at nine for the toddler’s story time?”

Already distracted by the unusual number of people crowding into the main room to see the historical society’s display of island family photos, Nell nodded. As she drifted away, India searched for Viveca Henderson.

Her landlady had invited her to see this exhibition. India had jumped, just at the off chance of seeing a photo of Colleen as a small girl, as an infant if Viveca could recognize her. But did she need any more regret? Because surely she would grieve even more if she stumbled on a record of Colleen’s life.

India found Viveca at the exact spot where she’d left her, a perfect vantage point. Viveca leaned into India’s shoulder and nodded at the young girl with honey hair who was disappearing around the first panel of photographs.

“That Stephens girl. Her father ought to worry more about her than about his boat.” Her voice rang tartly. “Are you ready, dear? How nice of you to help Nell out.” She held her vintage fifties skirt away from the crowd. “You know, I always liked Colleen until she started going around with that Chris Briggs.”

India no longer wanted to hear island gossip about Colleen. In fact, she bit gently at the inner skin of her cheeks to swallow a defensive response.

The first lady of the Seasider went on. “She’s making decisions she’ll regret one day.”

India curled her nails into her palms. The woman could be too right. Am I not living proof? Though she’d hoped for just this kind of opportunity, she couldn’t take it now. Instead, she wished she’d stayed home, where she’d never have known the townspeople had already begun to judge Colleen.

Small towns. They provided loving arms or bitter verdicts. No in-between in a small town.

Hoping to change the subject, India pointed at the first line of pictures, of women in crisp white shirtwaists and full skirts and men proudly flanking their fishing boats.

“Do any of these families still live here?”

Mrs. Henderson obliged. India cruised along at her side, only half taking in Captain Torquay and the shark he’d netted one day with his shrimp, or the Honorable Honoria Madison, the mayor’s wife who’d run away with a traveling milliner.

“No, Viveca, you’re wrong about Honoria. She was my great-great-great-aunt, and I happen to know….” A woman India didn’t know spoke up.

India ducked out of the conversation, impatient to see the later photos, the ones from the past fifteen years. She strolled through the panels, drinking in the good library air, flavored with old and new books and casually stored newspapers. She missed this world.

She turned a corner and saw Colleen. A study in concentration, the girl might have been completely alone. She saw nothing, appeared to hear nothing except memories suggested by the photo that held her attention.

Her look of utter loneliness drew India on reluctant feet. She’d been right to stop Chris from taking Colleen with him that night, but she was completely wrong to speak to her now, to intrude on the privacy her daughter had drawn around herself. Colleen could never be her child. And she couldn’t let herself forget that.

But Colleen didn’t notice her. Over the girl’s shoulder, India stared at the picture in its simple silver frame. A beautiful woman laughed with love at Jack as he curved his arm around her and smiled into the camera. Something about his smile…The vulnerable curve of his mouth sparked an uncomfortable pang in India’s heart, but the woman’s blissful face intrigued. Her blond hair, as pale as sea foam after a storm, clung to the woven shoulder of Jack’s sweater. Her eyes overflowed happiness.

Mary Stephens, at last. Ashamed of her involuntary envy, India pressed her hands to her belly. “Is she your mother, Colleen?”

As if India at her side didn’t surprise her, Colleen stretched her hand to the finely carved frame. Her eyes glowed, brilliant yet subdued, like light seeping past the door of a closed room. She rubbed one fingertip around the woman’s face.

“That’s Mom. She died three years ago.”

DEEP SADNESS HELD INDIA silent in the face of Colleen’s lingering grief for her mother. Colleen kept her eyes trained on the photo.

“They adopted me when I was only a few hours old. Mom always said adopted children were luckiest, because their parents chose them. I felt pretty lucky until she died.”

Aching for her, India lifted her hand to touch the girl’s arm, but she kept her comfort to herself as Colleen turned with an accusation in her eyes.

“Why does everyone in this town take Dad’s side about Chris when no one knows him the way I do?”

“I can’t speak for everyone else.”

“Why do you, then? What do you think you know about Chris that I don’t?”

Nothing here had turned out as India had expected. Her daughter no longer had a mother. And I can’t step in. She couldn’t tell the truth, and she definitely didn’t want to lie. Not now, when she needed to most.

“When I was your age, I made a mistake.” Putting her hand on her throat, India felt for the lump that made talking difficult. “I don’t know how to tell you this. I’ve never talked to anyone about that time. I hurt myself and my parents—I hurt too many people. Maybe, when I saw you with Chris, I thought of that. Maybe I just don’t want you to be hurt, and I don’t know Chris except for what I saw of him that night at the festival.”

“What makes you think your past has anything to do with me?”

Reaching behind herself, India gripped the lip of a bookshelf. She’d already confessed too much. “Colleen, I know—I know you think nothing bad will happen to you. You can tell right from wrong. You can’t imagine why you’d make a foolish decision.”

Her wide eyes slightly softening her air of haughtiness, Colleen stepped back. “Yeah? So?”

“I don’t want any girl your age to go through what I did.”

“No one in this town believes I’m capable of thinking for myself.”

“Maybe you should think about your grandparents and your father. Think of the place you live and how these people look at you.”

Colleen raked her fingers through her hair, a gesture so familiar to India it brought instant tears to her eyes. Colleen might have been India’s mother in youthful form. India bit the inside of her cheek again. No crying, no whining. I can take this. She’s the important one.

Colleen only shook her head in disgust. “I know how they talk. To them, I’m a child. You’re a complete stranger, and even you gossip about me.” Stranger came out of her mouth like an epithet.

“Colleen!”

India’s tears vanished at the harsh rasp of Jack’s voice. She turned. Tall and male, he vibrated with the wrath of an angry parent.

“Apologize.” Silk in his voice chased apprehensive shivers down India’s back.

“Dad, I—”

He stopped her with a fed-up look. She tilted her chin.

“I’m sorry, Miss Stuart.” Without warning, she relaxed, the stiffness falling out of her body as she tried to claim all of India’s attention. “Sometimes I let my temper go, but I understand what you tried to tell me.”

Touched beyond bearing, India turned to Jack. “She had a right to be upset.”

“I know you left the boatyard with Chris.” Jack closed in on his daughter. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You have to get me back because you’re too young to date an eighteen-year-old boy?”