Anna Adams - The Prodigal Cousin

“Molly?”

She straightened, immediately alarmed. Tears had marked her mother’s cheeks. “Mom.” Aware only of an urge to fix whatever was bothering her mom, she crossed the room, taking her hands. “You’re crying.”

Eliza touched a lace hanky to one eye, smearing mascara. “A little. May I come in?”

“Why would you ask?” She forced a smile, but the floor seemed to tilt. She hated anything that hurt her mother.

Eliza floated into the classroom. She was still wearing the soft green dress she’d worn at breakfast, but a grease stain formed a circle just above her belted waist. Molly frowned. Her mom believed in the Southern tradition of chiffon and pearls for outside the house. She never wore grease.

“What’s wrong?”

Eliza sniffed the air, showing a sweet profile that only became more lovable to Molly with each passing day. “No more chalk dust. I miss it.”

Molly pointed at the long, shiny surface that had taken the chalkboard’s place. “Whiteboard. Smell the markers?”

“Not the same,” she declared, avoiding the real subject she’d come to talk about. She was starting to shake.

Molly negotiated a path through the wooden desks and helped her to a chair. “I’ll get you some water. What have you been doing?”

“I hardly know. I’ve walked and thought, and now I need to talk. I don’t want water.” With a sudden return of strength, Eliza pushed her into the closest seat. “Let me tell you about myself.”

“What?” Adrenaline lifted Molly’s voice several decibels. Something bad was coming. She gripped her mom’s hands again, reminding herself not to crush the delicate bones. “You’re scaring me.”

“Your father’s furious.”

“Daddy?” She was eight years old again. In the way. Totally expendable. “What’s happened?” For some reason, she thought of Sophie’s mother. Aunt Nita’s affair had nearly destroyed Sophie and Uncle Ethan, but Molly’s mother would never have an affair. Not this mother, anyway. The one who’d cut all ties with her would have considered an affair small potatoes.

“It’s Sam,” her mom said. “And me—and something I did when I was a young girl.”

“Sam?” Molly’s mind went blank. “What does Sam have to do with you?

“I’ve kept the truth from you and your father.” She licked her dry lips. Molly wanted to get her that water, but she couldn’t make her feet move.

“What did you ever do that you’d have to hide?” Suddenly, Sam’s eyes, dark, watchful and worried looking, swam in Molly’s mind. He’d reminded her of her mom. That fast, Molly knew. She’d also been pregnant too young. If any woman on earth had lived a life that prepared her to accept her mother’s confession, Molly had.

But her image of Eliza left no room for such a mistake, and shock blunted her good intentions. “I can’t…I can’t believe you, of all people—”

“He’s my son.” Despair filled her mother’s voice instead of joy.

To Molly, Eliza had been the fairy godmother who’d spirited her out of life’s wreckage. Eliza Calvert had abandoned a child? Never.

A hint of distaste must have shown on Molly’s face, but she’d been an abandoned child herself. She couldn’t contain her feelings or stop herself from showing them.

Even as her mother pushed back from her, Molly found restraint. Whatever Eliza had done, Molly owed her for the only happiness she’d ever known. She had to let her mother explain.

Eliza’s cold hands felt devoid of life. Molly chafed them, dropping to her knees. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“You looked as if you hated me.”

Molly swallowed tears. “I’m scared.” Who knew what came next?

“I didn’t want to give him up. He’s my child—just as you are. But I didn’t know how to give him a life. Please understand.”

“I do.” She couldn’t imagine being able to make the same decision, but this was her turn to give back a little of the support she counted on from her mom. “But why are you sad? I’d give anything to have a second chance with the child I lost.”

Hope entered her mother’s eyes as Molly fought the innate dread of what Sam’s prodigal homecoming meant for her. He was her mom’s real son, born of her body. Her natural child, as Molly never could be. And he’d brought her Tamsin and Nina. Molly would never give her parents grandchildren.

“Can you forgive me this easily?” With a quiver in her voice, Eliza sounded as frightened as Molly had ever been. “Or are you turning yourself into the family protector again?”

“Do you know what I owe you?” Molly continued rubbing her mom’s hands. “I carry my past like a lead weight. I’ll never have anything to forgive you for.”

Her mother’s astonishment surprised Molly. “I don’t want you to forgive me because of some imaginary debt,” Eliza said. “And I thought we didn’t worry about your past anymore.”

Molly shrugged. “I don’t talk about it because you want me to forget, but some of my decisions don’t seem forgivable.”

“Is that how you see me?”

She shook her head, loyalty adding emphasis to her denial. The somewhat terrifying news that Sam belonged to her mom didn’t make Eliza any less of a good and loving mother. “What happened?” Molly asked.

“I wish your father had waited for an explanation.” She pulled one hand free to cover her mouth. Over her fingers and her wedding ring, her eyes looked blacker than ever.

“Last night Sam’s eyes reminded me of yours.” Molly patted her mother’s other hand and let her go. “Don’t worry, Mom. Dad’s probably stunned.”

“I have to tell you—he walked out on me.”

The room began a slow whirl. It was the one possibility she couldn’t bear. “No.” She searched in frightening darkness for comforting words. “You know Dad. He has to deliberate, but he loves you. He’ll walk right back in, ready to listen.”

Tears glittered in her mother’s eyes, brighter than the burnished gold of her wedding band. “A woman who can hold such harmful grudges against herself shouldn’t be able to believe the best of someone else.”

“I haven’t lived with you and Dad for seventeen years without getting to know you.”

“You can’t say that about me now.”

“I am surprised.” She pictured Sam, tall and lean and dark. The widowed father of two children. No one’s idea of a brand-new son. “What does he want? Why did he come?” Then she remembered what he’d said about his wife and parents. “He’s worried about Tamsin and Nina,” she said. “He wants us to be their family.”

Her mother scooted the small chair back and stood. “How did you guess?”

Molly returned to gathering balloon detritus. “I’d feel the same.” She shuddered, thinking of Tamsin and Nina being alone as she had been until Eliza Calvert had discovered the truth about her. “Was he adopted at birth?”

“Yes. I agreed not to get in touch with his family and I never learned their names.” Her mother plucked a ragged blue strip of balloon off the floor and passed it to Molly with an absent smile. “Can you be his sister? I think he needs us, Molly. He needs our normality.”

His sister? The idea repelled her. “I’m twenty-five—too old for a brother.” She’d never think of Sam as a brother.

“I don’t see why.”

Then Eliza hadn’t taken a good look at Sam last night. Molly gnawed the inside of her lower lip. She hadn’t noticed Sam for his fraternal qualities, and she couldn’t look at him that way now. Not even for her mom. “I’ll do my part.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.” Her mother knelt to pull a tangle of balloon bits from under a group of four desks pushed together. “You want to hold back, but our new family won’t work unless you accept him and the girls.”