Ask Mariah Read online

  "It's too late. Mother. I mean Caroline." Her voice came out cold and bitter. She couldn't help herself. If she weakened, if she let the anger go, she would start crying again, and she was tired of crying, of railing against what was already done.

  Caroline's eyes turned bleak as she considered Joanna's words. "That's it? I'm no longer your mother? After everything we've been through together? Being a mother is about more than giving birth. I changed your diapers. I helped you learn to walk. I pulled your teeth out when they got so wiggly you were afraid you'd swallow them."

  "I don't want to hear this."

  "That's too bad, because I want you to hear it. I want you to remember." Caroline's voice grew stronger as she tossed the pillow aside. "I taught you how to ride a bike. I bandaged your knees when you fell. I held you in my arms when you cried. Everything I had to give, I gave you."

  "You didn't give me the truth!"

  "I gave you thirty years of nurturing and care, worrying about you, loving you -- it means nothing to you?"

  She couldn't dispute the logic of her mother's statement, only the heart of it. Love and lies didn't go together. There had to be trust. If not, there was nothing. She walked over to the dresser and picked up the music box. She lifted the lid and watched the tiny ballet dancer do a pirouette.

  "This was hers," she said softly.

  "How do you know that?"

  "Her initials are on the bottom. Michael told me Sophia gave all her children a music box on the day they were born, with the inscription -- to my son or daughter with love. That's how I knew."

  Her mother didn't reply, and Joanna let the music play for another minute before it became too painful to bear. She snapped the lid shut, cutting off the music. When she turned back to her mother, she saw her charm bracelet in Caroline's hand, and the floodgates to the past opened again.

  "We bought you a charm every time we went somewhere, remember?" Caroline asked. "The unicorn came from Disneyland, the oyster from Sea World, the skier from Aspen, and the theater mask from New York City." She smiled wistfully as she twirled the bracelet, letting the tiny gold pieces sparkle in the light. "We had a lot of fun together."

  Yes, they'd had fun. Her parents had given her the world. They'd treated her like a princess instead of a daughter, but she couldn't let go of the hurt. "You lied to me over and over again. That's all I can remember now. Everything else is hazy in comparison. When I think of all the times we talked about our family, all the stories you told that weren't true, I feel sick to my stomach."

  "The stories were true. They happened to our family."

  "To your family, not to mine. I wish you had told me the truth, let me decide for myself what I wanted to know, what I wanted to do."

  "I was protecting you, the way I always did. I wanted to keep you safe and happy."

  "Well, here's a news flash. I'm not happy."

  "Do you think you could have had a better life with her?"

  "I never had the chance to find out."

  "She didn't want you to find out," Caroline said, her voice no longer quietly pleading, but angry. "Your biological mother gave you away. She might have brought you into this world and given you a music box, but after that she abandoned you. If you want to hate someone, don't you think you should hate her?"

  "I do hate her. I hate both of you. And since I'm almost thirty years old, I don't need a mother anymore. In fact, I'd probably be better off without one." She opened the top drawer of her dresser and pulled out some clothes, tossing them onto the bed. When she was done with that drawer, she moved on to the next.

  "What are you doing?" Caroline asked.

  "I'm moving out."

  "Where are you going?"

  "To a hotel for tonight. Then I'll find an apartment or a house, something that's mine. Something that has land and trees and flowers."

  "I could help you look."

  "I don't want your help."

  Caroline stood up. She walked over to Joanna and put a hand on her arm. The warmth of her touch was too familiar, too painful, and she pulled her arm away. She didn't want to remember all the times she'd crept into her mother's lap to watch a movie, snuggled with her parents under the big quilt on their bed, or given them a hug or a kiss. They hadn't been a tremendously affectionate family, but they had loved one another. At least she thought they had.

  "I love you, Joanna. You can't change that. You can't drive me away with your anger. I'm your mother, no matter how much you wish I weren't."

  "You can't excuse what you did in the name of love. If you truly loved me, you would have told me the truth." She paused, her glance catching once again on the music box. "What I can't understand is why Dad went along with you."

  "It was his idea."

  "I'll never believe that. You were the possessive one. You horned in on every party I ever had. You even followed me to my senior prom."

  "I was the chaperon."

  "Most chaperons don't dance with their daughters' dates."

  "I was trying to be cool," Caroline said. "My mother was none of those things. She was a slow-moving matron. She embarrassed me with her tacky clothes and her old-fashioned views. I wanted you to have a mother who fit in, who was fun."

  "Why was fitting in so damn important to you?" she asked in bewilderment.

  "Because I never fit in. When I was a child I had asthma. I couldn't run or play games with the other children. My mother sewed all my clothes, gingham dresses that made me look like a poor orphan. We weren't poor, but she refused to buy anything from the store. And every afternoon when I came home from school, she'd insist that I help her with the housework and the cooking. Lord, I hated to cook."

  "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

  "It didn't seem important."

  "That's why you never wanted to cook or garden or work around the house."

  "No, because that's all I did as a child. I had few friends growing up. Everyone else seemed prettier than me, smarter, nicer. When I finally got married I thought the lonely times were over, but when I couldn't get pregnant, everything came back, the insecurity, the sense of failure. Once again I'd come up lacking." She paused. "Then one day your father brought home a baby girl. I couldn't believe it. We'd only begun looking into the possibility of adoption. When he put you in my arms, I couldn't believe you were mine. In fact, I was afraid someone would take you away, but Edward promised me that wouldn't happen. He said no one would know you weren't our real child. I liked that idea. I wanted us to be a normal family. I was afraid that if you knew I wasn't your real mother, someday you would want her instead of me."

  Caroline's words explained her possessiveness, her overwhelming presence in Joanna's activities.

  "Your father had the birth certificate in his pocket when he came home that day," she continued. "I don't know how he did it. I didn't want to know. It made everything neat and clean."

  "What did you burn the other night?" Joanna asked.

  "Letters. I never read them. I knew they were from her to you."

  "Letters from my mother?" Her stomach turned over.

  "Yes. Edward told me they were there in case you wanted to know anything after we were both gone. Once he died, I was afraid you'd find them, that you'd leave me right then. I couldn't take that chance, so I burned them."

  Silence followed her blunt statement. Long minutes of painful, deafening silence. Joanna looked around her bedroom, at the stuffed animals on the bed left over from childhood, the lingering posters of rock stars from her youth, the casual pants and vests from her academic life hanging in the closet. She had gone through a lot of changes in this room, but none so great as those she had gone through in the past two days.

  Caroline held out her hands to Joanna in a helpless, apologetic gesture. "I'm sorry. If I have to apologize to you every morning and every night of my life, I will do it, because that's how sorry I am."

  "Sorry doesn't mean anything to me right now."

  "Maybe it will when you've had time to thi
nk about it. Nobody did anything to hurt you. We wanted you to have the best life you could have. If we hadn't taken you, God only knows where you might have ended up."

  "What about my real father? Do you know who he was?"

  "Your real father?" Caroline asked in confusion. "Wasn't that Sophia's husband?"

  "No, she said she had an affair." Joanna's heart sped up as she looked into her mother's eyes. Their thoughts turned in the same direction at the same time, colliding in a mutual gasp of disbelief.

  "Oh, my God." Caroline put a hand to her heart.

  Joanna shivered. Goose bumps ran down her arms and legs as once again she was confronted with the unthinkable. Her father -- and Sophia?

  Caroline wrapped her arms around her body. "It couldn't have been him. Edward wouldn't have had an affair."

  Up until a week ago she would have agreed with her. Now she wasn't so sure. "If he was my real father, then he wasn't lying to me," she said slowly. "It makes sense. Sophia didn't give her baby away to a stranger. She gave her baby to the real father."

  "Which makes me the only imposter," Caroline said bitterly. "No wonder Edward kept the secret. If he'd told you the truth, you might have gone looking for Sophia, You might have found out about them." She drew in a long, shuddering breath. "I thought he was protecting me, but he was protecting himself, and he was protecting her." Caroline paced around the room. "No, I can't believe this. I won't believe it. Not until I know for sure."

  "You can always ask Sophia. She seems to be in a talkative mood these days."

  The doorbell rang and they both started.

  "I don't want to see anyone," Caroline said. "Don't answer it."

  Joanna didn't want to see anyone either, but the bell rang again and again and again. Finally she got to her feet and went to the front door. She flipped the button on the intercom. "Yes?"

  "Joanna."

  Michael. She closed her eyes at the sudden wave of longing.

  "Joanna," he said more urgently. "I need your help."

  "I can't talk to you right now."

  "The girls are missing. They've gone to find you."

  "What? I'm right here."

  "They left this morning. I called the police, but I need your help."

  "I'll be right down."

  She almost tripped over her mother as she turned around.

  "What's wrong now?" Caroline asked.

  "Lily and Rose, Michael's children, have run away. They're trying to find me. It's all my fault. I shouldn't have taken off without saying good-bye to them. If anything happens I'll never forgive myself."

  "I'll go with you." Caroline picked up her purse.

  "You can't."

  "Why can't I?"

  "Because you're not part of this. You're not my mother. You're not a De Luca. You don't even know Lily and Rose."

  Caroline stared back at her steadily. "I love you. That makes me part of it."

  'I don't want you involved."

  "Tough. You're not getting rid of me that easily."

  "Aren't you afraid to see the De Lucas -- to meet Sophia?" Joanna tried one last argument. The last thing she needed was a confrontation between her two mothers.

  "I've already met her," Caroline said, surprising her again.

  "When?"

  "Last night, when I went to look for you."

  She suddenly had a million more questions to ask, but no time in which to ask them. "I have to go. I can't do this now."

  "Then let's go."

  What the hell, Joanna decided. She might as well let Sophia and Caroline battle it out. They were the ones who'd started it in the first place.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Lily squeezed Rose's hand as they approached the busy street by the harbor. "We did it. We found the boats. Let's go."

  "We have to wait until the little man starts to walk," Rose said. "Remember, Daddy says you always wait for the little man."

  They waited another minute or two. Finally the light turned green, and the little man came up on the screen. They ran across the street as fast as they could. Rose was relieved to make it to the other side. She had worried about what they were doing, but now that she could see the boats, she felt better. "Where's the park?"

  Lily stood on tiptoes and looked around. "I don't see it. Maybe we'll find it if we keep going."

  They walked along the sidewalk, heading toward the grassy area that her dad called the Marina Greens, They'd flown kites there one day in the spring. She loved flying kites with her dad. He made them go really high. In fact, she loved her dad a lot. Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she couldn't even remember her mother. Especially since they'd met Joanna. She wished Joanna wasn't sad. Maybe they could make her feel better if they could find her. Maybe Joanna and Mama were together, like she and Lily were together. That's the way sisters were supposed to be.

  "There sure are a lot of boats," Lily said. "Do you remember what that man's boat looked like?"

  "I think it was red. Or maybe blue. Definitely not white," Rose said.

  "It had some flags, I think."

  "And the side of the boat had a lady's name on it."

  Lily crinkled up her nose. "Ashley."

  "Or Amber." Rose started to worry again. How were they going to find their mother? Or Joanna? There were so many boats. "I'm getting hungry," she said.

  Lily stopped and opened her backpack. "Do you want some peanut butter crackers?"

  "Okay."

  "We'll have a picnic on the grass."

  "Where?"

  "Over there by that family. We'll pretend we're with them so no strangers will come and talk to us."

  Strangers -- she had forgotten about that. They weren't supposed to talk to strangers or cross the street by themselves or leave the house. Daddy was going to be really mad.

  * * *

  Joanna walked into De Luca's with trepidation. Everyone was there -- all the people she had faced the night before. And now her adoptive mother was with her, too. Caroline Wingate, an ash blonde in a sea of brunettes, returned each stare with one of her own. Joanna had never seen her mother appear so tough, so resolute. She couldn't help but feel a twinge of pride at her bravado.

  "This is ..." Joanna stopped, not sure how to introduce Caroline any more. She certainly couldn't call her "Mother" in front of Sophia. "This is Caroline Wingate."

  Caroline looked disappointed at her introduction, but she didn't say anything. She simply nodded as various De Luca family members said hello.

  Joanna could feel the tension in the room, anger and resentment boiling beneath the surface. She was surprised to see Sophia and Vincent together, or the other members of the family for that matter. She was not the only one to suffer from lies; her half brothers had also suffered, and as she looked from Frank to Tony, she realized that she wanted to get to know them. No matter what happened with Sophia and Vincent and Caroline, she wanted to know the two men who shared at least half her blood. That is, if they were willing to get to know her. But that would have to wait until later. Right now, they needed to find the children.

  Vincent rapped out orders like a drill sergeant. "The police are conducting their own search, but we know this city as well as they do. Tony will look down by the docks. Frank will check out this block and the next, all the shops and restaurants where the girls like to go. Linda and Sophia will take the playground."

  Michael looked at Joanna. "Where do you think we should go?"

  "The Seacliff house and the school to start."

  "Will you come with me?" His gaze met hers, and she knew there was more behind his statement than a simple invitation to join the search. She couldn't say no, not even if it meant spending more time with him, not even if it meant falling more deeply in love with him. He needed her. That was all that mattered.

  "Yes. I'll come with you."

  "Louis and I will check out the neighborhood around our house," Vincent continued. "Rico will stay here and answer the phone. Everybody else spread out and start lookin
g."

  "I'd like to help, too." Caroline stepped forward. Vincent and Sophia stared back at her without speaking. She turned to Michael. "What can I do?"

  He hesitated a moment and then said, "You could stay at my house in case the girls come home. We'll drop you off there on the way to the school."

  "Whatever you want," she said.

  The three of them didn't speak on the way to Michael's house. Joanna had no words and apparently for the moment her mother didn't either. When they reached Michael's house he let Caroline inside, then returned to the car.

  As he slipped the key into the ignition, Joanna put her hand over his. He looked at her with his heart in his eyes. "We'll find them," she said reassuringly.

  He nodded. "I know we will. Thanks for coming."

  "You couldn't have stopped me. I love those little girls."

  "They love you, too." He started the car and drove quickly to the school.

  The yard was empty. Joanna unlocked the door to the school and they searched the classrooms even thought it was unlikely the girls could have gotten inside.

  "They're not here," Michael said in frustration as they took one last look around Joanna's classroom. "I thought they might be here since this is where they found you."

  She felt sick at his words. This was her fault. If she hadn't gone to the party last night, if she hadn't run out on the children, they wouldn't be missing.

  They were only six years old. How could they survive in the big city? She thought of all the things they didn't know how to do. She thought about how little they were. She thought about how scared Rose got when she heard a ghost story.

  Joanna impulsively put her arms around Michael's waist and hugged him. Whatever comfort, whatever strength she could give him was his to take as he needed. "I'm sorry, Michael," she whispered. "I shouldn't have gone to the party last night. I should have taken care of everything in private."

  "It's not your fault. You had every right to confront Sophia the way you did. You were right about the De Lucas -- all the lies, the deceit -- it's no wonder the girls ran away. They don't know who to trust, least of all their father."