Chapter 65
Hannah walked into the hospital elevator carrying daisies. She had never noticed it before, but everyone seemed to love daisies, smiling openly at the white and yellow flowers in their paper cone as she walked through the parking lot to the hospital and crossed through the brightly lit reception area. They were definitely Keeley’s favorite flower and perfectly reflected her perennially sunny mentality.
Hannah pushed the button for the eighth floor and the doors slid shut.
“Oh, daisies! I love daisies,” said a pudgy middle-aged Asian woman wearing jeans and a sweater and standing beside Hannah in the elevator. She craned her neck to look into the cone. “They remind me of this field that used to be behind my parents’ house. My sister and I were always picking them and making daisy chains.”
Hannah smiled and nodded. “They’re for my mom. Well, uh…”
She started to correct herself and stopped. Keeley was her mother, her adoptive mother. Aunt Zooey was her birth mother. She loved them both, she didn’t have to choose. What a world of difference a few days made. Plus the bated-breath news, what had them pacing the waiting room and running their cell-phone batteries dry checking in with each other when they weren’t there, they had gotten yesterday evening: Keeley had pulled through. She was out of ICU and in a regular room, off of the respirators, healing.
Hannah wasn’t sure if struggling with the truth about her Aunt Zo had made dealing with the fear about her mother’s health better or worse. She only knew it had been like going through a storm. First, there had been the shock. She couldn’t believe it. Aunt Zo was her mother. How had they hidden from her for so long without her guessing? Was she stupid? And why didn’t they trust her with the truth earlier?
That was when she started growing angry and embarrassed. Who else knew? Hannah had been made to look like an idiot, a fool. The Barefooters all talked about love so often, you’d think they were experts, yet they broke her trust, and trust was the most important thing in any relationship. She tried to figure out who on Captain’s knew about her. Had Mrs. McGrath? But no, she had referred to Keeley as Hannah’s mother without hesitation. Maybe it wasn’t common knowledge. The only thing Hannah knew for sure was that she couldn’t talk to Zo while she was still so angry.
To raise the tension even higher, all of them had been called down to the Suffolk County Sheriff’s office for further questioning related to the drowning death of Rose McGrath. Hannah checked in with Aunt Pam, looking for guidance, but all she had to offer was the seemingly-obvious instruction to tell the truth.
“The truth? I don’t even understand what it is. What was going on that night?”
Aunt Pam shook her head and said, “Something that took years to come to a head. Rose had it in for Keeley for as long as I can remember. We never took it seriously, though. I don’t know what happened that night except what you and Zo told me, that Rose attacked Keeley.”
“She set the house on fire, too. I didn’t have anything lit, just that little flashlight you keep on the windowsill, so it wasn’t an accident. Anyway, they’ve already confirmed it was arson. The gasoline.”
“I still can’t believe it. You know, the way they questioned me, you’d think we had something to gain by burning our own house down. It’s nuts.”
Hannah had never been involved with the law, only watched shows about it on television. The reality wasn’t as dramatic or as seedy as the shows she’d watched implied. It was boring, actually. The room where she was questioned looked like a typical meeting room in any office, fluorescently lit, cheaply furnished, and functional. The investigators were matter-of-fact average-looking men she could imagine meeting at a neighborhood party, not tough-bitten characters who fired off questions while shining a bright light in your eyes.
Still, the whole thing was scary and she was glad when it was over and Rose’s death was determined to be accidental, rather than pinned on Keeley as she had feared. She thought that would have been the ultimate irony, her mother charged with the death of the woman who intended to kill her. The investigators wouldn’t get in a conversation with Hannah when she had questions of her own about Mrs. McGrath’s intent that night. Had she gone there planning to kill Keeley?
The only thing that the newspapers revealed was that Rose was responsible for the burning of the Barefooter house, her fingerprints all over the empty gasoline container discovered near the scene. The papers also said that Phillip McGrath, Rose’s husband, was a person of interest in the investigation initially until he was cleared due to his airtight alibi: he was out having dinner with an old college buddy on the night of Rose’s death. A large number of witnesses attested to Phillip’s whereabouts as he and his friend dined and then visited a few bars, socializing until late that night, which put him in the clear.
When Hannah woke this morning, after the first decent night’s sleep she’d had in what felt like weeks, a calm had descended. Part of her feeling of peace was knowing that Keeley would live. An even bigger part had been her hours-long conversation the night before with Daniel, sitting on stools next to the island in his apartment’s kitchen. She had put it all out there, told him everything. Together, they had sorted out a great deal, though most of the conversation was one-sided with Hannah talking and Daniel listening.
After waking the next morning, she crawled quietly out of the bed trying not to disturb Daniel, and found her cell in her bag on the living room floor. Curled up on a chair in the living room, she called Aunt Zo. Her mother. Actually, she hadn’t decided what to call her yet. Zo had answered the phone so quickly it was as if she’d been waiting for Hannah’s call. They talked for over an hour, Zo answering every question – from practical questions about Hannah’s birth to deeper questions about the choice they’d made about her mothering.
“It didn’t matter what you called me. All that mattered was how I felt about you, this pure thing. And I was always there, tucking you in at night, feeding you, holding you. It was the best kind of adoption – your getting a huge pool of love from all of us,” Zo said.
It was an intensely satisfying and sometimes painful conversation. Hannah was amazed to realize how comfortable she was, had always been, talking to her mother. They finished with the details of their plan to meet at the hospital and hung up. The words of love that had always been the final seal on their conversation were awkward, fraught with so much more meaning and need than before.
The elevator’s bell dinged and the doors slid open. Hannah stepped out, nervousness assaulting her. Keeley knew that Hannah had been told the whole story. While Keeley was in ICU, she was always asleep when Hannah visited. It had been convenient. Hannah didn’t know what to say. Now, those tip-tilted big blue eyes would turn to her, wide open, awake, waiting. There were so many questions and so much to explain. Would they ever come to terms with the things that had gone wrong between them? Hannah felt an outpouring of sympathy for her mother and more desire than ever to wipe the slate clean.
Yet, this woman had lied to her for all those years. This woman had abandoned her over and over as a little girl. This woman had summarily shoved her out of her life when Hannah was only twelve, barring her from the Barefooter house, her summertime home, as if it meant nothing. By then, they’d moved into a small bungalow of their own, one that Keeley had saved for and had gotten for a steal because she knew the owners. On that day when she was turned away from the Barefooter house and the comforts she’d counted on there, the jealousy had been born in Hannah’s heart, a black creeping thing that had continued to grow all these years until it began tearing her apart from the inside out.
Hannah forced herself to walk down the hospital hallway, reading door numbers until she came to Keeley’s room. She took a deep breath and opened the door, bracing herself for the usual crowd scene that Keeley cultivated.
Keeley was alone in the room. She turned to look at Hannah, her eyes widening. She had been almost plump when Hannah had last seen her, which had been a surprise. Now she looked tiny in the hospital bed, a mini-mom. Zo wasn’t there. She’d promised she’d be there to help Hannah through this. A broken promise – a first for the two of them.
“Hi sweetheart,” Keeley said, her voice raspy and weak. “Don’t just stand there, come here and give me a hug. And those flowers! Those are daisies aren’t they?” She smiled and reached for the flowers.
Hannah crossed the room and handed them to her.
Keeley put them down beside her on the bed. “Now, my hug.” Keeley put her arms out wide, opening and shutting her hands like a baby.
Hannah leaned in and hugged her, breathing in the lemony musky smell that was Keeley. “Hi Mom.” When she pulled away, she saw Keeley looking at her sadly.
“Am I still going to be your mom?”
Hannah choked out a nervous laugh, “Of course. You’re always going to be my mom.”
“What about Zo?” She searched Hannah’s face.
“She’s my mom, too. My birth mom. I just didn’t know I was adopted.”
“Not officially,” Keeley said, shaking her head. “That would have been a giveaway. It was our secret.”
Hannah sat down on the bed beside her, trying to push down the bubble of anger that rose inside of her. “How could you keep it a secret for all those years? Why didn’t you tell me?” She was glad to hear that her voice sounded reasonable.
Keeley’s lips trembled and she pushed them together tightly. She looked away. Then she said, her voice wobbling a little, “I didn’t want to stop being your Mommy. Once I had it, I couldn’t let it go. It wasn’t Zo. It was me. I wanted all the things that were meant to be. Me and Michael. You were all I had left of him, of what could have been. And I loved you too much, couldn’t stand the idea that you might run to Zo once you knew, leave me all alone.”
Hannah looked at her still-gorgeous mother. But it wasn’t true, Keeley was never alone, never lacking love, was always surrounded by friends and admirers vying for her attention. “No, I can’t believe that. Too much of what you did says the opposite: that you wanted to be rid of me.”
Keeley looked back at her, eyes pleading. “No, I didn’t. I just… I just didn’t know how to be a good mother. I didn’t even know where to start. All I had to work with was other people’s mothers, TV moms, but that only worked with everyday life, when things were good. When things were bad, when things went wrong, I was lost. So I made promises to myself. I promised I’d never hit you. I promised I’d encourage your friendships, never get in the way. I promised you’d always have a home, I’d never never kick you out.”
“But the Barefooter house, when I was twelve?”
“Oh, but you had a home, only a few doors down. Our little itty bitty place.”
“But the Barefooter house was my home.”
Keeley shook her head. “The Barefooter house was your hideout. You could hang out all day with the grownups and never see a kid your age. The island was full of kids and you didn’t have even one summertime friend. Something was wrong with that picture, and I needed to fix it.”
Hannah looked away. It was true. She hadn’t had a friend on the island until that year, after she was turned away and left to her own devices. Then she became friends with Mary Ellen Hobart and they hung out all summer. Now that she thought about it, she could remember how happy her mother had been about Mary Ellen, how she’d taken them to Jones Beach and the movies many times, encouraged Mary Ellen to stay overnight at their tiny house, offering to make s’mores and tell ghost stories. “Your mom’s a spaz,” Mary Ellen had said, rolling her eyes.
She looked back at Keeley. “You’re right. I never thought about it. Mary Ellen, remember?”
Keeley smiled and nodded. “You had to pick the biggest geek on the island. Just like your dad, always the friend of the underdog.”
Hannah heard that and remembered what Mrs. McGrath had said. So some of what she had said was true. She just didn’t understand that she, Rose, was the underdog he had adopted. “Geek? I was the geek, not Mary Ellen.” Well, a little. Poor Mary Ellen and her knock-knees and her hyper-critical ways. She had a good heart, though.
“No, dear. She was a geek. You were beautiful wonderful you.”
“You kept your promise about not hitting me. Not even once. Not even a spanking. I was so shocked when I heard about what Grandma did to you.”
Keeley smiled, but her eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry I left you like I did. There’s no excuse for that. I didn’t even remember until the night of the fire. I don’t know how I was able to forget something like that.”
Hannah looked at her mother. She knew it was true, remembered the shocked expression on her mother’s face when she confronted her. “Maybe you couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t handle it. I’m messed up, Mom. Did you know you left me all by myself for two whole days once?”
Her mother’s eyes grew wide. “What? When?”
“One time, I was five. It was when Grandpa died. Right after you found out. We’d had a big Ticker Bell party for me, remember?”
“Tinker Bell…,” Keeley said, looking at her blankly. “I…” Then her eyes grew even wider. “Oh,” she breathed out. “Two days?”
Hannah nodded.
“I thought it was one,” Keeley said and looked away, out the window.
Hannah waited.
Finally, her mother spoke, still looking out the window. “It was the last time I ever let your grandmother hit me. I went there to beg her, was certain we couldn’t survive without their financial help. Dad had always been good to me, well, at least when it came to money. But Mom…, she never forgave me for being the one to live. It was like somehow she saw me as having a part in Sean’s death, like it was an either-or situation – his dying or my dying. Anyway, she punished me for it and that night was the last time I let her.”
Hannah felt a pang shoot through her, hearing the false toughness in her mother’s voice, the thing that covered up the vulnerable little girl she must have been once. “What happened?”
Keeley shrugged and looked down at her hands that were folded in her lap. “I let her beat me that night. When I asked for help she laughed and said that I was the Devil’s child and that she would never help us, that I’d better be prepared to be punished in hell. I asked her if hitting me would help her see that I was willing to be punished, and she said yes. I said okay, just please help us. I barely got out the words ‘help us’ before she was on me. I didn’t fight back. I didn’t run. Even when she went to get the frying pan. I should’ve run then, but I just…I wanted her to help us and I thought that if I let her get it out of her system, then maybe she’d finally forgive me. She knocked me out. When I woke up, I thought it was the next day, late afternoon. The sun was going down. She wasn’t there. I went home,” she said and swallowed. “Got home after you’d gone to bed. I thought it was one day.” She said the last in a wondering voice.
Hannah sobbed. “Oh, Mom. She could have killed you.”
Keeley looked up at her at last, her eyes filling with tears. “All I wanted was a little help. We were in such bad shape money-wise. She never gave it,” she said, and smiled weakly, her lips wiggling. “She just gave me my lumps.”
Hannah remembered how her mother had hidden out in her bedroom for over a week after she got back. Keeley must have called the Barefooters because they had all came and took turns at the house, bringing supplies, watching Hannah, while her mother hid in her bedroom. At the time, Hannah had thought her mother was angry with her. “I’m so sorry. And I’ve blamed you all these years.”
Keeley shook her head slowly and then faster, blinking back the tears and swallowing again. “No, let’s stop blaming each other. Right now. Never again, okay?” She looked straight into Hannah’s eyes, pleading.
Hannah, crying now, nodded. She thought of her mother at her grandmother’s funeral six years ago, how quiet and regal Keeley had seemed as she accepted condolences from the other mourners, how she could have lashed out, spoken the harsh truth about her mother and chose instead to rise above it. Even afterward, when her mother’s lawyer met with them both in his office and told them that all of the family money, Keeley’s rightful inheritance, had been left to her mother’s church, Keeley had only nodded and said, “Of course.”
“Please hug me again,” Keeley said, trying valiantly to smile, sadness fighting in her eyes. “Hugs are magical.”
Hannah fell into her mother’s arms and felt a flooding warmth fill her. It was true. Hugs and kisses had a magic that no words or promises could match. She spoke into her mother’s hair, her mother’s fierce embrace crushing the air out of her lungs, needing to know the answer to one last question. “Do you believe in God, Mom?”
Keeley laughed, her laugh loud and bawdy as always, though rougher sounding from what her lungs had been through, “Of course I do. Well, I didn’t always, but that was a long time ago, before you. You know, God is right here, right now, with us? But also everywhere else, too. Isn’t it amazing?” She squeezed Hannah even more tightly.
Zo burst in the room at that moment, rolling in her rented top-of-the-line electric wheelchair and holding a bunch of daisies in the crook of her arm, “I’m sorry I’m – wait a second! Damn! How do I get in on this love-fest?”
Keeley, releasing Hannah only partially, reached out one of her arms. “Come on, Zo! Dog pile on the daughter!”