Chapter Twenty-Two
“I DON’T KNOW why I’m so nervous,” Parker admitted as Grayson parked in front of Sarah Stein’s house Friday afternoon. She hadn’t been nervous on the drive over, but now that they’d arrived, her stomach twisted and turned. They were staying with Matt tonight, and they’d left Christmas with Hunter and Jana. Jana had fallen in love with him at first sight, so Parker knew her boy would be well cared for.
“It’s because you care,” Grayson said with the soothing confidence that always put her at ease. “You know this is going to be hard for her, and maybe hard for you, too. You were up until almost two in the morning rereading the diary.”
She’d held the diary in her lap during the entire drive, and now she pressed it to her chest. “I had to read it again. There are so many conflicting emotions in here. I longed for parents my whole life, and I dreamed about how wonderful it would be to do the silliest things with them. Have breakfast, go shopping, tell them about my friends at school.”
His eyes warmed as he took her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “I’m sorry you didn’t have those things. But one day you’ll be able to do all those things with your own child.”
Her throat thickened. They hadn’t talked about children since they had breakfast at Seaside, but she knew in her heart Grayson wanted a family as much as she did.
“I hope so. But Miriam had parents who had the means to give her everything, and all she wanted was to be noticed and loved and for them to support her passion for music. I know everything in this diary is from a teenage perspective, which can be skewed and self-centered, but still. These were her feelings, regardless of how anyone else perceived the things she wrote about. In her head, her father was loyal only to himself, her mother was loving but overly loyal to Abe—so who was loyal to Miriam?”
“Maybe Sarah can shed some light on that for you.”
As he came around the car and offered her a hand, she was reminded of their first trip to see Abe, when Grayson had climbed into the car without giving her a choice—and he’d stuck by her side ever since.
On the front porch, he hesitated before knocking. “Ready?”
She nodded and tried to slip into her actress armor, rolling her shoulders back and lifting her chin, but not for the first time since she’d come to Wellfleet, it made her feel like she was wearing someone else’s skin. This wasn’t the time to pretend. She shook off the ill-fitting costume. This was Sarah Stein’s real life, and Parker hoped that when she handed Sarah her daughter’s diary, it would make her life better and not worse.
She managed a nervous smile. “I’m ready.”
Every rap of his knuckles on the door echoed inside her like a countdown. She held her breath as the door opened and Sarah Stein came into view. Her hair was a stunning mix of white-blond and silver, cut just above her shoulders, with natural curl and heavy bangs that gave her a surprisingly youthful appearance. Sarah pressed her hand to her chest and her mouth opened, but no words came.
“Sarah? I’m Parker, and this is my boyfriend, Grayson. It’s such a pleasure to meet you.”
Sarah nodded, then shook her head, looking slightly confused. Parker wondered if she had forgotten they were coming, or perhaps Sarah recognized her as an actress.
“Parker,” Sarah said with a warm smile and less confusion in her eyes. “Forgive me. Yes, it is a pleasure. Please, come in.”
“Thank you.” Parker stepped inside. The scent of cinnamon and freshly baked bread hung in the air. “Mm. It smells like a bakery.”
A nervous smile lifted Sarah’s lips. “I bake when I’m nervous.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Sarah,” Grayson said.
“You as well. Thank you for coming all this way. Grayson, why, that’s a nice, strong name.” She led them through the foyer to a spacious living room and motioned toward an olive-green sofa beneath the windows on the far wall. Paintings of trees hung on butter-yellow walls above another couch on the adjacent wall. A vase of fresh flowers sat atop a glass table beside an upholstered wing chair. Parker glanced at Sarah, with her peach top and black slacks, and thought the simple but elegant room suited her perfectly.
“Please,” Sarah said, “make yourself comfortable.”
“Thank you,” Grayson said.
Sarah nervously smoothed her black slacks. “Can I get you something to drink? Tea? Coffee? Water? Or something to eat? I have an abundance of cinnamon rolls and tarts at the moment.”
“No, thank you.” Parker was too nervous to eat.
“Sure. I’d love anything you baked, thank you.” Grayson rose from the couch. “Would you like help?”
“Oh no,” she said. “I’ll be just a moment.” She disappeared through the dining room.
Grayson whispered, “I thought she needed a reason to move. She’s as nervous as you are.” He put his arm around Parker. “You okay?”
“Yes. Or I will be. She looked at me funny when she first saw me, and I worried she didn’t remember our phone conversation.”
“I’m sure it’s a lot for her to take in.”
Sarah returned from the kitchen carrying a tray with plates, several cinnamon buns that smelled like heaven, and three glasses of water. Grayson was quick to take it from her and set it on the table.
“Thank you, Grayson,” Sarah said as she sat on the sofa. “Such a gentleman.”
There was a brief moment of uncomfortable silence. Sarah folded her hands in her lap. Her lips twitched nervously, tugging at Parker’s heart. She wanted to soothe Sarah’s nerves, and while she hoped the diary might someday do that, she knew today was probably not the day. Today was probably going to bring a torrent of emotions, just as their phone call had.
“Sarah, as I mentioned on the phone, Abe left me Miriam’s diary.” She got up and handed the diary to Sarah.
Sarah placed her hand on Parker’s, nodding toward the seat beside her. “Join me? Please?”
Parker sat beside her.
Sarah’s gaze was trained on the diary. “The police found this under Miriam’s mattress when we reported her missing. They went through all of her belongings, looking for clues, something to tell them if she was indeed a runaway, or if something awful had happened to her.” She sighed and shook her head. “I knew she’d left of her own volition, even before the police found her diary. She was only sixteen, but so wise for her age. Stubborn and confident, like her father. Nothing could have held her back, and if she didn’t want to be found, I knew she’d find a way to stay hidden. When the police returned the diary to us, Abe whisked it away. I wasn’t sure I’d ever see it again.” She looked at Parker. “Did you read it?”
Despite her embarrassment for peering into Sarah’s family’s privacy, she told the truth. “I did. I’m sorry. When I first saw it—”
Sarah patted Parker’s hand. “It’s okay, dear. I would have done the same.”
“I’m really sorry, for everything.”
Sarah nodded. “Me too. I failed my own daughter, and not a day goes by that I don’t wish I could go back and relive those years. Do things right this time.”
“I can only imagine how hard that must be,” Parker said.
“It was hard to see clearly back then. Despite what you’ve read in Miriam’s diary, Abe was a good man with good intentions. He poured himself into his family’s business in order to save it.”
“Yes, that’s what he told us.” Parker didn’t want to talk about Abe too much, given their unfriendly divorce, but she wanted to validate Sarah’s thoughts.
“He was so business savvy.” Sarah stared down at the diary as she spoke. “He was incredibly smart, determined. Unfortunately, he wasn’t as well equipped when it came to people. He handled things poorly, pushing everyone who loved him out of his life. The guilt of it ate at him, but he was a prideful man. So prideful he lost himself somewhere along the way.” She met Parker’s gaze. “You were a friend of Bert’s?”
“Yes. We were very close,” Parker said.
“He was a wonderful man. I’m sorry he’s gone,” Sarah said in a thoughtful tone. “I would have liked to remain close to Bert, but I would never have gone against my husband’s wishes. I loved that man too much.” She looked at Grayson. “I didn’t know a person could love too much, but I did. I lost Miriam because of that love. I thought she was going through a phase, wanting to join a band and angry all the time. She never stuck with anything. When she wanted to dance, we got her lessons. The next month it was horses, and a few months later singing. Wasn’t that what teenagers did? Talked about becoming the next this or that but never followed through? When we first read her diary, I thought, ‘If only we’d bought the guitar…’ But she didn’t leave because of the guitar.” She lowered her gaze to the diary again and pulled a wad of tissues from the box beside her, wiping tears as they slipped down her cheeks. “We gave every ounce of ourselves to searching for our daughter, until there was nothing left—no more leads to follow and no more us to hold on to.”
“It must have been very painful,” Parker said.
“It was. It is. You mentioned on the phone that you were surprised I’d kept my name. Abe must have told you that I left him for another man.”
“Yes. He did.” She hated admitting she’d been privy to that part of their history as well.
“There was never another man. I loved Abe even after he became so hateful no one else could stand to be around him. I was only twenty-five when we met. He was eleven years older, and I thought he walked on water. He had big dreams, and I knew he’d accomplish every one of them.”
“He was a very confident man.” Confidence. Control.
“Yes. And he became mean as a snake. We were both so broken, so depleted of anything good. If I’d stayed, I would have turned into the wretched person he’d become, and I still had hope that Miriam would one day come back. That’s what carried me out the door. I’d failed her once. She thought I was weak for staying with a man who didn’t know how to show his affection to anyone but me, and only in private. I tried to teach him, to tell him his daughter needed him, but that just brought arguments about how there wasn’t enough time in the day. Who knows what type of hold he had on my heart—truth be known, he still does.”
Sarah laughed under her breath. “Even from beyond the grave he still has a hold over me. When I finally got the courage to leave him, I knew he’d come for me if I didn’t do something so evil he would no longer be able to stand the sight of me.”
“So you made it up?” Parker asked, exchanging a look of disbelief with Grayson.
“I had to. For Miriam. I knew she’d never come near Abe again. On her eighteenth birthday I moved out in the meanest, ugliest way I could. And then I prayed, day and night, that Miriam would come back.” Sarah sat back, and a genuine smile climbed all the way to her eyes. “And then, five years after Miriam left, on October 15, 1989, I received a phone call from her. My heart nearly stopped. I thought it was a prank, because we’d had our fair share of those over the years. But it was my Miriam. There were lots of apologies on both sides and tears, which made it hard to talk, but she was alive and well and happy. She sounded truly happy.” She wiped her steadily flowing tears.
“Here, baby.” Grayson handed Parker a tissue for the tears she didn’t realize she was shedding.
“She said she was living out west and had a surprise for me. She said she’d be here on the eighteenth. I never even thought to ask how she’d found me, or for her phone number. I was so overwhelmed, but I felt so good after that call. I was afraid to leave the house, in case she called again, so I waited. Throughout that week and the next. When she didn’t call and didn’t show up, I wondered if I’d imagined the call. I waited for weeks, which turned to months, then years.”
Parker felt Grayson’s steady gaze on her, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of Sarah as she revealed the anguish she’d suffered.
“Every October fifteenth I remember our call. At least now I only allow myself to dissect every word we said on that one day. For years I went over it in my head every day, wondering what I’d said that made her not want to come back.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t anything you said,” Parker reassured her.
“Did you try to have the call traced?” Grayson asked. “To track her down?”
Sarah shook her head. “If I had done that, Abe would have been notified because her case had never been resolved, and then there would be no chance of her returning. I still have hope.” She turned to Parker again. “When I saw you standing on my porch, my mind reached for Miriam. That happens a lot. I search the face of every blond-haired, blue-eyed woman, wondering if that’s what my daughter might have looked like at that age.”
She reached for a frame on the table beside her and showed it to Parker. “This was taken a few weeks before she went missing.”
Parker took in the girl’s straight honey-colored hair and vacant blue eyes. She looked sad despite her smile. Parker saw a hint of that vacancy in Sarah’s eyes, like the missing pieces of their lives reflecting back at the world—a look Parker recognized all too well, having seen it in her own reflection for so many years.
GRAYSON HAD LEARNED many things from his father, but perhaps the most important lesson was when to hold his tongue. He applied that lesson now, sitting on the front stoop of Matt’s home, waiting for him to arrive, as Parker paced the yard, rehashing their visit with Sarah. She’d been taking apart every sentence, every facial expression, every unspoken emotion, for a half hour.
“Do you think she had the same thoughts we did after the call when Miriam never showed up? That it wasn’t really her daughter after all? Or if it was, maybe something had happened to her? I couldn’t live like that, without knowing the answers.”
He forced himself not to move from the step, because if he held her in his arms, he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep from saying what had been eating at him since he saw the picture of Miriam.
“She has no choice,” he finally answered.
“Not now she doesn’t. But back then? She could have done something.”
“She was afraid of Abe finding out. Besides, it was 1989. How advanced was technology back then?”
“I don’t know. I was only a year old.” Her eyes filled with sadness.
He could take her angst, but he was no match for her sad baby blues. Unable to stay away, he pushed from the stoop. Taking her in his arms, he gazed into her eyes, loving her so much he ached.
“She did what she felt was right, sweetheart. I know you want to help her, and I’m sure you’re wondering how you can help track down her daughter, but you’ve done all that you can. You’ve given her back something she went years without.”
“Yeah, a diary full of bad feelings.” She touched her forehead to his chest. “Did I make a mistake? Should I have left well enough alone? Do you think she’ll be okay, or do you think she’s falling apart right this very second because of the diary?”
He lifted her face again, unable to concentrate on her questions as love for his caring, thoughtful girlfriend obliterated every other thought. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”
“You’re not answering my questions.”
He cocked a brow, having already answered the same questions at least four times since she’d begun analyzing their visit.
She sighed.
“We’ve gone through this, sweetheart. She’s doing whatever it is she needs to do to deal with having the diary after all these years.” But he wondered if there was something else she could do, and decided to feel her out. “Did Miriam’s picture look familiar to you? Did the timing of her call and the fact that she never showed up ring any bells?”
“What do you mean?”
Was it possible he’d seen only what he wanted to see, and he was barking up the wrong tree?
“Her daughter called days before the San Francisco earthquake.”
“You think she…” She swallowed hard.
He shrugged. The picture of Miriam flashed in his mind again, so similar to the picture Bert had taken of Parker at eighteen.
“Oh no. I hope not,” she said. “That would be terrible.”
“Baby, the picture she showed us? Don’t you think it looked similar to the one Bert took of you?”
“What? No. She…” She stepped away and paced. “What are you saying?”
“I’m not saying anything. I’m thinking out loud.”
“Well, don’t,” she snapped. “Whatever it is you think you’re putting together, don’t.”
“Baby.” He reached for her and she stepped back, her face a mask of hurt and anger. “I’m sorry, but the dates, the picture. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but what if I’m not?”
“You definitely are,” she snapped. “My mom’s gone, Grayson. And I hope Sarah’s daughter isn’t.”
He reached for her again, and she let him hold her this time. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to upset you, but what if the dots connect? What if your birth mother was Miriam Stein? A genetic reconstruction DNA test could give you the answer.”
“What? No. Absolutely not. My mother was Sherry Collins, not Miriam Stein. You’re grasping at straws. Do you know how big of an area the west is? She could have been anywhere out there, not just in California. I just…I don’t want that for her. I don’t want that for me. What if I get my hopes up, and then it’s not her?”
He softened his tone. “But what if it is? It would mean you have a grandmother you could get to know. You’d have your family.”
“No.” She shook her head. “It would mean my mother ran away from parents who didn’t love her enough. It would mean she was killed because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, all because her father was too self-centered to love her or incapable—”
She was shaking all over, and he realized just how big of a mistake he’d made.
“I’m sorry. Shh. It’s okay.” He couldn’t put her through this. He could be way off base, and she didn’t need another thing to worry about. But what if this was the link she’d always hoped for? How could he turn his back on that possibility?
Parker exhaled loudly. “I trust your judgment, Grayson, but I think you’re way off on this. I can’t even begin to give it serious consideration. I don’t want her daughter to be dead. I want her to be off somewhere living her life, angry or confused or whatever, but alive.”