A Novel Read online

It took me a moment to gather my thoughts. “What time is it?”

  “It’s late, Fern.”

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  “Hours. It won’t be long before morning.”

  “Morning? How’s Ryder?” I asked.

  “He’s okay, but they are evaluating him to be sure there aren’t any organ or brain complications.”

  “What? What’s that mean?”

  “Parker doesn’t think he was under very long, but Dr. Davenport says there can be problems when the brain is deprived of oxygen.”

  “Mummy,” I said, the tears quickly flooding my eyes. “Will he be all right? Can’t you find out?”

  “We’ll know soon. Dr. Davenport’s optimistic, just concerned and doing the proper protocol.” Her expression changed to one full of suspicion. “Now, tell me why you were so underdressed, Fern.”

  “I didn’t think it was going to rain like that. Neither of us did,” I replied, even though I knew she meant why I was wearing no bra and only a flimsy-looking tank top.

  She stared at me, looking right through my words.

  “How close have you and Ryder become, Fern? I don’t want to hear lies or changes of the subject, either.”

  I lay back on my pillow and looked up at the ceiling. “We’re close,” I said. “We’ve always been close, despite Bea Davenport and Dr. Davenport.”

  “I’m talking about now, Fern. Has Ryder been visiting you when I’m not here?”

  I didn’t reply.

  “Fern, answer me.”

  “He’s visited me, yes.”

  “At night?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. I looked at her. “Yes. I told you. We like each other. A lot.”

  “A lot? What’s that mean?”

  “We’re not just friends, Mummy.”

  “What have you done?” she demanded.

  “Nothing terrible,” I said sharply. “I told you. We like each other. We’re more girlfriend and boyfriend now. His girlfriend dumped him—and because of me, too!”

  She was just staring at me.

  “Don’t look so surprised. Why can’t we be boyfriend and girlfriend? I’m old enough to have a real boyfriend, aren’t I? Is Bea Davenport going to run our lives forever? Don’t you think it’s time you stood up to her? Even stood up to Dr. Davenport? We’ve lived like the unholy unwashed in this mansion too long, too long for me, at least. She can’t keep Ryder and me apart. The first thing I’m going to do when I’m able is walk through this house and come in the front door whenever I want. If you won’t quit, then I’ll make her fire you.”

  My outburst nearly exhausted me again. I closed my eyes and lay back. When I opened them, she was standing by my window with her back to me.

  “I want to go see Ryder,” I said. “Mr. Stark will take me.”

  She turned. “Mr. Stark is home, asleep. Besides, Dr. Davenport wants Ryder to rest for now,” she said.

  “I want to see him. He surely wants to see me, to see that I’m all right. I’m going. If Mr. Stark can’t take me, I’ll call a taxi.”

  “He’ll take you. He’ll take you,” she said. “Later. You get some more rest first.”

  “I don’t need any more rest. We both almost died. He didn’t see that I was saved, too. He must be asking for me. I want to see how he is for myself. Can he remember anything? He must be thinking about me.”

  She nodded. “He is asking after you. Dr. Davenport told me,” she said.

  “So? Good. I’ll go. I’m all right now. I’m just a little sore. I’ll call a taxi. If he’s sleeping, I want to be there when he wakes up. I can do it, Mummy. I’m all right.”

  “Yes,” she said. “You’re all right.”

  “Good, then I’m going.”

  I had started to get up when she surprised me and sat on my bed, putting her hand gently on my leg. “Wait,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “The truth,” she said. She looked reluctant, perhaps changing her mind.

  I lay back. “What truth? Tell me.”

  She nodded and first took a deep breath. “I’m going to start at the beginning so you’ll understand.”

  “Okay, but after you’re finished, I’m going to the hospital.”

  “Yes, yes. Now, listen. Dr. Davenport was very much in love with his first wife. Like everyone else, when I first came here to carry Ryder and deliver him, I thought Dr. Davenport had married her because everyone expected he would. According to the gossip, he was pressured by his parents.”

  “You told me that. You said it was an arranged marriage.”

  “Well, it was and it wasn’t. Dr. Davenport’s not a man who shows his emotions easily or even clearly. I’m not going to psychoanalyze him and tell you why that is. It’s just his personality, a personality that probably works well with the career he chose for himself. I’m sure his parents and the way they treated him had a lot to do with the way he became.”

  “His parents never sounded very nice to me. Especially what they did after Holly died.”

  “No, they were not your typical loving mother and father. Both were quite selfish. However,” she said, putting her hands on her lap and looking down, “Dr. Davenport didn’t marry Samantha Avery only because that was what they wanted. He truly loved her, and he took her death very, very hard. Before the accident, I had begun to see how close they really were to each other. When you’re part of people’s lives the way I was, carrying their child, you witness things other people don’t. I saw the affection between them, how protective of her he was. He worshipped her as much as he could. She was practically the only person who could make him laugh or let his guard down.”

  “Is that the truth you wanted to tell me?” I asked, disappointed. What did I really care how much Dr. Davenport had loved his wife? Why did it matter to me, to us?

  “No. There’s much more. About then, after Samantha Davenport’s deadly accident, I began to see Franklin more frequently.”

  “Who was Franklin?”

  “Dr. Bliskin.”

  “Oh. I never heard you call him that.”

  “I didn’t in front of anyone else. Anyway, maybe I was more vulnerable than ever because I was witnessing Dr. Davenport’s private suffering. Those were very sad days. Wyndemere was never as dark—and for all of us. Franklin brought some light into this house, brought some light to me. He was a very good friend of Dr. Davenport’s by now, and he, too, knew how deeply in pain Dr. Davenport was, despite the facade of the stolid doctor he presented. In fact, that was how Franklin and I first drew closer to each other. We’d spend hours together talking about Dr. Davenport, and eventually . . . well, you know what happened.”

  “You became secret lovers.”

  “Yes. The truth is, Franklin decided to move away and start a practice somewhere else because of what he and I had become. He believed, and to be honest, so did I, that we couldn’t be near each other and not be lovers. It would come out, of course, and it would destroy his marriage.”

  “And because you had his child, right? Of course,” I continued before she could respond. “How could he deny that? I sensed it when he was here.”

  She shook her head.

  “What?”

  “Let me finish. Dr. Davenport had become more or less a social recluse after Samantha’s death. He went to work, but he went practically nowhere else. He had plenty of invitations, of course, especially that first year, but he went to only a few events that he felt were necessary for political reasons regarding the hospital. He was dreadfully lonely. He wasn’t even paying enough attention to Ryder. Franklin was taking care of any medical needs Ryder had, and I was caring for him like a mother would, like Samantha had started to do. In my mind, he was my child.”

  “You did carry him and deliver him. I’ve read about surrogates. They can feel like the child’s mother even though they’re not.”

  “This was different. I didn’t feel that way in the beginning, especially when Samantha was there to play that role. But aft
erward . . . eventually, even Dr. Davenport was thinking of me the way he would think of his child’s mother. Those were strange days, Fern. When he came home from the hospital, he even took to asking, ‘How’s our boy today?’ He wouldn’t buy the baby anything without buying me something as well. He even made sure flowers were delivered for me on Mother’s Day. And he never forgot my birthday. He needed someone to care about, someone besides his patients.”

  “Oh. But that’s sad, Mummy.” I hadn’t expected to hear something like that.

  “Yes, it was. He had begun to insist that I sit at the dining-room table with Ryder in his baby seat beside me. I’d show him something new I had taught Ryder, and there was laughter back in the house. Anyone just entering Wyndemere, a stranger, would surely look at us and think we were a real family.”

  “It must have been uncomfortable for you.”

  “Very, but I didn’t have the heart to refuse him or remind him that I was just his baby’s nanny. In his mind’s eye, he remembered me pregnant. He was there when Ryder was born, of course, and he saw me when I . . .”

  “Breastfed him?”

  “Yes. I even suspected that the way he had looked at me sometimes before Samantha’s death bothered her. I think they even had an argument or two about it. I tried to keep myself deeper in the shadows, do what I had to do, and then get out of their daily lives, but Samantha was very social, too, and loved dressing up and going places. If anyone needed a nanny for her child, Samantha Davenport did. I could stay unnoticed just so much. In those days, I slept upstairs in Ryder’s nursery, and when he was older and had his own room, I had mine, too. You slept in mine,” she said. “Until Bea came to Wyndemere.”

  “Yes. I remember.”

  She was quiet. Was that it?

  I wanted to go see Ryder, now more than ever. “Mummy, I think—”

  “When I said Dr. Davenport was behaving strangely, treating me as if I really was Ryder’s mother and having me at the dinner table, saying odd things, I was trying to get you to understand what happened, why it happened.”

  “What happened?”

  There was an expression on my mother’s face that I had never seen. It was an expression of abject terror. My mother always well hid whatever fears she might have, just as she kept her anger always below any boiling point. If something put her into a rage, it was a very short rage. She could catch her breath and keep everything in perspective.

  “Dr. Davenport began to come to me at night. At first, it was simply to see Ryder, and then he came more and more to have me comfort him. I was the only one to whom he could reveal his emotional pain. I couldn’t turn him away.”

  Now I was just staring at her, holding my breath.

  “I knew he wanted me to pretend I was Samantha. I knew that gave him great relief. Of course, no one else knew, no one. And then one day, I realized what had happened.”

  “What?” I had to have her say it and say it clearly.

  “I was pregnant with you,” she said.

  Can your heart really stop and start? Can you really feel something inside you crumble and fall like some ancient stone ruin? Can your blood really turn cold? Like a life preserver, my desperate thought rushed in to save me from what she was saying.

  “But I could have been Dr. Bliskin’s child! He was your lover.”

  “I knew the timing. I knew how far along I was. I knew who I had been with during the time that would make it possible. And although I have always played down the resemblances, I can see them clearly. It was why I was always secretly pleased to hear someone who saw you call you my clone.”

  “Are you telling me that Ryder is my half brother, that Dr. Davenport is my real father?”

  She nodded. “For so many reasons, I hoped I would never have to tell you that, but it was my own blindness that prevented me from seeing the most important reason of all for telling you.”

  I shook my head. “No. I don’t believe you. He never treated me like he would treat a daughter. Dr. Bliskin acted more like my real father in those few minutes we spent together than Dr. Davenport ever has. I’ve never felt . . . a connection. I would have; I should have. You’re wrong. You just don’t remember it right,” I said a little louder. “You’re ashamed that you slept with two men at the same time. And you’re just saying this to be sure I won’t be like you and sleep with Ryder and then other boys before I graduate from high school.”

  “That’s certainly not my reason. I’ve never lied to you, Fern. I haven’t told you everything I should have long before now, but I’ve never lied, and you know I haven’t.”

  “No,” I insisted. “Lies fly around here like dust. I’m not going to tell Ryder this. I’ll never tell him.”

  “Dr. Davenport is telling him,” she said. “As soon as he feels the moment is right this morning, he is going to tell him. As a result of this nearly tragic event, when he, like I, realized what was happening between you two, he came here, and he and I discussed it. I agreed with him that neither of us could keep the secret any longer.”

  “Wyndemere gives up one of its secrets,” I said dryly like someone stunned, actually more like someone stung. “But how did you explain yourself, explain me, after I was born?”

  “I’m ashamed to tell you that although I had never said it, I did act as if Dr. Bliskin was your father. Mrs. Marlene knew about our affair, as I’m sure some others in the house did at the time. They made assumptions, and I didn’t do anything to dissuade them.”

  “Always protecting our precious Dr. Davenport,” I said.

  “And myself. I’m not going to offer any excuses, although there were clearly reasons. I’ve always questioned how much I did out of sympathy and how much was out of my own desire. That’s quite a question for someone as young and as inexperienced in these matters as you. Maybe someday you’ll help me find the answer.”

  I looked away. I wasn’t crying. I was filled instead with a rage that overpowered sadness and disappointment. “He never would ask you to marry him, of course. He’d let you be seen as a woman who had slept with someone she couldn’t marry, and he let me be the fatherless child, the illegitimate child.”

  “I wasn’t going to marry someone I didn’t love fully. There was sympathy and passion but not the kind of passion that lasts a lifetime. I’ve always warned you about that. It wasn’t that I was beneath him or anything. He’s not like that, despite the airs he puts on.”

  “Did you ever sleep with him afterward, after I was born?”

  “No. I was faithful to Franklin then.” She smiled to herself. “Sometimes, during those early days, I thought Dr. Davenport might have convinced himself you were Franklin’s child. But he was never one to refuse to see the truth. He sees like an X-ray machine, sees everything and everyone like that, even himself,” she said, looking past me for a moment as her thoughts and memories carried her off. Then her eyes seemed to click, and she turned back to me. “Everything I’ve told you is the truth.”

  “That’s why he paid for so much and defied Bea to keep you and me here when he married her, isn’t it?”

  “Partly. I do my job well. She knows she’s lucky to have me despite how much she complains.”

  “But he lets her treat us like we’re beneath them both.”

  She was quiet.

  “Why? Did he eventually convince himself that I wasn’t his child? Did that make it easier for him to be so . . . so . . .”

  “Aloof? No. Sometimes he doesn’t have much choice. Bea knows more than I’d certainly like her to know, and she uses it to her advantage.”

  “How can he let her boss him like that? It’s really blackmail. That’s even worse.”

  “They are small sacrifices to keep the peace. You must remember you’re not the only one who could suffer. There’s Sam, too, and Ryder.”

  “I want to see him,” I insisted.

  “Dr. Davenport asked that you wait until he speaks with him first. He’ll do that either this morning or during the day. If you go before he doe
s that, Ryder will sense something, and if you tell him before his father can explain . . .”

  “Then let him come and ask me himself,” I said. “He’s my father, too. He can explain it to me as well.”

  “Fern.”

  “You’ll have to lock me in otherwise,” I warned.

  “Oh, Fern.”

  “I mean it,” I said. “I want to hear it all from him. He owes me that. All these years, looking at me, talking to me like he was the king of the castle and I was merely a servant’s daughter. He lived comfortably with the lie, and you let him.”

  “I did, but I’m not so sure I’d agree he was comfortable with it.”

  “What is he going to do about Bea when she finds out that you’ve told it all, that he’s told Ryder the truth, too? She’ll lose her high-and-mighty grip on him.”

  “That’s not our problem, now, is it?”

  “I won’t ever let her talk down to me again. You can be sure of that.”

  She nodded with a small smile. “No, I don’t imagine you will. However,” she said, standing, “such defiance needs nourishment. Rest for a while. It’s actually time for breakfast. Let me get some hot food in you. Please.”

  “I’m not very hungry.”

  She stood, waiting.

  “Okay, but not a lot.” I started to stand and felt a little wobbly, so I sat back.

  “I’ll bring it in, Fern. Give your body a chance to catch a breath. You’re lucky you’re not in the hospital, too.”

  Reluctantly, I gave in and lay back again. It wasn’t only the ordeal on the lake in the storm that was doing this to me now. I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach and gone through another, even worse storm. My face had to be the face of disappointment and defeat.

  “I’m sorry,” my mother said.

  My rage had not receded, especially the rage I was feeling toward her. I wasn’t prepared to forgive. Maybe I never would. “Why did you have me? Why go through all this?”

  “I had carried someone else’s baby and delivered him. Something in me insisted I carry my own, and I don’t regret it one bit.”

  “But you stayed here. Why? There was always the chance someone would find out the truth—Dr. Bliskin, maybe.”