Out of the Rain Read online

  I hope it’s better than the way you found after the fire.

  He surprised me by reaching for my free hand.

  And I surprised myself by taking his.

  That’s what being desperate really meant.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “My wife, Ava, never knew I had another daughter,” he began, “but don’t worry. I have prepared for this day.”

  He said that like an insurance agent would. That was what he used to be. Mazy told me often that what you do becomes a part of who you are.

  We were sitting in a small restaurant in the village of Sandburg Creek. It was just off its Main Street, which in many ways, although longer and wider and with many more stores, restaurants, and supermarkets, resembled Hurley with its similar early-twentieth-century architecture and more modern structures here and there. The traffic grew quickly; people seemed to have popped up out of the sidewalks. There was an air filled with far more activity here. People were walking faster and talking louder. I thought maybe it was a couple of thousand people away from being considered a city.

  Before Daddy began talking, dozens of questions about his life here, his life without me, flooded my mind, but I pushed them all aside to listen. One of my biggest questions was, what did he remember about me? It seemed to me that every parent should recall the slightest details about his or her children, but especially what made them sad and what made them happy, as well as what frightened them. The smallest things became so important, even as they grew older. How much of me remained stored in his mind, written indelibly in his thoughts and memories? He ordered our breakfast, telling the waitress to scramble my eggs well and bring cream cheese with the toast. “And a large orange juice with an ice cube,” he added.

  I said nothing, a part of me cringing in anticipation of what he was going to say about my unexpected arrival. Had he already arranged for me to be taken somewhere far away from his new life? Was that what the word prepared meant? Was that his insurance policy? And what about Mama? Did he think about her at all? Did he wonder if I still did or if Mazy and I often talked about her, even before I knew she was Mazy’s daughter? What did he think or know about my life away from him all these years?

  My questions were coming to my mind quickly, but I kept my lips pressed closed so tightly that I could feel the muscles straining in my jaw.

  He hesitated, finally really looking at me, I thought. Up until now, he’d glanced and looked away quickly, almost as if he was afraid to convince himself I was really here. How many times had he dreamed of this moment? More than I had? Or was dreamed the wrong word? Should I think feared?

  “Do you drink coffee now?”

  “Sometimes,” I said.

  He ordered coffee for both of us. As soon as the waitress left us, he smiled. He moved to take my hand, but I put my hands in my lap. Everything he did drew my suspicion. I wasn’t subtle about it. I could see how uncomfortable I was making him, and that made me angrier, probably because I was so fearful of what was coming. He forced a smile and sat back.

  “Mazy was right. You do look grown-up, years beyond your age. You’re about as tall as I imagined you to be, and filling out well.”

  That answered my question about whether he had ever come to Hurley to sneak a view of me. I could feel the chill surround my heart, my vulnerable, innocent, and still childish heart. That air of comfort I remembered when I was with him years ago could have gone up with the smoke spilling out of every window, under every door, and through the crumbling walls and ceilings of what was once the only world I really knew. I certainly didn’t feel it now. My body sank with the disappointment. He hadn’t been intrigued about me as a father should be. He hadn’t gone to Hurley to sneak views of his daughter. Hope seemed to fold inside of itself like a balloon quickly leaking all its air. Daddy was still more like a stranger, and for now, every minute together was not changing that. It was reinforcing it.

  “My new birth certificate says I’m fourteen—fifteen almost,” I said. He nodded. Did he even remember how old I really was?

  “Oh, I can believe that easily. So,” he said, “you read some of my letters to Mazy?”

  “Not some. Every one of them. She never threw out any. She kept them in a box in a closet in her room but never revealed anything that was in them or even that she had any.”

  He nodded. The waitress brought my juice and our coffee.

  “I never expected her to show them to you.”

  “She didn’t,” I said. “She died first. I remembered the box in her closet and always wondered why she had to keep it under lock and key. Nothing else was hidden from me. It was the first thing I thought of when I realized she was gone.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know exactly. She died. She went up to her room, lay down, and probably had a heart attack. If she was seriously ill, she never told me. I never ever heard her say she had gone to a doctor. She said doctors were mostly pill pushers. She had her own cures for anything that happened to either of us.”

  “Oh, I believe that. She was quite a tough lady. You needed only to meet her once to sense that.”

  We stared at each other. He smiled, but I didn’t. I drank my juice and waited, even though my questions wanted even more to gallop off my tongue. Mama, I thought. Mama would want me to ask the first one, but it was painful to find the words.

  “So when did you have this other daughter? How old is she?” I asked.

  “I thought about it all on my way to pick you up and decided I would be completely honest with you,” he said, pressing his palms flatly on the table. “I can see that you’re old enough and smart enough to understand everything now.”

  Did I want complete honesty? Wouldn’t I rather he made up one of his fantasies the way he used to and make it easier for me to accept where we were and how we got here?

  “Your mother and I had drifted apart even before I began my affair with Ava Saddlebrook. By the way, you’ll see the name Saddlebrook on a number of properties here. Her father, Amos Saddlebrook, owns a great deal of real estate, has an interest in many of the local businesses, like the Dew Drop Inn, and is on every important committee. He’s still quite active at age eighty-one. Fit, too. You’ll think he’s in his sixties. Ava’s mother died a little over fifteen years ago. Ava was an only child like you.”

  “I’m no longer an only child,” I said dryly, and finished drinking my juice.

  He smiled, but it wasn’t the smile of a proud parent. This smile was tinged with some anxiety. I couldn’t help but enjoy how tense and nervous he was. Why couldn’t it be at least as hard for him as it was for me? That was my anger speaking, but a bigger part of me wanted there to be no anxiety at all. This should be a wonderful reunion.

  “I fear that there’s a lot more of Mazy in you than I know.”

  He sipped his coffee.

  “Why shouldn’t there be?” I shot back. “She was my grandmother and all the family I had for years. She nursed me when I was sick, clothed and fed me. She taught me anything and everything a parent might, probably more.”

  “Right, right. Okay,” he said, lifting his hands like someone surrendering.

  “When did you have this other daughter?” I repeated.

  “It’s a little complicated.”

  “When?” I insisted. There was no longer any tolerance in me for any of his sins. He owed me the truth, and I wanted it all here and now.

  “A few months after you were born.”

  “Months?”

  He looked down at his now-clasped hands. How does a father tell his daughter that he had betrayed her mother? I enjoyed seeing him squirm. I was enjoying it for Mama.

  “I didn’t think Ava would go through with it. She didn’t tell me until she was nearly seven months along. She didn’t show like most other women do. Sometimes I think she did it solely to torment her father. Or maybe to force me to leave your mother. When she started to show, she basically dropped out of sight until months after she had given birth
.”

  “But everyone knew about you?”

  He was silent.

  “I mean here.”

  “No one knew that she had a child for some time,” he said.

  “Some time? How long?”

  “Long.”

  “Why?”

  “Her father preferred it that way, and she was waiting…”

  “For you? Her father preferred it?”

  “Yes. I told you it was complicated,” he added quickly.

  “So explain it, Daddy.”

  “After she realized she was pregnant and decided to have our child, she had a nanny, and our daughter was basically kept hidden away at the Saddlebrook estate until our accident. As I said, her father insisted on it. She was dependent upon him at the time, and as you will learn, he’s a very powerful man in this community.”

  “Accident?” I fumbled for a meaning until it came like a slap across my cheek. “You mean the fire?”

  He nodded.

  This felt like I was reaching into a beehive.

  “When I left with you afterward, I had decided to accept my responsibilities and move here.”

  “Did her father know about me?”

  “No. He disliked me as it was, because Ava became pregnant and I sort of disappeared for a while. I mean, I saw her but didn’t spend any time with Karen until she was nearly three. Her father wouldn’t have anything to do with me until we had eloped. By then, Ava had already chosen the house we’re in. After we made our relationship legal, her father reluctantly bought us the house.”

  “Why reluctantly?”

  “He wanted us to live at his estate, Saddlebrook.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Ava wanted us to have at least the semblance of independence, especially after her father had treated her like some stain on the family name.”

  “Didn’t people ask questions about it all?”

  “Behind our backs, for sure. The Saddlebrook family is powerful here. Nevertheless, the early days of our marriage were a little difficult, actually quite difficult, but in the end, money has a louder voice than conscience or religious principles… whatever. Who doesn’t have a skeleton in a closet?”

  “Your new wife waited all that time? She never had another boyfriend?”

  “When you’re older, you might understand. Despite having lived so long under her father’s thumb, Ava… Ava is quite independent. She’s a lot like him in that way. When she wants something, she gets it, no matter how long it may take.

  “So you see, I really did have a lot to work out before I could bring you into all this. Before that, your mother found out about my affair with Ava and became very bitter. Sometimes I used to think she wanted to stay married to me just to make me suffer. I did, and I know you were suffering, too, especially when she was keeping you practically a prisoner in the house with the homeschooling. Maybe she thought that was another way to punish me. I’m sorry I let that go on so long.”

  “My life with Mazy wasn’t much different,” I said. “I didn’t enter public school until just recently, and that was a disaster, because kids who had seen me already had made up crazy stories about me and Mazy. They were actually afraid of her. Some thought she was a witch and had taught me weird stuff.”

  “You’ll have to tell me more about that when we can talk privately. Mazy and I didn’t communicate as much recently, maybe because she was getting sick. I mean, I knew you had entered school, but…”

  The waitress brought our food.

  He started to eat and gestured at me to start as well. I did, but I didn’t take my eyes off him. My memory felt like it was twirling back through a tunnel as I caught the gleam of his blue eyes, eyes that had once brought calm and a sense of safety to me whenever I was troubled or afraid. The strength in his firm lips was still there, and despite the weight he had put on, making his face look chubby and soft, there was that air of authority, that sense of control I not only saw when I was a little girl but craved often whenever there was tension in our home. Call himself whatever he wanted, he was still my daddy.

  I fought back needing him. I was afraid I would cry.

  Anyway, what I really wanted to bring him was my anger. I was disappointed in myself, in how quickly I was becoming a little girl again as soon as I was with him. How could I still love him, respect him, and want him after all that he had done, had just revealed? There is no disappointment greater than a disappointment in yourself, and I was feeling it. I ate, but I didn’t taste anything, and although I was battling as hard as I could, the tears were seeping into my eyes. No! I shouted inside myself. Do not cry; do not be a little girl again. That’s what he’s hoping you’ll be.

  “So,” he continued, “when I began with Ava, she knew I was still married, but as I said, she didn’t know about you. I wanted to tell her, but Ava back then wasn’t the sort of young woman who would willingly take on the responsibility of bringing up another child, especially someone else’s child. And it might have made for more complications with her father at the time.”

  “So you lied to them both?”

  “I didn’t lie so much as I left out some of the story.”

  “What about your other daughter? Did she know you were her father back then? I mean, when you spent time with her?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “She was too young to understand what was happening and was kept quite content at the estate. And I thought I could manage it until…”

  “Until what?”

  “Eventually, I thought maybe I could divorce your mother and give her sole custody of you. I even revealed I had another child. I planned on telling Ava about you after the divorce, because even though your mother would have sole custody, I’d have visitation rights, but…” He paused. “Go on, finish eating before your food gets cold.”

  “I ate enough,” I said, pushing the plate away. I could feel the food sticking in my throat.

  “Yeah, okay. So what happened was it became clearer that your mother couldn’t handle the responsibility, and whether I liked it or not, that plan wasn’t going to work. I started to tell Ava about you a few times but lost my courage each time. I was really in love with her, and once you meet her, I think you’ll understand why. She is beautiful and intelligent, elegant and—”

  “Mama was all that,” I said sharply.

  He nodded. “She was. I would be the first to admit it. I remember often telling you about what she was like before… before all this happened. It broke my heart to see the changes in her.”

  “The changes due to your affair,” I said dryly. “And knowing you had another child with another woman.”

  He looked like I was stabbing him with the sharp end of a scissor. Mazy surely would have said it. After all, he had broken my mother’s heart.

  “Well, yes. I bear a lot of guilt, but there was more to it. Your mother always showed some signs of emotional and mental issues. Our parents had her see a therapist. I don’t think she ever got over being adopted once she found out, even though that meant we could fall in love. I guess I was fooling myself when I told myself I could fix all that.

  “Anyway, when I discovered your mother’s real history, the adoption, and how it had happened because Mazy was single and alone, I felt sorry for Mazy. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but I contacted Mazy. I never told your mother, of course. I even secretly met Mazy a few times. My parents didn’t know. I sent her pictures and told her about your mother, how she was doing in school, in college, and how wonderful she was. I’m sure you saw all of that in the letters.

  “My parents did love her and tried to give her everything she wanted and needed. But every time I saw how beautiful and intelligent your mother was, I thought about Mazy, how she was missing it all and, if it wasn’t for me, how she would never know. Eventually, you were kind of a solution for Mazy’s sadness and regret, you see.”

  A solution? Maybe I smirked at how much I didn’t believe he felt so so
rry for Mazy; maybe he could still read my feelings and thoughts in my eyes.

  “Is that what you meant when you said you were preparing? Even before I was born?”

  “What? No. If you think I was doing that back then, writing to Mazy and keeping her up on your mother to get Mazy to take you in eventually… I mean, I wasn’t even sure your mother and I would be together in those days. We were married after your mother became pregnant with you.”

  “Sounds like a pattern with you and your marriages.”

  He shook his head. And then nodded. “I understand your bitterness.”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course. Anyway, when the time came and I thought about Mazy…”

  “It was convenient,” I said.

  He looked stunned for a moment. “I don’t know if I’d use that word. I really believed that everyone would be happy. That I’ll admit. Maybe I was wrong, but I knew that even if I convinced or forced Ava to take you in with us, you wouldn’t have been happy. Who knows how Amos Saddlebrook would have treated you? Ava… another woman’s child… it wouldn’t have been pleasant. However, Mazy was certainly elated.”

  He shrugged. “To my way of thinking, it was a nice, wonderful thing to do for someone who lived with so much guilt.”

  I stared at him coolly and then finally asked a question I didn’t want to hear answered.

  “What about me, my happiness? Didn’t you care at all? I was your daughter, too.”

  “It hurt me to leave you, of course, but as I said, I believed that if I truly loved you, I wouldn’t bring you into an unpleasant life after such a tragedy. Ava would feel I was forcing her to accept you. She’d know I had lied to her, and Ava’s not someone easily lied to. She’s quite intolerant of deception, as is her father. We’d probably have broken up, too. It would be like another fire,” he said, and I could feel my eyes threatening to explode.

  “Fire? You compare a breakup to that?”

  “Anyway,” he quickly continued, ignoring me, “I kept up with your upbringing, development. Mazy wrote detailed letters like the teacher she was. She didn’t need any money, but I sent her some from time to time.”