“And you stayed sober?”
“Yes. ”
Tully was afraid to believe in the unexpected hope that unfurled at her mother’s confession. And she was afraid not to. “That’s why you came to my condo and tried to help me. ”
“As interventions go, it was pretty lame. Just one old lady and a pissed-off daughter. ” She smiled, a little crookedly. “You see life a lot more clearly when you’re sober. I took care of you to make up for all the times I didn’t take care of you. ”
Her mother leaned forward, touching the macaroni necklace at her throat. There was a softness in her gaze that surprised Tully. “I know it was only a year. I don’t expect anything. ”
“I heard your voice,” Tully said. She remembered it in pieces, moments. Darkness and light. This: I’m so proud of you. I never told you that, did I? The memory was like the soft, creamy center of an expensive chocolate. “You stood by my bed and told me a story, didn’t you?”
Her mother looked startled, and then a little sad. “I should have told it to you years ago. ”
“You said you were proud of me. ”
She reached out at last, touched Tully’s cheek with a mother’s tenderness. “How could I not be proud of you?”
Her mother’s eyes filled with tears. “I always loved you, Tully. It was my own life I was running from. ” Slowly, she reached into the nightstand drawer and pulled out a photograph. “Maybe this will be our beginning. ” She handed the picture to Tully.
Tully reached for the photograph that shimmied in her mother’s slim, shaking fingers.
It was square and small, about the size of a playing card, with white scalloped edges that were bent and mangled. The years had left a crackle-like patina on the black-and-white print.
It was a photograph of a man, a young man, sitting on a dirty porch step, with one booted foot pushed out to reveal a long leg. His hair was long and black and dirty, too. Splotches of sweat darkened the white T-shirt he wore; his cowboy boots had seen better days and his hands were dark with grime.
But his smile was wide and white and should have been too big for his angular face, but wasn’t, and it was tilted the slightest bit to one side. His eyes were as black as night and seemed to hold a thousand secrets. Beside him, on the porch step, a brown-haired baby lay sleeping in a baggy, grayed diaper. The man’s big hand lay possessively on the infant’s small, bare back.
“You and your father,” her mother said softly.
“My father? You said you didn’t know who—”
“I lied. I fell in love with him in high school. ”
Tully looked back down at the picture. She ran her fingertip over it, studying every line and shadow, barely able to breathe. She had never seen even a hint of her own features in a relative’s face. But here was her dad, and she looked like him. “I have his smile. ”
“Yes. And you laugh just like he did. ”
Tully felt something deep inside of her click into place.
“He loved you,” her mother said. “And me, too. ”
Tully heard the break in her mother’s voice. When she looked up, the tears in her mother’s voice matched her own.
“Rafael Benecio Montoya. ”
Tully said the name reverently. “Rafael. ”
“Rafe. ”
Tully couldn’t hold on to the emotion swelling inside her heart. This changed everything, changed her. She had a father. A dad. And he loved her. “Can I—”
“Rafe died in Vietnam. ”
Tully didn’t realize that she’d even constructed a dreamscape, but with that one word, she felt it fall to pieces around her. “Oh. ”
“I’ll tell you all about him, though,” her mother said. “How he used to sing songs to you in Spanish and throw you into the air to hear you laugh. He picked your name because it was Choctaw and he said that made you a real American. That’s why I always called you Tallulah. To remember him. ”
Tully looked up into her mother’s watery eyes and saw love and loss and heartache. And hope, too. The whole of their lives. “I’ve waited so long. ”