That was the one time when she hovered on the edge of feeling something momentous: A sense of loss for everything that could have been? The family she never knew? Grandparents were her soft spot.
“Your mother who read tarot cards?” said Ellen.
He looked startled. “That’s right. She did. It was a funny hobby of hers. How in the world did you—”
“Your mother read my cards once,” said Anne quickly. (Presumably David didn’t know about the scoring system.) “Don’t you remember? She told me she saw a journey to far-off lands in my future. I think she was hoping I would take a long journey far away from you. She didn’t like me much.”
“I think she saw you as a threat.” David smiled. “She was fond of Jane.”
“Was Jane your wife?” said Ellen, and then she’d flushed, because his wife had been the woman he’d cheated on when Ellen was conceived and Ellen felt weirdly culpable.
David cleared his throat. “Yes.” He lifted his cappuccino to his mouth. Ellen’s mother tapped her teaspoon against the rim of her saucer. At the table next to them, two women were looking at a laptop together and speaking passionately about “poor response rates.”
“My mother died in 1998,” said David. “She would have been fond of you. She would have been very interested in your choice of career.”
“She might not have approved of my existence,” said Ellen, and smiled, to show that he didn’t need to worry, none of this really mattered to her, she was not a mixed-up teenager, that it was all such a long time ago.
“Still,” said her father. He chewed on his lip. “Still…”
He glanced at his watch. “I must run. This was a pleasure, Ellen. I hope we can do it again. And of course, I’d like to meet, perhaps, your husband-to-be, ah, Patrick, isn’t it? That is, if you would like that.”
Oh, the awful strangeness of it all! It was just like the end of an Internet date, one where the man was trying to ascertain her interest in a second date, when he was pretty sure he had no chance but thought it might be worth a shot anyway.
“Of course!” said Ellen, all false smiles, in Internet date mode.
He’d kissed them both and left, stopping at the counter to swiftly, efficiently pay their bill. He was clearly a man who always automatically paid the bill.
“So, what did you think?” asked Anne, her eyes on David’s back as he left the café. He didn’t look back. He was looking at the screen of his iPhone as he walked. There was something about the look in her mother’s beautiful violet eyes that reminded Ellen of the expression on Patrick’s face at Colleen’s grave. Was it a yearning look? It made her feel grumpy.
“Did you go to their wedding?” she said abruptly.
“Whose wedding?” said Anne.
“His. David’s wedding to Jane.”
“Oh.” Her mother had regained her normal posture and her voice had gone back down a few octaves. “Well, I did actually. Mel, Pip and I were all there. We were all in the same group of friends. A dreadful day. I felt so sick.”
“With guilt?”
“Well, no. I meant because I was three months pregnant with you.”
“Oh, Mum.” Imagine if that poor girl had known that one of her guests was pregnant by her brand-new husband.
“I’m not sure why you’re acting like this is a surprise to you,” said her mother. “You always knew that he was engaged to someone else.”
“I know I did,” said Ellen. “I’m sorry. I just hadn’t thought about the fact that you were at their wedding.”
She knew what she was doing. She was overidentifying with the bride. It was because she was subconsciously—no, actually, quite consciously—worried that she might be marrying a man who was still in love with someone else, albeit a dead someone else.
“Did you ever think about telling him that you were pregnant?” asked Ellen.
“Not really,” said Anne. “I barely admitted to myself how much I cared about him. I repressed it—to use your language. I pretended I was the tough feminist who just wanted a baby.”
But I liked it when you were the tough feminist, thought Ellen. I liked it when you were so different from me. It made me more me.
“I thought you’d find this all so romantic!” continued Anne. “I thought it was right up your alley! I said to Pip and Mel, Ellen is going to love this! And yet, you’ve been so strangely negative about it all. My daughter, Miss Positivity! Miss I-empathize-with-the-whole-world! Even your fiancé’s crazy stalking ex-girlfriend! Well, how about a little empathy for your own mother?”
“My hormones…” began Ellen tentatively.
“Oh, please. Don’t give me hormones!”
“OK,” said Ellen. And then she knew what she needed to say. Her mother had just introduced her to a new man.
“He’s lovely,” she said. “David, that is. Charming. Handsome. I really like him.” It was actually not untrue.
It was like switching on a light globe. Her mother had glowed. “I know!”
And then they’d spent the next half hour talking about David’s positive attributes in comparison to all the men her mother had ever dated.
“Of course, none of those poor unfortunate men ever had a chance,” said her mother. “I see that now. How could they, when I was still in love with your father? I was subconsciously holding back, wasn’t I? I should have let you hypnotize me! We could have worked on my issues.”
“Like that would have ever happened in a million years,” said Ellen.
It had been strangely comforting seeing the snarky glint in her mother’s eyes when she used the word “issues.” It would have been just too much if her mother had started coming over all respectful of hypnotherapy.
Now Ellen pulled up in front of her house and saw all the lights blazing.
There would be no fumbling in the dark for the key. The porch light had been broken for years, but like so many other things around the house, it had been quietly, magically fixed by Patrick within a week of his moving in. She’d complained to the girls about his boxes in the hallway. She hadn’t mentioned all the things he’d done to make life easier for her.
She laughed when she saw the silhouettes of Patrick and Jack suddenly dash by the window, their arms waving in the air. We’re home, she said to the baby. Looks like your dad and your big brother are still up.