“She was pregnant when you married her.”
“Yes,” Webster says.
“Allison Newman told me just before Christmas. Her mother used to work in Gramps’s store.”
Webster tries to remember the women who worked for his father. He can recall only three of them, but he knew their first names only.
“Would you have married her if she hadn’t been pregnant?”
Webster sits forward. “I can’t honestly say, Rowan. I loved her. There was a time when I loved her so much, it hurt.” He pauses. “But if the relationship had run its normal course,” he adds, “and I’d seen the lying and the drinking, I might have ended it. We weren’t even living together when she got pregnant.”
“So,” Rowan says, “I’m what? A mistake?”
Webster turns to his daughter. “Rowan, look at me,” he says. “Do you feel like a mistake?”
It takes her a while to answer. “Sometimes I do.”
Webster briefly closes his eyes. Why didn’t he talk to Rowan about this when she was younger? But how does a dad know when his daughter is ready for a conversation like this?
“Rowan, listen. A baby, when it comes, is never a mistake. Never. A baby is the exact opposite of a mistake.”
Rowan turns her face away.
“You were deeply loved from the moment you were born,” Webster adds. “Certainly by me, that goes without saying. But by your mother, too.”
“If she loved me so much, why did she leave me? And why did she drink so much? Why did she risk my life?”
“I think you’re going to need to ask her those questions.”
He pauses.
“Somewhere inside, the drunk has to want to get better. Otherwise, nothing works. Your mother wasn’t there yet.”
He stops again.
“I couldn’t have her driving around drunk with you in the backseat. End of story. And I’m guessing that wasn’t the first time she’d had you out in the car after she’d been drinking. You and she were incredibly lucky that day. On Route 222, an unexpected curve, a slow reaction time? She’s lucky she didn’t go head on with a tree.”
“Is she sober now?”
“Yes, she is.”
“What did Nana and Gramps think of her?”
“They didn’t like her at first. Or they didn’t like the fact that I was marrying her. But after the wedding, they were fine. And after you were born, they were over the moon.”
Rowan taps the empty can on the patio table. “Were they happy when you sent her away?”
“No, they weren’t. I had to explain it to them. I mean, they knew, they could see it, but I talked to them anyway. I could hardly avoid it. You and I were living with them at the time.”
“What was I like when I was born?”
Webster smiles. “Wrinkly. Red-faced. You had a pointed head.”
“I did?”
“All babies have pointed heads. The ones that are birthed naturally. And, boy, were you in a hurry. You were practically born in the car.”
“I was?”
“I was all set to deliver you.”
“What did… my mother… think?”
“She wasn’t thinking anything, Rowan. She was in pain.”
“Is the pain really terrible?”
Webster tosses his cup into a wastebasket. “I think that’s another question for your mother.”
“I might have had brothers and sisters.”
Webster leans forward. “Rowan, honey, listen to me. You didn’t. OK? That’s your given. You didn’t have a mother most of your life. That’s another given. You’ve been dealt that hand, and that’s what you play with. You can wish you had a different given, but it won’t do you any good. People start feeling sorry for themselves, that’s pretty much the end of them.”
“What makes you know so much?”
Webster shrugs. “I don’t know so much. I know a lot about a few things. I know about raising a child from birth to seventeen.”
Rowan narrows her eyes. “You don’t know everything.”
There’s been enough conversation for one day, Webster decides.
“You have months, years, to digest this. The most important thing you have to do now is rest.”
“The most important thing I have to do is grow my hair,” she says.
Webster waits until the next day before reintroducing the subject of Sheila. Webster has alerted Sheila that the visit is likely to happen in the morning. Tommy and Gina are scheduled to come later in the day. Webster has to make this happen in the morning, if at all.
“So how are you doing today?” Webster asks when he walks in the door.
“Good,” she says. “They’re going to begin physical therapy for the shoulder, and they have to make sure I can walk a fair distance without losing my balance. I can’t risk falling on the shoulder.”
Webster sits on the bed. He smiles.
“You didn’t notice they washed my hair.”
“I did notice. You look great.”
“I tried to figure out how to handle the bald spot.” On a hook on the back of her door is the hat Webster bought her. He went to the campus store and asked a young woman if she knew what Rowan meant. The woman sent him to a boutique not far away that sold the right kind of cap.
“Rowan, do you remember I asked if you’d be willing to meet your mother?”
“Yeah.”
“And have you thought about it?”
“I’d like to do it,” she says. “I’d like for you to be here, and I’d like to work out a prearranged signal with you for when I want her to leave. You can go get a nurse and have her interrupt us, or something.”
“And what will the signal be?”
Rowan ponders possible codes. “I think I’ll just say, ‘I need a nurse.’ ”
Webster laughs. “That’s pretty straightforward.” He stands. “I’m not allowed to make phone calls in here. I have to go out into the hallway. Be right back.”
“OK,” Rowan says. “Maybe you should get me my hat.”
Webster tosses it to her.
Ten minutes later, when Webster sees Sheila in the corridor, he says to his daughter, “She’s here, Rowan. Do you want me to bring her in?”
“I’m scared,” Rowan says.
“So am I.”
Webster walks out into the corridor and signals to Sheila.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Sheila asks.
“Not positive, but I think it is. She may not be able to handle more than a minute or two.”
Sheila has on a short white jacket with a long black T-shirt and a pair of jeans. She has her hair down and behind her ears. He has no idea how this will go. It is a risk, maybe a terrible one. If Rowan can’t handle the meeting, the consequences for both of them could be serious and long-lasting.
Webster steps to one side to allow Sheila into the room. “Rowan, this is Sheila Arsenault.”
Sheila takes a step forward. “How are you?” she asks Rowan.
His daughter cannot speak. It’s as though her vocal cords have been paralyzed. She seems to want to say something, but can’t.
With Rowan alert, Webster sees the uncanny resemblance between the two women.
Sheila takes a step closer to the bed. She tilts her head and looks right at Rowan. “Is it OK if I sit down?” she asks. From Rowan’s point of view, Sheila must look intimidating. Webster notices that his daughter is still clutching the hat.
“Sure,” Rowan says, finally finding her voice. With her good arm, she hitches herself a little higher against the pillows.
“You had a nasty accident.”
No one has said the word mother or daughter yet. Sheila might be a friend of Webster’s who’s just stopped by. He wonders if either Rowan or Sheila is registering the similarities between them.
“You look well,” Sheila says.
Webster is expecting the summons from Rowan any minute now, and even he is beginning to think this meeting may have been a bad idea. Rowan, in th
e bed, resembles a cornered animal.
“The doctors say she’ll be able to go home in a couple of days,” Webster explains.
“Just in time for your graduation,” Sheila says.
Rowan seems surprised that Sheila knows about the graduation. “I hear you’re a painter,” Rowan offers.
“I am,” Sheila says, setting her purse on the floor beside the bed. While Sheila sits, Webster stands at the foot of the bed so that he can see his daughter’s face. To be ready for any signal. How small his personal universe is.
“My dad says they’re very good.” Rowan hitches herself up farther. She’s still holding the hat, but not clutching it. She’s revealed her bald spot but appears not to know it.
“Your dad is very generous,” Sheila says. “I recognize you, but you’re so different. You’re beautiful.”
Rowan’s blush is instantaneous. Webster holds his breath for a two-beat. This could go in any direction now.
“How tall are you?” Sheila asks Rowan.
“Five nine. And you?”
“Five ten, or I used to be. Who knows now? They say you start to shrink.”
“You looked very tall when you were standing.”
Sheila smiles.
“Our hair is the same color,” Rowan says.
Sheila nods. “That’s one of the first things I noticed. Yours was much lighter when you were a baby.”
And there it is. Connection made. A history together, even if Rowan knows little about it.
“This is completely weird,” Rowan says. “I have, like, a million questions.”
“I have two million,” Sheila says.
No mention yet of abandonment or guilt. Anger or remorse. That will come, Webster knows. But maybe not today. Each of them smart enough to avoid it. Now, instead of a stranger, it’s as though a long-lost aunt has come to visit.
Sheila takes off her white jacket, either hot or maybe just sweating from nerves. Rowan sits straight up in the bed and bends forward, showing Sheila the bald spot. “What am I supposed to do with this?” Rowan asks. “I have to be at graduation in three days.”
Sheila takes the question seriously. “Won’t that cap you have to wear—the mortarboard—cover it?”
“But then you have to toss them in the air at the end,” Rowan says.
Sheila tilts her head again. “May I?” she asks, reaching for Rowan’s hair.
Rowan nods yes.
Sheila fingers Rowan’s hair and inspects the bald spot again. “You could cut your hair,” she suggests. “Do one of those short, spiky things. Your hair is thick enough. Then just wear the bald spot as part of the new cut. There’s no way you can really hide it. I was thinking you could do some sort of comb-over, but that would be worse in the end.”
Rowan runs her fingers through the ends of her hair. “I’ve always had long hair,” she says.
“Have you?” her mother asks.
“Since twelve, anyway.”
“Maybe it’s time for a change.”
“Do you know how to cut hair?” Rowan asks Sheila.
“I don’t,” Sheila says. “But I can find someone who does.”
“They’ll come here?”
“I’ll arrange it that way, if the nurses will let me.”
Webster, baffled, can only watch. He knows this is surface, that there will be pitfalls ahead, perhaps an entire crater. Odd how females bond over crises in appearance. With guys, it would be sports.
Sheila, having checked that the haircut would be all right with the nurses, arranges for a hairdresser to come to Rowan’s room that afternoon. Webster steps outside the door when the hairdresser arrives, and he’s pretty sure that Rowan doesn’t even notice his absence. He watches for a moment. The nurses have put Rowan in a wheelchair and covered her with sheets. Sheila sits on the bed and observes as the hairdresser fingers Rowan’s hair. She asks if Rowan is sure she wants to do this and nods when Rowan bravely says yes. Sheila explains what she has in mind. Webster, watching the tableau, thinks: She might have been a good mother after all.
After the physical therapy and the visit by Gina and Tommy (Webster and Sheila hear giggling from the room as they stand in the hallway), Rowan reports that the little physical therapy they gave her was brutal and that she has a lot of work to do on the shoulder. Because the nurses have encouraged Rowan to walk as much as possible, Webster strolls with Rowan along the corridors. Once he takes her outside to see the summer evening. Rowan sucks in the fresh air. From Webster’s vantage point, the spiky hair doesn’t hide the bald spot, but it makes it less noticeable. Webster asks Rowan what she thought of Sheila, but Rowan is less forthcoming than Webster hoped. He doesn’t know if Rowan wants to keep her feelings about her mother to herself, or if she herself can’t quite sort out this new development in her life.
“The nurse told me that the medics paralyzed me for the ride in the helicopter. Did you do that?”
“No,” he says. “The airlift medics do that.”
“The nurse said that she’s known patients who recover from the original injury, but stay paralyzed.”
Fucking nurse. “I’ve heard that, too,” Webster says. “But I don’t know of anyone that’s happened to.”
“But you knew this when they paralyzed me,” she says.
“I did. I didn’t like it, but it’s standard procedure with a head injury prior to an airlift.”
“So you must have been scared,” Rowan says.
“I was terrified.”
She hugs him with her good arm. “I’m sorry,” she says.
When Webster arrives the next morning, he finds that Sheila has beaten him to it. She is sitting close to Rowan in the chair, and the two are talking. Rowan’s eyes express wonderment and awe, and he can hear her giggle through the glass. Because he doesn’t want to interrupt the pair, he meanders through the hallways, checking back every twenty minutes.
The second time he peers in, they are still talking.
The third time he nears the room, he can see that Rowan is laughing. Webster wonders if Sheila is telling her stories about what Rowan was like when she was a baby.
The fourth time he walks by, their heads are closer together, and each is serious. He walks into the room.
Both Sheila and Rowan look at him as if surprised to see him. Sheila sits back in her chair. Rowan says nothing.
“Did I interrupt something?” Webster asks.
Rowan shrugs.
“Anybody want anything from the vending machine?” Webster, in desperation, asks.
Rowan and Sheila shake their heads.
“OK. I’m going for coffee,” he announces.
He gives them fifteen minutes. When he reenters the room, Rowan is crying.
Fuck.
Sheila turns to him and makes a downward motion with her hands, as if to say, Don’t get upset. Everything is not as it seems.
Rowan reaches for a tissue and blows her nose. “If you hadn’t sent her away, we’d have been a family all those years.”
Sheila holds up a hand before Webster can respond. “Your father did the right thing by sending me away,” she says to Rowan. “I might have killed you. It’s sort of a miracle I didn’t.”
“So you’re not angry that he sent you away?”
“I have been at times,” Sheila says. “But there’s no doubt in my mind that he did it to save your life.”
“I didn’t save anyone’s life,” Webster says, setting his coffee cup on the ledge under the window. “It happened, and it can’t be taken back. We’ve all been damaged by it.” He pauses. Does he believe that? Yes, he does.
“Rowan and I have a lot of catching up to do,” Sheila says. She stands.
“You’re going?” Rowan asks with dismay.
“If my watch is right,” Sheila says, “the physical therapist is going to come grab you in about five minutes. Besides, I have to return to my house. I don’t want to leave, but I really have to.”
Rowan throws off the covers and sits at the
edge of the bed. Her legs are thin and white. Webster is always amazed by how much muscle mass can be lost in so short a time.
“When you go across that stage,” Sheila says, “you keep your chin up and forget about that bald spot. Besides, it’s growing back in already.”
“It is?” Rowan asks, fingering her head.
“I’ll call you as soon as I get back. I have to run to check out of my room at the inn, or I’ll be charged the extra day.”
Rowan looks wildly at her father, as if to say, Fix it.
“Stay the extra day,” Webster suggests to his ex-wife. “Unless you positively have to be back. Follow us to Hartstone. You can get a room at the Bear Hollow Inn.”
Where they had their wedding lunch.
“Or if that’s full, we’ll find you another place. Wouldn’t you like to see this sad, pathetic, bald creature graduate?”
“Yes,” Sheila says. “Yes, I would.” She turns to Rowan. “Are you asking me?”
“I am,” Rowan says.
Sheila, having arrived at the house early from the Bear Hollow Inn, zips up the back of Rowan’s dress, a chore that used to be Webster’s, Rowan always pleading, “Don’t look.”
His girls. It’s on the tip of his tongue. Webster remembers thinking it years ago one afternoon when he found Sheila and Rowan asleep together on the ground. But Sheila is no more his than the neighbor’s lawn mower is. Still, there’s something about the scene before him—a mother and a daughter helping each other with last-minute arrangements—that pleases him.
Rowan is nervous. Webster knows it’s partly the hair, partly a slight unsteadiness on her feet, partly the idea of seeing her friends again.
It’s been fifteen years since all three of them have been in this house together. But Rowan doesn’t remember that.
Webster watches Sheila give Rowan her graduation present, a short necklace of powder blue stones and hammered silver balls. Even as Sheila hands the package to Rowan, the gesture seems tentative. As if she shouldn’t be giving her daughter a present. The easy joy that Sheila took in Rowan just two days earlier appears to have left her.
“What do you think?” Rowan asks, standing before him in her light blue dress with a part of one sleeve cut to make room for the cast.