Family Tree Part 19

There were descriptions of the motel clerk-late twenties, skinny, gla.s.ses-and the car the senator had driven-a dark SUV with a roof rack and step bars of a lighter color.

She had listed the date and approximate time of the encounter, and had written out several pages of her recollection of her conversation with the senator. She listed the order of events-she had taken the room, he joined her once she was inside and left before she did. She described his tall, solid build, and the bald spot at the back of his head.

He had sucked on breath strips and had offered her one. She didn't know what kind they were.

The last page had no heading and contained only one name.

"Dahlia?" Hugh asked.

Crystal put down her toast and wiped her mouth on a paper napkin. "He called it out."

"Called it out? When?"

"When he came."

"Came? You mean, climaxed?"

She nodded. "Is it his wife's name?"

"No, ma'am," Hugh said, but his mind was working. "Maybe a mistress."

Crystal seemed disappointed. "He'll deny it. He'll deny having lovers."

"Maybe," Hugh alleged with rising excitement, "but what if there are other women-women on that list Hutchinson's chief of staff claims exists? What if they could testify under oath that he called out the same name when they were with him?"

Chapter 15.

Tuesday morning, Dana met Tara for breakfast. Three other friends joined them to celebrate Lizzie's birth with cinnamon brioche French toast, broccoli quiche, and hazelnut decaf. Returning home afterward, she had barely pulled into the drive when Ali appeared beside her car.

"Look, Dana!" she cried with glee as soon as the door opened. She was holding the tiny red scarf in her hand as though it were a ribbon of gla.s.s. "I finished! Now I want to make the one for Cocoa, but I don't know how to cast out."

"Cast on," Dana corrected, and looked at Ali's work. "Ali, this is fabulous! Good for you!"

"I love it. Daddy says I've found my itch."

"Niche?"

"Niche. Will you help me start the next one? And after that one, I want to make them blankets for winter." Eyes cupped, she put her face to the back window. "Why is Baby E-lizabeth crying?"

"She's hungry," Dana said. "Tell you what. See those boxes at the front door? Help me bring them in while I feed Lizzie, and I'll teach you how to cast on. You're going to have to know how to do that yourself once you're back in New York." She opened the car door to get the baby.

"I'm not going back to New York."

"You're not?" This was news. "Where are you going?"

"Nowhere. I'm staying here."

Dana emerged from the car with a whimpering Lizzie. "Since when?" David hadn't mentioned it. If Ali was going to live with him, he would be scrambling to find her a school. Her school in Manhattan didn't start until mid-September. Schools here began in less than a week.

"Since today," Ali replied. "I decided I want to stay with Daddy."

"Does he know?"

"I'm telling him tonight. He won't mind. He loves having me here." She ran toward the front door, where a stack of three boxes stood. She picked up the first just as Dana approached with the baby. "Are these all for Baby E-lizabeth?"

Dana glanced at the labels, but Lizzie's fussing allowed for no more. "Looks that way. Put them over here, sweetheart. Hugh will open them when he gets home."

Lizzie needed feeding and changing. When that was done, Dana taught Ali to cast on. Then, with Ali at her heels, she carried Lizzie up to the spare bedroom. Opening the closet door, she pulled out a carton. She gently laid the baby on the Oriental rug and opened the box.

"Oooooooh," breathed Ali. "More yarn."

"This yarn's special," Dana explained. "It's my mother's stash, mostly leftovers from things she knit when I was little. Look," she said, pulling out a ball of bulky wool in avocado green that Elizabeth had used for a scarf and a remnant of the yellow yarn from Dana's bunny hat. There were other skeins she didn't recognize.

Curious, she pulled out the patterns that were tucked in against the side of the box. Most were books, opened to the page her mother had worked. Dana thumbed through, finding other things Elizabeth had knit.

Then she came to the single-page patterns. They were of the custom variety that The St.i.tchery offered for cla.s.sic crew neck, V-neck, and cardigan sweaters. The basic pattern was pre-printed, then, based on the customer's measurements and the weight of the yarn chosen, the sales clerk filled in the number of st.i.tches to be cast on, the number of increases required, and the length for each of the sweater's parts. In the course of knitting, the customer returned whenever adjustments were needed.

Looking closer, Dana realized that the logo on these patterns wasn't from The St.i.tchery. They had come from a store in Madison, which meant Elizabeth's college years.

Intrigued, while Lizzie slept on the floor and Ali neatly separated the yarn by color, Dana looked through the rest of the patterns. There were ones for making Fair Isle sweaters, fisherman's knits, and a Shaker scarf. There was also one for a Faroese shawl, with a faded drawing on the front. Dana had seen new books at the shop containing patterns like these, a revival of shawls that had originated generations earlier on Denmark's Faroe Islands. That her mother had worked up this style of shawl more than thirty-five years ago was stunning to Dana-and suddenly, without looking further, she knew this would be her signature project for fall. Knit from the hem up, with a gore in the center of the back and shaping at the shoulders to ease the fit, the shawl could be designed with long ends that wound around the wearer's waist and tied out of the way. Dana's deep teal alpaca-and-silk, while heavier than some of the more lacy, mohair-type shawls made on the Faroes, would be a modern twist, perfect for women her age.

Excited, she was about to open the pattern when her cell phone rang. Taking it from her pocket, she flipped it open. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Dana? Marge Cunningham. How are you doing?"

"Great, Marge. Thanks for calling back. I'm sorry I had to cancel last week. I was hoping we could set up another appointment."

"Actually," Marge said, "we've rethought this. Since you have a new baby and we have a very large house to decorate as soon as possible, we've hired Heinrich and Dunn."

Dana felt a stab of disappointment. "I'm sorry. I hadn't realized there was a rush, or I'd have met with you sooner." She might have said that Heinrich and Dunn would give the Cunninghams exactly what the firm had given their two neighbors, which was precisely what Marge had said she didn't want.

"Oh, you know," the woman breezed now, "it was one of those things where once we made the decision, we just got caught up in it and wanted to move-move-move." She ended with a little laugh. "But thanks anyway, Dana. And good luck with that little baby girl. I hear she's a winner."

Dana hung up feeling, surprisingly, no loss at all. With Ellie Jo sidelined, she had more than enough to do at the shop.

Content, she opened the pattern in her hand. Like the t.i.tle on the front, it was handwritten. A note was inside.

Here are the instructions. My mom translated them into English from my grandmother's Faroese, and they may have lost something in the process. You know everything about knitting, though. If there's a mistake, you'll catch it.

We miss you here. I understand why you left, but the dorm isn't the same without you. Please think of coming back with the baby next year. He'll be gone by then, so you'll be free.

Dana reread the sentence. Heart pounding, she turned the note over to see the envelope that was affixed to it by a rusty paper clip. The sender's name was there, as was a return address.

Dana had uncovered two secrets. The first was the name and address of a woman who had known her mother during those crucial pregnant days in Madison, and though the address was very old, it was a starting point.

The second was more intriguing. He'll be gone by then, so you'll be free-the implication being that Dana's father may not have been the one-night stand Elizabeth had led people to believe. Dana wasn't sure she liked the you'll be free part; it implied something controlling, even evil about the man. And since Dana had checked on the Web for a Jack Jones at Elizabeth's college during the years she was there, he may not have been a student at all. Still, her mother's friend might know more.

Ali left, but Dana didn't immediately act on her discoveries. Hugh wanted her father found immediately, but for her, those old ambivalent feelings were strong. And, besides, Dorothy was due to arrive.

She was tucking the envelope in the pocket of her jeans when the doorbell rang, and the next hour was truly pleasant. Dana shouldn't have been surprised. One on one, she had always enjoyed her mother-in-law. The surprise-given what had happened in the hospital the week before-was the genuine delight Dorothy found in the baby. There was no standoffishness, no handling Lizzie like she was a stranger's child, no withholding of the affection that Dana had seen her show Robert's kids. Her gift too-matching hand-painted anoraks for Dana and Lizzie-was unusually sensitive.

Dorothy insisted on holding Lizzie for all but the time the baby was nursing. It was only when she was about to leave, handing Lizzie back to Dana but keeping a hand on the child's head as if reluctant to sever the touch, that she mentioned that day the week before.

"I want you to know," she said, "how sorry I am about what happened at the hospital. You get settled into a certain social circle and start acting a certain way, and you don't think twice about it because everyone else around you behaves exactly the same way. But it's not who I am, certainly not who I was raised to be. I wasn't born a sn.o.b. Being a Clarke for so long now, there are just certain expectations..." Her voice trailed off.

What could Dana say? That it was all right? That being a Clarke justified poor behavior?

Given how raw she felt on that score, all she could do was to ask, "Do you doubt that Hugh is her father?"

"Of course not," Dorothy scoffed, still touching the baby. "Even if I couldn't see it with my own two eyes, which I can, I knew deep down that you wouldn't be with anyone but Hugh. You're a good woman, Dana. A good mother. You know, I was wrong before Lizzie was born when I insisted you needed a baby nurse. That was how we did it, but I've had time to think about it, and you don't need help. You lost your own mother, so you want to be there as much as possible for your own daughter. I understand. Mothers want certain things. They dream that their family will be united and loving, and that isn't always possible. But Eaton's book party is coming up, and I desperately want everyone from the family there, especially you and Hugh. If you don't have a babysitter, then I want you to bring Lizzie with you-and I don't care what Eaton says."

Dana realized it was the first time since Dorothy had come that she had said her husband's name.

"Does he know you're here?"

"Oh yes," Dorothy said, then stopped short, met Dana's eyes, and raised her chin. "No. Actually, he does not. He's a stubborn man, and it's not only with you and Hugh and this little girl. He picked a fight with his brother, so they're not talking, and now Bradley is taking it out on Robert, so Robert is angry with Eaton and with me, because he thinks I ought to be able to talk sense into my husband. But isn't this ridiculous. Here I am stealing out of the house to buy a gift for my newest grandchild. I charged it on my own credit card. Did you know I had one?"

Dana had to smile. "No, I didn't."

"Well, I do. I'm not a total fool."

Watching her drive away a few minutes later, Dana remembered the dream she had had moments before her water broke. In it, Dorothy had been the critic who found Dana lacking. Now Dana wondered if she had misinterpreted that. An argument could be made that Dorothy was there in the dream to help her out.

Dana had taken the phone off the hook and was napping on the family room sofa when Hugh arrived home.

"Hey," he said gently.

She bolted up, a.s.suming Lizzie was crying. When she realized it was Hugh, hunkered down beside her, she responded with a smile. She would have touched his cheek, had she not noticed his smug expression.

"The lab faxed me the test results. No doubt about it, Lizzie's mine." He patted his s.h.i.+rt pocket. "This is proof, Dee. It will silence my family."

Dana sat up.

"I bought the cutest little onesie," he went on. "And these for you."

She saw a bouquet of roses, the same mix of colors he had strewn in the nursery when she had first learned she was pregnant. The memory was bittersweet.

She took a deep breath to rouse herself fully from sleep. Then she said, "Thank you."

"Now, there's enthusiasm."

Dana went over to the ba.s.sinet. The baby was still asleep. She raised her eyes to the sea and wondered what her mother would say about turning down flowers. Ungrateful? Rude?

"Is this sleep deprivation?" Hugh asked.

She looked back. "This what?"

"b.i.t.c.hiness." He was still squatting and holding the cellophane-wrapped bouquet.

"Not sleep deprivation. Dismay. Am I supposed to be happy that your test proved something that was never in doubt?"

His eyes were probing. "I thought you'd be pleased to be able to put the issue to rest."

"Hugh," she said with an exasperated sigh, "the test isn't the point. It was your doing it."

"But I had to. Try to see it from my side." He stood up.

"No, you try to see it from my side," she countered. She didn't know if it was Dorothy's visit that gave her strength, but she refused to back off. "What we had before all this was special. Before I met you, I never dated super-rich guys, because I didn't trust them not to use and then discard me."

He made a dismissive sound. "No guy would do that."

"I grew up in this town," she argued. "I saw it happen more than once. There were the super-rich, and then there were the rest of us. We were playthings of the super-rich. Take Richie Baker. We called him The Spoiler, because his goal was to deflower virgins. As soon as he'd slept with one, he dumped her, and who's he married to now? One of the super-rich. I learned to avoid guys like you. And then suddenly all that caution didn't make sense, because everything about you-everything-spoke of decency and trust. Did I ever ask about women you'd dated before me? No, because they were irrelevant, because I knew that you felt differently about me."

"I did. I do."

To his credit, he looked concerned. She wanted to think he was finally hearing her.

"I know you did. You loved what was different about me. Only now you're not so sure if it was an illusion, just like my being white was apparently an illusion."

"You're confusing the issues."

"Okay. Go back to the paternity test. You needed an answer, and that was the quickest way to get one. Well, now you have the results. Will you call your dad? Your uncle? Your brother? Will you call your basketball buddies? Will you tell David he's in the clear?" She took a quick breath. "Don't you see, Hugh? Using this information now is as insulting to me as your running the test in the first place."

"Hey. Give me some credit. I won't start calling people with these test results."

"You mean you'll only tell them if they ask? Like, the next time someone makes a joke about Lizzie's color, you'll say you ran a paternity test and know that Lizzie is yours?" She raced on. "Well, if we've established that you are Lizzie's father, that means I'm African American. That's taking some getting used to on my part."

Hugh didn't say anything.

She went on. "I keep wondering if this business about David and the paternity test was just a smokescreen, so that you wouldn't have to face the truth. Well, your family may be glad to know that our baby is legitimate, but now they're going to have to deal with my heredity. You will, too. Maybe all of your balking has to do with that."

"Balking?"

"Doubting. My being with David. My being irresponsible in not tracking my father sooner than this. Are you less trusting of me because I'm not purebred white? Do you want to stay married to me?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Dana."

"What kind of answer is that?" she asked. "I'm talking about our marriage, Hugh. Can we find a way to get back to where we were?"

"Yes," he snapped, "but not until we get to the truth. Let's find your father-"

Dana interrupted. "Where's your whiz Lakey?"