Shadow Notes by Laurel Peterson (cool books to read txt) 📗

I could see my father’s formal garden, the snow-covered outlines of tiny boxwood in knotted formations around the slender stalks of rose canes. In the summer, their reds, mauves and pinks gleamed against the graveled path.

I missed my father so much. Just his steady presence had kept me on track through all those difficult years when it seemed Mother’s goal was to make me feel small. He never interfered, and I had come to understand that whatever relationship I forged with her had to be because of my own backbone, not because someone else protected me. I wished he hadn’t had to die for me to get it.

She carried in a tray with teapot and mugs, sandwiches and cookies. She smiled ruefully. “I’ve not baked for a long time, so forgive the effort if it’s not quite right. I needed something to occupy me while I waited for you to recover.” She waved her hand at the papers and boxes. “Something besides this clean-up.” Apparently she’d been reorganizing them.

I didn’t ever remember her baking. I didn’t even know she knew how.

She poured me a mug and handed it across. I sipped and picked up a sandwich. It was turkey salad. “Is this Richard’s Christmas turkey?”

She nodded. “They said we could finish celebrating when you were better. I told them I would host New Year’s. I’m not sure Richard is doing well.” She seated herself across from me in a wingback chair. “You’re up for talking? You’ll tell me if you get tired?”

“Yes,” I said, thinking I needed to call Richard.

“It’s a long story, but it’s about you and me, and our gift. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but when I’m finished, perhaps you’ll understand why.”

I wished she would get on with it. How bad could it be?

“When I was fifteen—” She stopped, pressed her lips together. The skin around them bleached out under the pressure. She suddenly thrust back her shoulders and started again. “When I was fifteen, I was raped. You’re the result.”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t feel any part of my body. Rape? I was a child of rape? How had she lived with that?

How would I?

A moment ago, I thought I was coming into a stronger, more centered self. Now I felt shame at having been born, at being the result of my mother’s pain, as if I was at fault for what happened.

“Why did you keep me?” I whispered.

“Clara, I love you so much, and I am so sorry your life began that way, but I wouldn’t trade you for anything. I only wish I hadn’t had to experience what I did for you to come into the world.”

Everything about my mother fell into sharp relief: the ambivalence, the coldness, the distance, the books about trauma and grief, the meditation, the therapy. Finally, she made sense. But now I didn’t make any sense at all.

“You are the reason for Hugh’s murder, Hetty’s murder, the break-ins here. I know who’s behind it, and I’m pretty sure I know why, but I can’t prove it. I’m telling you so you’ll protect yourself.”

“From whom?”

“My rapist.”

“You know who did it? Why isn’t he in jail, rotting away in solitary confinement?” Rage welled up, momentarily relieving the shame that threatened to overwhelm me.

“I couldn’t prove it, Clara. He paid off the doctor who examined me after the rape, and the ob-gyn I saw while pregnant. He’s a powerful man.”

“Who is it, Mother? You have to tell me who my real father is.”

“He’s not your real father. The man who raised you is your real father. This man conceived you in hate—and you must never—ever!—forget that.”

“Who is he?”

She bit her lip again. Lights from a passing car flashed across the doors, probably the patrol car the chief had promised would regularly check the house.

“Andrew Winters,” she said.

Something inside me, like a soft burrowing animal, hunkered down at her answer, as if it were satisfied that what it had known all along were suddenly proven true. The rage sharpened, but I focused it. I needed to know more.

My hands gripped handfuls of blanket. “What happened?”

“I made the mistake of telling Mary Ellen about my intuition. She told Andrew. I was so lonely, Clara. No one understood. And then my mother grounded me when she found out.” She rubbed at a spot on the tray with her fingertip.

“Andrew cozied up to me. He sat next to me in class, offered to carry my books, ate lunch with me and your father. I started to get disturbing images, all about burning and fire.” She laughed a little, like metal on slate. “Maybe he’ll end up in hell…

“He finally got around to what he wanted, which was for me to use my gift to see if he should run for class president, if he should apply to Princeton or Yale, if he should run for local office after college. If he would ever be President. I was to become his personal fortune teller, and God help me if I got the answers wrong.”

I held still, fearful any movement would throw her off her story and ignite my own brushfire of feelings.

“The previous year, the boy who ran against him in the school election got into a terrible car crash. He almost didn’t walk again; he didn’t make it back to school for the rest of the semester. Some people said Andrew tampered with the brakes on his car. He hadn’t done it himself, he never does anything himself. He set up a favor system—he’d help you get a good test grade or get a bully off your back and you’d owe him—a sort of whispery economy floating just below the radar. No one would talk about it, because Andrew always knew if you’d stepped out of line and he made you pay.”

“He raped you himself.” Invisible question mark at the end.

She re-crossed her legs the other way. “It was a personal rejection. I’d wager it was the first and last misstep