Page 39 of The Wandering Season

I spotted Tara in the restaurant before she spotted me. She sat in the corner once again and seemed even more nervous than she had on our first encounter. She stood when I approached and extended her hand as she’d done before. Formal and guarded. And I couldn’t blame her.

I responded by opening my arms for a hug. She hesitated a moment before stepping into the embrace, but once we locked arms around each other, we both lingered there a long moment. She smelled of jasmine-verbena perfume with the softest hint of sandalwood. The scent seemed eerily familiar, though I couldn’t identify it at a department store counter to spare my life.

“I was surprised you wanted to see me again,”

she said at length.

We took our places at the table, and I steadied myself with a deep breath.

“I’m surprised you came, to be honest. I didn’t really deserve more of your time.”

“Veronica, you’re a smart and competent young woman. And, in my eyes, the only innocent party in this mess. You have the right to a reaction. And I never fooled myself into thinking that it wouldn’t be a strong one.”

I looked down at my hands. “That’s true enough, but I was out of line. You weren’t left with a lot of great choices.”

“That was definitely the case, but you had no way of knowing that. I can see why, from your perspective, I wasn’t owed any allowances.”

“I was wrong to be so harsh with you. You were young, broke, and put in a bad position. You did the best for me that you could under the circumstances. You acted more selflessly than a lot of women might have.”

She glanced down at her empty place setting before meeting my eyes. “I wouldn’t say I was selfless. For years I hated myself because I felt like I acted to save my own neck instead of fighting to keep you.”

“But my birth father was right. Without his support, which he never would have given willingly, how could you have supported us? Just because you made the choice that didn’t destroy your own future doesn’t mean it wasn’t the best one for me too. He made sure to make the decision a no-brainer for you.”

Her eyes widened and her lips parted momentarily in surprise. “How could you possibly know about any of this? I didn’t tell you who he was, and he passed away ten years ago. And there’s no way his family would have talked to you.”

“They didn’t have to.”

I did my best to, matter-of-factly, relate what I’d seen in the apartment lobby the night before. I’d had to explain this so many times now, I’d become less awkward about it. Not that I found the visions any less strange. I’d just had time to make friends with the idea to some extent.

She was a bit pale when I finished my summary, but I expected as much. “What building was it?”

“The Mercury. I went into the lobby to escape the rain and hail a cab.”

She exhaled slowly, a memory clouding her face. “That’s where your birth father lived.”

“I figured it had to be. Whatever this phenomenon is, it seems to be linked to location.”

“I spent more time there than I should have. His wife is still there from what I hear. Obviously I do whatever I can to stay out of her circles, but it’s hard to do so entirely in nonprofit. Her grandson is running the company now, and it seems like he’s doing a decent job for such a young CEO. He seems eager to prove he’s worthy on his own merit and all that.”

“Makes sense. Do you think they know?”

Tara shrugged. “He claimed they didn’t the last time I saw him, almost twenty years ago. But his wife was—is—a keenly observant woman. I can’t imagine she didn’t figure it out from financial records for my medical receipts and all the birth-related expenses. If not when he was alive, surely after he died.”

“He seemed like a heartless goon. It was awful to force you to give birth without any support system at all.”

“It wasn’t as dreadful as you might think. It wasn’t like some horrible home for unwed mothers from the 1950s. He sent me to a facility that was more like a day spa than anything else. He wasn’t a total monster, though I liked to think of him that way for a long time. But he’s part of you, so I won’t disparage him.”

The phrase made me think of Carlotta avoiding bad-mouthing Donatella’s father, and the similarities made my stomach roil.

“It’s fine. I don’t mind, really.”

Tara gave a full-throated laugh. “Thanks for understanding. I hope you understand . . . If I hadn’t gone along with his scheme, he’d have found a way to keep me from finishing my degree and blackball me from every nonprofit from here to Honolulu. If I’d kept you, I wouldn’t have been able to feed you. I was a scholarship kid and my parents barely had two nickels to rub together. I didn’t want that life for you.”

“I get that. And I do appreciate it. My parents are incredible, and my childhood was amazing. For what it’s worth, I think you made the right decision.”

“I knew I did, even back then.”

She took a steadying breath. “I only got to hold you one time. And it was because your dad whisked your mom into the hallway to give you and me a few moments alone together before they got to take you home. I couldn’t bring myself to ask for it, but he just knew.”

“That sounds like Dad. He’s able to read situations like that. Sort of unnerving at times, but he’s a great husband to my mom. And a fabulous dad.”

Tara smiled. “I always believed they’d be amazing parents, but seeing how kind a person you are to someone you have every right to take issue with proves it. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d come in here and thrown a glass of wine in my face.”

I took the glass of wine from in front of my place setting and took in the bouquet and a small sip. “Bold of you to order a red if that’s what you were expecting. But it is a pretty decent Spanish Tempranillo. Seems a waste to toss it.”

She arched a brow in approval. “Beronia. One of my favorites. You have a good nose.”

I raised a glass to her. “It’s my job to know a Tempranillo from a Cab from a Shiraz.”

“You’re a sommelier? How swanky.”

“Not quite. More of a kitchen muse.”

I went into a description of how I was able to cobble together a living.

“That sounds fascinating. I bet you’d make a killing here in New York. I can’t imagine a restaurateur who wouldn’t want a savvy consultant on their side.”

“You’d think so, but no. There is so much kitchen talent in this town, I’d end up as white noise. I don’t have the fancy certifications and diplomas to impress anyone here. It’s a lot easier to get a foothold in a place like Denver. And thanks to Michelin, the restaurant scene there is growing, so that makes it a fun challenge.”

“I see what you mean. Is there a reason you didn’t go to culinary school? If it’s a matter of money . . .”

I shook my head. Taking money from her was even less appealing than taking money from my parents. “Nothing like that. And honestly, I’ve been asking myself that question a lot lately.”

I took another sip of the wine, grateful it was there and fortifying. “So why now? Why did you start searching for me?”

“Simple. The NDA Wally made us sign was set to expire ten years after his death, and he passed ten years ago right around Christmas. I counted down the days to start my search in the back of my head from the moment I saw his obit in the Times. I doubt the NDA would have been enforceable after his death, but the family could have made things difficult for us all. I also figured your teen years would have been the absolute worst time for me to upend your life.”

My breath caught. “Maybe so. That was about when I pieced it together in sophomore biology. It didn’t take an A student to understand that the odds of two brunette parents with dark eyes and olive skin having a kid with pale skin, red hair, and green eyes was virtually impossible. Avery’s DNA kit really just provided confirmation.”

She smiled. “And I bet you were an A student. What did your parents say when you told them?”

“I never did. I think part of me didn’t want to rock the boat. We were a happy family, you know? Why upset things over a simple question of genetic code?”

She took a sip from her glass. “That’s pretty insightful for a fifteen-year-old kid, if I may be so bold. Too insightful for me to believe it’s the whole truth.”

“Maybe it isn’t the whole truth, but that’s what I convinced myself of for a long time.”

She glanced past my shoulder a moment, seeming to gather her thoughts before she spoke. “I’m going to hazard a guess that you didn’t tell them because you were afraid they’d love you less if the truth was out in the open. You worried it was easier for them to pretend you were their biological kid if you didn’t know the truth.”

I knitted my fingers in my lap. “That’s also pretty insightful for someone who has spent less than an hour in my company.”

“Well, even if I didn’t have the chance to raise you, you have 50 percent of my DNA. There was bound to be a trace of me in your makeup.”

I gestured to my face. “A bit more than a trace.”

“Deeper than that. It’s maybe not right for me to say it, but I know something about convincing myself that I was unworthy and allowing myself to accept things I shouldn’t have. I hope you learn that sooner than I did.”

“How do you mean?”

“I went through a bad couple of years after you were born and I entrusted you to the Strattons. Fell into, believe it or not, worse relationships than the one that gave me you. Took crap jobs because I didn’t feel like I deserved better despite being qualified. It took me a long time to get my head right and not feel like I was the worst person in the history of mankind for not trying to raise you on my own.”

“What changed?”

“Well, like you, I saw something. I saw a little redheaded girl on a bike when I was walking home after a spectacularly bad date. She was the same age you would have been. She seemed happy, but I followed her because I was worried she was going to stray into traffic. And she did before I could reach her. But the cars passed right through her and I could hear her giggling on the other side of the street.”

At once visions of Aoife, Imogène, Carlotta, and Donatella returned to me. Ephemeral, glistening, just a shade too pale to be of this plane. And Tara—my birth mother—had seen the same. Whether she’d passed along some genetic form of delusion or a precious gift of sight, I couldn’t be sure. But it was clearly a link we shared.

“Describe the bike?” I asked.

Her eyes flitted off to the distance, summoning the memory. “It was mostly a bright metallic magenta with little rainbows all over. And the girl wore a helmet shaped like a unicorn’s head, complete with a foam horn.”

“I loved that helmet. And the iridescent streamers on the handles. I got that bike for my fourth birthday.”

I could practically feel the heat rising from the asphalt as my dad taught me how to ride without training wheels as Mom watched from the porch, little Avery in her arms.

“I think it was you. Somehow sending me a message from Denver that you were fine and happy. It’s what I chose to believe. And I clung to that. I let myself believe that you didn’t want me to spend the rest of my life miserable because I tried to do what I thought was right at the time.”

“Well, I can’t say if I would have understood well enough at that age to absolve you of anything, but whatever it was you saw, I’m glad you did. You didn’t need to spend the rest of your life atoning for making the choices you did. I am unreservedly glad you’ve had a good life.”

“Thank you for that,”

she said. “And, as your birth mother, even if I haven’t earned that title, I want nothing less than a stellar life for you.”

I stood, and she followed suit. I think she expected I was going to leave again, but instead I enveloped her in another hug. I took a moment to feel the warmth of her and to take in the scent of jasmine and sandalwood. The familiarity of the powdery-floral scent filled me with a phantom memory of being held and safe so long ago, just before being placed in the arms of another who could love me without complication or regret. A woman who was, in many ways, far luckier than Tara had been but who was and always would be the woman I called Mother.

* * *

Avery’s face filled my screen and her voice filled the apartment via FaceTime as I crossed the threshold of her door. She affected a tone of voice that begged me to divulge as much of the evening’s events as I was comfortable doing—so long as I left out no detail. “There’s a decent bottle of Cab in the bottom cabinet, and I insist you enjoy it.”

“Yes to the wine. The dinner went great.”

“And?”

I retrieved the bottle and hunted down a corkscrew, making a mental note to buy her a decent one when I was out the next day. She had her areas of expertise and I had mine. “I apologized for bailing on her.”

“Unnecessary, but go on.”

I considered torturing her by dragging out the details, as a gentle reminder that she was, in fact, prying, but everything began to seep into my skin with the weight of a sodden beach towel across the shoulders. I was too tired to put up any semblance of a wall with her just then.

“So what I saw at The Mercury? That was what happened. She recalled things in such detail, there was no way she could be making it up.”

Avery sucked in a breath. “So what does this mean for you?”

I leaned my head against the back of the Ikea love seat, wineglass in hand, feeling the fatigue wash over me. “We promised to keep in touch. Email only for a while. If it gets weird, either of us can ghost for any reason. No explanations necessary.”

“Are you okay with that?”

Her voice was gentle, with her trademark pinch of insistence.

“I think it’s the right place for us to start, yeah.”

And I meant it. There were no promises of another reunion or reintroducing her to Mom and Dad. I knew they’d love her simply by virtue of being the one who’d helped make them parents, but I wasn’t ready for that yet. We kept the expectations manageable so there would be room to scale up our interactions later if we so chose. Only time would tell whether our relationship would flourish or fizzle.

And it didn’t really matter which . . . I had some answers, and for now, that was enough.

“I promised Stephanie we’d add her to FaceTime if you’re up to it,”

she said after a beat.

I paused. As exhausted as I was, going over the scene in the morning, when all my senses were sharp, sounded far worse than laboring through a call. “Sure. Let’s patch her in.”

Stephanie answered the call, looking as if she’d just come in from the office. Given that it was closing in on eight o’clock in Denver, it wasn’t out of the question for her.

Avery and I took turns filling her in on the events of the evening while Stephanie nodded along like a diligent student in a lecture hall. “So now that you’ve made peace with Tara, what now? Are you coming home to Denver?”

“Soon. After a girls’ weekend with Avery.”

Avery turned bubbly. “I got us great tickets to a show. And dinner reservations to die for.”

“Sounds amazing,”

I said, trying to summon the enthusiasm I’d feel when my energy returned.

“And let me play dress-up?”

she pressed.

“Fine. As long as you choose shoes I can walk in.”

I shot her a no-nonsense older sister glare I hoped instilled fear in her soul, but I wasn’t hopeful.

“Overrated, but fine.”

Stephanie exhaled and rubbed her temples. She was in full-on PR problem-solving mode and had her boardroom voice on. “Okay, so do all the girly stuff with Avery. Eat amazing food and schmooze with the food gurus . . . but then what’s for you here?”

“My job? I still need to answer Fairbanks.”

Stephanie’s face grew somber. “Listen, I am the career woman’s career woman, but is your job really what’s going to make you happy? I really want you to be honest. You have spent your whole career building other people’s businesses. Isn’t it time you do something for yourself?”

Avery chimed in. “And, Vero, as a person who has known you my whole life and most of yours, I’ve never seen you happier than when you were traveling.”

I gave her a wary glance. “You want me to be a nomad? Spend my days wandering from one obscure village to another seeking wisdom or something?”

Stephanie rolled her eyes. “Not a nomad. I want you to pick someplace that speaks to you and create something new and exciting. For yourself.”

I thought of the little red-haired girl Tara had seen bicycling on the streets of Manhattan. How she’d taken that vision as a sign of forgiveness from me. Part of me truly hoped it was the universe—and me—giving her much-deserved permission to lead a happy and fulfilling life. Giving her permission to forgive the world and herself for all that had happened.

And I wondered if, without a life-altering vision or any sort of inexplicable phenomenon, I could do the same for myself.