Looking for Jane (97)
She takes Katherine’s hands in her own and tells her daughter the thing she has never revealed to a single living soul.
“I was adopted.”
Nancy spends the next fifteen minutes relaying her story to Katherine. She tells her about Margaret being dead, and that her birth name was Jane. That Katherine’s grandmother kept the secret from Nancy until she died, never knowing that Nancy already knew. Katherine holds her mother’s hands and passes a tissue when she needs it. She’s a good listener, and helps Nancy release the demon that’s been lodged in her chest for decades.
“I’m so sorry, Mom. So, you never told anyone about this?” Katherine asks. “You never even told Dad?”
“No. No, I didn’t. To be honest with you, I didn’t tell him a lot of things. When you find your person, Katherine, don’t make the same mistake I did. Please.”
Katherine purses her lips and seems to waffle on the edge of saying something.
“What is it?” Nancy asks.
Katherine shakes her head, her curtain of hair swinging back and forth. “I just think you guys need to talk to each other,” she says. “He’s still really sad, Mom. He has been since you separated. I know that’s not related to this.” She indicates the pile of evidence on the bed beside Nancy. “But regardless, I think you should tell him this and talk to him about how he’s feeling. And I know you miss him, too, I mean come on.”
Nancy notices a warm flare in her gut. “He didn’t put you up to this, did he?”
“Of course not. I shouldn’t have even said anything, but you seem so sad, and Dad’s sad, and I think you might be sad for the same reasons. Just call him.”
Nancy nods, though unsure. “Okay. Maybe I will. Sorry about this.” She waves a hand at her blotchy, damp face.
“It’s okay. I love you, Mom.” Katherine plants a kiss on Nancy’s cheek and makes her way to the door.
“Katherine.”
She turns, and Nancy sees it more clearly this time: her daughter is indeed wise beyond her years. “Yeah?”
“Thank you for being here for me.”
“S’okay. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Nancy says.
“I’m gonna go run you a bath, okay?”
Nancy nods. “Thank you, dear. That sounds great.”
Nancy tries to compose herself, listens to the bathroom door opening, Katherine turning on the faucet, the thunderous gush of the bathtub filling up.
After Katherine wanders back across the hall to her own bedroom, Nancy reads through Margaret’s note and her mother’s letter one more time, then stumbles downstairs to the kitchen and pours herself a large glass of red wine.
A minute later, she turns off the faucet, plucks her lavender oil from the medicine cabinet, and shakes a few drops into the tub. Nancy watches the ripple effect, considers the chain of events in her own life that began small, then grew so big that she couldn’t have stopped them from expanding even if she’d tried.
But she never really tried.
She sets her wine glass down with a clink on the ceramic ledge, places her phone on the floor beside it, then lets her clothes fall to the tile floor of the bathroom and slides into the tub, relaxing into the heat with puffy eyes.
The house is silent again, and her thoughts are loud in her mind.
Half an hour later, the water has cooled and Nancy’s eyes have dried. She reaches over the tub ledge, dripping water all over the tiles, and picks up her phone. She sends a message to Angela Creighton.
I’m sorry I was short with you before. It was a lot to take in. I’ve changed my mind about speaking with Margaret’s friend—could you please set up the meeting?
* * *
When Nancy calls Michael to see if he would be willing to speak with her, she fully expects him to say no. She didn’t want to hope that what Katherine said was true; that he had been lonely and unhappy since they divorced. It’s only once she actually dials Michael’s number that it occurs to her this may be some misplaced Parent Trap effort on Katherine’s part, but much to Nancy’s surprise, it isn’t. Michael agrees to meet with her for coffee, and they arrange a date and time and hang up the phone.
After that, Nancy wears her carpet bare pacing back and forth, wondering what she will say. She isn’t entirely sure what she’s hoping for, but she knows this is a step she must take. If Michael is still as miserable as she is after all these years of separation, it’s at least worth a shot to try to make amends, explain to him her theory of why she thinks their marriage failed. Because despite his affair, she takes responsibility. She married him without ever telling him the secret of her birth, of her clandestine operations as part of the Jane Network, or even that she’d had an abortion before they met. She kept under wraps most of the things that defined her. It hadn’t been fair of her to expect Michael to understand her or trust her.
Nancy arrives at the café in advance, hoping that sitting down with a cup of herbal tea for a while might calm her nerves somewhat. When she sees Michael approaching the door through the front window of the café, her stomach leaps and she notices how grey his temples and beard are now. But the thing that catches her breath is the thought of how crushed she’ll feel if he isn’t willing to give their marriage another chance. It catches her off guard, and she’s therefore unprepared when Michael, after a moment of hesitation, moves in for a hug.