The Bookstore on the Beach - Brenda Novak Page 0,81
to have Sierra back, she smiled in return. “Okay.”
* * *
Laurie had promised she’d watch for Autumn, so that Mary could go in the back, lock the door and have the privacy she needed to talk to Tammy. She could hear Laurie speaking to a customer through the curtained doorway that separated them, but she was too busy trying to gather the nerve she needed to bother listening to what they were saying.
As she searched for Tammy’s number on her cell phone, she wondered what would come of this. As loath as she was to pick up the terrible burden of her past, she no longer felt she had a choice.
Taking a deep breath, she placed the call and closed her eyes as it began to ring. She hadn’t blocked her number. What was the point, if Tammy could just reach her through the store? Or come to Sable Beach in person?
“Hello?”
Mary opened her eyes and stared, without seeing, at the thin carpet in the storeroom. “I’m sorry I hung up on you. I—I panicked.”
“Bailey.”
The emotion in Tammy’s voice when she said Mary’s real name brought Mary to her feet. “That’s who I used to be.”
There was a slight pause. “And who are you now?”
Mary hadn’t expected that question. “You already know my name,” she said as she started to pace.
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
Mary began to knead her forehead. “I’m a mother, a grandmother, a bookstore owner.”
“Are you happy? That’s what I’m most interested in.”
“Yes.” Despite it all, she was happy. And maybe everything had turned out okay because she’d put up a firewall between her and that era of her life. As hard as that wall was to build, it had done its job; it had protected her.
Mary dropped her head into her hands. She could hear the hope in Tammy’s voice and simply couldn’t crush her. “I...I want to tell you how sorry I am.”
“For...”
Although Mary had never spoken the words out loud, guilt over Tammy had weighed her down for thirty-five years, especially in the dead of night when nightmares left her unable to sleep and she could no longer hide behind her daily distractions. “Leaving you behind.”
There. She’d said it. She gripped the phone tighter while she waited for Tammy’s response. Did Tammy harbor resentment? How had she fared on her own?
“I won’t lie. It hurt,” she admitted. “I thought of you all the time and wanted to be with you so badly. But as an adult, can I blame you? No. You were only nineteen when you were set free, after being held against your will for seven long years. My parents had stolen your childhood. I can see why you wouldn’t want to take their kid with you.”
“If I’d felt capable, I would’ve taken you. Or at least tried. But...I didn’t know how I was going to make it.”
“I understand. Autumn needed to come first. How is she?”
“Gorgeous. Healthy. Strong. And completely oblivious to who I really am—and who her father is.”
After a long silence, Tammy said, “You’ve never told her?”
“No. After the trial, I was determined to leave it all behind and start over. I didn’t want to live with the stigma. I didn’t want her to have to live with it, either. And I stopped associating with my real mother, who kept bugging me to write a book or do another interview so that she could cash in on the lurid interest of strangers. Talking about it was like walking over broken glass. I had to disappear in order to save what was left of me, which is what I did. I couldn’t handle the way she behaved on top of everything else.”
“I see. So...you’ve had your privacy for thirty-five years.”
“Yes.”
“And you seem to have overcome what happened.”
Mary heard someone at the back door. It had to be her daughter. Autumn would go around to the front of the store; Mary knew she didn’t have much longer to be on the phone. “As much as possible, I guess. And now I need some time to decide how to handle this.”
“You don’t want me even now.”
The heartbreak in those words felt like a punch in the stomach. “That isn’t it. I just...it’s been a long time, Tammy. And with you comes the truth, the memories, all of it.”
“I know,” she said sadly.
“But it isn’t as though I haven’t thought of you—thousands of times. Are you married? Do you have kids?”