Rescue - By Anita Shreve Page 0,68
you because you made me feel safe.”
Webster doesn’t trust himself to speak.
Sheila leans forward. “Webster, I would like to see her.”
“I’ll have to ask Rowan,” he says. “At the moment, she doesn’t even know I’ve found you, never mind that you’re sitting in her house.”
Sheila smoothes her temples.
Webster looks out the kitchen window. “When I went to Chelsea, you were so cold, such a stranger, I decided I didn’t want her to meet you.”
“But I want to meet her,” Sheila says. “I am her mother.”
“I think you have to earn the title of mother,” he says.
“You took that away from me.”
“No, you took it away from yourself.”
She picks up her purse. “This is ridiculous,” she says.
Webster realizes he doesn’t want her to leave. “What happened to you after you drove away that day? I’ve always been curious.”
She gives him a hard stare. “I ditched the car and made my way to my sister’s in Manhattan. I was drinking all the time then. She had a young child, too. I could hardly stand it. I made her life hell. At a bar, I met a man who lived in Piermont, just north of the city. I was nuts about him. I went up there to live with him, but I was still drinking.” She pauses. “One night, we had a spectacular fight, and I went out into the streets, drunk, swearing my ass off. I was arrested on a drunk-and-disorderly and put in jail overnight. Paul said he’d bail me out on one condition: that I go into rehab. That day. And so I did. In upstate New York. When he came to pick me up after my stint was done, he drove me to Mexico, where we lived for eight years. His idea was that if I was far away from familiar surroundings, I wouldn’t be as tempted to drink. And… it worked.”
“What happened to him?” Webster asks.
She tears the elastic off her ponytail with an angry gesture. Her hair falls down her back. “He died of pancreatic cancer.”
Webster closes his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says. “That must have been awful.”
He gets up and walks around the room, jiggling the change in his pockets. The love of her life, and he died. He feels sorry for her. On the other hand, she was the love of his life. So where does that leave him?
The same place he’s been for fifteen years.
“I’ll think about it,” Webster says. “About whether you should meet Rowan or not. I’ll speak to her. I’ll give her that choice. I might not do that right away, though.”
“Thank you,” Sheila says.
“What changed your mind?” he asks.
“After you left, I leaned against the wall and slid right to the floor. I’ve made a life, Webster. A good life, but it’s fragile. When you came—and I wondered if someday you would come—I was shaken. I reacted badly. But later, I thought about how you said Rowan was in trouble. I don’t believe I can help at all, but I feel I should do something. That’s all I can tell you.”
He nods. That will have to be enough for now.
He will ask Rowan if she wants to do this. He suspects that she’ll be wary at first, but then maybe curious enough to agree.
“I guess I’d better go,” Sheila says. “Can I use the bathroom? As you know, it’s a long ride.”
“You remember where it is?”
“You never made a powder room?”
“I’ll do it when I can’t get up the stairs.”
* * *
It’s a good three minutes before Webster realizes his mistake. He bolts up two flights of stairs and finds Sheila sitting on Rowan’s bed, weeping. She holds a stuffed animal that might once have been a dog.
“What the fuck? Sheila?”
Sheila looks up. “I gave her this,” she says. “I had no idea she—you—had kept it. To think it’s been here all these years.” She hugs it to her chest, as if the toy were a child. “Webster, I’ve missed so much. Every bit of this room is a part of Rowan I know nothing about. All those years.” She moans. “The desk, look. And the clarinet. And that mural? My God, Webster. There’s so much in here, and I never saw any of it.”
He didn’t want her to experience this—or did he? He walks to Rowan’s desk and rummages around in the top drawer. He finds what he wants and holds the picture out for Sheila to see. It’s the photo taken right after Rowan’s birth, the snap of