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“I was trying to protect you.” Marynell ignored Robbie’s question. “You were a very foolish teenage girl who had no idea what you were writing in those pages. You still have no idea.”
“Well, you certainly shouldn’t have had any idea what I was writing in those pages!” Markie was practically shouting now.
“Hey, now, Miss Marker.” Robbie’s use of Markie’s old childhood nickname did not mollify her. After years of heartache she was determined to have it out with the old biddy, right here. Right now.
“Nothing is sacred with you, is it, Mother?”
“Sis.” Robbie touched Markie’s sleeve. “Stop it. It’s just an old diary. Here.” She held out the volume.
Robbie, the peacemaker, Markie thought. Robbie, Marynell’s whipped little pet.
Marynell’s eyes flitted to the diary, then to the pained expression on her bereaved middle daughter’s face. Glaring back into Markie’s eyes, she said, “You can take the thing and publish it in the Dallas Morning News for all I care. Whatever happens now, it’s not on my head.” She turned on her heel and stomped from the room.
“What on earth was that all about?” Robbie said after they heard the stairway door slam.
“That diary.” Markie was unable to keep the creeping sorrow and resignation out of her voice, out of her heart. She sighed. “Or rather, what’s in it. Read. You’ll see.”
“I’m not sure I want to now. Here.” Robbie flapped the volume at Markie. “Take it.”
Markie pushed the diary back. “No. I’m sick of secrets. Go on. Read it. I want you to. Honest.” Even though she meant what she said, she couldn’t help crossing her arms protectively around her middle.
To hide her pain, she turned to look out the dormer window. Out of the corner of her eye she could see her sister hesitating, then unsteadily lowering herself to perch on the edge of the bed.
Just beyond the bare yard Markie could see the windmill, like a huge leaden sunflower, fanning above the leafy tops of twin live oaks. The holding tank to the side was the same dull silver color, the color of all things utilitarian on the farm. In the foreground a rickety post-and-barbed-wire fence demarcated her father’s garden, already bursting with spring foliage. An overalls-and-Stetson bedecked scarecrow, twice the size of a real man, stood over the rows with a toy gun lashed to one stuffed glove and a lurid smile painted on his pale muslin face. Markie smiled. One year her father had actually won first prize in the scarecrow festival over at Cedarville.
Beyond lay the acres and acres of gently rolling land that marked the southern reaches of the Texas Hill Country. Will I ever get away from this beautiful, godforsaken place? Markie was beginning to doubt whether she should stay on here to help her widowed sister. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass, as if her very countenance, her very identity, arose from this land, would always be imprinted here.
Markie’s love-hate relationship with the Hill Country had plagued her even after she’d made a disciplined effort to focus on a new life, a good life. Even her years as a mover and shaker among the power suits in the glass-walled urban canyons of Dallas had not eradicated the strange spell of the Texas Hill Country. Rocky gorges. Remote waterfalls. Wild rivers. Dusty rodeos. Savory barbecues. Old-time German Christmases. The memories, good and bad, always vivid, came back to her too easily as she looked out over the landscape where she had grown up. The Texas Hill Country was not the kind of place one could just leave.
Sometimes it felt as if she was two people. The hearty little girl who grew up running around this rustic landscape regulated by the seasonal rhythms of farming, and the sleek, sophisticated young woman who thrived in a bustling cosmopolitan culture, rushing headlong into the future. Two distinct parts, cleaved by the one event certain to change girl to woman—the birth of a child.
For some moments Robbie had been flipping pages, reading with the diary held close to her face as had been her girlhood habit. Markie noted the exact moment when she stopped. The clock ticked three times before Robbie lowered the open book to her lap, her finger touching one spot on the page, like a devotee lining a particular passage of the Bible in church.
Markie bit her lip as, with head bent, still as a penitent, her sister stared at the open page.
Robbie lifted sad eyes up to look at her sister and asked, “Am I reading this right?”
Markie didn’t answer. She turned back to the view. So peaceful. So beautiful. As if nothing had ever gone wrong in this place. But everything had.
“Markie?” Robbie’s troubled voice insisted from behind. “You…you had a baby?”
Markie stood stock still, closing her eyes, imagining again the scene of Danny’s death. What a horrible way to see one’s husband die. And what a horrible time to find out that your little sister is not even remotely who you thought she was. “Yes,” she said without looking back at Robbie. “When I was seventeen.”
“I… I don’t believe it.” Robbie flared a palm over her swollen bosom, where a perennial gold cross winked on a short chain. A gift from Danny, no doubt. Her sister, always the good girl to the core, would never understand what Markie had gone through, no matter how many diaries explained the pain.
Markie turned upon her sister with that uncompromising steady gaze that had vaulted her to her success in the political arena. “Well, you’ve got to believe it. Because it’s true.”
CHAPTER TWO
The maternity home is not such a bad place. It’s kind of pretty from the street, actually. Quaint. A brick three-story with a big porch and tall white columns. Somebody said it’s an old converted sorority house. Isn’t that weird? It’s a sisterhood of losers now. Girls like me who listened to some guy’s sweet talk until he broke her heart.
The home—and I use that word in the worst sense, sort of like the warehouses where they stick old people—is tucked away at the end of a long, shady street a few blocks from the University of Texas campus. There’s nothing that indicates what’s really going on inside—just a little brass plaque beside the door that reads Edith Phillips Center. For Wayward Girls, I added in my head as I walked through the door.
Frankie insisted on lugging my bags upstairs, acting like she wasn’t in a hurry, but I could tell she was. I could tell she wanted to beat the rush-hour traffic around the capitol. And, of course, the almighty Dr. Kyle mustn’t miss his dinner.
A girl who actually looked more pregnant than me showed us to a tiny office where I met my caseworker, May, who is kind of cool. May looks as if she’s stuck back in the sixties, wearing a loud afghan and a shiny Afro. Really. She even made Frankie laugh. Then we met some of the other girls, who were in the kitchen cooking dinner together like one big happy family.
My room’s on the second floor. Frankie spread the twin comforter set she bought for me across the bed and set up some pictures in pretty frames on the dresser as if she was moving me into a real sorority house or something.
“Call me when it happens and I’ll come right away,” she told me as she gave me one last hug. “And remember, we love you.”
We who? Her and Kyle? I am well aware that Kyle thinks I’m a juvenile delinquent, a stupid little slut, and I’m sure he’s glad I opted to enter this free adoption program. I had to come here now so mom and dad would think I was off at the camp. Kyle doesn’t mind pretending that he and Frankie are helping me foot the bill for that.
It’s not bad here. Really. The backyard is pretty and secluded, with places for me to sit in the shade and write in my diary. Somebody put a little bowl of fruit on my dresser before I arrived. I’m supposed to keep up my studies here, but I don’t know if I’ll have the heart. I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to be here at all.
But here I am. Waiting to give my baby to strangers.
ROBBIE, THE ONLY REDHEAD in the family and the most emotional of the McBride sisters by half, even when she was not pregnant, pressed a palm over the open pages of the diary as her face flushed and the tip of her nose gorged red from suppressing tears.
“Oh, Sissy, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. She shook her head and gripped the diary. “I had no idea. I thought this was just going to be a bunch of kid’s stuff.”
“Of course you did.” Markie was determined to let her sister off the hook gently for this trespass. “That’s what a teenager’s diary should be, shouldn’t it? Innocent kid’s stuff. Like yours, I suppose.”
Robbie stared past Markie’s shoulder, at the sky beyond the window. “My diaries were mostly about Danny. From the eighth grade on I expect my whole life was about Danny. But you’re right.” Her eyes snapped back to Markie’s. “It was all innocent. School and proms and stuff. I just assumed yours would be the same.”
“How far did you read?” Markie took two strides and lifted the diary from Robbie’s hands. She angled her wrist so she could scan the page where her sister had been reading. The words Edith Phillips Center jumped off the page. “Oh, you got to the part where I moved to the Home.”
Robbie nodded. “So I assume you…you gave up the baby for adoption?”
“Yes.” Markie frowned at the loopy teenage handwriting that described the most painful months of her life. “I’m really sorry you had to find out this way.”
Robbie swallowed. “Don’t apologize. Do you know what…what happened to it? To him—her?”
“Him.” To keep from going into total meltdown, Markie frowned at her reflection in the window. “He was a little boy. He’s with a good family in Dallas.” Again, to keep herself composed, Markie stated the facts simply, though living through it had been far from simple. It would never, ever be simple. The fact that she hadn’t shared that experience with the sister she claimed to love so much seemed to only compound her loss.
“How in the world could I have missed this?” Robbie had the same look on her face that Markie recognized on her own. Self-condemnation.
The pattern of the McBride sisters from childhood on had been to shoulder the blame in any situation. A by-product of growing up under their mother’s unrelenting domination, Markie knew. All of them had chosen different ways of coping with Marynell. Frankie fled. Markie rebelled. But poor Robbie had stayed on in Five Points, trying to appease a woman who could never be pleased. She had ended up feeling responsible for everybody else’s happiness. And now even the buffer of happy-go-lucky Danny was lost to her. The last thing Robbie needed was more guilt.
“It’s not your fault. I intentionally kept it from you.” Markie took two more steps and sat down on the twin bed next to her sister, grasping her hands.
“And it wasn’t the end of the world. I survived. I know I did the right thing. I know he’s happy and well.” And brilliant and handsome and brimming with charisma and a natural-born leader like his father. But Markie couldn’t add those things. Be cause how would she explain how she had come to know all of that? There was too much risk…for Brandon.
“Don’t try to make me feel better. You were only seventeen. I could have helped you and your baby.” Robbie withdrew one hand, draping it protectively over her abdomen as if shielding the child growing there from the sad knowledge that he or she had an unknown cousin somewhere, far away from them all, far away from Five Points.
“You had just married Danny that Christmas. And then you guys got the opportunity to buy the farm and you and Mother and Daddy ended up working so hard to get it in shape by the following spring.”
“So, you were pregnant when I got married in December and then you had the baby that spring?”
“That summer.”
“But how—”
“Remember when I had that bad case of mono and dropped out of school and Frankie told mother she would tutor me and take care of me in Austin?”
Robbie nodded.
“Then that summer when I was supposed to be at that Christian leadership camp for a month? Well, I didn’t ever have mono and it wasn’t a leadership camp.”
Troubled emotions flitted across Robbie’s face as she struggled to add it all up. “I remember when Frankie moved you down to her apartment. That was right before she married Kyle.”
“Yes. She finished nursing school that May,” Markie supplied.
“Right.” Robbie nodded.
“She and Kyle got married—”
“At the courthouse. You know, I think she always resented the fact that Mother and Daddy threw a huge hometown wedding for me and Danny.”
“It was Kyle’s idea to skip the wedding. They were in a big hurry to settle in and set up their first apartment in time for him to start his residency. Then I popped into the picture. It was no picnic, living with young marrieds as a pregnant teenager. Kyle wasn’t all that great about it. Poor Frankie. She was trying to help her baby sister and at the same time trying to please a very demanding young husband.”
“And now he’s a demanding old husband,” Robbie pronounced. Kyle, barely past forty, wasn’t exactly old. But Markie knew that Robbie and Danny had never cared for their uppity, sneering brother-in-law.
“Yeah. I was glad he was off on his residency rotations most of the time.”
“I can’t believe she married the guy, even if he is handsome as all get out. Was that it, Markie?” Robbie turned on her younger sister, eyes radiating sympathy. “Your big sisters were falling in love and getting married so you got in a big hurry to do the same? You always were trying to keep up with us like that.”
“No, that wasn’t it!” Markie couldn’t keep the annoyance out of her voice. “Look,” she continued more gently, “I was genuinely in love with the father of the baby. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever stopped loving him.”
“Who was it?” Robbie asked softly. “If you don’t mind my asking. I mean, I don’t remem—” Robbie stopped as if a truck had slammed into her. “Oh, my gosh. It was that congressman’s son! What was his name?”
“Justin Kilgore. It’s all in there.” Which was foolish, she supposed, having the whole thing written down like that. But even with all the pain recorded in its pages, some compulsion had kept Markie from being able to part with the diary.
“Justin Kilgore.” Robbie’s soft voice was full of awe. “I don’t believe it. Justin and his father used to come into the Hungry Aggie back when I was waiting tables. I always kind of liked him. I remember how he’d always ask about you, how he always found a way to work your name into even the briefest conversation. And then when you guys started seeing each other…oh, my.” Robbie’s shoulders sank and her soft voice grew hushed. “It was partly my fault, wasn’t it? I mean, I helped you go sneaking around with an older guy.”
“Robbie. It wasn’t your fault. I was a big girl. I made my own choices.”
“I guess. But I should have told Mother what was going on. But you seemed so…so happy with him. I thought he was kind of right for you. He was so handsome, Markie. And so smart. So very nice. What a terrible ordeal.” Robbie lowered her head.
Markie lowered her head, too. As she did, she brought the diary to her lips, fighting tears. “Yes,” she whispered with her lips pressed against the dry, musty fabric, “it was.”
“Oh, my poor baby!” Robbie wrapped her arms around her sister’s shoulders. “I can’t imagine how painful it was for you.”
Markie struggled not to let herself feel it—all the emotion she had kept bottled up for eighteen long, lonely years. “It’s nothing compared to what you’re going through now.”
Robbie turned her head into Markie’s shoulder.
Markie clasped her sister’s forearm, holding on tight, afraid that what she had kept so carefully sealed away would crush them both if she let it out now.
But when Robbie started to cry, Markie knew there was no hope of holding her own tears in.
For a moment the two wept and clung in a sisterly hug.
Finally Robbie held her sister away at arm’s length. “You had a baby with Justin Kilgore.” She looked into Markie’s brimming eyes and pronounced each word slowly, as if trying to cement the fact in both their minds.
Markie swiped at her eyes and looked down at the worn floorboards. How she had hated this barren room as a young girl, especially after the warmth of her sisters was gone from it. “Yes. I just hate it that you found out this way, now of all times.”
But Robbie, who could be incredibly strong as well as kind, shook her head. She wiped at her eyes with the sash of her robe and suddenly she looked more like her old self than she had in days. “I hate it that you suffered with it alone all this time. I can’t imagine. Being so young and having a baby off in Austin, with a congressman’s son, no less.”
Another silence stretched before Markie said, “I wouldn’t say it was with him.” She glanced at Robbie to see if she comprehended.
But Robbie frowned. “What do you mean?”
“He never knew.”
“You mean he never knew that…” Robbie hesitated, and Markie imagined her sister was still struggling with the fact that she had a living, breathing nephew somewhere in Dallas. “That you gave the baby away?”
“No. He never even knew I was pregnant.”
“Mar-kie.” Robbie stared at her. “He never even knew—I don’t understand.” Robbie tilted her head, looking disturbed now, as well as perplexed. “I mean, I can see how you kept this from me, maybe, but how could you keep such a thing from the baby’s father?”
“He… I didn’t think he wanted to know. I was young. I was convinced. People—the congressman and Mother—convinced me that it would ruin Justin’s future if he knew, that there was no point in telling him if I wasn’t going to keep the baby, anyway.” Markie’s voice trailed off as she realized how weak and sorry her excuses sounded now, coming from a competent woman of thirty-five. But back then, she had been one very scared teenager. And back then, she had felt so angry, so betrayed.
“Besides…” Markie had trouble admitting this next part even to herself, much less to her sister. “He was already engaged.”
“Engaged?” This time when Robbie stared, her jaw dropped, as well. “The guy was engaged and he…he…when you were just a teenager?”
“He was only twenty-one himself.”
“Stop defending him! Apparently all that Mr. Nice Guy stuff was nothing but an act. He was busy getting you pregnant while he was engaged to another girl, Markie.”
“It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t about the sex.”
“Oh, please. Let’s call a spade a spade, okay? The guy was a creep. I mean, when did he decide to tell you about his fiancé? Right before he dumped you and went back east?”
Markie bit her lip to gain control. Robbie could be so small town, so black and white in her thinking. She of all people would never understand what had happened between the young couple. “He never did tell me, exactly. Mother found out about the engagement from his father and she was the one who told me.”
Robbie shook her head sadly. “Mother.”
Markie nodded. “Yeah.” Nothing more needed to be said on that score. “She took over my life after she found out about me and Justin and the fact that I was pregnant. She read all about it. In here.” Markie stroked the dairy in a gesture that was resigned, gentle.
Robbie’s jaw dropped in genuine shock. “That’s how she found out? By snooping around in your diary?”
Markie shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. The whole thing happened so fast. She would have discovered the truth sooner or later, anyway.”
“Oh, man. I imagine she had a cow. And there you were, all alone in this house with her.”
“I had Daddy.”
