hawthorne's cottage

TANNENBAUM PUBLISHING COMPANY

Hawthorne's Cottage
  CHAPTER 1
             Vivian picked up her post and thumbed through the normal litany of bills, circulars, advertisements, and pleas for donations. She noted a letter from her old university roommate that she set aside to read in bed and an invitation to a charity ball in Southby benefiting the hospital’s programme for children. When she saw the last piece of post--a letter with familiar handwriting, Vivian’s heart began to pound and her pulse to race.
            Brian, whom she hadn’t heard from in at least two years, had written. Moving heavily to the settee in the living room, she sat down. After flipping on the light, she simply stared at the letter for a few moments, wondering if it would it be good news or bad, suspecting the worst. With trembling fingers, Vivian opened the letter, ripping the envelope as she did so.
            Dear Vivian,
            You asked me not to write or interfere with your life and I’ve tried to honour that. It’s been rather lonely knowing I would never hear from you or see you again. But I understand why you asked me to do it. Our relationship had never been fair to you and we both knew that.
            I’m sorry to intrude on your privacy but something has occurred that only you can help with. I have leukemia and need bone marrow transplants and--I know this is an impossible thing to ask of you--would like to get in touch with our son. There’s a possibility he’ll be a good match for me. My other children are, for some reason, not a close match. I know you’ve maintained a watchful eye over him and know where he is even though he still probably doesn’t know who you are.
            If you’ll give me his address and phone number, I can contact him myself. That way you wouldn’t be identified or involved. I know you’ve never wanted to disrupt his life in any way but perhaps this would be reason enough.
            Your thoughts must be turning to Diana and how we will keep this secret from her. It turns out, Vivian, that Diana knows, and has for a long time. She was the one who suggested I write you and try to contact our son. I can’t describe to you the guilt, grief, and love that have overcome me.
            I’m sure you realise time is of the essence--I need the transplants immediately if I’m to improve my chances.
            I don’t mean to burden you and wouldn’t if it weren’t so serious. I hope to hear from you. Feel free to write. Diana says she forgave us long ago.
                                                                                                            Love, Brian
             Leaning her head on the armrest of the settee, Vivian began to cry. She cried because Brian had leukemia. She cried because she had heard from him again. She cried because she felt awful that Diana knew about their liaison. She cried from relief that the secret was out in the open. She cried because she knew she would have to approach her son. And she cried because, finally, she had a legitimate reason to tell him who she was.
            “Dylan,” she whispered. “Oh, Dylan, will you hate me?”
           When she had become pregnant by Brian Rutherford, Vivian Peterson had been thirty-four years old. They had met at the department store where she was a buyer of ladies’ dresses and he was a young vice-president. She knew he was married but the attraction between them was so strong she gave in to it, and their affair lasted for over twenty-five years. In the early stages, Vivian was certain Brian would leave Diana. She was convinced he couldn’t possibly love his wife as much as he loved her, especially since Brian told her she was the love of his life. But Diana had become pregnant first, after several years of an unhappy and childless marriage. Initially, Vivian was shocked at this proof that Brian still had marital relations with his wife, but then she became pregnant herself several months later. Although Vivian was delighted at the thought of becoming a mother, Brian scotched any notion from the very beginning that he would leave the helpless Diana. He said Diana wouldn’t know how to live without him, particularly at this vulnerable time in her life when she had finally received what she wanted. Vivian, as everyone knew, was a perfectly capable, independent, self-supporting woman.
            Abruptly, Vivian’s attitude towards her pregnancy changed--she was not going to be a single mother with disrepute following her around like a black cloud. Besides, she did love her career and had not intended on being hampered with a child if she were the sole provider and caretaker. Although she considered an abortion, she couldn’t follow through on the idea, and ended up concealing her pregnancy at work by maintaining a strict diet and gaining only about fifteen pounds. Realizing that wasn’t the healthiest approach for the baby, she also believed it was good enough. She made arrangements through a private adoption agency to take her child as soon as it was born and, in the last month of her pregnancy, went away to a small village near Dover, having saved up her personal leave for what she told her co-workers was a long holiday. The baby was born two weeks early, which gave her two weeks for recovery before returning to work, and no one was the wiser, for Vivian worked swiftly through exercise and diet to regain her figure.
            The baby boy was adopted by a young family that moved several times during his early years. Both Louise and Ralph Roberts had moved away from poor upbringings in the north of England and, since neither of them kept up a good correspondence with the scattered family members who remained back home, it was easy to write and announce they now had a baby. As sometimes happens with parents who adopt, shortly thereafter they had several children of their own. But Dylan was their first and they loved him with a fervour that led him to realise he was a special child. Louise and Ralph chose not to tell Dylan or his siblings he had been adopted. They had always been afraid he might love them less or want to look for his biological parents and thereby upset the equilibrium of their family. Because the Roberts’ family had moved within a year from the place where they had been living when Dylan was adopted, none of their current neighbours or friends suspected he was anything but another Roberts’ child. As many people had commented, Dylan had that same gangly look of his tall father, Ralph, and the same stubborn set of mouth as his mother, Louise.
            Ralph worked in the furniture upholstery trade for about fifteen years, uprooting his family and moving them to places where there were opportunities to succeed, or at least to earn a decent wage to support a growing family. Although the Roberts’ family never had money to burn, Louise was a very thrifty homemaker and always managed to set aside a little something every week, saving for Ralph’s big dream of owning his own shop. When he was forty-five years old, he was finally able to open his own upholstery repair shop in Hensleigh, a fair-sized market town between Budbury and Appleton-on-Rye. Ralph didn’t expect any of his children to be interested in upholstery repair but Dylan seemed to have a knack for it and to enjoy it.
            Ten years after opening the business, Ralph had a major heart attack that required quadruple bypass surgery. The cardiologist insisted that Ralph must retire from such heavy labour. Luckily, Dylan had been working in the shop ever since his schooldays were over and had learned, in those nine years, just about everything Ralph was able to teach him. Louise had always set aside sufficient money from the shop’s income to ensure she and Ralph would have a pension of sorts. However, Dylan insisted that, in exchange for the shop, he would provide ten percent of its profit to his parents to make their retired years more comfortable, particularly since his dad had had to retire early. Ralph did receive a pittance from the state for his disability and, until their State Pension began to arrive in their sixties, they were managing alright.
            Their other three children were girls, none of whom expressed any interest in attending university. The two eldest were already married, one to a good earner and decent husband. The other, well, only time would tell if her mate would measure up but the parents weren’t holding their breath. She would always be welcome back home if needs be. The youngest daughter, Kathleen, was just now finishing accounting school and was great friends with Grace Worthy and Miriam Blandford. In fact, it was through his baby sister that Dylan had met Grace, the girl he was engaged to marry.
            The upholstery shop was close to the business centre in Hensleigh. Dylan usually spent mornings in the shop and then, around two p.m., loaded up his lorry for deliveries. His father had created an excellent reputation in the first decade of the store’s existence and Dylan had continued to improve it. He was very industrious, meticulous with matching patterns, had an innate understanding of what the customer was trying to convey, remained respectful at all times no matter how trying the customer was, and was firm about his prices and collecting his fee. The Roberts and Son lorry could be seen roaming the countryside for up to a fifty-mile radius from Hensleigh. They weren’t the only upholsterer around but they provided dependable and excellent service and had more work than they could handle. Another thing their customers appreciated was that Roberts and Son scheduled the work on each piece so that nothing stayed in the shop in a backlog. In and out, that was their motto.
            When Dylan got back to the shop that evening, after a long stretch of deliveries, one of the messages on his answering machine was from Vivian Peterson.
            “Hello,” she said. “This is Vivian Peterson. I would appreciate it if Dylan Roberts would ring me back. There is a matter of some urgency that I need to discuss.” She left the number and hung up.
            Dylan knew who Vivian Peterson was, because many of the local business owners were aware of each other. Moreover, he’d been to Appleton-on-Rye enough times lately to Grace’s uncle’s grocery, where Grace worked as a cashier, and heard the local gossip. He also remembered two years earlier when his mother had been in a dither about the dress she’d purchased to wear to the wedding of her eldest daughter, Georgina. Louise had bought it from Vivian’s posh shop that had just opened. Rumour had it that Peterson had arrived from the big city and was probably running away from a broken heart. After all, what else could it be when a woman of her age, as far as anyone could ascertain, had never married? Vivian Peterson was always smartly turned out, which one might expect from someone who owned an expensive dress shop. If the proprietor took no pains with her appearance, why should someone else want to spend a fortune on one of her dresses? Aside from good business sense, Vivian liked to look poised and dressed for success. She cut a very imposing figure in Appleton-on-Rye, almost immediately becoming an important member of the social scene.
            Messages from affluent customers who just had to have their Louis XIV chair redone in three days for their niece’s wedding or the whole thing would be absolutely ghastly, or the estate salesman who needed to have an antique sofa worked on immediately or the sale would completely bomb, as well as the business owner who was having this incredibly important meeting and needed to update all the shabby furniture beforehand and pronto were not unusual in Dylan’s line of work. Dylan suspected that Peterson’s request had more to do with her shop than her home, since she lived alone and, according to all reports, rather quietly. It was already nine p.m. and Dylan was knackered from the day’s work. I can’t be expected to work all night, Dylan said to himself, and resolved to call her the next day. One of his other messages, however, was a request to rush the job that he was working on next and, in Dylan’s zeal to get this piece out in two days instead of three, all other matters left his head.
            Two days later, then, Dylan was surprised to receive another call from Miss Peterson, this time in the morning, and catching him while he was in.
            “Dylan Roberts?” she asked.
            “Yes,” he said.
            “This is Vivian Peterson.”
            “Hello, Peterson. I apologise for not getting back to you. I did get your message but I’ve been rather swamped here with work the last two days. What kind of job do you have?”
            Sounding puzzled, Vivian asked, “Job?”
            “Yes. I presume you have something you need upholstered.”
            “Oh. I’m sorry. No. It’s not that at all. I have something personal I need to discuss with you.”
            Now it was Dylan’s turn to be puzzled. “With me? Are you sure? What is it?”
            “I think it’s better if we discuss it in person. Would you mind if I drove down today round lunchtime? I could meet you in your shop.”
            Dylan couldn’t imagine what in the world Peterson would have to discuss with him that was personal and urgent but if she was willing to come to him, and over lunch at that, then he wouldn’t be put out of his way too much.
            “Okay, Peterson. How about noon?”
            “That would be fine. I’ll be there then. Shall I bring you something to eat?”
            “No, that’s alright. I pack myself a lunch each day.”
            “At noon, then. Thank you, Dylan.” She rang off and Dylan went back to work, quizzically pondering this problem initially, but brushing it aside as he got deeper into his work.
            A few minutes after noon, the door to his shop swung open. It was too loose on the hinges and fairly flew out of one’s hand, particularly for the unsuspecting, so Vivian ended up announcing her arrival with the loud slam of a wooden door banging against a wall. She was already nervous and this startled her.
            Wavy chestnut brown hair cascading backwards from her forehead, which many women prefer to cover with a fringe, enhanced her classic profile. Light rouge accented her high cheekbones, a faint dusting of powder could be seen on her flawless skin, and a touch of mascara and faintly gold, shimmery eye shadow decorated her deep brown eyes. Bright red lipstick offset her plainer features--lips a little too thin for her face and nose a trifle too bony--and accentuated the fact that Vivian was a striking woman.
            Sunlight captured part of the shop, nearest the door and street, but shadows lurked elsewhere. Scattered round the room in varying stages of undress, pieces of furniture waited patiently for their turn at repair. Shelves in the pitch blackest corner held stacks of material bolts, while scraps of material fell like hair curls round a barber’s chair as Dylan worked on an overstuffed chair. Wearing a workman’s belt with a good many tools attached, he sat on a round low stool with wheels that enabled him to slide easily round the chair and round the shop.
            As Dylan stood up and brushed off his hands, Vivian noticed he really didn’t resemble either her or Brian even though his hair was black like Brian’s, his eyes were smoky brown like hers, and he was tall like both of them. His skin colouring seemed to be a bit darker than either of theirs, making him appear tan despite spending many hours indoors.
            “Hello, Peterson. Please, have a seat. Can I offer you some tea?”
            “Yes, please. That would be nice.” Vivian’s eyes wandered round the room while Dylan busied himself with pouring boiling water from an electric tea kettle over tea bags in polystyrene cups.
            “Milk and sugar?” he asked.
            “Just milk, please.” Vivian preferred her tea in delicate china cups, or mugs at the very least, but was determined not to look askance at Dylan’s offering.
            Handing Vivian her cup of tea, Dylan sat down on his stool, waiting expectantly.
            “I’m not exactly sure where to start,” Vivian began, a bit nervously. “I received a letter two days ago from a very dear friend of mine who has leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant.”
            With an expression demonstrating polite interest, Dylan waited.
            A long silence filled the room. Vivian looked down at the floor, took a deep breath, and let it out.
            “Miss Peterson?”
            “Quite a long time ago, this friend of mine and I had a child together. For various reasons, we gave the baby up for adoption.”
            Dylan sipped his tea.
            “As I’m sure you’re aware, adoptions are supposed to be secret, but I managed to get the information out of a clerk as to what family had my baby and, over the years, kept track of the child’s progress.” Vivian straightened her shoulders. She looked around the room, up at the ceiling, and then at Dylan. “Finally, a couple of years ago, I decided to move closer to where my son lived.”
            “I don’t mean to be rude, Peterson, but I really need to get back to work. So, if you’ll excuse me…” Dylan made a motion to rise.
            “Please, wait. This affects you.”
            Dylan frowned. “I may be really thick, but I don’t understand how your friend’s leukemia and your adopted son concern me.”
            Vivian bit her bottom lip, then took a small sip of her tea to stall the inevitable. As she slowly brought down her cup, Vivian stared intently into Dylan’s eyes and quietly continued, “You’re the baby I gave up twenty-five years ago.”
            Dylan shot up from his stool, sloshing his tea all over the floor. “I’m sorry,” he flinched, “but you’ve made a dreadful mistake. My parents are Louise and Ralph Roberts.”
            “I know they are,” Vivian admitted. “They adopted you from the private agency where I had you placed. You were three days old when you went to them.”
            “This is impossible,” Dylan replied, gritting his teeth. “If I were adopted, my parents would have told me.”
            “I’m truly sorry, Dylan. I had no idea you didn’t know--that makes it all so much more difficult for you.”
            Shocked, Dylan just stared at her, his mouth gaping, running the fingers of one hand through his hair.
            “We shouldn’t ask for your help like this--I’ve probably gone about it the wrong way--but please think it over. If you can’t help, for whatever reason, Brian will look elsewhere. Either way, time is critical, so if you could call me soon?” Vivian gave a pleading half-smile. “I would never have said anything except Brian needs your bone marrow to survive. If you’re a match, which you may be, and if you’re willing. And if you want to know what happened, I’ll tell you the whole story, which is really quite simple and pathetic. Please forgive me, Dylan.”
            Standing, Vivian placed the palm of one hand gently on the right side of Dylan’s face. “I always wanted to do that.”
            She left much more quietly than she had come.
            Dylan remained standing for a good ten minutes, then he closed the shop and quickly drove to his parents’ home.
            “Mum! Dad!” he called before he even got inside the house. “I need to speak with you.” Dylan went though the front door and stood in front of the T.V., switching it off. Being lunch time, Louise and Ralph had just sat down to eat. They removed their napkins from their laps and hurried into the living room.
            “Son!” Louise cried. “What’s the matter?”
            “Please, sit down.” Dylan waited while they settled themselves in their favourite chairs. Dad’s an old overstuffed rocking chair he had reupholstered himself when a former customer no longer wanted it and Mum’s a wooden sliding rocker with sunflower-covered cushions.
           “ Vivian Peterson came into the shop today and told me a cockamamie story about me being adopted. That she is the mother that gave birth to me and that some bloke who needs bone marrow transplants did the dirty deed with her. I told her it wasn’t true. That it wasn’t me. That you’re my parents. You need to tell me. Is there any truth in what she says?”
            Dylan’s face was livid. Louise turned ghostly white. Ralph gripped the arms of his chair.
            “Tell me it isn’t true!” Dylan shouted.
            Silence reigned. Neither Louise nor Ralph could summon a word to issue from their mouths. They turned to look at each other and this apparently conspiratorial act released Dylan’s rage.
            “Bloody hell, talk to me!” he yelled. “This cannot be true! Tell me this isn’t true!”
            Louise opened her mouth first. “Dylan,” she pleaded. “You are our son. You’re our child. You’ve been with us since you were three days old. We stopped thinking of you as adopted a long time ago. You were just ours.”
            “No! No! No!” Dylan screamed. “I don’t believe it. If it’s true, why didn’t you tell me?”
            Ralph shrugged helplessly as he fought for words. “We,” he faltered, “we thought it was best.”
            “Best?” Dylan raged. “How could you think it was best?”
            “We loved you,” Ralph said, his voice cracking with emotion, spreading his arms in a wide motion. “We didn’t want you to ever think someone hadn’t wanted you. You were everything to us. Everything.” His voice faded, and anguish appeared on his face.
            Turning round, Dylan spotted a family photo on the fireplace mantel. “You lied to me!” as he threw the photo with a crash against the opposite wall. Glass shards flew everywhere.
            Louise cringed. “Dylan,” she begged him to understand, “all we ever did we did for you. We were also afraid you wouldn’t love us as much if you knew we weren’t your real parents.” She began to cry and buried her face in her hands.
            “Oh, Mum,” Dylan said softly as he knelt to take her hands in his. “I love you. I love you both,” as he looked at his dad. “Nothing will ever change that. I just wish it wasn’t true. I still can’t believe it’s true. This feels like my whole world has been turned upside down.”
            “We’re so sorry,” Louise sobbed. “We didn’t want you to ever know.”
            “We never thought it would come up, son,” Ralph said, quickly wiping away a tear that had slipped down his cheek. “Records were sealed. The biological parents didn’t know who their baby was given to. No one else ever knew about it. We don’t know how anyone could have found out. We moved round so many times nobody knew you’d just appeared to us one day and become part of our family.”
            “The important thing, Dylan,” Louise said, “is we’ve loved you from the very first day we saw you. From the first moment. You were our son just as if we’d been the ones to make you. We were the ones who loved and fed you and wiped your nose and bought you new rainboots and fixed your bicycle and gave you sisters and a family. We’re the ones who’ve been proud of you and encouraged you and scolded you and waited up nights for you.”
            “I know, Mum. But I think this will take a while to digest. Could we leave this between the three of us right now?” Dylan was much calmer though it was an immense effort. He really did love Mum and Dad and wouldn’t have hurt them for the world. He had only belatedly begun to realise, after expending his rage and fear, that they had a great deal to fear as well. “I think I’m going to go for a drive. I’ll be back later this evening.”
            “Dylan, son,” Ralph stopped him. “I know you think we were wrong not to tell you but, by not telling you, you’ve had twenty-five years of never wondering about your birth and how you got here and why she gave you up. We always felt that was an important positive. Just, promise me, you’ll think about that.”
            “Okay, Dad. I’ll see you both later.” And Dylan swiftly left the house, jumped into his lorry, and roared off.