“It’s going to be so hard to explain her,” Jed said, shaking his head dismally.
“What’s in here?” she asked, holding up the envelope.
“Reverend Kincaid said you had no documentation at all, that you weren’t even sure your mother and I divorced. It’s all there—copies of the marriage license, the divorce decree, the order from the court that Therese retain custody and that I would have visitation one day a week. Then I lost even that. I had a few pictures—you as a newborn, your first birthday, a day in the park, the first day of preschool. I didn’t get many.”
“But why?” she asked. “Why did you leave us?”
He seemed to take a moment to compose himself. “I’ve wanted to explain and yet dreaded this moment for years,” he said. “Therese and I were at terrible odds—lots of conflict. I suggested a separation, suggested we might’ve made a mistake and could work it out amicably, and that did it. Pushed her right over the edge. I could say she threw me out, except that I’d already suggested separation. Her anger with me was phenomenal and I left because I’d had all I could take.
“I was over forty when we met and though I was plenty mature, I wasn’t exactly a ladies’ man. I had so little experience with women. We weren’t a young couple. We met, dated and got married too quickly because we were getting older and wanted children—your mother was forty when you were born. The sad truth is, we weren’t happy for long. She was sick when she was pregnant and suffered terrible depression when you were a baby and it took about a year for her to recover. Maybe she never did—I’m not sure. Therese was a loose cannon. I never knew what might set her off. She lashed out at me constantly. I suggested maybe motherhood didn’t make her as happy as she thought it might and that…” He shook his head and looked down. “I always seemed to say the wrong things.”
“Were you ever happy?” Nora asked.
“I thought so,” Jed answered. “At the very beginning. Then there were issues I thought had to do with pregnancy and new parenthood. But by the time a few years had passed, I knew we were doomed.
“But I thought she loved you, Nora. As long as I wasn’t around, she seemed to take good care of you. When I came home after work, you sparkled. You were so happy and showed no signs of suffering. I was afraid of what a life with her might do to you in the long run, but there didn’t seem to be much I could do.” He shrugged. “The truth is I was afraid you could become like her—so over the years I watched from a safe distance. I checked on your school progress, went to school events to catch a glimpse, asked questions about you. When Therese got wind that I was around, she lashed out, lost her temper. I was very circumspect, but I was never far away.”
“And I never saw you?”
He leaned toward her, his brows scrunched. “You might remember when your mother stopped talking to the lady next door,” he said.
“They had a fight,” Nora said. “I was never sure what that was about. Mom said she’d been insulted and accused of something. They stopped talking and I was not allowed to go to their house. Sometimes after school I’d say hello or we’d talk in the yard, before Mom got home from work, but we had a pact—we’d keep it our secret.”
“The fight was about me calling the neighbor and asking how you were, how things were going in my home, with my daughter. She let it slip. So, it kept Therese from talking to her neighbor, but it didn’t keep the neighbor from watching, from talking to me.” He swallowed hard. “She moved when you were about to graduate from high school. I lost my best connection to you.”
“This isn’t happening,” she said. “This is my worst nightmare. She was a therapist!”
“I’ve never understood that,” he said, shaking his head. “That should have guaranteed a certain level of stability. Civility. Understanding. I think she was crazier than half the people she counseled. What I’ve learned since is that, sadly, she was hardly the only inept counselor—they are plentiful. So are competent, helpful, talented counselors. There were times she raged at me in a way that made me think she was truly insane. Nora, there was something wrong. It’s been suggested by professionals I’ve seen that maybe she was a borderline personality—not mentally ill, but narcissistic, hostile, perhaps a bit sociopathic. Very manipulative. Successfully manipulative. Quite functional. We were like oil and water. I wanted to take you with me but she wouldn’t have it. There was something about me that set her off.”
“There was something about everyone…” Nora mumbled. “You could have at least called me.”
“I should have, but I didn’t want to force you to lie or be secretive. There’s no other way to put it—she was vengeful when she didn’t have her way. That worried me.”
“But you said you lost even your visitation,” Nora said.
“I did, but not in a legal action. I went to pick you up for our day together and you weren’t there. Things like that happened very often. And Therese started screaming at me, accusing me of terrible things and I lost my temper. I punched a hole in the wall. I don’t think I ever punched anything in my life before that, or after. I’m just not that kind of person.”
“I remember that hole!” Nora said. “She never fixed it!”
“She called the police and there I stood with banged-up knuckles. While you played at a friend’s house, I was taken away in handcuffs.”
“And then?”
He shook his head. “I knew it was bad for you, that it was never going to get better. There were so many fights and standoffs when I came to get you, I stopped coming. I didn’t know what else to do, didn’t know how to protect you from that anger. I saw lawyers, but I wasn’t going to get custody of you and trying to see you only lit a fire in her. Therese had feuds with anyone who would talk to me. She was completely estranged from your aunts because they checked on you on my behalf. They haven’t spoken since you were seven or eight years old.”
“Aunts?” Nora said weakly.
“Therese was the youngest of three girls and a good many years separated them. Her eldest sister is deceased now, but Victoria is still alive, living in New Jersey. She was named in your mother’s will. And I didn’t know your mother had died until it came to my attention that checks I’d been sending for alimony and support weren’t being cashed. I don’t think there’s anything you can do about her will, I’m sorry.”
Nora put her head in her hands. “Checks? Will? Aunts? Oh, my God.” She looked pleadingly at Noah. “This is nuts. This can’t be true. She said there was no family, that there was never any support. I was on partial scholarship and I worked—my mother only paid for textbooks, nothing else.”
“You could’ve gone to Stanford for practically nothing,” Jed said. “I’m a professor there. Your mother said you had no interest.”
“I only went to college for a year.” She looked at Jed. “If this is true, she must have been completely insane.”
“I don’t think so,” Jed said. “At least not clinically. I’ve done a lot of reading and have talked to a few professionals—there are people who lie, manipulate, hold terrible grudges who are not mentally ill but have anger problems the rest of us just don’t understand. And what made her so angry? I have no idea.”
“And you couldn’t do anything?”
“Nora, she was completely functional. She held a full-time job, paid her bills, raised a child. You were clean and fed. You did all right in school. You seemed happy and had friends…unless I came around and the whole world went to hell…”
“She was a train wreck! She didn’t have friends, at least not for long. She lied about her family,