Page 19 of Child of Mine

Anger at my father flares hotter before sputtering out. Yelling at my mother won’t do anybody any good. Instead, I sit on the arm of her chair and rub her back, murmuring that it’ll be okay, we’ll figure something out.

When I came home pregnant and jobless, my mom treated me like the prodigal daughter, welcoming me back. She never asked about Lilah’s dad.

You should tell her now,Izzy whispers.

Why?Quinn asks.What good would that do?

I guess it might be a burden she doesn’t need right now,Izzy allows.

She should crawl back to the station, tail between her legs, and beg for that job,Quinn says.

Soyoucan take care ofher,Izzy says, brightening.

Things could get interesting with Hal,Quinn says with a smirk.

Oh, dear. Now I have no idea what the right thing to do is,Izzy whines.If she goes back there, she risks losing Lilah to a total stranger. But if she doesn’t, her mom will lose the store.

Wow, Bella,Quinn cackles.When you fuck things up, you don’t mess around.

* * *

The next morning,I go through the getting-Lilah-to-school and opening-the-store routines on autopilot, exhausted from spending half the night trying to figure out what to say to Carol. Letting my fingers do the walking seems safer than actually driving to the station, but when I’m put through to Carol and she asks if I’m feeling better, my hands are shaking so much that I drop the receiver.

“Bella? Are you there?” Carol asks.

“Yes, sorry.” After crossing my fingers—like that’ll cover the half-lie—I spit out a story. “But… well, I have a confession to make. Yesterday, I didn’t have food poisoning. I had a reaction to seeing Hal. I mean, Henry.”

There’s a slight pause on the other end of the line before she asks, “A reaction? Did he do something inappropriate, or—?” She breaks off, like she’s afraid to fill in the blank.

“No, nothing like that,” I reassure her. “We… have a kind of a history.”

“Oh.” Another pause. “Will you have a problem working with him?”

“No, but—” I literally have to force the words past my lips. “You might have a problem working with me.” Then I remember something Jess said recently—that she didn’t even realize that Izzy and Bella were the same person when we first met. “Do you ever feel like you’ve changed so much that when you look back, the person that you used to be doesn’t even seem like you?”

“I guess,” she says, sounding a little confused. “Motherhood seems to rearrange the brain significantly. I definitely worry a lot more.”

“Oh, yes. That’s true for me to, but—” I’m momentarily distracted by the whiteness of my fingers before I realize that I’ve wound the phone cord around them so tightly that the circulation is cut off. Freeing them, I shake out my hands. “When I was on the soap, my behavior was… I was not the person I am today. Nor the little preteen you knew. I have a bit of a checkered past.”

Ha,Quinn snorts.That’s rich.

She wasn’t as bad as you,Izzy defends me.

“When I was in New York, I was in the papers quite a bit. For being a party girl.”

You think Carol knows what that means, exactly?Quinn asks.

“Go on,” Carol says.

“Sorry. So, I, uh… I’ve worked hard to put that all behind me and to keep my daughter’s life private. To do that, I’ve avoided doing anything that would put me in the public eye.”

“But you’re performing with Shakespeare Boston.”

“I was worried about that at first, but theBoston GlobeandSoap Opera Landdon’t exactly have the same audience,” I say, my laugh only slightly hysterical.

“I think you could say the same of a PBS station like GBH,” Carol ventures.

“Probably? I hope so. But to be sure, if I were to work onBoom, I’d like to stay completely behind the scenes. For the good of the show and my family.”

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