Book Clubbed

“We have to wait that long?” Angelica asked, disappointed.

“I’m sure that’s just what Gi

Angelica looked positively delighted and Tricia could almost hear her sister’s thoughts buzzing with plans for a baby shower. If there was one thing Angelica did exceptionally well, it was throw a party—any kind of party.

“That’s not all the news I have to share,” Tricia said.

“Twins!” Angelica guessed.

“No! Will you calm down?”

“I can’t help myself. Our Gi

“Our Gi

“Well, I like her lots now. What’s behind us is behind us. And anyway, if you hadn’t used her as a living shield from my phone calls to you, I would have liked her a whole lot better right from the start.”

“Let’s not bring up the past,” Tricia implored.

“You started it,” Angelica muttered crossly, taking another sip of her drink.

“Let’s just be happy for her, because she’s not exactly thrilled with the news.”

“Why not?”

“Because. She’s afraid Antonio and Nigela Ricita will force her to stop working.”

“Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe out of some outdated sense of morality, or family values, or something.”

“I hardly think so. I mean, Ms. Ricita is a businesswoman, and a shrewd one at that. I can’t imagine anyone with her experience and foresight would force a new mother out of a job. Not in this day and age.”

“I don’t think so, either, but Gi

“We’ve got to talk to Antonio,” Angelica said firmly.

“No, we don’t. This has nothing to do with us. It’s a family matter.”

“We’re family. Maybe not by blood, but with her mom and dad living down south, we’re all she’s got here in New Hampshire.”

“It’s a nice thought,” Tricia conceded. “Gi

“Oh, don’t be silly. Deborah didn’t know when she had a good thing.”

“I’m not so sure the thing she had was any good at all,” Tricia said, taking another bite of her appetizer.

“Whatever,” Angelica said dismissively. “The circumstances are totally different. As soon as she lays eyes on it, Gi

“Not our mother.”

Angelica sighed. “You’re not going to start that again, are you?”

“Start? It’ll never end, not until she tells me what it was that I’ve done wrong. What I am that never suited her.”

“Please, Trish, you’ve got to stop torturing yourself about Mother. She is who she is.”

Tricia glanced at the clock. “What’s the time in Rio? I’ve a mind to just pick up the phone and ask her right now.”

“Please don’t,” Angelica said.

Tricia looked at her sister with suspicion. “Why not? Because it would upset her? What about me? I’ve been upset my entire life by our relationship—or lack thereof.”

Angelica sighed and looked away. “I just have a bad feeling.”

“About what? That she might actually tell me why she treats me the way she does? That she might hurt my feelings if she did? She once told me that she never thought they’d have a second child, but that can’t be it. Couples do get over that. And whatever it is she’d have to say couldn’t hurt much more than years of her indifference.”

“That’s what you say now,” Angelica said quietly, and picked up another appetizer.

“Then you do know what’s at the heart of all this,” Tricia accused.

Angelica sighed. “I suppose you won’t be happy until I’ve told you everything—and broken Mother’s heart once again.”

“How can telling me break her heart?”

“Because you’re going to want to talk to her about it, and I’m telling you right now—she will not talk to you about it. If you call her and bring it up, she will hang up on you. If you flew down there and asked her in person, she would just run away.”

“Good grief. What on earth could be so terrible she can’t even speak about it? Please, Ange, just tell me.”

Angelica sighed and picked up her drink, taking a hearty sip. She set the glass down. “What you don’t know is that after you were born, Mother had what was then called a nervous breakdown.”

“Don’t you mean postpartum depression?”

Angelica shook her head. “No, it wasn’t brought on by a birth; it was brought on by a death.”

“Who died?” Tricia asked. She certainly hadn’t heard this story before.

Angelica sighed. “For years I’ve wrestled with my conscience about telling you the whole sordid tale. No good can come of your knowing, and talking about it to our parents would only reopen old wounds.”

Tricia’s stomach did an immediate flip-flop. “Are you saying Daddy isn’t my biological father? That Mother—?”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Angelica chided. “Of course Daddy is your biological father. We’ve both got the Miles nose, after all. And anyway, if that were true, it would’ve been Daddy who’d taken a tailspin, not Mother.”

“Then what in God’s name are you talking about?”

“Our brother!”

Tricia glared at her sister. “We never had a brother.”

“Yes, we did.”

“I’m certain I would have remembered him if we had.”

“Not unless your memory spans back to your time in the womb or shortly after birth.”

“Are you saying . . . ?”

“You were a twin. Fraternal, but you had a twin brother.”

“I did? And he died at birth?” Tricia asked, aghast.

“No, about two months later. Little Patrick was a SIDS baby.”

Tricia had heard all about perfectly healthy babies suddenly dying with no apparent cause. The number of SIDS deaths had plunged once parents were encouraged to never let their babies sleep on their tummies, but when Tricia and everyone else in her generation was born, all babies slept that way.

“Patrick,” she murmured, trying the name on for size.

“Patrick and Patty. That’s what we called the two of you.”

Patty. Tricia grimaced. That was what their mother had called her when she was most exasperated. “Oh, Patty,” she’d lament, which had always set Tricia’s teeth on edge.

“So why did Mother treat me so shabbily after Patrick’s death? I would have thought as the surviving twin she’d have felt I was precious.”

Angelica seemed to squirm. “Patrick was her favorite. I mean, it was obvious even to me, and I was only five. That little prince certainly knocked me off the princess throne.”

As far back as Tricia could remember, their mother had doted on Angelica, while she’d always felt like an unwanted member of the family—that is, except for by her grandmother Miles, who had loved her unconditionally.

“You see,” Angelica continued, “Mother had longed for a son. When she found out she was pregnant with twins, she hoped they’d be identical boys. She bought all kinds of matching outfits. Of course, they didn’t do ultrasounds in those days, so when you were born, she was a bit disappointed.”

“What would my name have been if I’d been born a boy?” Tricia asked.

“Paul.”

Paul Miles. Rather a boring moniker, Tricia decided. “I suppose Mother blamed me for Patrick’s death.”

Angelica nodded sadly. “You were both sleeping in the same crib.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Remember, I was only five years old at the time.”

“Did she think a two-month-old baby would deliberately smother her sibling?” Tricia asked.

Angelica shrugged and reached for her drink once again.

“But Mother once told me that I was a mistake—that she hadn’t wanted a second child,” she reiterated.

“She wanted Patrick,” Angelica whispered.

“And not me,” Tricia finished for her, bitterness gnawing at her soul.

“I’m so sorry, Tricia,” Angelica said with tears in her eyes. “And I feel so ashamed.”