Smooth Talking Stranger Read Online Free

not?”
    “I don’t want him to think of me as a grandmother.”
    “Other women your age have grandchildren,” I said in a matter-of-fact tone.
    “I’m not my age, Ella. Everyone thinks I’m a lot younger.” She seemed offended by my expression. “You should be happy about that. To know what’s in your future.”
    “I don’t think I’ll look like you in the future,” I said wryly. “I don’t even look like you now.”
    “You might if you put some effort into it. Why is your hair so short? You don’t have the right face for that style.”
    I lifted a hand to my chin-length bob, which was the only practical style for my straight, fine hair. “Can I see the note Tara left?”
    Mom brought a manila folder to the kitchen table. “It’s in here along with the hospital papers.”
    I opened the folder and found a piece of notebook paper on top. The sight of my sister’s handwriting, all loopy and uneven, was painfully familiar. The words had been dug deep by a ballpoint pen that had nearly perforated the paper with its desperate force.

    Dear Mom,
    I have to go somewhere and figure things out. I don’t know when I’ll be back. I hereby give you or my sister Ella the authority to take care of my baby and be his guardian until I’m ready to come get him.
    Sincerely,
    Tara Sue Varner

    “Hereby,” I murmured with a wretched smile, leaning my forehead on my hand. My sister had probably thought a legal-sounding word would make it more official. “I think we’re supposed to get in touch with Child Protective Services and let them know what’s happened. Otherwise someone could claim the baby has been abandoned.”
    Sorting through the contents of the folder, I found the birth certificate. No father listed. The baby was exactly a week old, and his name was Luke Varner. “Luke?” I asked. “Why did she name him that? Do we know anyone named Luke?”
    Mom went to the refrigerator and pulled out a can of Diet Big Red. “Your cousin Porky—I think his real name is Luke. But Tara doesn’t know him.”
    “I have a cousin Porky?”
    “Second cousin, once removed. He’s one of Big Boy’s sons.”
    One of the legions of extended family that we’d never had anything to do with. Too many explosive personalities and disorders to put in one room together—we were a living catalog of the DSM-IV , the doctor’s manual of mental disorders. Returning my attention to the certificate, I said, “She had him at Women’s Hospital. Do you know who was with her? Did she say anything about it?”
    “Your cousin Liza was with her,” came my mother’s sour reply. “You’ll have to call her to get the details. She won’t tell me anything.”
    “I will. I . . .” Dazedly I shook my head. “What’s going on with Tara? Did she seem depressed to you? Did she seem scared? Did she look sick? ”
    Mom poured the Big Red over ice, watching the pink foam rise to the rim of the glass. “She was heavy. And she looked tired. That was all I noticed.”
    “Maybe this is some kind of postpartum problem. She may need antidepressants.”
    Mom poured a shot of vodka into the Big Red. “Doesn’t matter what pills you give her. She’ll never want that baby.” After taking a swallow of the fizzy-bright liquid, she said, “She’s not cut out for having kids any more than I was.”
    “Why did you have children, Mom?” I asked softly.
    “It was what women did when they got married. And I did my best. I made sacrifices to give you the best childhood I could. And neither of you seems to remember any of it. It’s a shame, how ungrateful children are. Especially daughters.”
    I couldn’t begin to reply I had no way to describe how I had struggled to collect every good memory possible. How every moment of my mother’s affection—a hug, a bedtime story—had been a gift from heaven. But mostly how my childhood, and Tara’s, had seemed like a rug pulled out from under us. And how her complete lack of motherly instinct—even the