The twinkle was back in her eyes and it made Max wonder if she’d gotten over her trouble of that morning. But he wouldn’t ask. They’d get to that soon enough.
But dinner with Silken was an unusually quiet affair. After taking her first bite and praising him for his culinary skills she didn’t say much. She responded to his question, his attempts at light conversation, but that was it. She didn’t put forward anything of her own. After the way she’d loosened up earlier he’d hoped she’d be back to normal but maybe he was expecting too much too soon. He would just have to be patient and let her work things out in her own time.
“I’d like to talk now.”
Max looked up from his plate, surprised. Those were the first unsolicited words she’d spoken since they’d sat down to eat. “Sure,” he said and got up. “Let me just drop the plates in the dishwasher.”
When he got back from the kitchen she hadn’t moved. He sat down in the chair across from her, alert and ready to listen.
She tilted her head. “Can we do this in the den? I feel more comfortable there.”
“Sure,” he said again and got up to help her out of her chair. As far as he was concerned she could have anything she wanted just as long as it would get her to talk. This time Silken did not position herself in the single-seater chair. Instead, she dropped down in the couch then rested her hands demurely in her lap.
He looked at her askance. Was this Suave in his house? Had the sisters conspired to play a trick on him? Where was the Silken he knew?
But no. Silken was the woman he’d held in his arms, she was the one he’d kissed. He would know those eyes, those lips anywhere. But then, why was she acting so defeated?
“You’re going to think this is stupid,” she said and gave a nervous laugh, “that I’m making a big deal out of nothing, but…I can’t help it. This means a lot to me.” She sighed. “And Suave.”
He almost said, ‘yes, what is it’ but he held his tongue even though the suspense was killing him.
“I…” she began then stopped. “We’re trying to find our mother.”
Now that caught him by surprise. This was a lot more serious than he’d thought. This sounded like a matter for the police. “Your mother went missing? When?”
She shook her head. “No, not ‘went missing’. She’s been missing since the day we were born.”
Max stared back at her, confused. What the hell could she mean by that? And then it struck him. Of course. He deserved a kick for being so slow. “You and Suave were given up for adoption? At birth?”
She smiled but it was a sad smile. “Not quite. For some reason we never quite made it into an adoptive home. I don’t know why. Probably because there were two of us, probably because we fell through the cracks,” she shrugged. “We lived in foster homes until we reached eighteen and then we got the hell out of the system.”
Max almost shook his head in sympathy but he caught himself in time. He knew Silken and she was not the type to welcome sympathy. Instead, he grunted. “That must have been rough.”
She shrugged. “It was, but we survived. Came out pretty good, all things considered.” Then she fell silent again and her face took on a faraway look.
“But now,” he ventured, “you want to find your roots. Find your mother and figure out where you came from.”
Her eyes refocused and when she turned to him it was almost with a look of gratitude. “You got it,” she said. “I have to find out who I am, where I came from. It’s like,” she waved her hands as if trying to find the words, “I’m not really Silken until I know where…this…all started.”
“Have you tried working with an agency?”
She nodded. “We tried that but it ended up being a total waste of money. Suave and I, just working with the internet, we were able to gather a lot more information than they did.”
He leaned forward. “So you have a lead.”
She grimaced. “Had. But it took us nowhere.” She shook her head. “We were so excited, thinking that this was it. We could hardly sleep after we made contact with the doctor who delivered us. And then we flew all the way to Wisconsin to see him and he dashed our hopes against the pavement. He knows who our mother is but he won’t tell.”
“Doctor-patient confidentiality?”
“Something like that.” This time her tone was bitter and she was blinking and frowning and scrunching up her face, almost like she was about to cry. “I could just wring his scrawny old neck,” she spat, her nostrils flaring and then she gasped and covered her face with her hands. “I’m sorry. That was a terrible thing to say. But I want my mother,” her shoulders began to shake, “I want to know her. I want…” she hiccupped and the tears began to seep through her fingers, “…I want to know my family.”
Oh God, the tears. Max bit down on his bottom lip and his fingers clenched and unclenched. He wanted to go to her but she might brush him off, thinking he was trying to take advantage. But he couldn’t just sit there.
What the heck. He would just have to take that chance. He went to her, sitting on the sofa right beside her, and pulled her into his arms.
“I just want to know my mother, Max, my people,” she wailed as she turned her face into his shoulder. “Is that so bad? Everybody says I should drop it, but I can’t. I can’t.” And then she clung to him, sobbing and shaking while he held her close, stroking her back, letting her cry it all out on his shoulder.
“It’s okay, honey,” he soothed. “It’s okay.” There was not much else he could say because what do you say to someone who has no mother? He couldn’t even imagine what that was like. As long as he’d been on the earth he’d been privileged to have a father to guide him and a mother to spoil him. And even now, as old as he was, he knew they were there to give him advice or just to be his sounding board.