Page 33 of Wedding Season
“I’m so tired of having my mistakes damage other people.” Mariella’s legs suddenly felt too weak to hold her upright. Her shoulders drooped from the guilt they constantly carried. She turned and sank onto one of the porch steps. Her gaze took in the manicured lawn with its sections of colorful flowers and the winding cobblestone path that led to the street.
The inn was a happy place, but she knew that for years, the house hadn’t been. She glanced around to the other stately homes that lined the street, wondering which of them held secrets.
How many people had made the same mistakes or even bigger than the ones that seemed to dominate her life? That was why she needed to stay small, not because it would undo the wrong she’d done but so that the things she wanted to remain hidden couldn’t be uncovered and dissected by strangers.
She thought she’d left behind her life’s penchant for attracting rumors and whispered gossip. But somewhere deep inside she knew that she deserved everything bad that came to her.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking about...” Emma nudged Mariella’s shoulder with hers. “But I can tell it isn’t good. Why don’t you come inside with me and take a look at some of the testimonials that have been posted to our social media as well as travel and wedding websites? Sometimes the best way to counteract the negative is to focus on the positive. Don’t let one day define your life.”
Mariella rolled her lips together. She appreciated the sentiment in her friend’s advice, she needed her friend—someone—to understand.
“It’s not just about that one day or even the video or even how out of control my life had gotten leading up to that. Yeah, it was terrible. I might never live it down. But it’s not the worst thing I’ve done. Not by a long shot.”
“You’re a good person,” Emma insisted. “What came before—”
“I told you I had a baby at sixteen and gave her up for adoption. Now she’s sought me out. How can you tell me I’m a good person?”
“Oh, honey. You were a child yourself at that time.” Emma tried to wrap an arm around Mariella, but she shrugged off the touch.
“No. I don’t deserve your comfort. I don’t regret my decision. I had nothing to give her. Less than nothing. Is this what you’re talking about focusing on the positive? That the baby I loved with all my heart that I carried inside me and is a part of me had a way better life without me in it.”
“Has she told you why she decided to find you? How she found you?”
Mariella picked a piece of lint from the front of her cotton pants. “I don’t know the why. As far as I know, she found some papers in her father’s study. The adoption was closed but her mother paid one of the nurses to slip me a piece of paper with their contact information on it.”
She let out a shuddery breath. “I wrote to her—to my daughter’s mother—one time. I told her everything in my heart but asked her not to contact me. It would have been too difficult to move on with my life if I had to hear about the child I let go.”
“She found you from a letter?”
Mariella turned and nodded. “Heather is smart and resourceful. I didn’t give a return address, but I signed my name and there was a postmark from Philadelphia, where I lived at the time. She came to Magnolia to...”
Emma leaned forward. “Does she want a relationship with you? Is that what you want?”
“Does it even matter what I want?”
“Yes, it does. You matter.”
“Not to Heather.”
“Of course you matter to Heather or she wouldn’t have come here, Mariella.”
“I don’t know what she wants exactly. She’s angry and curious. I think she feels bad that she even wanted to find me. She has a good life, Em. I need to believe that.”
“But you can’t know that her life was better without you.”
“I need to believe that even more because if I gave her a better life then at least all the guilt and sleepless nights and regrets I went through were worth it.” She rolled her shoulders. “You’ve met Heather. She’s awesome. Her parents did a great job. It was worth it.”
She breathed out a small sigh. “Tell me it was worth it.”
“You did the best you could at the time for your child,” Emma assured her. “And, yes, I’ve only met Heather when she was working at the bakery, but she seems great. Mary Ellen thought the world of her.”
“So does Alex. He’s protective of her like a big brother or something. He told me her family misses her.”
“If she’s here, it’s because she wants to know you, Mariella.”
“Or she wants to punish me or show me what I missed out on.”
“Or know you,” Emma repeated. “Do you want that? And don’t answer that you don’t matter. You do.”
