The Rescue - Nicholas Sparks [45]
“How so?”
“Well, her mom and dad—your grandparents—they just couldn’t forgive her for running off that way. They saw Michael for what he was and said that if she didn’t come home right away, she wasn’t welcome here anymore. They were from the old school, as stubborn as can be, and your mom was just the same. It was like a couple of bulls staring at each other, waiting for the other one to give in. But neither of them ever did, even after Michael went by the wayside for someone else.”
“My father?”
Judy shook her head. “No . . . someone else—your father came along after I lost contact with her.”
“So you didn’t know him at all?”
“No. But I do remember your grandparents heading off to the wedding and being a little hurt that your mother hadn’t sent me an invitation. Not that I could have gone, of course. I was married by then, and like a lot of young couples, my husband and I were struggling financially, and with the new baby—well, it just would have been impossible to make it.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
Judy set her glass of tea on the table. “Nothing to be sorry for. It wasn’t you, and in some way, it wasn’t even your mom anymore—or at least the one I used to know. Your father came from a very respectable family in Atlanta, and by that point in her life, I think your mom was a little embarrassed about where she’d come from. Not that your father minded, obviously, since he married her. But I remember that your grandparents didn’t say much after they returned from the wedding. I think they were a little embarrassed, too, even though they shouldn’t have been. They were great people, but I think they knew they didn’t fit into their daughter’s world anymore, even after your father passed away.”
“That’s terrible.”
“It’s sad, but like I said, it went both ways. They were stubborn, your mom was stubborn. And little by little, they sort of drifted apart.”
“I knew Mom wasn’t close to her parents, but she never told me any of this.”
“No, I wouldn’t expect that she did. But please don’t think poorly of your mother. I certainly don’t. She was always so full of life, so passionate—she was exciting to be around. And she had the heart of an angel, she really did. She was as sweet a person as I ever knew.”
Judy turned to face her. “I see a lot of her in you.”
Denise tried to digest this new information about her mother as Judy took another sip of her tea. Then, as if knowing she’d said too much, Judy added, “But listen to me, droning on like some senile old woman. You must think I’m two steps from an old folks’ home. Let’s talk about you for a while.”
“Me? There’s not much to tell.”
“Then why not start with the obvious? Why did you move to Edenton?”
Denise watched Kyle playing with his trucks, wondering what he was thinking.
“There’s a couple of reasons.”
Judy leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “Man trouble? Some psycho stalker like you see on America’s Most Wanted?”
Denise giggled. “No, nothing that dramatic.” She stopped, her brow furrowing slightly.
“If it’s too personal, you don’t have to tell me. It’s none of my business anyway.”
Denise shook her head. “I don’t mind talking about it—it’s just tough to know where to start.” Judy stayed silent, and Denise sighed, collecting her thoughts. “I guess mainly it has to do with Kyle. I think I told you he has trouble speaking, right?”
Judy nodded.
“Did I tell you why?”
“No.”
Denise looked in Kyle’s direction. “Well, right now they say he has an auditory processing problem, specifically expressive and receptive language delay. Basically, it means that for some reason—no one knows why—understanding language and learning to speak is hard for him. I guess the best analogy is that it’s like dyslexia, only instead of processing visual signals, it has to do with processing sounds. For some reason, the sounds seem to get all mixed up—it’s like he’s hearing Chinese one second, German the next, nonsense chatter after that. Whether the problem’s in the connection between the ear and the brain or within the brain itself no one knows. But in the beginning,