Somehow she'd known, ever since the moment that Lillian uttered her mother's name. Knowing didn't make it much less shocking, though. "How long ago?"
"Just a few months after you were born." Lillian said sadly. "There was a storm coming, so she went out to do some last minute shopping before the weather turned foul-"
"A car accident." Reyes guessed, trying to picture this mother she never met behind the wheel of a car.
"No dear, although that might have been kinder. You see, the store had wiring problems, and there was a fire after a blown-down tree landed on the power lines... your mom was the only one who didn't get out. A few busy bodies said she didn't get out of that fire because she didn't want to, but Debbie wasn't the kind of girl who'd take her own life, nor passively let it be taken. She'd of gotten out of there if she could have." Lillian fiercely defended the dead woman, as if the reassurances made a difference to her child.
"Why would anyone think she didn't try to get out?"
"She was depressed. "Your father and her had had such plans, but then the war took him less than a year after they married. It was an awful thing for a pregnant woman to learn. She never said, but I always suspected that she gave you up because she didn't think she was strong enough to raise you on her own. The world wasn't like it is now, and single women with children usually had a much harder time putting food on the table...Anyway, when she came home without you, she was a shell of her former self. All the joy went out of her. Some people think that adoption is the easy way out, but that girl suffered-"Reyes thought not of her mother, but of Scully crying the day she gave William up. It was easy to imagine a mother suffering after giving her baby up. "I hope you had the good life she thought she was giving you the chance to have."
Reyes thought of her mostly-happy childhood, and gave Lillian a gentle smile. "I did. I do. The people who adopted me made sure that I knew I was wanted and loved, and I love them dearly for it, and for who they are. Now my husband and I are looking forward to welcoming twins to our family, and our foster child is growing up to be a fine young man as well. It's been a good life, better than many." She told the older woman, meaning it.
"I'm so glad to hear that. Debbie would be so happy to know that..." Lillian trailed off. "Do you mind me asking why you were looking for your mother?"
Reyes wanted to lie to her sweet old face, because it was obvious that she thought highly of her mother, but she couldn't. "I was hoping to speak to her to get her medical history. It seemed irresponsible not to at least try to get that information for my babies' sake."
"I see." Lillian said, not unkindly despite Reyes' lack of sentiment. "I could help you with that."
"How?" Even if they'd been good friends, it didn't seem likely that Lillian would know the ins and outs of Debra Jacey's health.
"I'm retired now, but for forty years there was an MD attached to my name." The older woman explained proudly. "Debra was one of my first patients, and I was her doctor her entire life. I have all her medical records."
"Aren't there rules against giving someone another person's medical files?" Reyes asked nervously. She desperately wanted the records, but not if it was going to get the kind woman sitting before in any trouble.
"First of all, I'm no longer a doctor, so it's unlikely anyone from a medical board would ever find out and chastise me for impropriety. Second, your mother is dead, so doctor patient confidentially hardly applies now. And last, your mother would have wanted you to know. She didn't give you up to make you suffer needlessly, she wanted you to be happy."
It was about an hour before dark when Reyes' car pulled up along side of Cedar Grove Cemetery. On the seat across from her sat a thick folder, bound with rubber bands. True to her word, Lillian provided all of Debra Jacey's medical records, and even had Robert's from the time he moved into town as a freshman in high school. Which of course is where he met Debra.
Reyes had listened politely to the stories about her parents' brief romance, but she felt a disconnect. It was like listening to someone talk about the lives of any other strangers; even knowing it was her parents being talked about didn't make it feel the slightest less alien or special.
Still, she did decide that she should go to the cemetery as Lillian suggested. Something in the older woman's eyes hinted at closure, and Reyes felt that she could use that. So as soon as she left Lillian, she drove to the nearest greenhouse. Not knowing either of her parents favorite flowers, or even colors made her choice hard, but finally she settled on white rose bushes. Some how that seemed appropriate, white roses being a sign of innocence and putting one in mind of babies. Even if she hadn't been their daughter, she'd once been their expected baby. Surely they'd felt something for her then, just as she felt for the daughters she was anxious to meet.
The cemetery was empty, which suited her well. She'd feared that someone, trying to be helpful, would insist on doing the work for her, and she didn't feel helpless. She liked using the small trowel that she'd also bought to disturb the soil, making a place for the two rose bushes, even if her belly did get in her way. Soon the bushes were firmly in place, and she stood, brushing the lose dirt from her knees, grimacing slightly as the babies announced their unhappiness of her sudden movements with small firm kicks.
It looked less lonely, a little less forsaken, with the bushes planted there, one on each of the graves. The twin-hearts stone still looked dull, though, and she wondered how long it had been since anyone had visited the graves. Lillian had further dashed her hopes by telling her they'd each been only children, whose parents had all passed years before. But had they had friends? Someone, anyone to cry over their graves, the way she couldn't bring herself to do?
When she walked back to the rental car, her eyes were still so dry they burned.
Later on, lying on her bed in the final hotel room, Reyes could scarcely believe it was over. She hadn't found her mother because there had been no mother left to find. Nor a father either. All of the nights she'd wasted as a girl wondering what her real mother was doing right that second had all had the same answer- rotting in her grave.
Reyes thought she ought to feel badly that the woman was dead, her father too, of course, but she didn't, not really. While she did owe them her gratitude for giving her life, she didn't seem to owe them a debt of grief. There were a hundred people she'd feel more grieved to know they were dead. It was hard to mourn people you never even met. It felt empty.
At least it was over. She'd gotten what she'd come for, even if in a round about way, and she could go home. She missed Doggett desperately, she missed Gibson and Scully, and she was even beginning to miss Mulder.
Maybe Mulder was someone to talk to about the whole thing. Of anyone, he knew what it was like to look for someone only to find out that they died long before you started looking. Or maybe she wouldn't talk to him, because it'd hurt to remember. After all, he'd loved his sister.
Sighing, she fell asleep wondering where she could buy train tickets in the morning; there was no way she was going to fly home, not after the last flight.