Not One of Us

by Debbie Herbert

  “Hmm . . . what was that?” I asked, my mind focused on safely pulling through the four-way stop downtown.

  “Jackson. He was adopted.”

  I gaped at her. “I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve heard of it.”

  “Well, you just asked me about him.”

  “You mean a couple of days ago?” My brow furrowed as I turned onto Ocala Drive.

  “No,” she said, her voice rising. “Just now.”

  I’d done no such thing. Instead, I’d been mentally listing all my to-do tasks for the week. While Zach was at his adult day program, I could focus better on my business. But correcting Mimi would only make her more edgy.

  “Why haven’t you told me about Jackson before now?” I asked. “What’s the big deal?”

  “It was a huge deal for Tressie. She and Ardy tried for years to have a baby, and it was clearly not working.”

  “I meant, why the secrecy?”

  Mimi rubbed a hand over her brow. The skin of her hands was so transparent and paper thin now. More than any other aspect of her appearance, they showed her age, betraying a fragile vulnerability. “Well, you wanted to know about him,” she said querulously. “What he was like.”

  I waited, silently willing her to continue in her own bumbling, confused way.

  “He was a bad boy,” she said at last, her voice so soft I had to lean in to catch the words. “Bad blood, I always said.”

  It was hardly fair to blame Jackson’s behavior on his biology, but arguing the point with her served no purpose. “How was he bad?” I prodded when it appeared she had nothing further to say.

  “He was a liar. And whenever he got caught in a lie, he knew just how to manipulate Tressie. Ardy, I think, began to see through Jackson by the time he was a teenager.”

  “What did he lie about?”

  “Drugs, stealing, a bad temper.” Mimi clamped her mouth shut. “Enough about him.”

  She maintained a stony silence until I pulled into Rose’s driveway. With one hand on the car door latch, she turned to me, eyes serious and clear. “Don’t go digging up the past, Jori. Nothing good will come of it—mark my words.”

  “Why? That was all long ago. It can’t hurt anyone now.”

  To my surprise, her eyes filmed with tears.

  “It’s okay,” I assured her, patting her arm. “I won’t ask you any more questions about Jackson.”

  Mimi let out a sigh and then nodded before leaving the car. I watched as she walked up the sidewalk and knocked on the door. Rose opened it and waved at me, a signal that I could go on my way.

  This wouldn’t be the first time I’d lied to my grandmother. But what was the point in needlessly upsetting her?

  Less than ten minutes later, without any conscious decision on my part, I found myself sitting in Aunt Tressie’s room at Magnolia Oaks Nursing & Assisted Living Home, a private one, thanks to Uncle Buddy’s generosity. The home was magnificent and grand. Although small, Tressie’s room had polished mahogany floors, crown molding at the ceiling, and a brick fireplace that gave off a cozy vibe, which was further enhanced by my aunt’s flowers, afghans, stacks of books, and a few framed photos scattered on her tasteful furniture. She even had her own private bathroom and kitchen galley.

  Speaking with my aunt Tressie was hit or miss. Some days, she was lucid and eager to talk about old times, and other days, she was wrapped in a mental fog that was nearly impregnable. Today fell in between on the spectrum. She sat in a recliner, shuffling through a parcel of photos and yellowed papers. This seemed to be her favorite activity. She greeted me with a smile of recognition, and then a frail hand fluttered to her hair. “Oh, dear. Is it my day to get my hair done? I’m not ready.”

  Her voice was golden amber, shaped into cubes of frozen honey. The color was in the same happy orange family as the rest of my blood relations, but mellower in tone.

  “No. I just stopped in to visit for a bit.” I sat on the sofa beside her and pointed at her lap. “What are you looking at?”

  She held up a black-and-white photo of a young couple standing on the shore, holding a pudgy baby. “This was Jackson at seven months old. His first trip to the beach.”

  “Hmm. Sounds fun.”

  Tressie held up another photo. “And here he is at age three, playing with Tinker Toys. Such a sweet baby.”

  I’d seen all the photos dozens of times, but I nodded appreciatively. “What about all those old letters?” I asked.

  “I used to have a pen pal from Germany named Ann Marie. Her father was in the army, and she was in the American school. Do people have pen pals anymore?”

  “Nah.” I smiled gently. “There’s this new thing called the internet, and we all keep in touch on social media.”

  She blinked at me, and I suppressed my amusement. Mimi and Tressie were sisters, but so different. Mimi was remarkably modern and was always piddling around on her laptop and smartphone.

  “Actually, I came to ask you about Jackson,” I began nervously. “Mimi happened to let it slip today that he was adopted. How come I never heard about this before? Why did everyone keep it a secret?”

  Aunt Tressie shifted her weight in the chair, clearly uncomfortable. “I don’t think I’m supposed to talk about it.”

  “But why?”

  “It was all arranged very quietly.” Her eyes looked dreamy. “And quickly too. We didn’t have to go through an agency and wait for months or years.” She flashed a triumphant grin. “We decided we wanted to adopt, and in no time, we had our Jackson.”

  “If you didn’t go through an agency, then how—”

  “Mrs. Ensley? Time for . . .” A male nurse entered the room, then stopped short at the sight of me. “Sorry. Didn’t know you had company. We can reschedule your social worker appointment, if you’d like.”

  Disappointment and frustration whipped through me. I wanted more time alone with Aunt Tressie to dig out information.

  “What appointment?” Aunt Tressie asked, brow furrowed.

  “Your monthly interview with Mrs. Prescott.” He faced me to explain. “She interviews all the residents monthly to see if they need anything or have any concerns with their care. I can reschedule for later in the day, though,” he offered.

  I rose, forcing a smile. “No, no. I don’t want to interfere with her routine.”

  “If you’re sure . . . ,” he said.

  He offered his hand to Tressie, and she frowned. “Where am I going now?”

  “To see Mrs. Prescott.”

  “But all my papers.” She gestured at everything in her lap.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll put them away for you,” I said, beginning to gather her stuff.

  “If you’re sure . . . they go in the cedar chest by the TV.”

  “Right. Go on along, and I’ll come back another day for a nice, long chat.”

  I waved at her as she left and then went to the old-fashioned hope chest where she stored her sentimental memorabilia. The lid creaked open, and the faint scent of cedar and dried rose petals greeted me. I laid the papers on the top fold-out drawer and then paused. Maybe there were answers in this chest. Guiltily, I looked over my shoulder and saw that the room’s door was shut, leaving me with total privacy. When would I ever get this chance again?

  I riffled through the papers and photographs in the top drawer, but I’d seen them all dozens of times. I dug deeper, dragging out handfuls of photo albums, papers, and envelopes. I wasn’t even exactly sure what I was searching for. I quickly shuffled through letters, then Jackson’s elementary and junior high school report cards, smiling at the occasional old photos of Mimi and my mother. Back before Mom had children. Before the cancer. She looked so carefree and happy, unencumbered instead of beaten down by life—which is mainly how I remembered her these days.

  I tore into an eight-by-ten manila envelope and saw it was filled with official-looking mimeographed documents. I scanned the contents, and my pulse quickened as I found a birth certificate.

&n
bsp; Jackson Earl Fairhope

  Born: March 13, 1975, 5 pounds 3 ounces, father unknown. Mother: Grace Lee Fairhope, Hospital: Mobile General, Mobile, Alabama.

  Quickly, I photographed the birth certificate and continued rummaging, hoping to find the private adoption papers. There were none. If there had ever been any, Aunt Tressie hadn’t kept them.

  Grace Lee Fairhope. Mobile was less than an hour away. Was there any chance the birth mother still lived nearby? What the hell, it was worth a shot. I entered her name and location on my phone and immediately found links to several newspaper articles. I clicked on the first one, which pulled up a stark black-and-white photo of a woman staring into the camera with dead eyes. Thin, scraggly hair framed a sunken face. Her lips were chapped and split, her cheeks pocked with scabs. Mobile Woman Charged with Prostitution & Drug Possession.

  The article mentioned Fairhope’s previous arrests for the same crimes, dating back over three decades. No wonder Jackson had been born on the thin side if his mom had been using while pregnant. Had his biology contributed to his delinquency later in life? Guilt pinged in my chest at the thought. It was unfair. People were more than their biology. They had free will and made their own choices.

  This latest arrest had occurred only four months ago in Mobile. If I left now, I’d have plenty of time to make the trip before Zach returned home from his day program. Again, my body seemed to move of its own accord, just as it had when I’d driven on autopilot to the nursing home. Now I found myself on Highway 10 East, my GPS set and ticking down the ETA to the address I’d googled of this unknown woman.

  What the hell did I expect to gain? All I had was a suspicion that my murdered cousin’s death was linked to Deacon’s disappearance—which had sprung forth from Raymond Strickland’s words, hardly a reliable source. Yet on I drove. The day was pewter, and clouds swirled mercilessly, always at the whim of the gulf’s capricious winds. Light rain drizzled, and the roads were slick, a black track leading out of the primitive bayou and into a large commercialized city.

  My GPS efficiently guided me off the highway and onto a county road that led to a residential area. I wasn’t familiar with the area and braced myself to drive into a housing project peopled with loitering drug dealers. I promised myself that if it looked too dangerous, I’d get the hell out of Dodge and instead call Grace Fairhope. I tried to formulate my approach if by some miracle she was still at the listed address, but my brain refused to function past the moment-to-moment tension of moving forward.

  I’d have to wing it when I arrived.

  Surprisingly, I was only a couple of miles from my final destination, and the neighborhood wasn’t half-bad—a lower-middle-class area that was, frankly, better than what I expected. The homes were small and close together. I felt as though I’d traveled back in time to the 1950s, before the vogue of today’s McMansions or the long, sprawling ranch houses popular in the 1960s. Each house was different—no cookie-cutter construction here—and the streets were laid out in no-nonsense square grids. Stately magnolias and live oaks shaded the properties, some of them so large the roots had broken up driveways and sidewalks, and their branches towered over the rooflines. If a strong hurricane gale uprooted them and they toppled, these tiny homes would be crushed.

  My palms sweated against the steering wheel as I pulled up to 945 Cypress Lane. After parking the car against the curb, I dried my hands on my jeans and studied the house. It was all redbrick and white trim with overgrown azaleas along the front and sides. Light glowed from inside, and a tan, slightly rusted Toyota Camry was parked in the driveway.

  Someone was home. I didn’t know whether to be thankful or nervous. Probably a combination of both. Best not to think too hard. I grabbed my purse and exited my car, heart thumping as my sneakers squeaked with each step along the cracked cement of the Fairhope driveway. Something about the cheeriness of the bright bottle collection shimmering by the window gave me comfort. Anyone who could appreciate their delicate beauty must have goodness inside them.

  Or so I reasoned.

  Before I knocked on the door, the drone of a TV set, familiar and reassuring, further quieted my qualms. The door squeaked open a few inches, and a woman regarded me, eyes narrowed. It could be her. She certainly seemed old enough, judging from the lines etching her eyes and lips and the gray roots by her temples.

  “Grace Fairhope?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she admitted in a husky smoker’s voice colored with fuchsia and navy coils. Her eyes raked me up and down. “You from the court or something?”

  My casual attire should have tipped her off that this was not the case, but she opened the door wider and beckoned me inside.

  “I was getting ready for my AA meeting,” she informed me as I followed her into the den. She sat down gingerly on the couch and pointed to a high-back chair opposite. Her pale arms were streaked with scars slicing through the translucent skin. The thin white track lines looked as though they were healing. Nothing was raw, red, and fresh.

  Grace caught my stare and flushed. “I been clean four months, two weeks, and six days,” she said, facing me down with defiant pride.

  I smiled in what I hoped was an encouraging manner. “That’s great. Congratulations.”

  She wore faded jeans and an old Led Zeppelin T-shirt. The skin on her face, neck, and arms was no longer scabbed, albeit her pallor was tinged with a gray sheen, as though she’d been dragged through fire and emerged with a faint trace of ash. A reborn woman.

  From beyond the side door, a teakettle whistled shrilly.

  “Excuse me,” she murmured, disappearing into the kitchen. I took the opportunity to study the surroundings. A TV was in the corner of the room playing Jeopardy. The carpet was old gray shag, but clean. Dark paneled wood lined the walls. My attention was captured by a bank of framed photographs atop the stone fireplace mantel. I walked over and scanned them, but there were no baby pictures or any others resembling photos I’d seen of Jackson. Mostly, they were photos of an elderly couple.

  “Those were my parents.”

  I whirled around, face burning at being caught snooping.

  “They both died last year, within three months of each other. They say that happens, you know. When two people have been married a long time, they can’t live without the other. My parents were like that. Dad died of lung cancer, and Mom died in her sleep weeks later. Heart attack, the doctors said. I say she grieved herself to death.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  A sad smile tugged the side of her mouth, transforming her look. I caught the shadow of the handsome girl she might have been long ago, before the drugs. Her son had inherited her high cheekbones and a similar disarming smile.

  Grace returned to the sofa, and I sat across from her again. “I inherited this house,” she informed me. “You may not think it’s much, but after living on the streets a few years, this place is like the Taj Mahal to me.”

  “It’s a perfectly nice house,” I hastened to assure her.

  A ginger kitty sprang up from nowhere and leaped into Grace’s lap. She stroked its fur as gently and reverently as though it were a baby.

  “With God’s help, I’m going to make it this time. Muffin here is depending on me.” With a final rub behind its ear, she looked up at me. “I’m going to AA every night. I’ve got a steady job at the Suzy Q Diner, and I’m paying restitution for court costs. I had it garnished from my check so’s to make sure it gets paid first thing.”

  “Sounds like a solid plan. I imagine it’s hard to start over and work through everything.”

  “You a psychologist or something? Or a social worker?” Again, the flash of suspicion crossed her face.

  “No, nothing like that.” I squirmed in my seat, unable to keep up the charade. There was nothing for it but to get down to the matter at hand. “I’m here about the baby you gave up for adoption. Jackson Earl Fairhope.”

  Grace’s back went rigid, and her arms lay still in her lap, Muffin temporarily forgotten.
Her face registered a mixture of hope, dread, and shock. “Wh-what?” Then her eyes darkened with stark fear. “Is something wrong? He doin’ okay?”

  I skirted the question. “It must have been hard, giving him up for adoption.”

  She didn’t speak for several moments, her throat spasming as she visibly tried to regain composure. A single tear slid down her cheek, inky with black mascara. “No,” she choked. “You’re wrong about that. It was easy. Too easy. I could blow smoke up your ass and tell you I did it for the baby’s sake, to give him a better life with a nice family. But that would be a lie.”

  Her throat clogged with emotion before she drew a deep breath and spoke again. “I was offered ten thousand dollars, a fortune, more money than I’d ever seen at one time in my entire life. And you know what was important to me? Not raising my baby, that’s for damn sure. All I could see was a life full of blissed-out highs. One after another after another. And so on, and so on. Ecstasy.”

  The tears came faster now, and she gave a hollow laugh.

  “Who was it?”

  She blinked at me, and I had the feeling she’d been a million miles away, experiencing a quantum jump to the past when the monster of her addiction had swallowed up any love and hope for a better life with her child. “Who was what?” she asked numbly.

  “Who offered you the ten thousand dollars?”

  “I-I can’t rightly remember. It was some young man, an attorney arranging a private adoption. Can’t recall the name.”

  “Did you sign any papers?”

  “I reckon so.” Grace tapped an index finger against a rotted front tooth as she considered the question. “Yes, yes, I did, come to think of it.”

  “Do you still have those documents?” I asked hopefully.

  She snorted. “Even if I had wanted to keep that miserable reminder of what I’d done, I was hardly in a position to be filing away important papers. I was on the streets with no thought but how to score my next high and where to eat and sleep for the night.”

  “Is there anything you can tell me about the arrangement you agreed to?”