Leaving The Pieces Behind

by R. M. Demeester

  William straightened his posture and held me at arm’s length. “Has she ever been arrested?”

  I shook my head. “Not that I know of.”

  William pressed his hands against his temples for a moment. “You mentioned that she doesn’t talk much about the past, right?” He paused, then immediately said, “I’m sorry for probing.”

  I perked up, ignoring his last comment. “So do you think she could have had trouble with the law? That could contribute to why we were taken from her.” While the probability seemed unlikely, the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. It quickly dawned on me that I didn’t really know my mother as well as I thought I did.

  “Could be?” William said tentatively.

  I pressed my lips tight. “But how do I find out?” The question wasn’t directed at William.

  “An internet search may be a good place to start.”

  “Oh, good idea!”

  William rose without a word and headed for the bedroom. He returned with his laptop and handed it to me. My fingertips paused over the keyboard, wondering what to type first.

  “Maybe try her full name and the city and state where she lives,” William suggested softly.

  I could have smacked my head. Duh. I knew how to look people up on the internet. It wasn’t that long ago that I had searched for my brother.

  I typed my mother’s name, Melody Grace Rupert, and the city she lived in into the search bar. I scrolled through the results, searching for a news article or something, but came up empty. I sighed.

  William stroked my shaking hand. “I can help you out if you want.”

  “I appreciate it. I just want to know what she’s hiding. She’s always hiding something from me.”

  William took the laptop from me. I hovered over him, resting my head on his shoulder. If anyone would know what to do, it’d be him. If there was anything to find, that is.

  William pulled up a state database from the area where Mom lived. “We’re in luck! Her state has an online database with a list of criminal cases going back forty years.”

  He typed in my mother’s name. No record.

  “Did she go by an alias?” he asked.

  I gave him a funny look. “A what?”

  “Like another name. Was she ever married?”

  I shook my head. “No, Rupert is her maiden name.”

  He took a deep breath. “How long has she lived there?

  I shrugged. “A few years. Before that, she lived in our home state.”

  “Okay, that gives us something to work with.”

  He closed out of that tab, opened another, and went to the database for where my mom used to live. A few minutes into the search, he sighed.

  “What?” I asked.

  “This will be harder than it looks.”

  “Can’t you just search her name?”

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  I glanced away and sighed. Great. Another roadblock. What is Mom hiding? Or not hiding? I didn’t even know what I was looking for or if there was anything to find. The town I was born in was so close to where I lived now, but I never visited. It seemed like everyone was keeping secrets, and Mom always said that leaving that town was the best decision she ever made. I hadn’t any real reason to return to the town. I had no friends, and I had no recollection of any family I may have had there anyway.

  “Don’t look so gloomy, hun. I never said I couldn’t search. Just that it might be difficult.”

  I leaned over and hugged him. “Hmm. Maybe later. Let’s go eat.” I didn’t want to dwell on this because I knew that it would only serve to put me in a bad mood, and I didn’t want to ruin my day off with William.

  “Go get dressed, then we’ll go.”

  I shrugged. “Or I can go like this.” I didn’t want to get dressed. Pajama pants were so comfy.

  “All right.” He smiled. “It’s just you normally don’t go out in public like that.”

  I smiled. “Well, today is different.”

  He laughed. “I guess so.”

  We wasted no time jumping in his car. I was glad to be getting out of the house. My stomach rumbled loudly.

  “I know how you feel,” William chuckled. “I want a big, hearty breakfast with bacon, ham, eggs, hash browns, and toast.”

  “So, in other words, you want to eat the entire menu?”

  William glanced at me and smiled widely. “I’m a hungry guy.”

  “And a hungry guy needs to be well-fed.”

  “You do a good job of that.”

  William always said I made good meals. The past few weeks, random ingredients that I had never seen in his fridge suddenly appeared, like asparagus and avocado. He loved when I made pesto chicken, or homemade guacamole and kale chips, or even something as simple as steamed asparagus. I blessed William’s heart. He was a hard worker, charming, and would help anyone in need, but he couldn’t cook. If something didn’t come from a can or couldn’t be nuked in the microwave, he wouldn’t make it.

  All the thought of food made me hungry, so I was glad when we arrived at the diner. It seemed as if most of our dates ended up at a hole-in-the-wall place or another similar eatery. I secretly wanted more variety, but I guessed monotony happened when couples became comfortable. It was nice to let my guard down and not overthink everything, yet I still did. My mother’s mysterious words plagued me.

  William ordered himself the Big Monster Breakfast: three sausages, three pieces of bacon, a hamsteak, three eggs, two pieces of toast, and homemade hash browns. I didn’t know where he’d put it all. I settled on two fluffy pancakes.

  William and I made small talk — mostly about food — but I struggled to concentrate on what he was saying because I couldn’t help but think about Mom. It was so typical of me. Maybe deep down I didn’t accept Mom for who she was. Maybe I wanted more, some kind of truth. I knew I was sick of the secrets.

  “You’re still thinking about it, aren’t you?” William asked, shoving a giant slice of ham in his mouth and chewing thoughtfully.

  I nodded, pushing around the last few bites of pancake on my plate. “I just can’t help it. Sorry.”

  He fiddled with his fork and stopped eating. “Didn’t you say your hometown was around here?”

  I smiled slightly. He was reading my mind again. “Yeah, about fifty miles north of here. Why?” I told him the town name as he looked something up on his phone.

  He took a sip of his water. “This may be a long shot, but how would you like to take a road trip after breakfast? It says here that their local library is open until four.”

  “Oh?” I smiled at him, but I was still confused. “Why do we need their library when there’s a perfectly good one downtown?”

  “Well, I was thinking maybe we could check out their archives. I’m no detective, but maybe we can find an article or something about your past. I mean, just because you don’t think she was arrested for anything doesn’t mean it didn’t happen before you were born or maybe when you least expected it.”

  My eyes lit up. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  William beamed at me.

  I shifted in my seat. While my small hometown only had a population of about five thousand, there would still be a ton of content to skim through because the records probably covered the neighboring villages and towns. I blew a series of short breaths, anything really to calm my nerves. I wasn’t sure what I was hoping to find. I always wondered about where Mom came from and why she was always so apprehensive to tell us.

  She always tried her best for us kids, but always seemed to come up short. As I got older and tried to ask her questions about her past, she would close up and not say a thing. Why? Could the answer be why she didn’t want me to find my father?

  I remember one time I asked Mom about my dad. She had been sitting on the couch, reading a cookbook, and she was in one of her moods. It was Father’s Day and I was one of the only ones in my class without a father. I had made a card and hid it under my pillow, but I want
ed a dad to give it to, so I had asked her, “Where’s my dad?”

  Mom had looked up from her book, brushing her hair from her face. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her eyebrows furrowed. She frowned and told me, “He was no good.” She had called him a sperm donor, but I knew she didn’t mean it literally. I knew there was a story there. When I had tried to push further, she had sent me to my room. I remember thinking that she really didn’t like my father, but why? I never could get a straight answer out of her.

  I continued to pick at my plate while William scarfed down the last of his meal as if he hadn’t eaten in a week. I wasn’t hungry anymore. My appetite wasn’t there. I bounced my leg. I really was hoping, praying, and looking forward to getting some answers. I knew it was going to be a wild goose chase, but I was still hoping to catch a break, even a tiny one. I’d been let down so many times that I was immune to the depressing notion that this may be another dead end.

  “Hurry and eat,” William urged, breaking me out of my stupor.

  I stared down at my unfinished plate. I forced one more bite. I was grateful William cared. He was spending his day and wasting his gas to help me.

  After a few more bites, I made eye contact with William who had already finished his breakfast. “Where do you put all that food?” I asked lightheartedly.

  He patted his stomach. “In here. It builds strength.”

  “You and your high metabolism,” I replied with a chuckle. “If I ate all that, it’d go straight for my hips.” I wasn’t big by any means, but any weight I did accumulate went right for the butt region, making me rather “pear shaped” as my mother had once called me. William seemed to like it.

  “Are you ready to go?” he asked, pulling out his wallet and slapping two bills on the table.

  I jumped up a little too quickly. “Yes.”

  “Anything else before we hit the road?” he asked once we were in the car.

  I thought about my pajama pants and how ridiculous I probably looked, but I shook my head. I just wanted to get there and get answers.

  The ride on the highway dragged by. William talked about random things I found myself nodding along to. I barely listened as my mind was occupied and guilt consumed me. I couldn’t help it.

  “We’re almost there,” he announced when we passed a sign stating the town was only a few miles ahead.

  I looked at my phone for the address of the library. “Cain Street. The library is on Cain Street.”

  “I know, I already punched it into my GPS.”

  I lowered my head. Of course, he was prepared. It was his idea to come here in the first place.

  We reached the town, and he dropped his speed to twenty. We passed the little ice cream shop that was now boarded up. “Mr. Holt used to sell the best ice cream,” I told William as I pointed out the window at the derelict building.

  We continued through downtown which was mostly empty businesses. We passed a small store which had antiques on display, and a couple of little bistros with cute sandwich boards on the sidewalk. I didn’t recognize any of them, and the store fronts I did recognize were blurry remnants in the back of my brain. I sighed. “I remember when we moved out of here when I was five. It was a sad day.”

  While I was still young, I had so many fond memories of the place. My early days were some of my simplest. It was after we moved that Mom became more depressed. She started dating a man name Gino for a few months, and then another man named Tony or something. She changed after that. None of her boyfriends stood out much; I didn’t even really remember what they looked like. The only one I really remembered was Mike, and as an adult I now realized that he was a pig. I’d never know what Mom saw in him. I always wondered why Mom didn’t stay with any of our biological fathers. Like me, Harmony and Dayton didn’t have contact with their dads.

  William pulled up in front of a brick building with a fading sign that may have read, Library. “We’re here.”

  I reached over, pecked him on the cheek, and exited the vehicle.

  A woman in an oversized red dress greeted us when we entered the library. “Can I help you?” She beamed at us.

  “We’re looking for your news archive,” William said.

  She nodded quickly and happily like a bobble head doll. “Is there any particular year you’re looking for?”

  I looked at William who never broke eye contact with the librarian.

  “Can we start with the years 1990 to 1994?”

  She nodded. I felt embarrassed. It should have been me doing the talking.

  She led us to a back room filled with old microfilm readers. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  “Thanks, we will,” William replied.

  Once she was out of sight, he closed the door to the small room. “I’ll start with articles from 1990 and you start with 1991, okay? If we split it up, we can get through them quicker.”

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  I sat and scrolled through the archives, scanning the headlines for anything linking to my mother. There was one about a bar fight resulting in a man and a woman being arrested on January 3, 1991. Mom was only seventeen in 1991, so not old enough to go to the bar. I kept scrolling through the headlines when I stopped suddenly at something that I thought held some relevance. It was an article about a missing teenager: “March 5, 1991, 15-year-old Jane Rupert was last seen leaving her residence at 11pm on March 3rd.” I skimmed the rest of the article, looking for any mention of a Melody Rupert. There was no mention of my mother, but it was something.

  “William.”

  He turned to look at me. “Did you find something?”

  “No mention of my mother, but I found a report of my aunt going missing in early 1991. It probably doesn’t mean anything, but at least I can confirm that my mom was in this town around this time. I’m not surprised that my aunt went missing. She likely was a runaway.”

  Mom always promised to give us a better life than she had growing up. She never had to grow up in foster care, but she came from a life of addiction and abuse. She was eighteen or nineteen when she moved out of her parents’ house.

  “Keep looking,” William said. “I have a feeling we’re onto something.”

  I smiled. “Thanks for helping me.”

  He stopped and touched my thigh. “I promised to help you come to terms with your past. And if finding answers are what you need, then I’ll be here.”

  I reached over and kissed him. “Thanks.”

  He grinned before getting back to the task at hand.

  I continued flipping through articles going into April and May. Nothing more about my aunt missing. I know she eventually was found, but the fact that she was never mentioned again was concerning to me.

  I had scrolled until the end of the year but found nothing. I sighed. “Nothing. Have you had any better luck?”

  William shook his head. “No. 1990 was a boring year.”

  “Same with 1991.”

  “But I’m going to go ahead with 1992,” he said.

  “I’ll take ‘93 then.” William and I made a great team, and I don’t know if I would have even thought of doing this in the first place, never mind skimming through hundreds of old records.

  I skimmed through nearly all of 1993 when the librarian opened the door.

  “How is everything going in here?” she asked.

  “Good,” William said.

  “I’m just letting you know the library is closing in fifteen minutes.”

  I sighed. I knew that this was time-consuming, but I had thought we had more time.

  “Okay, thanks,” I said, eager to get back to the search.

  “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “No, thanks,” William replied. As she went to leave, he stood. “Actually, there is something you may be able to help with.”

  She stopped and smiled. “Oh?”

  “I don’t know if you’ve lived in this town long, but we’re looking to find any information on a woman who used to liv
e here. Maybe you know her.”

  The librarian leaned against the door. “I moved in the early nineties and just moved back last year, but I might be able to help.”

  I stood, staring at this woman. Could she know my mother?

  “Melody Rupert,” I said.

  The librarian turned to me and bit her lip. “I haven’t heard that name in a long time.”

  “Please, anything you can tell me about her, I’d appreciate.”

  The librarian took a step back. “Why do you want to know? How do you know Melody?”

  “She’s my mother.” I took a deep breath. “I’m Serenity, her daughter. So, please, you need to tell me.” I knew I sounded desperate, but who wouldn’t be if they had a huge question mark following them around? Or had a mother who was great at hiding things? This woman here could be the missing link to explain why my mom was the way she was.

  “Serenity Rupert. Oh my darn. I remember you. You were only a few months when I last spoke with Melody. What can I tell you?”

  I paused for a moment. “Anything.”

  “Melody and I used to hang out in the neighborhood back in the ’80s. She never wanted to leave my house. Said my mother made the best meals. But I doubt that is what you want to know.”

  “Did you know my father? Was my mother dating anyone?” I asked eagerly.

  The librarian stopped for a moment. “No, not that recalled. She was shy and didn’t go out much. But she did have a crush on this one man. He was a few years older than her; a high school drop-out. Now to think of his name. Samuel. And I think his last name was Anderson or something.”

  “Robertson?” William offered. “I remember coming across a Samuel Robertson while I was looking through the archives,” he explained.

  The librarian smiled. “Yes, Robertson. Samuel Robertson.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “I really must get ready to close up. I hope I helped in any way.”

  “Thank you so much,” I said. “We’ll be sure to clean up on our way out.”