by Kathi Daley
I took a quick shower and changed my clothes. I’d showered that morning, but the hike to the point and back had been dusty. I didn’t want to overdress, which could send the wrong message, but I wanted to look pulled together and professional to achieve at least some level of respect. I decided on wool slacks, a fall colored sweater, and black pumps with a flat heel. I left my hair loose and applied just a hint of makeup. I felt like I looked approachable yet professional, which I supposed was the look I was going for.
Josie, on the other hand, went another way, showing up in jeans with a hole in the thigh and a Rolling Stones t-shirt. I supposed it didn’t matter what she wore since she wasn’t the one trying to make an impression. She also wasn’t the one who was terrified about finding out that everything she thought she knew to be true had actually been a lie.
“You look terrified,” Josie said as she drove along the bay toward the bridge that would take us to the road that accessed the point.
“I guess I am nervous.”
“Archie is a nice guy. There’s no reason to be nervous about meeting him. Yes, he is rich, and yes, he lives in a huge mansion on a private bluff, but he is also really laid-back. You’ll like him.”
I twisted my hands in my lap. “I’m sure I will. It’s really not meeting him that I’m nervous about,” I explained. “I think my real fear is based on a suspicion I’ve been harboring.”
“Suspicion?” Josie turned slightly and looked in my direction.
I never had shared my story with Josie or any of the others for that matter. Not really. They knew I’d been adopted and had come to the area looking for my birth parents, but I hadn’t shared the rest. “I told you that I had a photo of a woman standing with two young girls on a porch in front of a house that I suspect might be the house on Piney Point.”
“Yes. I remember. That’s why we’re going there now. You wanted to look around. Talk to Archie to see if he knew who the woman and the children might be.”
I nodded. “What I didn’t tell you was that I have reason to believe that the story my father told me might not have been accurate, or at least it might not have been the entire story.”
“Go on,” she said.
“I’m sure I mentioned before that the man who raised me had been a cop. A detective, actually. Twenty-five years ago this coming Christmas Eve, he got a tip about a man associated with a case he’d been working on. I guess this man had been seen entering an old abandoned warehouse down near the river. Ignoring protocol to call for backup, my father went to check it out. When he arrived, he found the warehouse on fire. He rushed into the building and found me standing in the center of a ring of fire, crying my eyes out.”
“Oh, God. How did you get there? Where were your parents? What happened next?”
“The man who raised me told me that he carried me to safety and then took me to a hospital where I was checked out. Other than being terrified and completely traumatized, I was fine. My dad called a friend who was a social worker who informed him she would need to take me to a shelter since it would be impossible to get me in with a family on Christmas Eve. My dad convinced his friend to let him take me home until other arrangements could be made. At least, that was the story he told me.”
“But you don’t believe him?” she asked, a question evident in her tone.
“I did. I spent my entire life never once questioning that story. I had no reason to. My dad was a great guy. He’d rescued me from certain death. He upended his life to raise me. He was my hero, and I loved him.” I wiped at my cheek as a single tear spilled from my eye. “I’m not sure why I decided to dig around after my father’s death, but I found the photo I told you about, and something happened. It was like a door in my mind that had been firmly closed began to open.”
“You started to remember things that happened before you were found in the fire.”
“Yes. Little things, at first. I remembered sounds and flashes of images that felt like memories. I began having dreams. Vivid dreams about a house I could never have visited, and yet somehow, I knew I had. Over time, the dreams grew more intense, and I knew I needed to find the house in the photo. I hoped by finding the house, I could also find the woman and hopefully other answers to my past.”
Josie made a right turn and headed toward the bridge. “It makes sense that you were somewhere before your father found you, and maybe the somewhere of your past is Piney Point, but you started this conversation by saying that you were afraid that the man who’d raised you had lied to you. Why? If he never figured out who you were, he couldn’t have shared that with you.”
I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “The part about the lie came after I found the photo. I hoped I could find something else that might help explain the photo, and I realized I never had seen any sort of paperwork relating to my adoption within my father’s papers. My dad had told me that after he’d found me and taken me home, there was a wide search for my identity, but one was never found. My dad told me he’d named me after his mother, who’d recently passed away after a long illness. He’d given me his last name, and somewhere along the way, we’d become a family. This was my reality. A reality that worked for me, but when I couldn’t find any sort of adoption papers, I began to question a lot of different things.”
“Like what?”
“For one thing, once I really started to think things through, I realized that it was very odd indeed that child services or the courts would grant custody of a three-year-old female child to a single male cop who worked a lot of hours. Maybe for that first night. It was Christmas Eve, and I’m sure the social worker was desperate. But after that? Why wasn’t I put into the system? Not only was I never placed in foster care, but I don’t remember a social worker ever coming by for a visit. Even if my dad pulled some strings and managed to get child services to let me stay with him, surely they would have assigned a social worker to the case. I’ve thought about it, and I really don’t remember a social worker ever coming by.”
“That is odd,” Josie agreed.
“I went to school, and I got a driver’s license, so at some point, my father got me some ID, but, as I said before, I never did find any adoption papers, and trust me, I looked everywhere.”
“Again, that does seem odd.”
“And then there’s the photo. If it is true that I’ve visited this house in the past, and if it is true that the woman in the photo is somehow related to me, then how is it that my father had that photo if, as he claimed, he never had been able to uncover the answers to my past?”
Josie frowned. “So, what do you think happened?”
I slowly shook my head. “I don’t know.” I paused and looked out the window. “On the one hand, I guess I don’t care. I loved my dad, and he loved me. He was away from home a lot, and I basically raised myself, but no matter how many hours he worked or how many times I had to make my own dinner, I knew he loved me, and I knew he’d be there for me. Mostly, I feel like that’s enough. I feel like I don’t need to know more.”
“But there’s a part of you who wants the whole story,” Josie said, turning onto a narrow road that led up to the point.
“Exactly. I thought about hiring an attorney to look into my adoption, but deep down, I suspect that my dad simply didn’t bother with legalities. Don’t get me wrong. He was a good man and a good cop, but he was known for skirting the system. I can totally imagine a situation where he took me home on Christmas Eve, and somehow everyone forgot about me. No one came for me, so he kept me. When it was time for me to go to school, he had documents falsified, and that was that. And if that was what happened, then I can live with that.”
“But?” she asked.
“But what if that isn’t the actual story? What if my dad came into possession of me in some other way? What if I was kidnapped or a witness to a terrible crime? I know this is going to sound like I watch too many movies, but the truth of the matter is that if what I was told is a lie, then how can I close the door to any numbe
r of possible truths?”
Josie slowed as she neared a huge gate. “Wow. You’re really carrying a lot around. I had no idea. You seem to handle it okay.”
I shrugged. “I’m trying not to obsess. I’ve decided to look for the truth, but not to make myself crazy along the way.”
Josie rolled down her window and punched some numbers into the keypad. The gate swung open, and she pulled forward. The drive was lined with oak trees that had mostly shed their leaves by this point. As the house came into view, my heart began to pound. It was, as I’d imagined, a large and impressive house. Multiple stories, three as far as I could see, spread out in every direction. The part of the house I’d been able to see from across the inlet must be at the back of the house since the front of the house, which curved around the half-moon shaped drive, had a slightly different feel than the corner of the house that was evident in the photo.
“Wow. This is quite some house.”
Josie pulled up to a parking spot near the front door and parked. “It’s crazy big. Too big if you ask me. I’m not sure why Bram Hemingway built such a monster, but I guess he had money and wanted to spend it.”
“Do you know how many rooms this place has?”
She shook her head. “No idea. I’ve only been to the house five times. Twice for the Winter Ball that’s held every December. It’s a fairytale event that you won’t want to miss. The Winchester Brothers go all out with the décor, the food, the music, everything.”
“Sounds magical.”
“Oh, it is.”
“And the other times you were here?”
“I came with Hope. She knows Archie better than most of us, although everyone in the group knows him pretty well. He likes to hang out with us normal folk in town, while Adam tends only to come into town when he has a reason. Of course, Adam works a lot of hours, and Archie doesn’t work at all. Both brothers are really nice. Just different.”
I followed Josie to the front door that had to be twelve feet in height. She rang the bell. A woman in a dark pair of slacks and a white blouse answered.
“Josie, dear. How are you?”
“I’m fine. Ruth, this here is Ainsley. Ainsley; Ruth.”
“Happy to meet you.” I smiled.
“Young Archibald said to expect you. Do come in.” She stepped aside.
Josie and I were shown to a parlor near the entrance while Ruth went off to find Archie.
“I’m surprised you know Ruth so well if you’ve only been here five times.”
“Ruth comes into the Rambling Rose when she’s in town to do the shopping. I always seat her at my station so we can sit and chat. We actually know each other fairly well.”
“Does she live here at the house?” I asked.
Josie nodded. “She started working for the Winchesters after her husband died. She never had children, so I think she was lonely. She dotes on the brothers, and they let her. She’s like a surrogate mother. The house has other staff, but she is the only one who actually lives on the property. Well, except for Moses.”
“Moses?”
“He has his own cottage on the property. He takes care of the grounds and the horses. He also watches over Hitchcock when Adam is away.”
“Hitchcock?”
“Adam’s dog. You’ll have to meet him. He’s even larger than your dogs. I think Adam said he was a Tibetan Mastiff.”
“Yeah, those are large dogs. I’d love to meet him.”
“Hitchcock isn’t always here. Adam has a private jet, so he takes him with him when he travels a lot of the time. We can ask Archie to introduce you if he does happen to be here.”
I looked up when the door opened, and a tall man with blond hair and blue eyes and a fantastic smile walked in.
“You must be Ainsley,” he greeted me with a hug. “Josie here has told me all about you.” He turned and hugged Josie.
“I really appreciate you meeting with me. I know you must be busy, and it means a lot that you are taking the time out of your day to answer some of my questions.”
“I’m happy to. Let’s head back to the conservatory, and we can take a look at your photo.”
The house had tall ceilings and long hallways that seemed to lead to stairways and hallways going off in all different directions. When you first entered the house, there was a grand entry. There were rooms to both the left and the right of the entry with wide stairs in the center, leading to a second story. If you ignored the rooms and the stairway, there was a hallway to the left and one to the right plus access to a huge room that seemed to be at the back of the first story.
Ruth had shown us into the little parlor on the left. After Archie had met us, he’d led us out of the parlor and down the hallway to the left. We passed quite a few closed doors, but there was a room with glass walls that overlooked the inlet on the side of the point not visible from Gooseberry Bay at the very end of the hallway.
“Wow,” I gasped. “Look at that view.”
“It’s gorgeous,” Josie said, walking over to the wall on the left and looking out. “Why have I never seen this before?”
He shrugged. “I guess you haven’t been here under the right circumstances. When we have the ball, guests are escorted directly into the ballroom and forbidden to wander, and when you’ve been here with Hope, we usually just head up to my suite of rooms. This house is so huge that you can get lost in it if you aren’t careful.” He looked at me. “Now, let’s get a look at that photo you have.”
I handed Archie the photo of the woman with the two little girls. He took a close look at it.
“This is the patio on the northwest side of the house. It’s attached to the old wing that really isn’t used much these days. My parents used to allow guests to stay there, but after they passed, it was closed off.”
“Do you recognize the woman?” I asked.
He furrowed his brow and took a close look but eventually shook his head. “Do you know when this was taken?”
“If my theory is correct, around nineteen ninety-five.”
He ran his thumb over the surface of the photo. “The hydrangea are in bloom, so I’m going to say the photo was taken in the summer. Probably July or August based on the overall look of the garden. I was seven in the summer of nineteen ninety-five. My mother used to take Adam and me to England every summer to visit family. We were usually gone from late-May to early September, so if your timeline is correct, I wouldn’t have been here when the photo was taken.”
“You said your mother took you and Adam to England. Did your father go as well?”
“No,” Archie said, handing the photo back to me. “He would stay here, but he would sometimes come for a visit for a week or two in mid-July. I can’t remember if he did that year. My parents didn’t really get along all that well, so it wasn’t unusual for them to spend time apart. My mother took her annual trip to see the relatives overseas, and my father went on long business trips every few months when we were here on the point.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.
He shrugged. “It was what it was. Adam and I were used to the routine.” He smiled. “It was really ironic that after spending so much of their time as a married couple apart, in the end, they died together.”
I supposed that was ironic.
“The woman,” I asked, “might she have been a guest? A relative? The wife of a business associate?”
“Perhaps,” Archie said. “Unless we can identify the woman, I’m not sure how we can know for certain. Adam is four years older than I am. If she was a relative, he might know. I guess you can ask him when he gets back. It’s a shame you missed him this time. He was home this past week, but he left again for a week. Maybe two. He’ll be back for Thanksgiving. The two of us always do the holidays together, no matter what else we might have going on in our lives.”
That was nice. I was happy the brothers were friends. “Once he returns, will he stay for a while?”
“Until after the new year. I guess if you haven
’t found your answers by then, you can ask him about the photo when he gets home.”
I glanced down at the photo in my hand. “I know you said that the west wing is closed off, but do you think we can take a look?”
“It will be dusty,” he warned.
“I don’t mind. I’ve been having dreams about this house. I guess I just want to see if anything looks familiar.”
He shrugged. “Okay. Let’s go take a look. I enjoy a good mystery as well as the next guy.”
Archie led us back down the hallway we’d taken to get to the conservatory and then went straight through the entry and into the hallway on the right of the entry. When we got to the end, there was a closed door. Archie used a key to open the door. I could see right away that this part of the house had been closed off. I guessed that made sense. If they weren’t using it, why heat and clean it? The hallway continued on the other side of the door. We walked past closed doors to another entry with additional stairs to the second floor. We walked around behind the stairs and entered a huge room with large windows that overlooked Gooseberry Bay.
“Arched windows to frame the sea,” I whispered.
“Do you remember these windows?” Josie asked.
I nodded. “From my dreams. Or maybe from my memories. I remember the arched windows along one wall that frame the sea. I also remember a sunny porch with a trickling fountain.”
Archie crossed the room and opened double glass doors. The doors led out to a patio with a fountain in the middle that did make a trickling sound. I stood on the porch just about where the woman in the photo had stood. I looked out over the bay. This was it. I was sure of it. I’d stood in this very spot before.
“Ainsley, are you okay?” Josie asked.
“I’ve been here. In this very spot. I’m sure of it.” I turned slightly and looked at the fountain. “There’s a loose brick at the base of the fountain. If you pull it out, you will find colored rocks. Or at least there used to be colored rocks. It has been a long time.”
