Whispers and Lies

by Diane Pershing

  One hand on the screen frame, the other on her hip, she answered, “I’m her daughter. May I help?”

  My cousin, Lou thought. This is my cousin.

  Unable to keep the grin from her face, she studied the woman more closely. She had a round face, hazel eyes and light brown hair. She wasn’t tall, maybe a couple of inches or so taller than Lou was. She was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, was barefoot and had small gold hoops in her ears.

  Lou scratched her head. “Well, I’m not really sure how to say this…”

  She glanced at Will, who took over. “Why don’t we introduce ourselves? I’m Will Jamison and this is Dr. Louise McAndrews.”

  They both waited for some reaction, something to indicate the name sounded familiar.

  But all the other woman did was shrug. “Okay.” The screen door remained closed. She didn’t introduce herself, wasn’t forthcoming with much of anything and was starting to look at them suspiciously.

  Lou didn’t blame her. “Look,” she said, “this is going to sound crazy, but I think you’re my cousin.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We’re related. Does the name Rita Conlon mean anything to you?”

  “Mom’s sister?”

  “Yes. She was my mother.”

  “Really?” When Lou nodded, the other woman looked puzzled. “But Rita died a long time ago, before you were born.”

  “No, she died nearly three months ago.”

  Whatever showed on Lou’s face at that moment brought a corresponding look of compassion to Margaret’s daughter. Then she shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “May we come in and we’ll explain?”

  The woman turned around to gaze at something behind her, but the screen obscured whatever it was. Then she turned around again, looked undecided. “Well, I don’t know…”

  Lou held up the envelope she’d been holding. “If you’ll look at these?”

  The woman unlocked the screen door, opened it a slit and took the envelope. She locked the screen door again, then pulled the pictures and documents out of the envelope and gazed at them. The two sisters, as small girls, as young women. The birth certificate, the passport. Also the most recent pictures Lou had of her mother before she had become ill, one alone, one with Lou. And the obituary from the Courier.

  As Lou watched her study the contents of the envelope, she explained, “I found these among Mom’s papers and I’ve—we’ve, Will and I, have spent a little time tracking you down.”

  Again, more slowly now, the woman perused the evidence of the existence of Rita Conlon. “All my life,” Lou told her, “Rita Conlon has been known to me as Janice McAndrews. Until I found those, I had no idea she’d ever been anyone else.”

  Finally, the woman in the doorway looked at them again. “Okay, you’ve convinced me. These are Aunt Rita’s papers. What do you want of my mother?”

  “I’m hoping you, or your mother, will be able to help me find out why she changed her name.”

  After one more brief moment of indecision, the woman shrugged. “This has to be too weird for you to make it up. Okay,” she said, then turned to Will. “What do you have to do with this?”

  “I’m a family friend.”

  “Will’s been helping with the research,” Lou added. By previous agreement, they’d decided to leave out the part about him being a reporter; whatever welcome they’d receive might be less—or more—enthusiastic if that were known. “He’s here for moral support. I’m excited to meet you and, frankly, just a bit terrified.”

  That last, from-the-heart admission seemed to do it. The woman’s gaze softened. She unlocked the screen door and pushed it open. “You’d better come in, then.”

  Crossing the threshold, they found themselves in a boxy, modest living room filled with well-used but well-cared-for furniture. The floor and all available tables were filled with cartons and packing crates in various stages of being filled.

  On the far wall was a dining alcove. Through its window, it was possible to see onto a rear patio where a woman was seated in a wheelchair, her back to them, facing the small yard beyond.

  “I’m June, by the way,” their hostess said, offering a hand to Lou. “June Thomas.”

  Lou shook her hand. “Hi, June. Call me Lou.”

  “You’re a doctor?”

  “For animals. I’m a vet.”

  “Oh.” They stared at each other for a moment, then June cocked her head and said, “My cousin, huh?”

  “I’m pretty sure.”

  “Wow,” she said softly. “Can I get you folks some iced tea?”

  “That would be great.” Lou looked toward the rear of the house and the woman in the chair. “Is that your mother?”

  Brief sadness crossed June’s pleasant features. “In a manner of speaking.”

  “What do you mean?”

  June gazed around the living room. “You can see I’m packing Mom up. I live down in Delray with my family.”

  “Your family?”

  “Yes. Husband, two kids.”

  More wonderful news, Lou thought. More relatives—keep bringing them on. Of course, she kept this thought to herself. Too much enthusiasm and she would come across as some crazy lady.

  “I’m here to bring Mom south,” June told them, “near us, help her get settled into, you know, a home.”

  “An old-age home?”

  “She’s only fifty-six. No, she has Alzheimer’s.”

  “I’m so sorry. So young.”

  “Yeah, and it’s been coming on for years, but now it’s gotten to where she can’t stay here anymore, not even with a helper. So, I’m packing up.”

  “I see.”

  “Come, I’ll introduce you, then I’ll get the tea. But I can’t guarantee she’ll know anything. She goes in and out of reality. Lately, more out than in.”

  Lou shot Will a look. His face was grim. This was not good news. “Then maybe you can help us,” he suggested.

  “How?”

  “You knew the name Rita Conlon. That your mother had a sister named Rita Conlon.”

  “Yes.”

  “What did she say happened to her?”

  “She just…disappeared, that’s all. One day she was here and the next day she wasn’t. Mom assumed she died. But, like I said, it was over thirty years ago, before I was born.”

  “Where did she disappear from? Here? In Tallahassee?”

  “No, down south. Mom and her family always lived around here, but Rita moved down to the Miami area right after high school.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Not really. Mom didn’t talk about it much. For years, she used to cry when Rita’s name was mentioned.”

  “Do you remember anything she might have told you? Anything at all?”

  “Look, come with me into the kitchen while I get the tea.”

  Will was disappointed, for sure, but there might be some snippets of information they could gain from this visit, perhaps enough to do some subsequent research. He followed Lou and her new cousin into the small kitchen that was just off the dining alcove.

  He leaned against the refrigerator and watched June bustle around the room, gathering glasses, ice, a pitcher of tea. Meanwhile, Lou sat at the small round table that seated two and explained how all her life her mother had been Janice McAndrews; that, after her death, Lou had found papers and pictures with a different name; that Will had done some research, had come up with Janice’s real name and had been able to track down Margaret.

  “So I realized,” Lou concluded, “that all of my life with Mom, she’d been keeping a secret, an enormous secret. There were hints, of course, if I’d bothered to notice them. But she didn’t like to talk about her past.”

  “Sounds familiar. What did she say about my mother?”

  “Only that she was dead.”

  “Dead?” June asked, surprised.

  “Yes.”

  “I wonder why?”

  “Do you think they had some kind of fa
lling out?”

  June shook her head. “That’s not the sense I got, not at all. Mom really loved Rita, really missed her.”

  “Well,” Lou said, “all I can come up with is that she said her sister was dead so I wouldn’t ask about her, wonder why we weren’t in contact with her.” She frowned. “This whole thing is so strange. It’s like there’s a house with a secret closet that no one ever knew about.”

  “Yeah. It would spook me, too. What about your dad? Where is he?”

  “He died when I was an infant.” As Lou said that, Will could see a new, unpleasant thought strike her, and she voiced it aloud. “If that’s even the truth.”

  He waited, wondered if she’d make the connection.

  She did. “Oh,” she said, her eyes huge. “This is awful. All I ever saw was a picture. A man with my red hair and complexion. A man in a picture,” she repeated. “I wonder if he even existed.”

  Will walked over to her, sat down on the other chair and took her hand. Lou turned to meet his gaze. “You already thought of this, didn’t you? That the whole story Mom told me about my dad might be a lie?”

  When all he could do was shrug, she had her answer.

  She sat there, a stunned look on her face. Will glanced over at June, whose face showed both concern and puzzlement. Then he squeezed Lou’s hand. “Hey,” he said, “we’ll get through it. Whatever it is, we’ll get through it.”

  “Huh?” She looked at Will, then at June, then she shook her head. “Sorry, June. Here, you’ve just met me and I’m having a meltdown right at your kitchen table.”

  Her cousin waved it away. “This has to be tough. It’s okay.”

  “Thanks.”

  Now June propped a hip against a tiled counter. “I’m trying to think what else Mom told me. Lots of stories about their childhood in Ireland, before they emigrated.”

  “I’d love to hear them.”

  She poured them all some tall glasses of iced tea, then boosted herself onto an empty area of the counter, her bare legs dangling over the side as she spoke. “They were, I think, seven and eight when they came here. Their dad was a laborer, their mom cleaned houses. He wanted his kids to be educated. My mom went to community college, but Rita didn’t want to. She wasn’t happy, the restless type, Mom said. That’s why she headed south, toward where the wealthy set lived. You know, Miami, Boca Raton, Palm Beach.”

  “Why there?”

  “I think she wanted to get away from the poor Irish immigrant thing. Associate with people with money, class. She was always a bit of a dreamer, Mom said.”

  “A dreamer,” Lou repeated. “Not the mother I knew. She was the most down-to-earth, practical person I’ve ever met.”

  “That doesn’t mean she wasn’t a dreamer,” Will put in. “Just not in front of you.”

  “True. What did she do for a living back then?” she asked June.

  “I haven’t a clue. Sorry.”

  Will was next. “And when did she disappear? How soon after she moved south?”

  “Again, don’t know. Sorry.”

  He nodded. “This is all the information your mother would know, then.”

  “And good luck trying to get it out of her.”

  After a big sigh, Lou stood. “Even so, I’d love to meet her.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  With Will carrying the tray, the three of them went out to the patio, a small covered area half the size of the backyard, with a paving-stone floor and several pots containing dying or dead plants.

  The woman in the wheelchair seemed to be sleeping. She had silver-streaked brown hair, a nose with a small bump in the middle and a thin but not stern mouth. She looked so much like Mom, tears came to Lou’s eyes. She covered her mouth, whispering, “Yes. They were sisters. Most definitely.”

  June gently shook the older woman’s shoulder. “Mother? You have some visitors.”

  Margaret licked her lips, then made sucking noises. Opening her eyes, she said, “What?”

  “Visitors.”

  She looked at her daughter in confusion. “Helen?”

  “She thinks I’m her friend Helen who died ten years ago,” June explained to Will and Lou. Then she said to her mother, “It’s June, Mom, your daughter.”

  The woman lifted a thin, veined hand and made a dismissive gesture. “Thirsty.”

  “Here’s some tea.” June held a glass with a straw to her mouth, watched as she sipped it. Then she set it down.

  Will remained standing, leaning against one of the patio’s support posts, while Lou got on her haunches at the woman’s side and offered her hand. “Hello.”

  Margaret Kennedy gazed at her hand, frowned, and said, “Who are you?”

  “Louise. Lou.”

  She glared at her as though she’d said something naughty, but Lou went on gamely. “And this is Will.”

  Birdlike eyes darted up and down his body, then she leered. “Good-lookin’, aren’t you?” she said, in a sudden thick Irish brogue.

  Will grinned. “If you say so.”

  Margaret frowned again, her eyes glazing over. Peering around vaguely, she said, “Where are the birds?”

  “The birds?” Lou asked.

  “No chirping. It’s sad when they don’t chirp.” The Irish accent was even thicker now. “Da says it’s the gloom, everywhere you look, the gloom.”

  June’s smile was sad. “She’s in her childhood. There was some kind of plague that killed all the birds in their hometown before they came to this country. She talks about it all the time now.”

  “I see.”

  “More tea, Mom?”

  “What?”

  “You’re thirsty. Come on, drink some more.”

  Margaret obediently took another sip, then nodded. “M’m m’m good,” she said, mimicking an old soup commercial slogan.

  Lou wasn’t very hopeful, but she thought she might as well give it a shot. “Mrs. Kennedy, do you remember Rita?”

  “Rita?” The look on her face was startled, then her eyes opened wide. “Where’s Rita?”

  Lou glanced over at June. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to upset her.”

  “It’s okay. Your sister, Rita,” she told her mother. “Lou here is her daughter.”

  As though a magician had waved a magic wand, Margaret Kennedy’s face cleared, relaxed. All of a sudden, the woman was entirely present. “Rita? Rita didn’t have a daughter,” she said reasonably. Then, “Lovely Rita meter maid,” she said, quoting again and giggling, the moment of lucidity gone.

  “Mom loved The Beatles,” June told them.

  “So did my mom,” Lou said, and the two cousins smiled at each other.

  Then June took her mother’s dry hand in hers and rubbed it. “Can you tell us about Rita, Mom?”

  The older woman stuck out her bottom lip in a pout. “Bad Rita.” The brogue was back. “She took my toys, Ma. Da, make her stop.”

  “I’m sorry,” June told Will and Lou. “She really does go in and out. Sometimes she’s right here. Not now.”

  “Will?” Lou said, rising out of the crouch. “Want to give it a try?”

  He pulled a chair over and sat down facing the older woman. “Mrs. Kennedy?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Will.”

  “Will,” she repeated, then frowned.

  His voice was soothing as he picked up her hand and squeezed it gently. “Can you tell me about Rita?”

  Margaret’s eyes filled. “Rita’s gone. I called her and called her. Got Mark to get a private detective, but we couldn’t find her. My baby sister. Gone.”

  “Mark was my father,” June explained.

  “I’m so sorry Rita’s gone, Mrs. Kennedy,” Will went on. “But I have such nice news for you. Lou here, she’s Rita’s daughter.”

  As she had declared before, Margaret said, “Rita didn’t have a daughter.”

  “Not when you knew her, no. But after she disappeared, she gave birth to a daughter.”

  “No,” the older w
oman said stubbornly. “Rita didn’t have a daughter.”

  “Mom—” June began.

  “Rita couldn’t have a daughter,” Margaret said, obviously irritated with them for not understanding. “She got sick and they took out her baby parts. That’s why she became a nanny for the rich folks. Rita loved children, but she couldn’t have any of her own.”

  Chapter 10

  Lou, who had been following the exchange with eager interest, now found herself standing at Will’s shoulder, stunned into speechlessness. A bird twittered in a nearby tree, and a car with a bad muffler went by in front of the house, but she heard nothing but the loud beating of her heart.

  Unable to have children?

  Will rose from his chair and put his arm around her. She barely felt his touch.

  “Mom?” June addressed the elderly woman.

  “Yes?”

  “Who am I?”

  A sweet smile crossed her mother’s wrinkled face. “Why you’re June, of course. And who are these lovely people?”

  “I introduced them, Mom. This is Louise and this is Will.”

  “Oh?”

  “And you just told us all that your sister, Rita, couldn’t have children.”

  “Rita,” she said, a wistful expression on her face. Then she nodded sadly. “That operation. It saved her life but it upset her so much. She cried and cried for months.”

  “Why couldn’t she have children?”

  “Why, because of that terrible infection she got…you know, down there. She was sick for weeks, but she was terrified to go to the hospital. And then she did and they had to remove her uterus. So young. It was such a shame. She used to babysit to make money, you know, and oh, how Rita just loved children. She always talked about having a huge family one day. It wasn’t fair, now, was it?”

  June looked at Lou. “I don’t think this is a fantasy. Mom seems to be having one of her—”

  “Helen?” It was Mrs. Kennedy who interrupted her daughter’s sentence, but the insistent, querulous voice didn’t match the sweet-natured woman who had just told her sister’s sad story. “Where’s my tea? And those cookies you always make for Clarence. The ones with the raisins and bitter chocolate chips. I want one of those, too. No, two of them,” she added with a pout. “I want two of them.”