by Sharon Sala
He got a text from David about three hours later regarding the funeral and began making plans to head to Kansas City, Missouri, for the family gathering that would be the night before the funeral, then stay over the next day for the services before heading home.
Knowing he was going to be gone in a couple of days, Marc worked diligently all the next day at compiling stills and footage for the show and typing narrative to go with it. He was going through some stills from the East Coast hurricane when he ran across some he’d pulled from the AP news service. They’d been taken in a small town called Blessings, which was near Savannah, the city where Marc had been when the hurricane hit. Blessings was about an hour inland from Savannah, but the little town had suffered devastating flooding, and months later they were still in a healing and rebuilding mode.
He flipped through a handful of photos before pausing at one that was particularly startling. A huge tree limb had been driven into the side of a house by the wind, but it was the story that went with it that caught his attention.
The woman who lived in that house had been seriously injured when that happened. Not only had she been trapped, but she would have died from her injuries had it not been for a daring rescue by one of the townspeople.
There was another photo related to the same story that had been pulled from security footage at the local hospital when the woman was first brought in. The hospital had been operating at half-staff and running on backup generators when the rescuers arrived with the victim, and the photo illustrated the extreme danger they had put themselves in to get her inside.
One young man had used an enormous bulldozer to rescue her from the house where she’d been trapped and then driven it through floodwater to get her to the hospital.
The photo showed the driver being buffeted by the hurricane-force winds as he exited the cab with the woman in his arms. A few steps below him was an orderly from the hospital standing partway up the dozer, trying not to be blown off as he was reaching out to take the woman, and another waiting below him in bucket-brigade fashion to get the woman down from the dozer.
Marc saw their plan, and it was a gutsy one. That man who was holding her in the photo would have to maintain his stance against the wind, and the weight of the woman, as he turned to hand her down to the man below him, and the same danger would apply to him, and then the last man until she was safe. Even though the photo was a still shot, it captured the danger and the drama in the different expressions on the men’s faces. Marc couldn’t see much of the woman, but the info with the photo stated she was badly injured.
This would be a great piece to add to the hurricane section, Marc thought. I need to talk to those men…to understand what kind of courage it takes to brave something like that, and find out what happened to her.
He glanced at the text that had come with the picture and saw that it mentioned two names: Johnny Pine, who owned and drove the dozer to save her, and Lovey Cooper, the woman he’d saved. Marc clipped the photo to the information that had come with it and laid it aside.
He spent the next day packing and getting ready to drive to Kansas City. Even if he was going for a sad reason, he’d grown up there with a large extended family and considered it home.
Early the next morning, he loaded up and left Springfield, then connected later to northbound I-49. The day was clear, the traffic moderate. It was about a four-hour drive away, give or take, and he should be there around noon.
He was braced for the tears and stories that would be flying at the family dinner tonight, but he would be glad to see his brother, David, again.
He already knew from David’s phone call this morning that David’s wife, Linda, would be at their aunt June’s house helping get ready for the family gathering, and neither of his kids would be coming home to attend. David’s daughter was in college in California, and his married son was in the Coast Guard and stationed along the Florida coast. Both children had opted not to come, so Marc and David would go to the gathering together.
David told him where the spare key to his house was hidden, and if Marc got there before he got off work to just go in and make himself at home. So when Marc arrived a little after eleven, he got his bag, let himself in the house, and went straight to the guest room where he’d stayed before.
* * *
David Adamos took off work at noon and would not be returning until the day after the funeral, so when he saw Marc’s car already in the drive, he broke into a grin then came in the front door, calling out Marc’s name.
“Marco.”
Marc grinned as he came up the hall. “Polo,” he answered, which was exactly what David was expecting.
David laughed out loud, then gave Marc a quick hug.
“Have you had lunch?” David asked.
“No.”
“Then how do you feel about burgers and fries? You know the food tonight is going to be mostly traditional Greek dishes and loads of them. Linda and one of the cousins are making dolmas right now. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near that kitchen today while they’re making the rice and lamb stuffing. They’d have the both of us rolling it up in grape leaves.”
“For sure,” Marc said. “I remember dolmas were Uncle Wayne’s favorites, and yes, burgers work for me,” Marc said. “Let me wash up. It won’t take long.”
“Can I drive your Hummer?” David asked.
Marc grinned. “Sure, and you can buy me lunch, too.”
David laughed. “Done.”
* * *
They talked all the way to the restaurant, and all the way through their meal, catching up on family news, and as always David wanted to hear about Marc’s latest adventures.
“So, was it as scary seeing that volcano on-site as it was for us seeing it on the news? When I found out you were there, I said a few prayers for you. Did you have any close calls?”
“A couple. I was a little too close once and had the soles of my shoes start to melt.”
“Oh hell, Marco…please tell me you’re serious about retiring,” David said.
“Yes, I’ve already given notice. I just have to finish up this last piece.”
“What else besides volcanic activity will be in the story?”
Marc popped a fry into his mouth and chewed before answering.
“Oh, fires and hurricanes, and some human-interest stuff to go along with each one. I’m actually going to Georgia after this to do some follow-up there. I have a couple of really amazing stills of a life-and-death rescue during a hurricane, and I want personal interviews with the people to back it up. I don’t know if one of the victims who was in a photo even survived.”
“What are you going to do afterward?” David asked.
“Oh, that’s easy. I have a life’s worth of photos that have yet to see the light of day. If I want, I can do coffee-table books forever. But what I really want to do is find the little out-of-the-way places in this country and get human-interest stories there.”
David reached across the table and took one of Marc’s fries, dunked it in Marc’s ketchup, and popped it in his mouth, then saw the irked look on his brother’s face.
“What? Mine are gone. You were letting yours get cold. I didn’t want that one to go to waste.”
Marc laughed. “If you only knew how many cold leftover meals I’ve eaten in my life.”
“Besides having to outrun fires and volcanoes, is that how you’ve stayed so thin?”
Marc shrugged. “Maybe. Getting the crap scared out of you can ruin an appetite.”
They laughed and talked their way through the rest of the meal, then finally headed back to David’s house.
“Rest for a while if you want,” David said. “I’m going to check in with Linda and see if they need us to bring anything.”
“I think I’ll stretch out on the bed and watch a little television. Just let me know when it’s time to
get ready,” Marc said.
A couple of hours later, Marc was up and shaving, his mind on the family he knew he was going to see and wishing it wasn’t for such a sad reason. Even though his uncle Wayne was no longer suffering, his presence would definitely be missed.
This time when they left David’s house, Marc was driving, and as they wound their way through the city he couldn’t help but remember when he’d lived here.
“Hey, David. Remember the day we came home from school and Mom and Dad sat us down and told us we were moving?”
“Oh yeah. I cried, and you hit the ceiling. I didn’t want to leave my friends, and you didn’t want to leave that girl… What was her name?”
“Janie Chapman,” Marc said. “We’d spent the entire year together, and just as we were getting ready to go back to school, I had to tell her we were moving. Broke both our hearts.”
“I was going to be a freshman. Officially a teenager…the most awkward age ever, and I had to be the new kid in school. I hated most of my freshman year,” David said.
Marc remembered that time all too well.
“I became that angry, brooding teen. If it hadn’t been for the photography classes I took at the community college on weekends, there’s no telling how I would have wound up.”
“Well, we both turned out okay in the long run, but it was a hard transition, for sure. And for me, the biggest loss was being torn away from all our extended family.”
“I’m really looking forward to seeing some of them tonight,” Marc said.
He braked for a light and then turned right on the green arrow. Ten minutes later, they were pulling up to the Adamos home. The driveway was already full of cars, so he parked against the curb.
“It’s sure going to be weird without Uncle Wayne here,” David said.
Marc nodded, and then they both got out and headed to the house. The door was always unlocked during family gatherings, so they walked in without knocking.
Marc was immediately surrounded by family, all welcoming him home. He went into the kitchen to look for his aunt, and when he saw her at the sink, he walked up behind her and gave her a quick hug.
“Hey, Aunt June.”
June turned in his arms. “Oh, Marco! You’re home! I’m so glad you came,” she said.
“I’m so sorry about Uncle Wayne,” he said.
“So am I, but it was a blessing. He suffered so much this past month.” Then she wiped away tears. “I hear you are retiring.”
“Yes. Getting too old to chase rainbows, I think.”
She smiled and patted both his cheeks. “You are such a handsome man. Still young enough to find a wife. Someone to grow old with.”
Marc laughed. “I’ve been growing old just fine by myself. Is there anything David and I can do for you?”
“You can go answer the door, show people where to put their things, and play host for a bit until Leo gets here.”
Marc thought of their oldest son and the good times they’d had as children.
“It will be good to see everyone again.”
“And they will be glad to see you,” she said.
Marc greeted his sister-in-law with a hug, and then two aunts and a cousin, before leaving the kitchen.
After that, he and David took turns answering the door and welcoming the family until Leo and his family arrived. Once he’d been relieved of his duties, Marc took it upon himself to work the room, making sure everyone had a drink of some kind and a place to sit.
It wasn’t until later when the food was laid out buffet-style in the dining room and people started pairing up to get in line that he realized he was the only single male in the room, and the only Adamos with no children. It didn’t actually leave him regretting his life choices, but not for the first time did he wonder what he was missing.
But he got in line with everyone else, then found an empty chair to sit in while he ate. He was sitting in a chair behind a sofa where Sophia, Marlee, Tina, and Rachel, four of his cousins, were visiting, waiting for another urn of coffee to brew before they tackled a piece of baklava.
He was paying little attention to their conversation until he realized they were talking about teenage girls back in their day getting pregnant, and how they had not been allowed to go to high school with others as if it was something contagious. He heard them mention that out of their class of eight hundred, they only knew of three.
He was thinking how times had changed since then, when he heard them mention Janie Chapman’s name as one of those girls. At that point, his heart nearly stopped. He thought back to their lives together before he moved and knew they’d had unprotected sex more than once. But he’d moved away. Surely that must mean it happened after he was gone. He couldn’t believe Janie would not have contacted him if it was theirs. She had known too many of his relatives for her to think she didn’t know how to find him. But now that his cousins had captured his attention, he was listening to everything they said.
“Did you ever hear what happened to her after she quit school?” Sophia asked.
“Yes, and it was sad,” Marlee said.
“I know, too,” Tina said. “Her parents wouldn’t let her keep the baby. They said she was too young.”
“So what did she do?” Sophia asked.
“They made her give the baby boy up for adoption, but here’s what’s strange about it. When the adoptive parents took the baby home, they took Janie with them. They were both working people, so she stayed with them and nursed her baby and was basically their live-in babysitter for months. While she was there, her mom and dad died of carbon monoxide poisoning in their home, so Janie would have died, too, if she hadn’t gone home with the adoptive parents.”
“Are you serious?” Sophia said. “Wow! I couldn’t have done that. I mean, you’re bonding even more with your own baby, and you still know you gave him away. I wonder what happened.”
“I remember hearing my mom and dad talking about that,” Marlee said. “She said the adoptive parents woke up one morning and Janie was gone. No note, no explanation, no nothing. She had a car and a driver’s license and whatever money she’d gotten for the sale of her parents’ house, and that’s all anyone knew.”
“Did anyone ever hear what happened to her?” Rachel asked.
“Not that I know of,” Marlee said.
Marc stood abruptly, walking blindly through the crowd toward the front door, passing his brother as he went.
“Hey,” David said as he grabbed Marc’s arm. “Everything okay?”
“I just need some air,” Marc said, and kept moving.
The evening air was cool. The stars were hidden by the clouds moving in, and the three-quarter moon was only intermittently visible. It smelled like it might rain.
Marc walked away from the light on the porch, then down the steps all the way to the sidewalk in front of the house. He looked up the street, then down the street at all of the houses along both sides of the block, seeing the lights within.
Once he’d known a lot of his uncle Wayne’s neighbors, but these people were strangers. He inhaled slowly, trying to calm the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew, with every cell in his body, that the baby Janie had given away was his.
He turned around and stared at the house he’d just exited. He was nearing another birthday, and tonight he felt every day of those years weighing heavily on his heart. He had a forty-five-year-old son out there somewhere. Janie would be turning sixty-two before this year was over—if she was still alive.
All of a sudden, he had an overwhelming urge to find them both. He needed to apologize to Janie for the heartbreak she’d gone through on her own, and he needed to look into the face of his son before he died. The task was daunting. Janie surely had married during the ensuing years, and the baby would have been given his adopted parents’ last name.
He turned arou
nd and went back in the house, looking for the four cousins. They were still sitting on the sofa.
“Hey,” he said, as he walked up to where they were sitting. “Can we talk?”
They smiled. “Sure, Marco. Here, I’ll scoot over,” Tina said.
“No, in private,” he said.
They didn’t even blink, but got up and followed him back through the crowd and out onto the porch before they spoke.
“What’s wrong?” Marlee asked.
“You were talking about Janie Chapman a few minutes ago.”
They nodded.
“Do any of you happen to know the name of the people who adopted her baby?”
“Momma said it was people who lived across the street from her. Why?” Tina asked.
“Because I think that baby was mine, and I never knew about any of this. It must have been around the same time we moved.”
The four women were shocked into silence, and then they all came to their senses and surrounded him in a group hug.
“Oh, Marc, we are so sorry. I didn’t remember that you two dated,” Sophia said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Marc said. “What matters is family. You know how we are. Adamos blood is thicker than water. I need to see my son’s face. I need to tell Janie I’m sorry.”
Now they were all teary and trying to remember, and then Tina gasped.
“I’ll bet Mama would know. Do you care if I ask her?”
“If this night wasn’t all about Uncle Wayne’s passing, I’d be in that room right now, asking everyone present. Go ask her. I’ll wait.”
The quartet shot back into the house, on a mission.
Marc walked to the edge of the porch and glanced back up. The sky was completely dark now, and he thought he could hear thunder in the distance—or maybe it was just the pounding of his heart.
The front door opened, and Tina was the only one who came out.
“Raines. Their names were Joe and Dolly Raines.”
Marc hugged her. “Thank you, cuz. I owe you big time.”
