Never Too Late

by Jo Barney

  I’ve finished with Art and what he was up to. I have been advised that I cannot solve my son’s problems by interfering or lecturing. I’m learning to love Kathleen, and I admire her decision to leave a lying husband, but she doesn’t need my help—maybe later, with the kids. The only person I can stand next to, be on her team, is Latisha, who wants to meet her birth mother and maybe get to know her grandmother.

  It’s obvious when I sort it all out in those terms. This afternoon, for certain, it will be I who tells Latisha who her birth mother is, and who her father is, no matter how and when the social worker has intended to pass this information along. I owe it to a young woman who has a little me in her, in her naïve trust in people, in her dreams of going to college, becoming a teacher, maybe, or whatever. Her choice.

  What a concept, I think. Choice.

  I have no proof, I’ll admit, only a story told me by a son who refuses to tell it again. I’ll bring a picture of Latisha’s father, compare chins if I have to, and eyes. Wide, trustworthy eyes. At least, until recently.

  I drive up to the social services building fifteen minutes early and spot a coffee shop across the street. A latte will sit well on top of the morning’s unfinished breakfast. After getting my coffee, I find a table next to the window, but I don’t look at anything going on in the street. Instead, I turn inward, try to see at what will come next.

  I am the star of the scenes that float behind my eyelids: me, outing my son to his daughter; facing him, his deceitful mother, when he discovers what I’ve done; me, realizing that the bonds we have built over the past forty years will be destroyed.

  I’ll lose a son and maybe gain a daughter. Possibly two daughters, if Kathleen, when she hears about this meeting, understands that I’m doing this for her, too. And, if it’s true, I’m doing it for me, too, for the me I want to be for the next ten years, a woman who can make choices, who will face the scary “what if’s” of her days. With ten years ahead of me, that’s not an overload of “what ifs,”—just a short life of being true to one’s self and seeing where it goes.

  I dab at my tears with the crushed paper napkin I find on the table, not mine, but I don’t worry about its origin. I have another vision. Me, eighteen, pregnant, finishing up my senior year in high school: Senior English, Hamlet. The teacher has just read a quotation that seems directed entirely at me, and I hide behind my textbook.

  “To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”

  It’s taken almost fifty years for these tears to rise to the surface, for the message to make sense. No more mask of wifeliness, complacency, helplessness, misplaced loyalty. No more being false to anyone, especially to myself.

  I close my eyes again. When I open them I repeat, I’m going to be true to me. Now. The only people I care about are two almost-daughters who need me to walk out of this coffee shop and ride the elevator up the six floors to Ginnie’s office. I push back my chair. Then I glance out the window.

  Across the street, I see Brian and a tall, dark woman enter the building I’m headed for.

  The caffeine bravura breaks down and I am left stranded, weak-limbed, confused at the curb. A coincidence, I tell myself. True to one’s self, I repeat with each step, as I cross at the corner. I swallow the lump in my throat, push through the lobby doors. Brian and the woman have disappeared. I press the button for the sixth floor and the doors open. I ride up not knowing what I’ll find or what I’ll say in the social worker’s office.

  The reception room is empty except for a paper-sorting woman at the desk. She’ll let Ginnie know I’m here, she says. “She’s expecting you.” And as I wait, I hear Brian’s voice behind the office door.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Ginnie Washington, in a green suit this time, opens the door, waves me into the room. Brian, Latisha, and that woman are seated around the conference table. Latisha’s brown eyes widen when she sees me, her lips begin to curve. “Edith,” she says. “Come sit by me.” I take the chair at her side.

  I’m aware that Ginnie is speaking, sounding like the social worker she is. “Let me introduce you two, Patsy Walker, Mrs. Finlay, Brian’s mother.” I automatically reach for a dark hand that is coming at me from across the table. The touch is soft, fleeting. Her damp palm tells me she is as nervous as I am. Her black hair is flecked with gray, her eyes are somber.

  “I’m glad to meet you,” I say. I can’t tell if I’m smiling. I turn to Ginnie. “What is happening?”

  “Mom…” Brian begins, but Ginnie interrupts him.

  “I received a call yesterday from your son who told me that he understood that Latisha would be coming here today, perhaps to learn about her parentage, that you would be here also. He informed me that this was his, not your, responsibility, and said he would be here also, with Latisha’s birth mother. He asked me to let his daughter know that they were eager to meet her.” The social worker turns to Latisha. “And when I called Latisha to tell her this news, she said she’d been waiting for this for a long time.”

  Ginnie pauses. “So here it is: The woman sitting across the table from you, Latisha, is your mother, Patsy Walker.” The girl rises out of her chair with a small cry. Ginnie continues, “And this man,” and she holds her hand out to my son, “is Brian Finlay, your father. They have come today to meet their daughter.”

  The three of them push back chairs, hurry towards each other, gather at the end of the table, and hesitate. Then Latisha says, her voice childlike chirp, “I want to hug you both. May I?”

  Brian, Patsy, and Latisha lean into each other, and I hear someone sob. Me.

  When the group breaks up, Ginnie asks them to sit down once more. “Someone else is also part of this reunion today, perhaps even the cause of it. Latisha,” her hand extends in my direction, “this is your grandmother whom you know as Edith.”

  “Grandma Edith,” I correct her. The words come as easy as a sigh. “Welcome to our family. I’m so glad you have found your parents.” I reach out and take her into my arms. I would like to add that I’m also glad I have found my son. And that my son has found himself. I’ll tell her that story another day.

  Across from me, Patsy’s face is wet with tears.

  “It’s wonderful, isn’t it, to find a child?” I ask her. Patsy is still absorbing Latisha with her eyes.

  “You don’t know how wonderful,” she says. But I can guess.

  Latisha is still clutching my hand. “I don’t really understand all this.” She glances around the table. “Ginnie, can you explain? How…?”

  “Brian is the one who knows this story best.”

  And for the next hour my son, strong in a way I had only hoped for, looks from his daughter to her mother, and tells how he met Patsy, how he abandoned her when she told him she was pregnant, and how he found her later when she asked for help. “That’s when I realized I had a daughter, you, Latisha.” He went on to explain that years later he asked his father, Art Finlay, for help to find her. “I wanted to know what kind of girl you were, and when my father found you, he told me you were the best kind of girl––smart, pretty, level-headed. He insisted we help you with college money.”

  Latisha’s smile wavers. “And how did you learn about me, Edith?”

  I clear my throat, flinch a little as I answer. “I was jealous. I thought Art had been leaving the house in the evening to see another woman. Following a few clues, I discovered that he was—you.” An embarrassing snort interrupts my words. “I wasn’t that great a detective. I thought you were either his lover or his daughter.” I don’t go into my guilt over Art’s death, my fear that I’d driven him to suicide. This girl is strong, but these are some more things she doesn’t need to know right now. And it’s Brian’s job to talk about the need to keep it all a secret.

  Patsy stirs, her voice gentle but determined. “Brian and I met at work, Latisha. We went out a few times, but then I got pregnant. With you. He was getting married. Our relationship
didn’t mean anything to either of us. He supported me for a few months before I had you and you were adopted. Years later, I was drinking, was deep into drugs, really sick, and I needed money to feed my habits. I went to Brian and he paid for rehab that didn’t work. I was twice as bad off last fall when I threatened to tell his wife about you, not that I knew where you were, if he didn’t give me money.” Patsy looks down at her clenched hands on the tabletop and stops talking for a moment. Her chin rises with a deep breath. “He sent his father to find me. They planned to buy me off once and for all.”

  “That plan didn’t really work out,” Brian interrupts. “What did work is that your grandpa found you, with Ginnie’s help. And a while later, Patsy on her own found the courage to get clean. She wanted to meet you, Latisha. So she asked for help again, and went into treatment where she has gone through hell and has come out the other side.” His palms rise above the table, include us all. “And here we are.”

  Patsy, smiling finally, adds, “I’ll be leaving the half-way house in a couple of weeks and I’ll be ready to go to work and school, live a different life, and maybe, if you want,” and she looks at Latisha, “practice being a mother.”

  “That sounds okay.” Doubt colors Latisha’s words. I can guess what’s going through her mind. Another mother. The girl has had too many mothers. It will take a while for her to trust a new one. And she doesn’t have the full story, maybe never will. We’ve left a lot of details: Patsy’s sordid life until lately; Brian and the mess his own life has become in the past three months; guilt, mine, his, not part of Latisha’s story, the one we are telling her now.

  Ginnie closes her files. “Yes, it is okay. May I suggest a family dinner, the four of you, to get acquainted and to figure out what is next? No hurry to make decisions, though. You’ve waited years for this moment. Enjoy it.”

  Latisha grins, maybe relieved at the “No Hurry” Ginnie has introduced. “I was so nervous I haven’t eaten anything all day,” she admits. Her several parents chuckle.

  Brian leans back in his chair, relieved, too, I’m sure, for perhaps the same reason. “Why not? Dinner’s on me.”

  “And there’s new restaurant just a few blocks away. You’ve been there, haven’t you, Edith?” The social worker’s green eyes turn to me.

  And once again I am reminded that somehow Ginnie knew what I was going to tell Latisha at this meeting, and why Brian has come to face his daughter. As I suspected, Seth and his sister have been talking all along, maybe since before Art’s death, as he searched for an eighteen-year-old girl. When Art sent me out into the streets, following matchbooks and credit card receipts, looking for clues, they knew the answers to questions I didn’t know I was asking. Art must have told Ginnie about the bracelet, about blackmail. When I hinted this morning that I intended to help Latisha find her parents, Seth had warned Ginnie. This meeting wasn’t according to their plan, one in which I wasn’t included. Perhaps they thought I’d be angry, muddy the waters, that I would operate on my own, not according to some sort of social worker protocol. They decided to end the confusion before it got out of hand. They called Brian.

  Brian is here not because of an inner sense of right. He’s up against a wall, forced to come clean. Just as he would have been had I done what I intended as I drank that cup of coffee across the street. Only not so tidily, loose ends tied up, file closed.

  I am sick to my stomach. Secrets. I am about to stand up, leave, but as I reach for my purse once again hanging on the back of my chair, I am struck with the understanding that what I had hoped to accomplish, the revelation of the truth, has happened. Without me. I will not allow my own feelings of betrayal by Seth and Ginnie to spoil this moment. Nor will my disappointment in my son.

  “Yes, I have been to Magnolia. It’s great.” I ease the straps of the purse over my shoulder, join the others who are also rising from our secret-free circle.

  The restaurant has a table for us, and we order right away. I glance around and do not see Seth. We seem a little uncomfortable, we parents, that is. Latisha, smiling for real now, asks Patsy about her life, where she lives, who does her hair. She asks Brian about his family, and he describes Winston and Meg, her half siblings and promises she’ll meet them. Soon. And we sneak glances at each other, and I try to make sense of the form this new family will take. Christmas? Strata?

  And then I can’t do it anymore, this cheerfulness. We have not mentioned a wife standing with her back to us on the sidelines. Certainly, Brian has not offered even a hint of her existence. Perhaps she actually is missing. I can’t stand the thought, and I’m glad when it’s time to slip on our coats. Brian and Patsy set dates, different times, I notice, for visiting Latisha at her apartment. Patsy and Latisha decide to ride the bus to Cuppa’s and talk more, and Brian walks me to my car, parked close to his.

  “I like Patsy,” I manage to admit as Brian opens my car door for me. “She’s a survivor. Gutsy. Latisha has her eyes.” I dare to pat his cheek as I would have years ago. “It’s good that you’ve helped her, that she is recovering.”

  Brian cracks a grin for the first time in days, I’m sure, and the dark feelings that have infiltrated my soul begin to melt. “You sound like my mother again,” he says.

  And he sounds like my son. And I can’t resist. “There’s more to be done, son.” I’ll find out how this meeting came about at another time. Brian is not yet finished with an important part of his story.

  “You really do sound like my mother again.” Brian leans through my open window and brushes my cheek with his lips. “I know what you are saying. I had to make things right before I told Kathleen. I had to take care of Latisha and Patsy first. They were my problem, not hers.” He looks at me with his serious, unflinching eyes. “It’s going to be okay, Mom.” He gives my car a goodbye knock on the roof and walks away.

  When I get to my house, Brody is panting. Either he has to go out or he is telling me a voice mail has gotten him excited. I decide on the first possibility, and we go for a walk, both of us taking in the quiet, starry evening and the smell of new grass.

  I have my pajamas on when I notice the red light flashing on the voice mail button. I

  hesitate, then press the button. Seth’s voice: “Once again, our meal ends prematurely. And once again, it seems to be something I’ve said that sends one or the other of us out the door. How about this: We meet and we don’t eat. We talk. Or I don’t talk. Probably an even better idea. Let me know when next you walk Brody, and I’ll meet you at the dog park. I know Brody will like that, and so will I. My home number: 503-163-1328.”

  I erase the message and his voice. If he and his sister have been sharing my family’s secrets, we have no future. No secrets. Even though their indiscretion has accomplished what I had hoped for, a son who is shedding his own secrets.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The next morning, her hair, hanging in wormy tangles, drips across her cheeks and onto her jacket collar. Her eyes, red and puffy, squint at me through the screen door. Kathleen has never seemed so miserable as at this moment, and she sounds even worse. ‘Mom, I just can’t stand it. I need your help.”

  I let her in, lead her by her moist arm to the sofa, push her a little to make her sit down. “Let me get a towel.” The rain rattles against the open bathroom window, has leaked onto the sill during the night. I close the sash, pull two towels out of the cupboard and rush back to my sodden daughter-in-law, “What? What has happened?”

  Kathleen lets me strip her of her jacket and wrap a towel around her head. I dab at her cheeks and wet knees, and a thin wail escapes her. “I love him, Mom. And I miss our life. The house is lifeless without him, and I am empty. The children, with such sad eyes, are empty, waiting for him to come back.” She’s crying so hard her words burble out in spurts. The towel on her head tilts and drops to her shoulders and she uses a corner of it to wipe her nose. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Have you talked to him…lately?” What is Brian waiting for? He
was so certain yesterday, ready to come clean to everyone, it seemed like. But not to his wife? Why not?

  “He called this morning, asked how the kids are, said he wanted to pick them up after school, take them to dinner because he hadn’t seen much of them lately. That’s all he said, except to ask where I was in the divorce proceedings. He needed to get his lawyer involved so he wanted my lawyer’s name. I gave it to him. He hung up. It all became so suddenly real.” Kathleen hiccups once or twice and wipes her eyes on the towel.

  I don’t know what to say. I can’t stand watching her suffer, believing that any of this misery was her fault. It was, and still is, Brian’s fault for not trusting that his wife could handle the truth. I could tell her the story right now, over the cup of coffee I’m handing her, let her in on the not-so-secret secret, tell her the reason her marriage is about to fall apart. Not knowing is always the worst part. It breeds such terrible guilt. I still feel it, the guilt nestling down behind my breastbone. Even though I know the truth.

  “Sometimes what seems real turns out to be a fairy tale, a story we make up to explain the mysteries. What if the orange smell, the late nights, the money, what if all those mysteries are part of a myth you’ve created? What if the explanation is right around the corner, waiting for you to walk by?” Or, right next to you on this sofa, cup in hand? I am one sentence or two from ratting on my son. I hesitate when I feel Brody’s tongue on my leg. He needs to go out. I put my cup down and stand up walk to the back door. “Saved by a dog’s lick,” I say, out loud, I guess, because Kathleen calls, “What?”

  By the time I get to back to the living room, I know I cannot tell Brian’s story. He has to, not his mother.