They're Always With You

by Mary Clare Lockman

“She was really proud of you, Aunt Florence.”

  “She was a remarkable person. So loving and so kind. Should we drive home?”

  Aunt Florence and I strolled up the path, looked at the river again for a minute, and then walked out to the car. Neither one of us seemed to be in any kind of hurry. We drove away from the Monument.

  A few months before I would have never believed that I would actually feel sorry for Aunt Florence, with her being so severe and all. When Aunt Florence talked about all the things that had happened, I understood what my mom meant. It was kind of a sad life. Even though I had made fun of Aunt Florence’s lack of boyfriends many times, now I understood that too. She was afraid, afraid of being hurt like that again. So she acted severe.

  We were stopped at a red light. Aunt Florence looked over at me. “Thanks for listening to me. I hope I wasn’t too hard on you.”

  “No, actually I enjoyed it.” And the funny thing was, I meant it.

  All of a sudden I had a wonderful thought. It was so wonderful I couldn’t believe it. I had a cousin. I was not the one-and-only grandchild. “I have to say I’m very happy right now.” I looked at Aunt Florence as she drove.

  “What are you so happy about?”

  “I’m not the one-and-only anymore. I have a cousin.”

  “I guess you do. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  Aunt Florence had a son named Daniel. She hadn’t seen him since he was born. From my math, and I was good at math, Daniel would be eighteen. Maybe finished with high school, maybe a basketball lover, maybe really nice. Anyway, he was all grown up.

  I thought and I thought about whether I should bring up the subject since I didn’t want Aunt Florence crying like a river again. But I had to know so there was no way around my next question. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to.”

  “Go ahead.” Aunt Florence glanced over at me. Her eyebrows were raised a bit like a semi circle.

  “Well, I was just wondering if you ever wonder where Daniel is. What I mean is, and you can tell me it’s none of my business, would you ever like to meet him?”

  Aunt Florence’s hands gripped the steering wheel. When she answered it was with perfect control. “There hasn’t been a day in the last eighteen years that I haven’t thought about him. I can’t picture what he looks like but I wonder a lot. Did he walk early? Did he like books? Was he scared going to school? Did he love his teachers and did they love him? How old was he when he found out he was adopted? Was he upset? Is he a good student? What’s his favorite subject? What kind of music does he like? Does he play basketball or other sports?” Her hands gripped the steering wheel tighter.

  “I bet he plays basketball. He’d have to. He’s my cousin.”

  “When you put it that way, I guess I think he loves basketball too.”

  “Not just loves it but he plays it. And he’s got the best jump shot around.”

  “At least in the family, he does.”

  “Hook shots. That’s different. I bet we can take him on.”

  “I am a dead eye with a crescent roll.” Her giggle let me know that the subject was okay.

  “And he listens to the Beatles. I know that for a fact.”

  Neither of us talked for a couple of miles. I was almost bursting with my next question. “Do you think we could find him, Aunt Florence?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean if we put all our heads together, I’m sure we can find him.”

  “I always hoped he would try to find me.”

  “Maybe he wants to.”

  “I don’t know. What if he doesn’t?”

  “You won’t know unless you try.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Doing nothing doesn’t find him. We should talk to my mom and dad. I bet they’d help us. They might even have some ideas.”

  “You know what, Colette?”

  “What?”

  “You’re a very special person. I’m lucky to be your aunt.”

  “Are we going to search for Daniel?”

  “Yes. We’re going to search for Daniel.”

  Chapter Twenty One

  A Can of Worms

  We had a few surprises for the people at home, Aunt Florence and I. I promised her I would let her bring up finding her son with my mom and dad. And Gramps was just going to have to wait until we had our strategy down.

  Everyone was home when we got there. They had all kinds of questions for us about what we did and what we saw. I told them about the popovers, quiche, and the Dairy Queen. My mom, dad, and Gramps each had a story to tell about going over the Lake Street Bridge. Each story got a little better than the last until I became downright amazed that any of us had lived through the experience. All of a sudden I remembered the red dress.

  “Aunt Florence, why don’t you try on your new red dress for all of us?” I asked.

  “I don’t want to right now.”

  “You got a red dress, Florence. Let’s see it,” my mom exclaimed.

  “I’ll announce you to the group when you come upstairs,” I said.

  “Now you’re embarrassing me.”

  “You don’t have to be embarrassed in front of your family,” my dad said. “C’mon. I want to see it too.”

  “I do too, Florence,” Gramps said. “You must have bought it for a reason. Try it on.”

  “All right. I got talked into buying it by you all know who.” Aunt Florence looked over at me and instead of being mad like I thought she might be, she winked.

  “Okay, try it on. We’ll be waiting,” I said.

  She went downstairs to change in her room while we waited in the living room. After a couple of minutes, I decided to wait in the kitchen so I could escort her to the rest of the family. My mom pelted me with questions and wanted me to tell them how she looked. I said, “You’ll see. I don’t want to wreck it.”

  I was getting anxious so I whispered quite loudly down the stairs for Aunt Florence to hurry up. She bounced up the stairs looking just as fantastic as she had in Dayton’s.

  “Are you ready?” I asked.

  “I’m ready.”

  “Okay. Let’s go. I can’t wait to see their faces.” We walked over to the living room and I made my announcement. “Modeling the most fabulous red dress ever made is Dead Eye Florence Rossini. Ta - Da.” I stepped aside.

  Aunt Florence sashayed into the room. She looked around and then twirled perfectly in a circle. Everyone clapped.

  “Oh, Florence, it’s beautiful. I love it.” My mom had been standing. She went over and hugged her sister. I thought I saw tears in her eyes.

  “Florence, my gosh, you’re gorgeous,” my dad said.

  “Quite lovely, Florence,” Gramps said. “You’ll have to find a place to wear it to.”

  “I don’t think I’m going to wear it outside the house.”

  “Nonsense. Your mother always said that a good dress shouldn’t be wasted hanging in the closet.”

  “And that’s not a good dress. It’s a great dress,” I said.

  “Maybe we should go out for dinner,” my mom said.

  “Or dancing,” my dad said.

  “Let’s go dancing. We haven’t done that for so long.”

  “Whom would I dance with?” Florence asked.

  “With me,” my dad said.

  “And me,” Gramps said. “Let me know what you plan and I’ll be there. Colette, you should shop with Florence more often.”

  “I can’t afford it.” Aunt Florence laughed.

  I bowed slightly. We had a far bigger surprise to tell people but I had made a promise. So we talked about all the places we could travel to with Aunt Florence in her red dress. I suggested New York and Broadway and then pretty soon we were flying off to London and Paris. The funny thing was that the whole time we were deciding which place we wanted to visit first, Aunt Florence sat there just as pretty as you please in her red dress.r />
  A couple months before we didn’t even know if Gramps was going to pull through and now we talking about soaring off to all different places around the world. “My vote is London. Let’s go,” I said.

  None of us wanted to leave the living room but finally Gramps said he had to go to bed. Aunt Florence remembered she had to work in the morning so she left right after Gramps. I was dying to ask my mom and dad about when Aunt Florence was in St. Paul but of course I couldn’t. And I was dying to ask my mom about the second secret Daniel in our family but I couldn’t do that either.

  The next day I called Sally in the morning and told her we had to get together. She said after lunch would be great. I rode my bike over to her house and Sally met me at the door. We went right up to her room, checked the closet for stray ears, and then plopped on the bed.

  The words tumbled out of my mouth. I told her about eating popovers at Dayton’s and buying the red dress. She thought that was really cool. Then I told her about sitting in front of St. Joseph’s Hospital while Aunt Florence cried. She couldn’t believe it to begin with and then she said, “Hmm, it’s all starting to make sense.” I told her about driving over the Lake Street Bridge to get a Dairy Queen and then sitting by the Monument while Aunt Florence opened up her broken heart. She said, “Poor Aunt Florence. She was just hurt, that was all.” When I told her we were going to try to find Daniel, she got really excited. So I told her that the rest of my family didn’t know our plans yet and she said she wouldn’t tell anyone.

  Mrs. Reynolds yelled upstairs for Sally to come down. She came back to her bedroom in about two minutes. “My mom needs me to baby-sit while she goes grocery shopping. You can stay but we have to be downstairs,” she said. It bugged her no end that her older brother John never had to babysit. She said she told her mom it was John’s turn but her mom said he was busy and not home. Sally told me it wasn’t fair.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll help you,” I said.

  I hadn’t helped her with the younger kids for a while so I had forgotten. I stuck it out for the hour Mrs. Reynolds was gone even though Sally told me I could leave anytime. We had no more chance to talk. Between Joe and Eric’s loud dueling and poking each other and Anna’s complaining about the unfairness of summer weather since they had no air conditioning, I started getting a headache. Margaret came over with a book. The two of us sat while I read “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” to her and pretty soon we didn’t even hear the two boys, Anna, or Sally yelling at them all to be quiet.

  Saturday night Aunt Florence broke the news to my mom that she wanted to find her son. She told her that I knew the story and wanted to help her find Daniel. I was glad I had kept my promise to Aunt Florence and not let on to anybody but Sally what we had talked about in St. Paul.

  “I’ll help you too, Florence,” my mom said. “I’ve wondered about him so many times.”

  “I asked a nurse at work who was adopted if she was curious about her natural parents. She said yes she was and she had met her mother but not her father. She said it was uncomfortable to begin with but her adoptive parents were very supportive.”

  “How did she find her mother?” my mom asked.

  “She found the adoption agency and contacted them. The adoption agency then contacted the mother and the two of them met in a neutral place.”

  “That doesn’t seem that hard,” I said.

  “You have to go through the agency. If either child or parent isn’t interested then it doesn’t happen. In fact, the nurse said she knew adults who had been adopted as children who had no curiosity about their natural parents.”

  “Everyone’s different,” my mom said. “The emotions must be overwhelming for some.”

  “You said this nurse met her mother?” I asked. “Does she still see her.”

  “Yes, she still sees her. The families have met and it’s been a positive experience for them. But she said sometimes people have unrealistic expectations. So I’m trying to figure out exactly what my expectations are. And what if he doesn’t want to meet me?”

  “Florence, you made the best decision you could have made at the time.” My mom walked over to Aunt Florence and put her arm around her shoulder.

  “I thought I did. But I didn’t really have a choice. What if he felt like I abandoned him?”

  “Remember what it was like back then. We had lost our brother. Our mother was an invalid. Our dad was grieving first for our brother and then for our mother. It was 1952. There were very few resources for women.”

  “I had no way of supporting him.”

  “No, you didn’t. You made the best choice for him. I admire that.”

  “I’m just saying that maybe it’s better if I don’t stir up a can of worms.” Aunt Florence paced over to the window. She tapped her fingers on the windowsill.

  “John and I are with you no matter what you decide. But you’ll never know unless you try.”

  “I’m afraid it won’t turn out.”

  “Of course, you’re afraid. But doing nothing produces nothing.”

  My mom was always one for trying things, that was for sure. I was waiting for her to say to Aunt Florence, “What have you got to lose?” which was one of her favorite sayings to me. I almost said it myself but then I realized that Aunt Florence had a lot to lose. She had carried with her an idea of who Daniel was and maybe that wasn’t even true. Maybe he wasn’t a wonderful basketball player after all.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  The Letter

  It had been a week and a half since Aunt Florence told us she needed time to think. It was hard not to ask her if she was at least leaning one way or the other.

  Since it was Saturday, my mom and I were sitting in the kitchen finishing up one of her great breakfasts. “What do you think Aunt Florence is going to decide?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s taking so long.”

  “She’s wrestling with herself since she’s made a good life. She doesn’t want to upset the apple cart.”

  I guess that was the same as opening a can of worms.

  “You know, Gramps has never talked about his grandson,” my mom said.

  “I hope there aren’t more family secrets because my heart can’t deal with any more shocks.” I put my hand over my chest. “It might just stop beating altogether,” I said.

  “You’re really cute when you say things like that.” My mom laughed.

  “Aunt Florence said she thinks about Daniel every day. Do you think Gramps thinks about him?”

  “Of course. I do too.”

  “Aunt Florence told me you thought about adopting him.”

  “Just for a short time. It wouldn’t have worked. We both knew that. I think if our mother had been healthier, she would have helped Florence until she got on her feet.”

  “When did your mother die?”

  “Shortly after Florence started nursing school. Mother had been getting weaker and weaker. Even though we had nurses with her 24 hours a day, your dad and I took turns staying overnight the last couple of weeks. It was exhausting.”

  “Sounds like it.” I remembered how tiring it was when Gramps was in the hospital. My mom, Aunt Florence, and my dad only had to stay overnight for the first week. And then Gramps was home in less than two weeks. Grandma’s Rose’s illness went on for almost a year and a half so I’m sure they were all worn out.

  “Mother had more and more trouble breathing. I thought we should bring her into the hospital but Gramps said he had promised her that she wouldn’t go into the hospital again. The doctor came to our house. He said she was in congestive heart failure and there was nothing else he could do. She slipped into a coma. We called Florence in Rochester and she came home right away. Our mother died on October 21st, 1952.”

  “What did Gramps do?”

  “He was lost again but my mother and him had had time to talk about losing their son. Since they forgave each other, it wasn’t a bitter type of sadness. He was happy that the two of them h
ad time with each other.”

  “Gramps told me about taking care of Grandma Rose when she was sick. He said it was a gift to be able to talk to her.”

  “Yes. We were all happy for them even though our mother was so sick.”

  “Do you miss her?”

  “Every day. Every single day.”

  I wondered if I was just going to be missing people left and right as I got older. I got kind of scared because the people I would be missing every single day, I couldn’t imagine not being here. It was an impossibility.

  “Gramps lived alone in the house and it was so hard for him,” my mom said. “Your dad fixed things constantly over here. One day he said as a joke, ‘We might as well live here.’ Gramps agreed. The subject kept coming up and the rest is history. When our apartment lease was up we moved back into the house. After Florence finished nursing school, she moved home again too.”

  “Why didn’t you or Aunt Florence move away?” I asked the question because I was curious not because I wanted to move to a different place. I was fine right where I was.

  “I don’t know. We didn’t have to worry about Gramps as long as we were here. The four of us got along well. I guess there never was the perfect time to move out.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Do you wish we had our own house?”

  “No, I like it just the way it is.”

  Aunt Florence finally told us that she did want to find her son. She said she had written a letter saying that she would like to meet him if he was interested. All she had to do was send it to the adoption agency and they would take it from there. She said she had already rewritten the letter and she probably would again.

  “I guess the plan is to find out which adoption agency they went through,” my mom said. “That shouldn’t be too hard.”

  “I don’t remember if they told me. I had to sign papers but I don’t remember anything else.”

  “Let’s see. We could contact the hospital first. If we don’t get information from them we could contact the home you stayed in. There can’t be that many adoption agencies in St. Paul. I’m sure they’ll tell you what to do.”