by Terri Reid
“No problem,” Ian replied with a wink. “I’m sure you’d do the same for me.”
She looked down at her belly and shook her head. “Well, I’d sure try,” she said ruefully. “But I can guarantee it wouldn’t be a six-minute mile.”
Ian chuckled softly. “That’s alright, darling,” he said. “Just send Mike on ahead of you.”
Mike laughed. “Yeah, I think I can move a little faster than Mary these days.”
The path started to incline slightly, and in a few minutes they were standing in front of another large, wooden door that resembled the one on the outside of the crypt. Mary studied the door for a moment. “I would guess this opens up in the cellars somewhere,” she whispered. “But it would be just my luck if it opened up in the middle of the cafeteria.”
“Or worse yet,” Mike inserted, “the women’s locker room.”
Ian snickered. “Well, let’s just open the door slowly and let Mary peek inside first,” he suggested. “Just in case.”
As Mary placed her hand on the doorknob, Sister Maria appeared next to her, causing Mary to gasp and jump back.
“My dear, whatever is wrong?” Sister Maria asked anxiously.
“You just startled me, Sister,” Mary stuttered once she realized the ghost standing in front of her was not a demon.
“Oh, well, I do apologize,” the sister replied. “I’ve been waiting for you to get here, in order to guide you. But it took you much longer than I would have thought.”
“We ran into some unexpected troubles,” Mike said. “But we’re anxious to go inside.”
Sister Maria nodded. “Well, of course you are,” she agreed. “Let me take a quick look.”
The ghost stuck her upper torso through the large door and quickly pulled it back. “The, um, how do you say it?” she asked and then smiled in remembrance. “I have it. The coast is clear.”
“Exactly,” Ian replied. “And is the door unlocked?”
“Oh, well, I don’t know,” she said, slightly flummoxed. “We never used to close it.”
Mary put her hand back on the doorknob, turned it and pulled. The door groaned slightly, but it opened and spilled dim light into the corridor.
“Well, how clever,” Sister Maria said, clapping her hands in delight. “Now we can find the paperwork.”
She glided out of the corridor and into a lower basement with gray painted floors, limestone walls, and low hanging pipes and ductwork wrapped in puffy insulation. “Watch your head,” she cautioned as Mike walked through a fairly large pipe at forehead level.
“That would have hurt,” Mike said, turning around and looking at the heavy piece of iron.
“At least it wouldn’t have damaged anything important,” Ian quipped, but nearly walked into a low hanging pipe himself.
“Karma,” Mike said, nodding knowingly.
They followed Sister Maria around a large boiler that looked like a giant octopus with its tentacle ductwork disappearing into the ceiling, and then past a series of small, storage rooms made from chicken wire and two-by-fours.
“This climate isn’t good for storing records,” Ian commented, walking around a puddle on the floor. “Things could easily be damaged by mold or water.”
“I don’t think they are as concerned as we are about the records we’re looking for,” Mary said.
They turned down a narrow hallway lined on each side with the storage areas, and Sister Maria stopped and turned to them. “I just realized that the doors have padlocks on them,” she said. “We won’t be able to get in and check the records after all.”
Mary smiled and pulled out a small, cloth case and unwrapped it, displaying a number of thin, metal-topped tools used to pick locks. “I think we can take care of that problem, Sister,” she said confidently.
“And yet, you don’t have a hankie in your pocket,” Ian grumbled, shaking his head.
“Priorities,” Mary replied with a grin.
They followed Sister Maria a few more yards before she stopped in front of one of the units. “Why, you won’t have to pick the lock after all,” she said happily. “Someone has left it open for us.”
“Oh, no,” Mary groaned, expecting the worst. She hurried forward and pushed open the door. The solid line of file boxes had been disturbed, and several from the middle were missing. Checking the dates on the boxes before and after the empty space, she realized the ones missing were during the time Alison would have given birth to her daughter.
“They’ve taken the files,” she said. “We have to find them.”
“I have a very bad feeling about this,” Sister Maria said. “And I think you should follow me first, before we look upstairs.”
She quickly glided farther down the narrow hall and turned to the left. A large, furnace-like machine stood in the far corner, its hatched door slightly open to reveal the fire blazing inside.
“An incinerator?” Mary asked.
Ian dashed ahead and knocked the door farther open. Even from the distance of several feet away, Mary could see the black, curled edges of burning file folders. “They destroyed them,” she said, tears burning her eyes. “They destroyed them.”
“Well, perhaps they’re burning other files,” Sister Maria suggested helpfully.
Ian reached back behind the iron monstrosity and pulled out an empty file box. “No, they were burning the files we needed,” he said. “And there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it.”
Mary leaned back against a wall and let out the breath she’d been holding. “I don’t understand why they weren’t willing to help,” she said, trying to hold back her disappointment and sadness. “All they had to do was tell us who adopted her. And now Alison will never know.”
“Oh, don’t worry, dear,” Sister Maria consoled her. “God has a wonderful way of working things out. You just have to have faith.”
Mary sighed deeply. “Thank you, Sister Maria,” she said. “But I think those words are coming a little late for Alison.”
Chapter Forty-three
The door burst open and Clarissa, Maggie and Andy dashed inside. “We could smell cookies baking as soon as we stepped off the bus,” Clarissa said, leading the other two towards the kitchen. “And we followed our noses and they led us home.”
Mary smiled and kissed Clarissa’s forehead. “Well, welcome home,” she said, and then she reached back on the counter and moved the plate of oatmeal cookies towards the children. “How was school?”
Three eager hands claimed cookies, and each took a bite before answering Mary’s question.
“Great,” Clarissa said while chewing. “We had a fire drill, so we didn’t have to do math.”
Maggie nodded. “Yeah, and we had to go outside and not even get our coats,” she added. “Like there was a real fire. Nancy got so upset she actually threw up in the bushes.”
“Wow, she must have been very upset,” Ian commented, reaching over and nabbing a cookie for himself.
Andy shook his head. “Nah, Nancy throws up about anything,” he explained, taking another bite of his cookie. “Her brother told me that she has a nervous stomach. She even pukes when they go for a long car ride.”
“Poor Nancy,” Ian replied sympathetically, but then he turned to Mary and whispered. “Nancy’s going to be a lot of fun on a date when she gets older.”
Mary smiled at Ian’s joke, but her heart wasn’t really in it. “Yeah, real fun,” she replied, trying to lighten her own mood.
“Hey kids, how would you like some chocolate milk to go with those cookies?” Ian suggested. A rousing chorus of affirmation to his suggestion caused him to smile before he added, “Okay, you go and sit down at the table and I’ll bring them to you.”
“Can we have more cookies, too?” Andy asked.
“Well, here’s the deal,” he said, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Mary’s a mom, and moms have those ‘not before dinner’ rules. But if we can talk her into going upstairs and resting for a wee bit, I’m sure we’ll be able to have more.”
Andy looked over at Mary. “You do look tired,” he said earnestly. “I think you should go take a nap. My mom says adults like naps but never get to take them.”
Clarissa nodded. “You should nap,” she agreed. “And we’ll be really good and quiet.”
Mary was torn. She really wanted to be alone for just a little bit and give in to the emotions that were plaguing her, but Clarissa needed help with her homework, the dishes needed to be done and…
“I’ll help Clarissa with her homework,” Ian said, reading her mind. “I’m a PhD, so I think I might be able to handle it.”
“But—” she began.
“Maggie and I can do the dishes,” Clarissa volunteered. “We’re supposed to be doing good deeds for a class project, so this will count like I’m doing homework.”
“And Bradley will be home any minute now,” Ian reminded her. “So, I won’t be able to corrupt their young minds for too long.”
Looking around the room at all the eager faces that wanted to get rid of her, she laughed. “Thank you,” she said. “I would love to take a nap.”
She had barely reached the staircase when she heard Andy say, “Can I have four more cookies ‘cause I’m a growing kid?”
She glanced over her shoulder and caught Ian’s glance. He smiled at her, then nodded with his head in the direction of the stairs. “Go and rest,” he mouthed and then turned his attention to the children. “Well, four more cookies might make you have the same reaction as Nancy to the fire drill, and I’ve got to say I don’t look forward to you spewing cookies and chocolate milk all over the kitchen.”
“Gross,” said Maggie and Clarissa, screwing up their faces in identical masks of disgust.
“I never throw up,” Andy replied, defending his gastronomical abilities.
“Uh, uh,” his sister replied eagerly. “You threw up all over the car when we went on vacation.”
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
Mary closed the door to her bedroom, and the argument disappeared. Leaning against the door, she smiled wistfully. She was grateful that Ian had given her a break and she had no doubt that Ian had the necessary diplomatic skills to not only solve the argument but also leave everyone content and laughing in the end.
“Your meddling destroyed any chance to find out about the placement of that child.”
Mary spun around to see Sister Bernadette standing in her bedroom.
“No,” Mary shook her head, terrified because the nun’s words echoed the thoughts in her head. “I had no idea she would burn the records.”
“You had to have the last word,” Sister Bernadette criticized as she glided towards Mary. “Had to threaten her before you drove away. What did you think she would do?”
“I didn’t think—” Mary began.
“That’s correct,” Sister Bernadette said in a scathing voice just before she faded away. “You didn’t think.”
Chapter Forty-four
The bathroom door was slightly ajar, and he could hear water running in the sink when Bradley entered the bedroom ten minutes later. He checked the bed first, to make sure Mary hadn’t fallen asleep. But the bed was empty. He walked over to the bathroom. “Mary?” he called softly.
He pushed open the door, and his heart broke when he saw her huddled on the floor next to the shower, sobbing into a bath towel. “Oh, Mary,” he said, sitting down next to her and slipping his arms around her. “How bad is it?”
She looked up at him, her eyes red and watery and her face splotched from crying. “It’s so bad,” she sobbed. “I lost my temper and the records were burned. And now Alison will never pass over.”
Reaching up, he turned off the water. “And you were running the water because…” he asked.
“So Clarissa wouldn’t hear me cry and get worried,” she hiccupped.
He kissed the top of her head and slowly rubbed her back. “Of course. Okay, help me to understand,” he said softly. “How did you lose your temper?”
“I told the Mother Superior that nuns can be put in jail for impeding an investigation,” Mary said.
“Well, that’s true,” Bradley replied.
“But she still burnt the birth records,” Mary cried, her tears returning. “She just put them in the incinerator and destroyed them.”
“Do you have proof?” he asked.
She nodded against his chest. “Before we left, Ian fished some of the less charred pieces out of the incinerator and kept them,” she said. “But what’s that going to do?”
“Well, I’ve been doing a little research myself,” he said. “And there is something called the Children Act of 1975, which states that adoption records have to be kept for at least seventy-five years.”
Mary sat up and wiped the tears from her face. “But Alison said that her daughter would have only been 62 years old,” Mary said. “So she would have fallen into those requirements.”
Bradley nodded. “And then there was the Adoption and Children Act in 2002 that requires that records be kept for one hundred years.”
“So, really, she was breaking the law by destroying those records?” Mary asked.
“Yes, and it seems that something ought to be done quickly in order to prevent her from destroying any more files,” he said, pulling out his phone.
“Who are you calling?” she asked.
“A friend of mine who is a sheriff in that county,” Bradley replied, giving Mary another gentle kiss as he entered the numbers on his phone. “I’ll see if he can swing by and put the fear of God into her, if you’ll forgive the pun.”
She smiled up at him. “Thank you,” she sniffled. “At least others will be able to find their records.” She took a deep, unsteady breath and stopped talking when Bradley greeted the sheriff on the phone. “But that doesn’t help Alison,” she whispered to herself.
She listened to the conversation as Bradley relayed the information to the sheriff, and she felt a little vindicated when he received the sheriff’s promise that he would call a judge he knew to get a warrant so they could save some of the evidence. Mary hoped that at least the records from other years would still be down in the storage unit, because there was little chance of much else surviving.
“Thank you,” she repeated when he got off the phone. “You’re saving a lot of future heartache.”
“But what about current heartache?” he asked her, looking into her eyes.
She shrugged. “I guess I’ve never had a situation like this when I’ve failed completely,” she admitted.
“I don’t think you’ve failed completely,” Bradley said. “As far as you know, they could have had plans to destroy all those records before you even arrived at the scene. They just started with those because you showed up. So, you actually accomplished a lot by saving the other records.”
“But not for Alison,” she said.
“Well, maybe all Alison needs is to know that everything’s been done and there’s nothing else she can do,” Bradley said. “Perhaps once she realizes that her daughter really is lost to her, she can move on.”
“Well, that’s a crappy outcome,” she replied.
He leaned over and hugged her. “Maybe there’s another outcome that you just haven’t come up with yet,” he suggested.
“Yeah, maybe,” she grumbled. “But I’m not counting on it.”
Chapter Forty-five
“So, like I was saying,” Stanley said, pointing a half-chewed piece of bread at the rest of the occupants around the table, “you can actually learn to completely control your dreams.”
Rosie leaned over and placed a hand on Stanley’s arm. “Dear, you already mentioned that to Mary, remember?” she asked. “We were in her office.” Rosie then turned to Mary. “By the way, Casey did an amazing job on your floor; I can’t even tell where you tried to destroy it.”
Mary grinned and started to speak when Stanley interrupted her.
“Dagnabbit, stop interrupting me. I got something important to say her
e. I ain’t daft and I ain’t starting to repeat myself,” he replied. “This was another article I was reading at the barber shop.”
“Stanley, how often do you go to the barber shop?” Ian asked, staring pointedly at Stanley’s obvious comb-over.
“I’ll have you know, you rapscallion, that I go to the barber at least twice a week to keep myself well groomed and sharp looking,” he replied.
“Your hair can’t grow that quickly,” Ian countered.
“You don’t just go to a barber for a haircut,” Stanley argued. “You can go there for a shave, too.”
Ian sat back in his chair and looked slowly around the table. “Are you telling me you don’t have electric shavers here in the States?” he asked, feigning wide-eyed innocence.
Shaking his head in frustration, Stanley finally closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “It’s a man thing,” he said slowly, meeting Ian’s eyes. “A barber shop is a place to discuss politics and sports. It’s a place to converse with other men. It ain’t a froo-froo shop with fancy smelling shampoos and stylists. It’s one final bastion of America where a man can be a man.”
“And it has magazines,” Mary inserted, trying to move the conversation forward. “And one of those magazines had an article about dreaming.”
“Exactly,” Stanley said, and then shook his head. “No, darn it, two magazines, two different magazines had articles about dreaming. One was about the lucid dreaming and this one was about being able to actually control what you dream about.”
“Why are there so many magazines about dreaming?” Bradley asked.
“Well, it’s this way,” Stanley replied with a shrug. “These all ain’t new magazines. Old Bert figured out a long time ago that he only had to subscribe to most magazines for a year and then save them and put them out every couple months. These were both from the year that dreaming movie came out. But, that don’t make a dadgum difference. Facts is facts. And the fact is, if you wanna, you can control your dreams.”
“Why would I want to do that?” Bradley asked.
