Finders Keepers

by Catherine Palmer

  Running her fingertips along the brick wall of the parlor Phil had proposed turning into a parking-attendant’s office, Elizabeth made her way to the back porch where Grace had always sat to fan herself. As she climbed the wooden steps, she could feel the gentle breath of the Missouri River drift over her, ruffling her skirt and tickling through her hair.

  It was time for her to move forward, too, Elizabeth thought as she sat down on the top step and leaned against the porch post. She had to let this mansion go. Had to give to Christ her ambitions and dreams for expanding her business. Had to take Nick by the hand and march him through the future—a future where some would treat him with kindness and others would ridicule and taunt him.

  Most of all, she had to relinquish the half-formed hope that Zachary Chalmers had brought to life inside her. Despite her words to Luke earlier that afternoon, she had to admit to herself that she did know the real Zachary Chalmers, the honorable and kind man of whom she had spoken at the council meeting. For a few short months, she had even begun to believe that she might have found a true love. Sure, she and Zachary argued a lot and butted heads against their opposing goals. But in the long run, they’d seemed to have a lot in common.

  It was hard to give up the idea of having someone to laugh and cry with. Someone to fight with. Someone to depend on. Someone to tease. Someone to dream and plan and hope with.

  Hard, too, to surrender the quiet pleasure of a stolen kiss or a reassuring arm around the shoulders. A part of Elizabeth that she’d tried to suppress had awakened to the desire for passion and fulfillment. She wanted to be a woman who knew the ultimate union—spiritual, emotional, and physical—with a man. She wanted to be a wife.

  And not just any man’s wife. She wanted to be Zachary Chalmers’s wife. Through the months, she had grown to love him in a way that went deeper and broader than anything she’d ever hoped to experience.

  But it was time to give up that love. Zachary belonged to God, and it was clear that God had other plans for him. Zachary was going to tear down the mansion, build his fancy office, bring in big-city renters, and continue to blaze his trails through the world. Next door, in her quiet little antiques shop, Elizabeth would indulge her clients in the poignant nostalgia of the past. She would continue to be a Christian first, a mother second, an entrepreneur third. Somewhere, far on the back shelf, she would know she was a woman. But that part of herself would remain hidden and mostly forgotten, amid the busyness of her daily life.

  And that had to be good enough. With a sigh of acceptance, Elizabeth stood and strolled across the lawn to her own porch. It was time to slip out of her wrinkled skirt and into a pair of shorts before heading along the backyard trails to the Eastons’ house. She and Nick would return home, unpack their suitcases, check on the plants, and read the mail. And maybe they’d finish the day with a big bowl of Nick’s current favorite food—mint chocolate chip ice cream.

  As Elizabeth stepped onto the porch, she saw the movement of a shadow on the porch swing. Her heart skipped a beat in spite of her self-determined calm.

  “Elizabeth?” The figure rose slowly and doffed his hat. “I come from the meeting. Is me, Jacob Jungemeyer.”

  “Oh, Boompah.” Elizabeth couldn’t contain her disappointment. Of course it wouldn’t be Zachary. He was over at city hall defending his rights to the mansion. He wouldn’t be coming here.

  “Elizabeth, I must talk with you.” Boompah hobbled forward, hat in his hand. “I have to tell you something. Something very important.”

  “Boompah, why don’t you sit down on the swing again for a minute or two? I need to call Luke to check on Nick, and then I’ll see if I can stir us up some lemonade—”

  “No, no! Please, Elizabeth!” His gnarled hand gripped hers with surprising strength. “Is about Grace Chalmers.”

  “Grace? What about Grace?”

  “Maybe you better be the one who is sitting. Is a very shocking thing I must tell … about Grace and … Grace and me. And only this night do I realize the meaning of the deeds of the past.”

  “Oh, Boompah.”

  He hung his head. “You didn’t guess before now about Grace and me?”

  “You always said she was beyond you.”

  “She was. But still … somehow … we grow to love each other through the years.” He turned his hat brim around and around in his hand. “I think it is because we both feel very different, very alone, in this town. I am the Gypsy, and she is the rich girl. And that difference makes us somehow the same. Do you understand, Elizabeth?”

  “I think so,” she said.

  “Grace’s father forbids me to see her. But we don’t listen to him, you know. We are not young, after all. We are adults, and we meet in the grocery when she comes with Eben Huff to shop. Or sometimes I take the groceries to Chalmers House, and I bring flowers for her blue vase. We like to talk, I make her laugh, she enchants me. Somehow, Grace is of the old times. Her ways are gentle and good and elegant. I love her.”

  “But, Boompah …”

  “I know. It’s wrong, what happened between us.” He shook his head. “One night, I am on my way back from Jefferson City with my truck full of groceries, and there I see Grace’s little car in the ditch. She was never a good driver, you know. I pull out the car, and then … we are alone together … and we make a very wrong choice. After that, I don’t see Grace for a long time even though I try to call her and bring little notes to the mansion for her. I find out she has gone away to New York to stay with relatives. When she comes back to Ambleside, I don’t see her again except from a distance. Now, only Eben comes to my shop for the groceries. Grace goes to the chapel for church, but we never speak. She never leaves her house except to sit on the back porch and fan herself. I know she is very sad, but I cannot reach her.”

  “You didn’t realize Grace had given birth to your son?” Elizabeth whispered.

  “How can I know this? Nobody tells me. I try to talk to her, but she will not speak. Eben Huff tells me that sometimes she goes away for a few days to visit her family in Jefferson City, her brother. I try to find him out—his name and house—but I cannot. He has no telephone, and nobody speaks of him. And so I go on living my life, and Grace lives her life until … until one day she dies. Never until this night … this night … I did not know, Elizabeth!”

  “Oh, Boompah.” Wrapping her arms around the old man, she held him close. “But Zachary will be thrilled to learn you’re his father. He loves you very much.”

  “You think?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “But all the years when he is a little boy, I never help him. I never teach him. I never protect him. I don’t do any of the things a father should do for his son.”

  “But, Boompah, you couldn’t do those things. You didn’t know.”

  “Maybe he is angry with me anyway.”

  “No, he won’t be angry. He’ll be surprised … amazed …”

  A footstep on the porch drew Elizabeth’s attention. As she looked up, she saw Zachary Chalmers move into the light.

  “Uh, excuse me,” he said, his eyes narrowing at the sight of the two figures on the porch. “Luke, I didn’t mean to interrupt—”

  “Zachary,” Boompah said, stepping out of Elizabeth’s embrace. “Is me, Jacob Jungemeyer.”

  “Boompah?”

  “Elizabeth, maybe I better go now,” the old man said. “Maybe you can talk to Zachary and—”

  “No, Boompah. This is your business.” Stepping back, she decided the time was right to go get her son. Zachary had come to her house, but she didn’t trust herself to talk to him. Not now, with her resolve to move forward still so new inside her.

  “I’m going on over to Luke’s house,” she told the men.

  “Listen here, Elizabeth.” Zachary crossed his arms over his chest, and his voice was hard. “If you and Luke Easton have something going on, I want to know about it right now.”

  Confused, she tilted her head. “Luke’s watching Nick.”
<
br />   “What’s he doing that for?”

  “So I could …” She gestured in the direction of city hall. “Zachary, why did you come here?”

  “Because I want to talk to you. You just sashayed out of town and disappeared. How do you expect me to take care of business when you up and leave without telling anyone?”

  “I told lots of people.”

  “Yeah, well, you didn’t tell me.”

  “Yeah, well, you were busy with your tearing-down business and your moving-forward business, and all that. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  “No, I will not excuse you.” He caught her arm and steered her back from the steps. “I want to get to the bottom of a few things around here. I’ve had it with secrets and lies. It’s time for the truth, and I’m going to start with you.”

  “No, I must be first!” Boompah cried. “Is all my fault that you don’t know the truth, Zachary. But how can I tell you the truth, because I don’t know it myself until tonight? Now, I will say everything, and may God forgive me for the pain it will cause.” He wadded his hat into a ball. “I, Jacob Wilhelm Jungemeyer, am your father.”

  Elizabeth felt Zachary’s grip on her arm go slack. He swallowed hard and dropped his hand. “What?” he mouthed.

  “Boompah and Grace,” Elizabeth said softly. “They weren’t married, and he never knew she’d given birth to his child.”

  “Me?”

  “You are my son,” Boompah said, anguish tightening his voice. “And before you become angry, which is your right, let me say that I cannot be more proud of any son than I am of you, Zachary. Even though you and I find out this news only tonight, already in these past months I think of you as my son. I love you.”

  The silence was punctuated only by the distant horn of a river barge. A moth fluttered past Elizabeth’s face and flapped its white wings around the yellow light.

  “The last time I stood on this porch,” Zachary said, “I found out Grace Chalmers was my mother. And now I have a father.”

  “But you do not need to tell anybody this thing,” Boompah said. “I know is not something to be proud of, the way you came into this world with such sin and deception. And I am not a father for any man to boast about, only an old Gypsy who runs a grocery store and cannot talk good English after all these years. Don’t worry, Zachary. This knowledge among us can stay a secret—”

  “No more secrets,” Zachary said, stepping away from Elizabeth. “Of all the men I’ve ever met, there’s not one I’d rather claim as my father than you.”

  “Yes?” The old man’s eyes glistened.

  “Yes.” Zachary gathered Boompah into his arms and pulled him close. “With your permission, I plan to tell the whole world that I am the son of Jacob Jungemeyer.”

  “Ach, God is too good to me,” Boompah mumbled as his gnarled hands slipped around the broad back of his son. “Even from my sin, he can bring a blessing.”

  “And speaking of blessings,” Elizabeth said as she brushed at her damp cheek, “I’d better go get Nick.”

  “Not so fast.” Zachary caught her hand. “Boompah, wait here. Elizabeth, come with me.”

  “But I promised Luke—”

  “This way,” he said, tugging her down the porch steps and across the lawn to the back of the old mansion. “I’ve got something for you, and at the rate things are going tonight, I might never get around to giving it to you.”

  “Zachary, what’s going on?”

  “You’ll see.” He led her up the steps. “Now sit down.”

  “Are you bossing me around?”

  “Yes.” He pressed her shoulder until she was forced to sit. “I had this made for you almost three weeks ago, and I’ve been more than a little irked that you went off to Florida without it.”

  “Well, excuse me. It appears Boompah and Grace weren’t the only ones with a few secrets.”

  “All right, close your eyes.”

  Her heart hammering, Elizabeth shut her eyes and took a deep breath. What could this be? She could hear him huffing a little as the sound of scraping moved across the porch behind her.

  “OK,” he said. “Open your eyes and turn around.”

  As she swiveled on the porch step, Elizabeth saw that Zachary was supporting a large wooden sign complete with a pair of heavy brass chains. Coming to her feet, she moved to where she could see the inscription more clearly in the dim light.

  “Finders Keepers,” she read aloud. “100 Walnut Street. Elizabeth Chalmers, Proprietress.”

  For a moment she couldn’t speak. Again, she read the sign, this time in silence. Finally, she lifted her head.

  “100 Walnut Street?” she whispered.

  “Just the downstairs, though.” He was grinning that lopsided grin she had come to love so much. “That other sign will direct my clients upstairs.”

  Her focus shifted to a smaller, neatly painted sign leaning against the balustrade. It read Zachary Chalmers, Architect.

  “You mean you aren’t going to tear the house down?” Elizabeth asked, almost afraid of the answer.

  “Nope. I’ve hired Luke Easton to restore the entire building. The house will look exactly like it did when it was originally built, but it will be structurally sound and have all the modern conveniences—plus updated heating, cooling, plumbing, and electrical systems. So … what do you think?”

  Elizabeth looked into his eyes. “But this sign says my name is … is … isn’t Hayes.”

  “Well, that part is negotiable.”

  “Negotiable?”

  “If you put it in business terms.” He laughed. “Which it isn’t.”

  “No?”

  “Nope.” Dropping to one knee, he took her hand. “Miss Elizabeth Hayes, I profess to you my undying love. I promise faithfulness, honor, protection, and—” he paused—“I’m no good at doing things the old way, Elizabeth.”

  Standing, he took her into his arms and kissed her lips with all the passion she felt in her own heart. “I love you, Elizabeth,” he murmured, his breath warm against her ear. “I love you, and I want you. That’s all I know. I want you past, present, and future. You certainly don’t need me, and the Lord knows I’m far from perfect. But if you can see beyond my bullheadedness and … and my occasional cockiness … and even that ugly church in Jefferson City … I want you to be my wife.”

  “Oh, Zachary.” The tears of her pent-up loneliness finally pushed past the dam she had built, and Elizabeth wept on his shoulder. “Zachary, I gave you up. I surrendered us to God. I didn’t believe we could ever find a place of common ground, a place where we could touch each other. Somewhere between the past and the future—”

  “And it was right here under our noses the whole time,” he said. “So what do you think about the new sign? And, uh, the new name?”

  “Yes,” she said, her cheek pressed against his and her fingers threading through his hair. “Elizabeth Chalmers. I like that.”

  “Finders Keepers,” he said. “I like that even better.”

  EPILOGUE

  Arm in arm, Elizabeth and Zachary climbed onto the porch behind the antiques shop. Seated together on the swing, Boompah and Nick were each enjoying a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. The boy glanced up and gave his mother a sly smile.

  “Mommy, you were kissing Zachary,” he said. “Boompah came to Magunnery’s house to get me because he said you were busy. And when we got here to the porch, I saw that you were busy kissing.”

  “Well, that’s rather nosy, Nick.” Elizabeth considered moving toward her son, but she decided she liked her current location better. “You’re not supposed to spy on people.”

  “I’d say he’s observant,” Zachary countered. “And that is a very good thing.”

  Nick giggled. “You look happy, Mommy.”

  “I am happy.” She looked at the man she loved. “Zachary asked me to marry him.”

  “Did you say yes?”

  “I certainly did.”

  “That’s what I told Magunnery!”
Nick cried, nearly upsetting the ice-cream bowl. “I told her a long time ago that Zachary was going to be my dad. Remember, Mom? I put Zachary on the family tree for the father, and you for the mother, and Boompah was the grandfather, and Grace was the grandmother and—”

  “Oh, Zachary!” Elizabeth gasped. “He did write all that down!”

  “That’s my boy,” Zachary said with a laugh. “I wonder if he somehow knew.”

  “He knows that God’s plans are greater than our own,” Boompah said. “And in Christ, we are all one family, no matter who is our father or mother.”

  “That’s why Magunnery told me to write my family down in Grace’s old Bible with the other names on the list,” Nick said. The moment the words were out, he clapped his hand over his mouth. The ice-cream bowl tumbled off his lap, splattering green droplets across the porch.

  “Nikolai Hayes,” Elizabeth said, finally stepping out of Zachary’s embrace. “Where did you write down your family tree?”

  “On a paper,” Nick whispered, his green eyes growing round.

  “You said you wrote it in Grace’s Bible. You said Montgomery told you to do it.”

  Nick nodded.

  “Is Grace’s Bible at the Eastons’ house?”

  Nick nodded again.

  “Young man, I want you to march right over there this minute and get that Bible. It belongs to Zachary.”

  Nick gulped and slid down from the swing. “Mommy, I should never disobey you, but I can’t get the Bible. It doesn’t belong to Zachary or you anymore. It belongs to Magunnery.”

  As Elizabeth’s ire rose, she felt Zachary slip a calming arm around her shoulders. “You gave your friend the Bible?” he asked. “How come?”

  “Because she needed it. But it’s OK because I wrote down everybody from my family tree on the page with all the lines. I wrote down Elizabeth Hayes for my mother, and Zachary Chalmers for my father, and Boompah—”