Family Secrets

by Zina Abbott

  Rob turned to face his daughter. In the glow of passing headlights she could see his determined expression.

  “Well, I do,” he stated emphatically. “I’ll probably sleep in late this morning, but when I get up, I’m going to start making phone calls. I don’t want to see you operating from a position of weakness again, Jen.”

  As much as Jennie hated to admit it, he was right.

  “I’m so sorry about what happened tonight, Dad. I had no idea he would come at you like that.”

  “I’m just glad I was there with you, Jennie. I wouldn’t have wanted you to face that alone. But, you need to face reality. You do what you have to do for Garrett’s protection and yours.”

  Chapter 28 – Jennie

  Jennie looked at the other three women gathered in Pat’s living room. Three generations of her Carpenter line were at the home of Pat, her great-aunt, the family photographer, to share information about her family. Jennie sensed that it was a momentous occasion. But then, she had felt a growing sense of momentousness over the past several weeks as she continued to learn more about her mother and grandparents.

  “Are you excited about this, Christy?” asked Pat. “Now that my brother has opened up, he has finally given me permission to fill in some of the gaps. Grudging permission, I must admit, but I’ll take it.”

  “Yes and no,” Christy said with an uncertain smile. Jennie watched as her mother reached forward and ran her fingers over the two photo albums that were on the center table, almost as if she recognized them. She wondered if that was what her great-aunt had shown to her mother years ago.

  “It almost feels a little bit like déjà vu,” Christy continued. “Although the last time I rode up to ask you questions, I was with Rob, not Mom and Jennie. I wanted answers so bad back then.”

  “Yes, I remember. I was surprised that I never heard anything more about your search for answers.”

  “Once I decided there were other things more important, I let it go and didn’t worry about it,” Christy said.

  “Really?” asked Jennie. “What kind of more important?”

  Christy turned to Jan who was sitting next to her on the couch. With a warm smile, she reached over and squeezed her mother’s hand. “Me and Mom. Our relationship. Honoring my father’s wishes to leave the past behind and focus on the family he and Mom have built. I didn’t want Dad upset with Mom for telling me the truth about me having a different birth mother. If I had brought those issues up back then, it would have lead to a lot of unhappiness for him and Mom.”

  “Knowing Grandpa, I can see that,” said Jennie. “But I’m really glad that it is out in the open now.”

  “I agree,” said Jan, facing the group. “I am so relieved he finally spoke up so I don’t have to keep quiet about all this anymore. I mean, Whew! Even I didn’t know about a lot of what had taken place in his life before my time, and I’ve been living with him all these years!”

  Then Jan turned to face Jennie.

  “So, Jennie, is all this satisfying your curiosity about our family?”

  “It’s more than curiosity to me, Grandma,” Jennie responded. “Finding out all about our family has helped me understand that no one’s life is perfect. We all face challenges. Learning how all of you have worked through your problems has helped me with mine. I hope that maybe now that Grandpa Mike has told us part of his story, he’ll tell us more later.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that, Jennie,” Jan warned. “Remind me when we get back to my house that I have something that your Grandpa said you can have since you have ‘decided to be the family historian,’ as he put it. But he also said that was the end of it. He doesn’t want anyone asking any more questions. In fact, for the last few weeks, he has been walking around the house mumbling and grumbling about the whole thing. I think he regrets telling as much as he did.”

  Jennie could not hide her disappointment as her eyes met Jan’s.

  “Well, let’s hope that any new nuggets of information Pat can share with us will add to what Grandpa told us,” Jennie finally said.

  Under Pat’s guidance, they started by going through the photo albums. They all found the pictures of Sherrie and baby Christy interesting. From her comments, Jennie realized Jan had seen them, but not for many years. Jennie was surprised that her own mother seemed more reserved, even though the pictures were of her. Jennie remembered her mother telling her how seeing those photos years earlier had been so important to her. Now, she was quiet as she viewed the snapshots.

  On the other hand, Jennie found the pictures fascinating. She was amazed at how much her mother looked like her birth mother. She could even see where she, herself, had inherited some physical characteristics from this woman she had not known about until recently. Jennie started typing notes into her laptop which she had brought with her. She pulled out her cell phone and took pictures of several photos.

  “Look how high-tech you are,” Christy smiled as she pulled some pictures out of the paper corners so Jennie could read the names on the back. “I remember jotting notes on the back pages of my checkbook register.”

  Jennie looked at her mother with surprise and asked, “Really? Do you still have it?”

  “No,” Christy shook her head with a hint of a smile. “Once I decided to not pursue it, the register probably ended up with my box of receipts and has probably been thrown out with everything else once we no longer needed to keep them for tax purposes. But, you’re in luck, Jennie. Your great-aunt, here, never throws anything away. All the information is still here.”

  ”Hey, I resemble that!” Pat joked. Then turning to Jennie, she said, “Jennie, if you’d like, I’ll scan those pictures, front and back, and send them to you by email.”

  “You would? That would be great!” Then Jennie sighed with relief. “It would save me a lot of work.”

  “I’ll be happy to,” said Pat. “I want to save the albums to pass down to Amber, but this way, your side of the family can have copies, too.”

  “It would really be nice to have a scanner hooked up to my computer so I could do that now,” Jennie said wistfully. “But it’s kind of hard to haul my three-in-one printer-scanner around.”

  “I think they have these wand scanners now,” said Pat. “You just move the light bar over a picture or document and it saves a copy.”

  “One of my friends at GOFT has one!” Jennie exclaimed as she recognized what Pat was describing. Helen had shown everyone her new scanner while they were eating refreshments. “Hers has a USB connection so she can download her scans straight to her computer. Unfortunately, that purchase is way down the road for me.”

  “GOFT?” asked Pat, raising an eyebrow.

  It’s a local genealogy club in Golden Oaks that Jennie goes to,” explained Christy.

  “Family ties club, Mom,” Jennie corrected. Then turning to the others, she explained, “I’m not really a member. I just went the one time.”

  They turned back to the picture albums. Once they were looking at pictures of family events after Jan joined the family, Pat and Jan chattered and exclaimed over the images. On the other hand, Christy studied them quietly. They had been so important to her for that short time many years earlier, but now they were merely interesting.

  “Don’t you or Grandpa Mike have copies of these pictures, Mom?” Jennie asked Christy.

  “No,” Jan answered for Christy. “When Sherrie left with Christy, she took everything with her. Mike never got any pictures back.”

  Silence filled the room as the women resumed looking through the photos in the album.

  “I don’t remember ever seeing those,” said Jennie with renewed interest when she reached the ones from Mike and Jan’s wedding.

  “No, you didn’t,” said Jan with a sad smile. “Because of your grandfather’s feelings, I didn’t share those photos, except for one time with Christy.”

  Thanks to her mother, Jennie knew the story. She nodded her head in understanding.

  When they were finis
hed with the albums, Pat reached for an oversized hat box that she had placed in the center of the table. It had been sitting there like the elephant in the room that no one wanted to ask about. The whole time everyone wondered what might be hidden away inside. Pat opened the lid and lifted out a handful of papers, envelopes and photographs. Christy straightened in her chair, curiosity written all over her face. Her Aunt Pat had brought out the hat box when she had been up years before, but not shown her everything inside. Was there more in the contents of the hatbox than what Pat had shared with her before?

  “I pulled a few select items out of my little family file, here, to show Christy years ago,” said Pat, “but now that my brother has lifted the moratorium, I am happy to share anything with you that may be of interest.”

  Pat started by passing around the wedding portrait of Mike and Sherrie. Next, she brought out an envelope that held a stack of four by six pictures.

  “I started the photo albums just before Amber was born. I never got around to putting my earlier pictures into albums,” Pat said apologetically.

  “Now I know I never saw these,” said Jennie as she started to look through the snapshot-sized pictures.

  “Neither have I,” said Christy, her interest sparked. Mother and daughter leaned toward each other, their heads almost touching, as they looked through the photos.

  The pictures of Mike’s first wedding with Sherrie were quite different than the wedding pictures with him and Jan. It was a bigger wedding. Sherrie had a maid of honor, a bridesmaid, who was Aunt Pat, and their male counterparts. The photos were taken by a professional photographer. The wedding took place in a church setting. In what appeared to be a hall, a white-painted trellis archway entwined with pink and white flowers was set up as the backdrop for the wedding party receiving line. Folding chairs with white fabric chair back covers were set up for the guests at the reception.

  Pat reached over and pointed to one of the women in the wedding party, “This is Sherrie’s mother. She and her father were divorced long before the wedding and he didn’t come. If I recall correctly, there was something that happened years earlier in the family and he wasn’t willing to be involved in Sherrie’s life once he and her mother divorced.”

  “Really! I wonder what that was all about,” said Jennie as she typed a note on her laptop. Christy picked up the picture and studied it closely. This particular picture showed the Carpenter grandparents standing next to Mike while a middle-aged woman stood next to Sherrie.

  “I do remember seeing this one,” Christy said as she showed Jennie the next photo that Pat had shown to Christy years before. Sherrie stood next to her mother and her aunt.

  Jennie studied them with interest, particularly Christy’s birth grandmother and great-aunt. Now that her own mother was close to the age of the two older women, it was interesting to Jennie to note the similarities. As Christy showed Jennie the notations on the back of some the photos, Jennie took pictures, front and back.

  When they started looking through the papers and envelopes, they found the thank you card from Sophie Anderson. Recognizing it, Christy said, “Be sure to jot down that address, Jennie. I wrote it in my check register, but I never tried to contact her. It may be too late, but maybe you might want to try to write to her.”

  Pat looked at Christy with a puzzled expression, and said, “I don’t remember showing you the card with the return address.”

  Jennie watched her mother’s face start to flush. “Really? It was on the table. Maybe I wrote the address down while you were out of the room for a few minutes.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Pat said with a laugh. “I did make a point to leave the room for a little while, didn’t I?”

  Jennie, her eyes wide, turned to study Christy’s face. She never would have guessed her mother would do something like that.

  “Do you think Sophie’s still alive?” Jennie turned back to Pat and asked.

  Pat shrugged her shoulders. “I have no idea. I believe she was several years younger than her sister, so it wouldn’t hurt to try to contact her. Of course, she may not live at this address anymore. I’m pretty sure that Ellen died young. Either that, or she just stopped sending cards.” Pat looked to Jan for clarification.

  “No, she died young,” Jan confirmed. “She and I wrote to each other regularly. For Christy’s birthdays and on Christmas, she sent cards with money for me to buy Christy a gift. Toward the end, she confided in me that she had breast cancer. Cancer survival rates weren’t as good back then as they are now. She wanted me to know so that if the cards stopped, I would realize it was not because she no longer cared about Christy.”

  “That is good to know,” said Jennie. “Not that it is good that she had breast cancer, but that we know it may run in the family. This one genealogy database Donna told me about has a whole section for tracking family medical history.”

  “Donna is our neighbor,” Christy clarified. “She is the one that got Jennie started with all this.”

  “Mom, do you remember receiving cards and gifts from your birth grandmother?” Jennie asked.

  Christy shook her head.

  “No, we never told her where those gifts came from,” Jan explained. “I had to walk a real fine line with Mike over that issue. He wanted to break off all contact, especially after I adopted Christy. I felt bad for Ellen and didn’t think she should be cut off from her only grandchild, especially when she had no control over how things turned out. Mike and I compromised. I bought gifts for Christy with the money Ellen sent and in return I wrote Ellen nice, newsy thank you letters about Christy and sent her pictures. I was hoping that once Christy got older, Mike would relent and let me tell her about Ellen.”

  “Wow!” said Jennie. “I kind of wanted to learn more about dad’s side of the family next, but maybe I’ll write to this Sophie after finals. Like Opal said, older relatives tend to leave you, mentally, if not physically, if you if you wait too long.”

  “Opal?” asked Christy.

  “She’s another friend from GOFT. You don’t mind if I write to Sophie, do you, Grandma Jan? I really want to interview you about your family, too, but you’re almost a generation younger. I’m sort of curious about the people in these pictures. ”

  “No, I don’t mind. And, I don’t think you should wait too long before you try to contact her. Maybe you can do a computer search to see if there is an updated address or an online obituary first.”

  “She wasn’t married at the time of the wedding, if I recall,” said Pat, as she started to dig through the papers from the hat box, “so it’s possible that she never married.”

  Probably never married? Jennie made a note on her computer.

  “Here, this should tell us something,” Pat continued as she pulled out a manila envelope from the bottom of the hat box. Then she hesitated as she tapped on the envelope with one hand. Finally, she opened it. She flipped through the sheets of paper until she found the one she wanted. Her eyes quickly scanned the page.

  “Yes, Ellen’s maiden name was Anderson, so Sophie was not married, at least not at the time she sent the thank you card.”

  “What is that you’re reading, Aunt Pat?” asked Jennie.

  Pat took a deep breath and Jennie could tell she was reluctant to tell them. She waited in silence to see what her great-aunt would say.

  “I’m probably sticking my neck out by showing this to you,” Pat started slowly. “Mike gave these to me before Sherrie left him. She had been threatening to burn everything they had, and he wanted to be sure she didn’t get her hands on some of his important papers. It would have been nice if he had thrown in some family pictures, but he didn’t. He asked me to hold these for him without telling anyone I had them. After he and Jan married and started adoption procedures for Christy, he told me to get rid of them. But, I was afraid he might need them in the future for something, so I kept them.”

  Then Pat looked at Christy.

  “Christy, I was so tempted to show them to you when you c
ame up here so many years ago. But, I decided I was not going to completely defy my brother.”

  The silence was deafening as the three other women waited for Pat to continue.

  “Now that Mike’s brought everything out in the open, I’m going to take the chance that he won’t disown me for giving these to you now.”

  Pat handed the envelope to Christy.

  Christy hesitantly pulled the three sheets of papers out and looked at them. As she finished, she handed them one at a time to Jan, who in turn handed them to Jennie.

  “It’s too bad Mike didn’t realize you still had these,” said Jan. “He needed some of them to apply for retirement. We had to send off for copies. Thank goodness we still had the divorce papers.”

  The first paper that was handed to Jennie was her grandfather’s DD-214, his honorable discharge from the Army. She squinted her eyes in order to read the fuzzy carbon copy letters and numbers that had been typed on a manual typewriter. He served in the 84 Eng Bn (Const). The second paper was the marriage license for her grandfather. Jennie looked at it more closely.

  “Who is Sharon Grace Smith?” Jennie asked.

  “That was Sherrie’s legal name,” said Pat. “I don’t think anyone in the family knew that until they got a copy of the wedding invitation.”

  “Why do you call her Sherrie, then?” asked Jennie, confused.

  “That was what she chose to go by,” Pat said with a sigh. “For some reason, she didn’t like the name Sharon. But, as you can guess, her mother did. Sharon was her legal name and that was what Ellen put on the wedding announcements. I remember Sherrie complained loud and clear about that. Just a minute, I think the wedding invitation is still in this pile, too.”

  Pat shuffled through the papers from the hat box until she found the invitation and handed it to Jennie. Jennie took a picture before she compared it to the license.