The Last of the Stanfields

by Levy, Marc

  When I went downstairs the next morning, George-Harrison was already there, waiting for me in the hotel lobby. The dining area in the hotel looked especially grim, so I hopped into George-Harrison’s pickup and we went out for breakfast.

  “What type of carpenter are you?” I asked to break the ice.

  “Type? It’s not like there are that many to choose from.”

  “Sure there are. Some build houses, some make furniture, or maybe . . .”

  “When you talk about building houses, it’s more construction than carpentry . . . You know, maybe I just don’t have a father at all.”

  “What’s that got to do with carpentry?”

  “Nothing, absolutely nothing. But I stayed up all night thinking about my mother’s letter. She calls your mom ‘my love.’ What if my father was an anonymous donor—or not anonymous, who’s to say?—and the tragedy they keep mentioning was me being born?”

  “Tragedy might be pushing it. Tragically dramatic, maybe. And while it’s true that you’re . . . easy enough on the eyes, a ‘treasure’ that must be brought back into the light? Don’t flatter yourself.”

  I burst out laughing at my own joke and instantly felt bad about it. The whole thing seemed to really bother him. At the next red light, George-Harrison turned to face me, his face pale and serious.

  “It doesn’t bother you at all to think of our mothers being . . . so close?”

  “How ‘close’ they were doesn’t seem to be what’s eating at you, since you’re so carefully avoiding saying what you really mean. And if the thought of them as more than friends bugs you so much, maybe you need to think about why that is. Not to mention . . . it might not even be true! By the time your mum wrote that letter . . . she was already, you know . . .”

  “Batshit crazy?”

  “You really have to finish all my sentences? Look, after a certain age, communicating gets harder. And between love and friendship, things can get mixed up. Let’s play your theory out, and you’ll see it doesn’t fit. Imagine our mothers were in love and decided to have a child together through an anonymous donor. Your mum gets pregnant—and mine just abandons her?”

  “What is it about this that doesn’t fit?” he asked, as a car honked behind us.

  “Hey, step on it, will you? Don’t you hear the beeping behind you? I know men are no good at multitasking, but listening and driving at the same time isn’t exactly brain surgery. Even my dad can pull that off, and no one’s more easily distracted than him.”

  George-Harrison stepped on the accelerator and crossed the junction, then quickly pulled over to the side of the road.

  “How old are you?” I asked him.

  “Thirty-five.”

  “Date of birth?”

  “July 4, 1981.”

  “Well, then—there you have it. Your theory doesn’t work. My mother was already back in England when your mother got pregnant with you, by my calculations.”

  “Men are no good at multitasking, huh? What else do you have against men?”

  “Are you planning on parking, or are we just going sit here with the engine on?”

  “We’re parked, right in front of the place where we’re having breakfast. Come on. A cup of coffee would do you a world of good.”

  Without glancing at the menu, George-Harrison ordered eggs Benedict with extra toast, extra bacon, and a large orange juice. Something about that made me smile. I stuck with just tea, figuring I could scavenge some toast. There was no earthly way he would actually clean his plate.

  “Since it turns out that I’m not the tragic mistake my mother was referring to,” he said, with a crooked grin, “just what do you think she meant? I’m guessing your mother never mentioned—”

  “My mother never talked about that period of her life, and we knew better than to ask questions. She was an orphan and there was a lot of pain in her past. We tried to tread lightly, out of respect. Or, to tell you the truth, maybe it was more out of fear than respect.”

  “Fear of what?”

  “Of . . . pulling back the curtain and finding something else there.”

  “Like what? I don’t understand.”

  “Something other than her children. And how about you? What do you know of your mother’s past?”

  “I know she was born in Oklahoma, that her dad was a mechanic and her mother was a housewife. My grandfather was as tough as nails, and a bit stingy when it came to affection. Mom told me that he would never hug or touch any of his kids, using all the grease and grit on his hands as an excuse, not wanting to get dirt on them. The only thing tougher than him was growing up in Oklahoma. Maybe people didn’t really know how to . . . show their feelings to their kids that well back in those days. Mom took off to New York when she was still young, her head buzzing with all the books she’d read as a kid. She made it sound like books were the best part of her childhood. She got a job as a secretary at a publishing house and went to night school for journalism at NYU. I know she applied to every newspaper up and down the East Coast and got work as an archivist. Then she left the United States and started a new life in Montreal—right around the time she had me.”

  “Did you know she lived in Baltimore in the late seventies?”

  “No, not at all. She only talked about New York. But if I asked even the slightest thing about the period just before she had me, she would clam up or lash out and we’d end up at each other’s throats. Where exactly are you going with this?”

  “I don’t really know, just a tangent.”

  “Is the treasure what you’re after?”

  “I didn’t even know it existed until about halfway through the flight over here. Crazy as it may sound, I found your mother’s letter in my jacket pocket while I was going through security.”

  “Well, if your poison-pen can manage to slip a letter in your pocket, you should turn around and go look for him in London.”

  “The poison-pen didn’t slip me the letter—my brother did. And what are you after in all this?”

  “I just want to find my father, like I told you.”

  “Any idea where to find the letters my mother wrote to yours?”

  “Not a clue. Maybe they’re gone. How about the rest of the letters from my mom?”

  “Same story,” I fibbed. “No clue where to find them, or if they even still exist. And to be honest, I have no clue about what to do next either.”

  A long silence followed, with both of us staring down at the table, until George-Harrison asked me to sit tight for a minute and got up. He went outside and I caught sight of him through the window opening the door to his pickup. If he hadn’t left his jacket behind, I would’ve been afraid he was about to make a run for it. But he came back soon after, sat down, and slid a framed picture onto the table—the photo of our mothers from Sailor’s Hideaway.

  “The owner doesn’t know the first thing about any of the photos on the walls. They were already hanging there when he bought the place. The kitchen is the only part that ever got updated. Aside from a fresh coat of paint, the rest of the place hasn’t changed.”

  “Is this supposed to be a lead?” I asked, sighing with exasperation.

  George-Harrison put two other photos in front of me. “These were taken that same night. Look. You can clearly make out the faces of two other people.”

  “How did you even manage to steal those? I didn’t see a thing.”

  “You really assume the worst about people, don’t you? I went back last night. I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t get to sleep. When I got there, the owner was closing up, and I explained that it was my mother up there on the wall.”

  “So, he just took it down and gave it to you, throwing in two more as a bonus, all because you batted your eyelashes?”

  “You flatter me,” he said. “Truth is, I offered him twenty bucks and didn’t really have to twist his arm. He told me he’s renovating the main space this winter. Remind me—what’s the name of that newspaper?”

  “The Independent.�
��

  “Well, I guess that’s as good a place as any to start. If the paper was published in Baltimore, there’s gotta be something out there.”

  “I’ve already done some serious digging online, and couldn’t find a single trace.”

  “Isn’t there some kind of archive where old newspapers would be stored? You’re a journalist, shouldn’t you know this kind of thing?”

  I was. And I should. Yet my first thought was of Michel. “The public library! If there’s even one copy out there, that’s where we’d find it. Just the masthead alone could be a gold mine . . .”

  “Remind me what a masthead is again?”

  “It’s usually on the editorial page, where you can find all the editing and publishing credits.”

  We climbed back into the pickup, and George-Harrison waited behind the wheel while I dug up the address.

  “Four hundred Cathedral Street,” I said, scanning the screen on my iPhone, smiling at what I read.

  “What’s got you so chirpy all of a sudden?”

  “Just the library we’re headed to. It has a whole collection of Edgar Allan Poe stuff, original editions donated by his family.”

  “And that’s a good thing?”

  “Maybe not for you, but for me? Definitely. Step on it!”

  We got to the library in no time and strode right up to the front desk. Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that the woman working there had no idea how to navigate the maze of books and archives for something so specific. But I knew someone who might. I glanced at my watch—still just three in the afternoon in Croydon. Vera picked up straightaway, faithfully stationed at her post as always. After some polite small talk, she offered to go and get Michel, but I told her not to bother; she was the one I was calling for. Vera was flattered and eager to help. I told her I needed to know how the archives would be organized at a library like hers, or at a similar one that was a bit larger. Specifically, how one would go about finding a weekly newspaper published in the late seventies.

  “For that, your best bet is microfiche,” she explained. “That’s how newspapers were archived in those days.”

  I would have kissed her, had we been in the same time zone.

  “Are you sure you don’t wish to speak to Michel? I know he’d be delighted to hear your voice. Ah, and here he comes right now. Just a moment, please.”

  I heard a muffled exchange, and then my brother came on the line. “Although you never checked in with me, I am aware that you arrived safely. I tracked down all the flight information and verified that no plane has crashed since your departure.”

  “Well, there you have it, that’s one way to find out I’m still alive and kicking,” I replied. “I actually did try calling you a few times, but you never picked up.”

  “That makes perfect sense. Mobile phones are strictly prohibited within the library. And I tend to keep mine off when I’m at home.”

  I took a few steps away from George-Harrison until I was sure he couldn’t listen in to our conversation. “I read the letter you gave me,” I told my brother.

  “I do not wish to speak of it. I believe that was the arrangement.”

  “And I do intend to respect that, but you did mention a box where other letters could be found.”

  “Yes, thirty, to be exact.”

  “Assuming you’re not willing to read those to me over the phone, would you consider sending them here?”

  “No. I was given specific orders from Mum to always keep them close at hand.”

  “Damn it, Michel! Mum’s dead. And I need those letters.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Look. You were the one who said I care more about people I don’t even know than my own family. I’m trying to change that, Michel.”

  I could hear Michel’s breathing quicken, a telltale sign he was headed for an attack. And it was all my fault; logic was a critical component of his approach to decision-making, and irrational notions could derail his entire thought process. The decision I was forcing him to make represented a major dilemma—to help his sister set the past right, he would have to betray his mother.

  I was mortified at the idea that I may have triggered a meltdown, especially since there was no way to help from so far away. I could just picture my brother trembling and moaning, burying his face in his hands . . . I had no right to push him that way, especially not when he was at work, next to the one woman he felt close to—or at least “in a manner of speaking,” as Michel would have said. I wanted to take it back, to never have gone so far, but it was too late. I heard Vera prying the phone away from him.

  “I’m sorry to cut in on your conversation,” she said softly. “But if you wouldn’t mind . . . I need Michel to locate a couple of reference books over in the main section.”

  I felt ashamed. Vera showed that she was undeniably far more kindhearted and sound of judgment with Michel than his own sister was. I thanked her sheepishly and apologized for all of it.

  “Don’t worry, it’ll be okay,” she reassured me. “And don’t think twice about reaching out; I’d be delighted to lend a hand, so let me know if there’s anything else you need.”

  There was. What I needed was for Vera to convince Michel to send the letters, or to read them to me herself over the phone. But that was far too much to ask. I thought about asking Maggie, but there was no way to do it without Michel learning that I had betrayed his trust by telling her about the letters. I said goodbye to Vera and hung up. I found George-Harrison waiting out in the front hall and joined him to walk back to the library assistant.

  “Could you please point us to the microfiche archives?” I asked.

  “Of course,” the assistant said. “I’ll just have to see your credentials first. Are you a student, lecturer, or researcher?”

  I flashed my press card, hoping it would do the trick. The girl studied the card warily, until George-Harrison cut in, dropping a smooth compliment about her outfit. Then, he went in for the kill, boldly asking what time she got off and if she wanted to join him for a drink.

  “Oh, you’re not together?” the assistant asked, blushing.

  “Her? And me? No way! Not at all,” replied George-Harrison.

  The girl ripped out a pair of passes from a pad. She seemed almost embarrassed on my behalf.

  “The archive you’re looking for is on the lower level. Take the stairs at the back of the room, as quietly as you can, please. Show these passes to the attendant.”

  As we crossed the large room, I noticed that the library was quite different from the one back in Croydon. Aside from dwarfing it in size, it featured cubicles with cutting-edge technology that would have made Vera turn green with envy, and probably would have put my brother out of a job. The library was packed. Students and researchers sat with eyes glued to computer monitors, and the sound of fingers tapping restlessly on keyboards echoed through the space like a platoon of scrabbling rodents.

  George-Harrison and I sat down in front of a machine from a whole other era. It had a broad black screen above a clear platen. I recognized the clunky apparatus from old movies, but had never laid my eyes on one in real life. The archive assistant went searching through a series of cabinets and returned with a cellophane sheet containing eight images so small you could hide them in the palm of your hand.

  “Jeez, that’s what I call a short run! There’s only one edition,” the assistant remarked, as he slid the sheet onto the platen and pushed it under the lens reader. The Independent’s brilliant logo flashed to life on the black screen. The edition was dated October 15, 1980. I held my breath and scrolled through the eight pages one by one.

  The lead stories focused on the presidential campaign that had been in full swing at the time. For several weeks, the sitting American president and his upstart challenger had been entrenched in a brutal war of words. Reagan ridiculed Carter’s pacifist mind-set, while Carter accused Reagan of pushing dangerous right-wing extremism and filling his speeches with none-too-subtle references that s
toked hatred and racism. “Let’s Make America Great Again” was the former California governor’s campaign slogan, with the central promise of restoring power to states that had long been abused by Washington.

  George-Harrison reminded me how that election had ended. That campaign message wound up propelling Reagan and the Republicans to victory, and they seized both the White House and Congress in a huge electoral landslide.

  “Let’s hope that formula doesn’t work again this time, or else this country’s headed for a Trump victory,” I grumbled.

  “No way; it’ll never happen,” George-Harrison insisted. “The guy has no credibility. He doesn’t stand a chance.”

  I continued searching through the pages, from one controversial story to the next. One article exposed the consequences of welfare benefit cuts, which had a devastating effect on the poorest in the nation, with 30 percent of the population already living below the poverty line. Another reported on the US Air Force’s part in a disastrous accident in which a ballistic missile exploded in its silo and contaminated an entire town. A third covered the arrest of a journalist who had refused to reveal her sources for an article on a controversial parental custody dispute. The last page featured culture highlights. Evita won a Tony for Best Musical. Coppola was presenting a Godard film in New York. Ken Follett had climbed to the top of the bestseller list, and Elizabeth Taylor was finally making her Broadway debut at the age of forty-seven.

  I had reached the end of the issue without finding anything that even resembled a masthead. I went back through each slide, inspecting page numbers to ensure none were missing. No luck. No masthead. The writers and editors of the newspaper hadn’t wanted their names published. The byline for each article was a set of initials instead of a full name.

  “What’s your last name again?” I asked George-Harrison.

  “Collins.”

  I scanned the screen and pointed out an article. “See that story? The one about runoff from a factory polluting a river, contaminating the drinking water . . . Are those your mother’s initials?” George-Harrison squinted at the letters MC on-screen and nodded.