by Traci DePree
“What is he eating?”
“Oh, that’s my neighbor, Mr. Leighton. He always orders the loose-pork barbecue. It’s a hickory-smoked pork, off the bone. Has a very smoky taste. That’s always popular.”
“I suppose it’s pretty fatty?” Kate asked.
The girl nodded and tapped her pencil against the order pad.
“I’ll take the Cobb salad, then,” Kate decided, “with blue-cheese dressing on the side. Does that come with a breadstick?”
“Yes, ma’am, it does. Is that okay?” the waitress asked.
Kate nodded.
“I’ll have the loose pork,” Livvy said. “And a fill-up on the water, please.”
Kate watched the girl as she hopped to the next table, then she glanced at the man sitting at the counter—the waitress’ neighbor. “Hmm,” she said.
“‘Hmm’ what?” Livvy asked.
“I think the light is coming on. You know what we’re missing?”
Livvy shrugged. “A clue?”
“That too. But no, that wasn’t what I was thinking. We need eyewitnesses. And who are the best eyewitnesses?”
“You lost me at hello.”
“The neighbors!” Kate said. “Of course the people who bought the house wouldn’t have known the Olsens, but the neighbors might. There are always neighbors who stick around, especially in an old established neighborhood like theirs. Who knows, one or two might even still send Christmas cards to the Olsens.”
WHEN THEY RETURNED to the neighborhood, it was almost one o’clock.
Kate and Livvy made their way up to the house next door to the Olsens’ former home. Kate noticed the heavyset man they’d spoken to earlier peeking through the gauzy curtains at them. She waved, and he quickly shut the drapes.
The woman who answered at this residence was barely older than the waitress they’d just met. She had long brown hair that hung in braids down her back and dark circles around her blue eyes. Two preschool-age children tugged at her legs and screamed for attention when the door creaked open.
“Can I help you?” she asked, then shouted, “I said stay back!” She scowled at a little towheaded girl who had the same blue eyes as her mother. The mother’s face flamed red as she turned back to the women. Sorry, she mouthed.
“Yes,” Kate smiled. “We’re looking for a Robert and Mary Olsen and their daughter Valerie. She would be twenty-two now. They used to live next door.” She tilted her head in the direction of Valerie’s former home. “Do you happen to know—?”
The mother was already shaking her head no. “I just moved here last year,” she said. “I haven’t even met the guy who lives there now.”
The next two houses were no different. Neither of the residents knew the Olsens. And at the fourth and fifth houses, no one answered their knock. They were about to give up when they decided to try one more house. It was a white two-story with black shutters and a hedge of lilac bushes that ran the entire length of the property on three sides. Kate imagined it smelled heavenly when April and May rolled around.
Livvy rang the bell and stepped back beside Kate. They could hear the sound of someone shuffling around inside, so they waited even though it took several minutes for the door to open.
“Hello, ladies,” an elderly man said. He had gray eyes and salt-and-pepper hair. “To what do I owe the honor of your presence?” he asked, lifting his head and looking through glasses that had slipped down his nose. There was something about him that reminded Kate of Gregory Peck in his later years. Then Kate realized it was his rich-sounding voice. It carried that same warm honeyed quality she’d always enjoyed in the actor’s performances.
“We’re looking for someone, actually,” Kate said. “Valerie Olsen? She’s the daughter of Mary and Robert Olsen, who used to live at 313 on this street.” She pointed to the house kitty-corner and across the street. “It would’ve been in the eighties when they lived there...”
“Well, sure I remember little Val. Cute button of a girl, that one. We were quite good friends with the Olsens. At least my wife was. I remember the day her parents brought her home. My Cora made them a cake, and we decorated the house with Welcome Home banners. What do you need with her?”
Kate felt a bubble of hope begin to rise within her.
“We’re looking on behalf of her birth mother...” Kate explained, not sure if it was the right thing to say. But, she figured, if he recalled her homecoming, then he already knew that she was several months old on that joyous day. “She’d like to...meet her.”
The man stroked his chin, then met Kate’s eyes. “Why don’t you come in? We can talk, and I’ll tell you what I know of the Olsens.” He stepped back and allowed Livvy and Kate to enter the lovely home.
Decorated in simple yet stylish furnishings, the place felt comfortable and homey. The old man led them to a living room at the end of the hallway. Its windows looked out onto an expansive backyard with a rock garden and a fountain that was now dormant.
“I don’t think I introduced myself,” he held out a hand, “I’m Arnie Kerr.”
Livvy, then Kate in turn, introduced themselves and shook hands with him, then they sat down on a high-backed formal couch.
“So, you’re looking for little Val,” he said, settling into a wingback chair. “My Cora had such affection for that child.” He pointed to a small piano against the wall on which was a framed photograph of a woman. It was one of those photos that had been retouched as they used to do during the war, with paint applied to a black-and-white photo, giving it a painted portrait quality. The woman wore her hair in 1940s style, with perfectly sculpted curls that framed her face. She gazed prettily into the camera.
“We never had kids of our own,” Arnie went on, “so Cora took in all the children in the neighborhood. She loved children. When Mary Olsen told her that they were going to adopt, well, that was real special to Cora. We probably should have adopted too, looking back. I wouldn’t be alone now...” his voice trailed away and his brow furrowed. “But it was too late by then.” He shifted in his seat. “I’m sorry—I didn’t offer you anything to drink. Would you like some lemonade?”
“No, thank you,” Kate and Livvy said in unison, and Arnie scooted back in his chair to tell the story.
“Cora babysat little Val a lot in those early days,” he said. “Mary worked as a secretary, so she needed day-care help, and Cora was happy to provide that. That child was a beauty—dark-haired and equally dark eyes. And she had these dimples...I’m sure they made the boys weak-kneed when she was a teenager.”
The description brought Marissa to mind, and because of it, Kate felt a connection to this child she’d never met.
“When she got a little older,” he went on, “I guess about five or six, she always rode her bike up and down the street. I can still see it. And even after she was in school, she’d come in to talk to me and Cora and look at the jigsaw puzzles.”
He pointed at several pictures throughout the room. Kate hadn’t noticed before that they were puzzles that had been shellacked and framed as art around the house.
“We liked to put puzzles together in the evenings,” Arnie said. “Cora and me. Helped pass the time.”
“Do you know what happened to the Olsens?” Livvy asked.
He shook his head. “They moved in ’97, I believe. They were doing well for a long time, but then we got word that they were getting a divorce. Mary told us in a Christmas letter a few years after they moved. I felt so bad for Val. She was probably a teenager by that time. I’m sure she was heartbroken. Her dad moved somewhere southwest—Arizona, I think. But Mary and Val stayed in the area for a while before they moved to Nashville. I got a Christmas card from them last year, even with Cora gone. That was nice of them to think of me. But I didn’t get one this year.”
He got up and hobbled over to a long oak cabinet and shuffled through a top drawer before returning to his chair. He handed Kate a card, still in its opened envelope. “This is from Christmas before last,” he sai
d. “You can keep it if you want.”
Kate pulled out the card along with a photo of the mother and daughter. Kate stared at it. Valerie looked so much like her sister. If it wasn’t for the hair, it would have been hard to believe it wasn’t Marissa in the photograph. Her mother was dark-haired and dark-eyed too, with that exotic, almost-Mediterranean look she’d noted before. She no longer had the fluffy eighties hairdo of the photo Kate had seen in the agency file. If she hadn’t known Valerie was adopted, it would have been easy to believe that the woman was her biological mother. She glanced at the envelope, noting the return address.
“So, this is where they live now?” she asked.
Arnie nodded. “As of a year and two months ago.”
MARISSA HAD BEEN QUIET ALL DAY. Patricia tried to engage her in conversation, but the girl answered in curt, short answers. She wouldn’t even look her mother in the eyes. Patricia thought her heart would break from the agony of it, but she also knew Marissa needed time to process the news. And time to forgive. She hoped she’d eventually be able to forgive her. She didn’t know what she’d do if Marissa didn’t.
She seemed weaker now too, and the doctor was more concerned about her low hemoglobin and red-cell counts. Her color, which had reappeared once her treatments were done, was now a faded gray hue. The dark rings under her eyes looked as if they’d sunk deeper into her skull, and her lips were cracked and parched-looking.
LuAnne had stayed with Patricia Friday night and part of Saturday, and then returned to Copper Mill for her evening shift at the diner. Before she left, she had promised she’d come back to visit.
Patricia had never known the woman well, other than knowing that she was Matt Reilly’s aunt—Marissa’s great-aunt. Another of the details she’d need to tell Marissa in due time.
They sat without talking as the television played mindlessly, Patricia in the chair alongside the bed. At least TV kept the awkwardness at bay.
“Did you want her?” Marissa suddenly asked through her mask, breaking the silence between them.
Patricia turned to look at her daughter. The hurt she saw in her daughter’s face sent a barb into her own heart. “Valerie?” she clarified.
Marissa nodded.
“Of course I wanted her—” Patricia’s voice broke on the admission, and tears rushed to her eyes. “I wanted both of you. But it was so hard. I was facing eviction because I couldn’t pay my rent and pay for day care. I was all alone in a strange city...There was no way I could go to college to get a better paying job. I wanted better for my girls.”
“So why her and not me?” Marissa asked.
“Oh, honey. You can’t imagine how hard that decision was. Kara...I mean Valerie...was smaller than you were. She had a rougher start. I figured an adoptive family would have more resources to raise her and love her the way I loved her.”
Marissa fingered the thin blanket that covered her legs. “Why didn’t you give us both up?”
“I didn’t give her up,” Patricia said, her tone becoming defensive. “That sounds so callous. This was far from a heartless decision. I cried for a long time about it. For years I’ve regretted it, wondered how Kara was doing, missed her. Yet I knew I had no other choice. I kept you because...because I thought my heart would break if I lost both of you. At least with you here, I had a part of her too.” She shook her head. “Maybe that doesn’t make sense. Maybe it was selfish. In a perfect world, I would have had both of my children with me.” She let out a humorless laugh. “I guess in a perfect world, I wouldn’t have been an unwed mother, would I? But I’m so glad I had you—having you brought healing to my broken heart. Somehow that made everything better, even my parents’ rejection.”
Tears traced Marissa’s cheeks, and Patricia reached out a hand to touch her face. Then she let it fall to the bed beside her daughter. “Ray loved you as if you were his own daughter.”
“He didn’t tell me the truth either.” Hurt and betrayal lived in those words.
“He wanted to, but he felt it was my decision...And a poor one it was.”
Marissa reached out and took her mother’s hand. Patricia closed her eyes as a healing balm flooded her being.
“This makes so many things clear,” Marissa admitted. “Why you acted the way you did about certain things...” Their gazes met.
Patricia mouthed I’m sorry again. Marissa leaned toward her, and mother and daughter touched foreheads.
“I want to meet her,” Marissa said. “And not just to see if she’s a match. I want to know my sister.”
IT WAS DARK OUTSIDE. There was no moon, and clouds covered the stars. The interstate rolled beneath their tires with only headlights to illumine the way. Livvy slept in the passenger’s seat.
Kate dialed Patricia’s cell phone as they drove the rest of the way from Chattanooga to Copper Mill. She had to tell her the news right away. They’d found someone who knew Valerie. She even had a fairly recent photo of the girl who looked just like Marissa.
A tentative voice answered. “This is Patricia.”
“It’s Kate. How’s she doing?”
“Weak, but she’s okay. For now.” Patricia spoke in a whisper.
Kate wondered if she was in Marissa’s room and the girl was asleep. Then she could hear the sound of a door shutting.
“I told her the truth, Kate.” Patricia’s voice was louder now. “I told her about Valerie and...everything.”
“How did it go?”
“You were right. She forgave me. All this time I wasted, and she forgave me.”
“Of course she did. She’s a great kid, and she loves you.”
“I underestimated her,” Patricia confessed.
“Do you think the doctors will let her go home soon?”
“No...” Patricia paused. “She’s weak, Kate. I feel like time is running out, and that scares me. Through all her chemo treatments, I didn’t feel the way I do now...”
Kate passed the twenty-mile sign for the exit to Copper Mill.
“I have some news that might help boost her morale,” Kate offered.
“Oh?”
“We found someone who knows Valerie, or at least knew her. One of her old neighbors. His wife provided day care for her when she was little.”
“Really?”
“Patricia, Livvy and I have a photo of her—she looks just like Marissa. She’s so beautiful.”
Kate could hear Patricia crying over the phone, so she waited before going on. Then she said, “We have an address...in Nashville. I’m going to drive there first thing in the morning. You just tell Marissa to hang in there,” Kate said. “We’re going to find Valerie for her.”
AFTER HER TALK with Patricia, Kate felt an even deeper urgency. They had to find Valerie and find her soon.
Livvy couldn’t make the long trip to Nashville with her. She had responsibilities at work, but Kate knew Paul could manage by himself for a while. She dialed him next. He answered on the second ring.
“Hey, honey. How’s it going?” he said, no doubt having read caller ID before picking up.
“I’m going to have to make another trip,” she said into her headset.
“Oh?”
“We think we’ve found Valerie, or at least her trail. But it’s all the way in Nashville. I’m bringing Livvy home now, then I’ll head to Nashville early tomorrow morning.”
“Whatever you have to do, just be careful.”
“I will be. And Paul?” she went on.
“Yes?”
“Remember I said I’d let you know when it was time for you to come to Patricia’s aid?”
“Sure.”
“It’s time. She needs to know she’s not alone, and I can’t be the one to do that right now.”
MARISSA SLEPT FITFULLY the rest of the night. Patricia watched as she twisted and turned under the covers. Thankfully the hospital had put La-Z-Boy chairs in the rooms for visitors rather than the hard vinyl and metal chairs Patricia was used to seeing in other hospital wards. She pushed ba
ck in the chair to recline and let her eyes droop shut.
Throughout the night the nurses came to check on Marissa, and the doctor even came in at one point to read her chart and bend over to listen to her heart. Though Patricia felt a huge emotional weight lifted from her shoulders from telling her daughter the truth, a new reality had dawned. Marissa was growing weaker.
When a knock sounded on the door, Patricia realized it was morning. She cleared her throat and glanced at her watch. It was eight o’clock. How had she slept so late? She stretched her back and pushed her hair into some semblance of order.
“Come in,” she called, wiping the sleep from her eyes and straightening her clothes.
A clean-shaven man, who looked to be in his sixties, with salt-and-pepper hair and clear blue eyes tentatively entered, wearing a surgical mask.
“I hope I’m not disrupting anything,” he said. “I’m Paul Hanlon. Kate’s husband?”
Patricia put the recliner down and crossed the room to greet him. “I’m so happy to meet you,” she said.
“I’m kind of early, aren’t I?” he said after glancing at his watch.
“No, it’s fine, really.” Patricia waved the comment away with a hand. Her gaze turned to her daughter.
“Kate is going to Nashville today, so I thought I’d stop in and see how you two are holding up,” Paul said.
Patricia crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s a hard one to answer.” She paused, still watching Marissa. “She’s not doing well...”
“I’m sorry.”
She met his gaze and felt the sincerity behind his words. “You and your wife have been so kind.”
“We’ve only done what anyone would do.”
She shook her head and looked away. “Believe me, that isn’t true. I’ve been left alone more times than I care to remember, but you two have been such a...” She searched for the right word and finally said, “blessing.” She was surprised by the word choice. But it was true.
When she turned back to the pastor, he was smiling. “We aren’t the only ones who care about you, you know. We’re trusting that God will find a way for your daughter.”
