Suck it up, Val. This isn’t about you.
“…just one generation away. Chances are around 2 billion to one…”
Focus! Focus! Focus! I snapped out of my pity party just in time to hear Ms. Foreman’s final words.
“It’s definitely a match. You’ve found your missing daughter.”
I burst into tears.
“Are you okay, Val?” Tom asked.
“Sure. I just need a moment. Great news. Is there a lady’s room around here?”
“Yes. Let me show you the way,” offered Darryl. “This place is like a maze. You’ll never find your way there and back.”
Darryl led me down some corridors to the women’s restroom. She stood and watched as I dabbed at my runny eyes in the mirror.
“So you’re Tom’s ex-wife?” I croaked, trying to sound nonchalant.
“He didn’t tell you? Typical Tom.” Darryl blew out a breath and a short laugh. “Just like him to not mention the five-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. Yes. I’m Tom’s ex.”
Something inside me shifted. I stared at the brilliant beauty queen for a moment. “What happened?” Then I remembered my manners. “Ooops! Sorry. None of my business!”
Darryl laughed. “It’s okay. No big secret. We were together for ten years. He’s a good guy. It’s just that…well, sometimes you just know it’s time to say goodbye. It’s nobody’s fault. Why?”
“Well, we’ve…I’ve been….”
“Say no more, I get it.”
“Geeze. I’m sorry, Darryl. I have no claim on him. I was hoping Tom would be …different.”
Darryl laughed. “Not to worry, Val. If you want him, he’s all yours. He’s a good guy. Just remember, relationships don’t come with lifetime guarantees. You just have to enjoy the moments as they come. Accept what is. Be responsible for your own happiness. That way you always know where you stand.”
“You sound like a friend of mine. Glad.”
“Sure. I’d be glad to be your friend.”
I didn’t try to correct Darryl. Instead, I just accepted her offer.
“Thanks, Darryl.” I looked at her, then back at my bedraggled reflection. “You wouldn’t happen to have some makeup on you…I had to run out the door.…”
“Makeup? You don’t need it, girl. But if you want, just give me a sec.”
Darryl disappeared, then reappeared with her makeup bag. In five minutes, she had me looking like a Caucasian version of herself…well, almost. When we reappeared together in the conference room, Tom stood up.
“Wow! You two look gorgeous! I’d take you both out for drinks, but Val and I have got to get a move on.”
I hugged Darryl and whispered, “Thank you.”
She whispered back, “You’re welcome, anytime.”
Tom and I turned to leave, but Darryl stopped us. “Oh, before you two leave, I was curious about something.”
Tom and I turned around. “What?” he asked.
“The samples. How did you collect so much blood from the daughter?”
“What do you mean?” Tom asked.
“The saliva on the cup wasn’t a match. But that bloody handkerchief was. It was like she got punched in the nose or something.”
“Oh my God!” said Tom. “Val…that blood…it belongs to you!”
Chapter Thirty-Six
I awoke to find Tom reenacting his original heroic role from Caddy’s. He was sitting on the floor of the lab’s conference room with his back against the wall, holding my head up, staunching my bloody nose with his handkerchief. Apparently I’d fainted dead away and fallen face-first to the floor.
“Wad happened?” I asked.
“You just became Glad’s daughter,” Tom reminded me.
“What? How?” I asked, struggling against his grip. I wriggled around to face him.
“That day at Caddy’s…the one freakishly similar to this one? I put your bloody hanky in an evidence bag. We’re trained to treat blood like hazardous waste, nowadays, you know. Plus, I didn’t want to stain up my car. So I put the bag in a manila envelope. I forgot about it. I must have put Thelma’s cup in the same envelope and sent it off to the lab by mistake.”
“Oh, it was no mistake,” said Darryl, laughing. “The world works in mysterious ways.”
“But…wait…how can I not be my own mother’s daughter?”
“That’s a very good question,” said Tom. “Why don’t we go find out.”
***
The hour-long drive to Mom’s house took two weeks. My head throbbed from the fall. My ears were full of whooshing sounds timed to the beat of my thumping heart. My mind whirled back and forth between Glad and Mom…or the woman I thought was my mom. When we finally pulled up in the yard, I was so nervous I could barely walk. Tom took my hand and helped me to the door. He knocked on it gently.
“Who’s thar?” Mom called out.
“Mrs. Short! It’s Tom. I’ve got your dau…I’ve got Valiant with me.”
I frowned and stuck an elbow in Tom’s ribs.
“Ow!” Tom grinned at me. “So feisty!”
“Always has been,” Mom said through the screen door. “You’re back sooner than I thought, Valiant. Y’all come on in.”
Mom unlatched the screen door and we stepped into her lying lair of false mementos. She plopped her butt in her recliner. Tom and I took positions on the couch, below the gallery of fake family photos. I felt like I was trapped inside a cheap sci-fi, time-warp movie, experiencing déjà vu from another lifetime. I was sad, confused, angry and somehow elated all at the same time. But mostly I just wanted to cry.
“Am I your real daughter?” I asked, my voice cracking against my will.
Mom leaned back in her recliner and studied us. Her eyes shifted back and forth between Tom and me, then she finally said, “So’s you done gone and found out, have you?”
My inner child threw a fit. “What? It’s true? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, now, Val, before you get up on that high horse a yours, I did tell you. One time when you was about six. You just went to squallin’, so I told you I made the whole story up.”
“What is the whole story? I’m ready to hear it now.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Alright then. Not much to tell, really. It was a warm spell in April, 1975. I remember ’cause your dad…well…Justas…your dad…. Anyway, Justas decided he’d go fishin’ for bream. Them fish get hungry as the dickens when the water starts warming up in spring.”
Mom looked off in the distance for a moment. “I remember I was getting all the fixin’s together for a fish fry when Justas come in saying he’d caught a whopper. I figured it was one a them big old catfish or a lunker, and my mouth started to waterin’. I love me some catfish, don’t you know. Then he handed me a bundle wrapped up in The Jackson Times. I laid it on the counter and it started to squallin’ like a baby. I opened it up and there you was. A dad-burned baby.”
Mom laughed. “Justas said he found you along the road by the culberts. That’s his favorite fishin’ spot. You wat’n old enough to sit up yet, so you was just laying there, all quiet-like in the grass off the side of the road. He said if he’d a drove another two feet, you would a been squashed under his tire. But he didn’t. And you wasn’t. You was just layin’ there, like I said, all quiet-like.”
Mom adjusted herself in the recliner and leaned toward us. “Justas thought you might be dead, but when he poked you with a stick, you opened your eyes and giggled. Well, he thought that took a lot of courage. He brought you home and we kept you for a week without tellin’ no one. We checked the papers, but nobody claimed you. We was gonna turn you in, but by then Justas was heartsick in love with you. We decided best thing to do was just keep you for good. Figured it was better than you ending up in a orphanage. Besides, you was cute and had spunk. We went to the Chattahoochee health clinic and told em you was borned at home.”
“Nobody ever came to claim me?”
“Nope. Justas wanted to call you Courage, but I thought that sounded too mannish. We settled on Valiant, ’cause at least you could have a good nickname – Val. See? What’n that smart a me?”
Mom looked at me for praise and approval. I smiled politely and nodded.
“I mean, what could you do with Courage? Coo? Curr? That ain’t no good. On the certificate, I wrote down your birthday as April Fools’ Day, ’cause I thought it was funny. And I still wat’n sure what we were doing wat’n foolish. Get it? Anyhoo, them folks at the clinic didn’t ask no questions. Just typed up the certificate. And that’s how you came to be our other daughter, Valiant W. Jolly.”
“Why didn’t you tell me later, when I was grown?”
“Tell you what? That you was throwed out like trash? That nobody wanted you? What good would a come a that?”
Her words stung, but they made sense in hindsight. “You did the right thing, Mom.”
Mom looked defiant. “I know that. You ain’t got to tell me.”
“Okay. Sorry. Mom, I know it sounds weird, but did you find anything in my diaper?”
“Besides a mess a turds? Woo, child you stunk to high heaven! But now that you mention it, yep. There was something. I plum near forgot about it.” Mom laughed to herself. “Darndest thing. It was a little jewelry bug. A moth or a June bug or somethin’. I remember it woulda been purty if it wat’n busted.”
“Do you still have it?”
“I used to catch you playin’ with it all the time. I had to hide it away. ’Fraid you might swaller it. Last time I seen it, it was in the bottom drawer of my jewelry box. Why don’t you go fetch it, Valiant.”
I raced to Mom’s bedroom. Buried amongst piles of lotions and perfume bottles, I found her jewelry box. I opened the bottom drawer. At the back underneath a tangled heap of cheap costume jewelry, I found what I was looking for. A little blue-bodied dragonfly with one green wing. I held it to my chest, closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
Apparently, my sentimentality was taking too long for Mrs. Short. I heard her voice from the living room. “Valiant! You die in there or somethin’?”
I opened my eyes and smiled. When I walked back into the living room, Tom was standing. He rushed over and put his hands on my shoulders. “Did you find it?”
“Yes.” I opened my palm and showed him the dragonfly.
“Amazing,” he said, shaking his head.
“Let me have a look!” Mom complained. I held the jewelry out for her to see. “Yep, that’s it. I was gonna trade that thang to your Aunt Vera-Jane for a set of Harlequin Romance novels. But when she saw it was busted the deal was off.”
My mom. Ms. Lucille Jolly Short. An ironic blend of incredible generosity and unbelievable thoughtlessness. I stared at the woman I’d called my mother for 45 years. She had always been a stranger to me. Now that I knew she actually was, I’d never felt so close to her. How ironic can life get? The woman I thought had ruined my life had actually saved it. Literally.
Tom interrupted my thoughts. “Sorry to say it ladies, but we’ve got to go. Val, the clock’s ticking.”
I hugged the woman who had raised me, and thought about the one who, long ago, had to let me go. Whether Glad left me behind, Bobby tossed me out a car window, or Tony’s father paid Jacob to snatch me away and leave me for dead, none of it mattered any longer. I suddenly felt whole and happy and loved. And that was all the answer I’d ever been looking for.
***
It was almost five when we drove away. Mom didn’t see us off at the door. It was time for The Price is Right. Dale drove up in the golf cart as we were leaving. I got out and gave him a hug and promised to see him again soon. “We love you, Val,” he said as I climbed back into Tom’s 4Runner.
“I love you, too, Dale.”
Tom hit the gas, raising a cloud of orange dust on the clay road. Once we were on I-10, I realized I was absolutely famished.
“Have we got time for a Chattaburger?” I asked.
“Does it come with fries?” Tom teased and shot me a lurid look.
I blushed. Tom noticed and switched gears. “Big day for you. How you holding up?”
“Okay, actually. I feel pretty good. I don’t know how to describe it. Lighter, I guess.”
“Too bad you returned that other piece of the dragonfly pin. It would have been nice to see if it fit. It would be the final piece du résistance.”
“I uh….”
“You kept it. I knew it!” Tom grinned. “You are a thief, Valiant Fremden!”
“I am not!” I shot back.
“Then why did you keep it?”
“Let’s just say I had a gut feeling it belonged to me.”
“Funny girl.”
I fished around in my purse and found the little silver oval encrusted with green stones. I touched it to the broken part of the dragonfly pendant. It fit perfectly. My last doubts evaporated.
“I guess it’s official. I really am Glad’s daughter.”
“So then, Glad’s daughter, do you really want to celebrate with a Chattaburger? The exit’s coming up.”
“Sure.”
Tom hooked a right on the Chattahoochee exit and in a couple of minutes we were at a picnic table, munching on Chattaburgers and fries. I had to admit. They were delicious. They really should be world famous.
“I’m curious,” said Tom, after washing down a mouthful of burger with a swig of root beer. “You’re Valiant. Your dad was Justice. Those are some pretty heavy-duty names for simple country folk.”
“Simple country folk? Really?” I laughed. “You know how I got my name. My dad’s name wasn’t Justice Jolly as in J-U-S-T-I-C-E. It was Justas. J-U-S-T-A-S. As in, ‘Just as Jolly.’ He told me once that his family wanted him to be just as jolly as he could be. It was a play on words. Get it?”
“Yeah. So your weird sense of humor runs in the family.”
“I guess. Wait. They’re not my true family. Are you trying to be ironic?”
“Maybe,” Tom teased, affecting his bad Southern accent. “I heard you do love you some irony.”
I shook my head. “I do love irony. But irony doesn’t love me back. I guess I’m unlucky at love all around. Maybe I just know too much.”
Tom leaned across the picnic table until his face was just inches from my own. He touched the side of my face tenderly. “Maybe you just don’t know enough.” He kissed me hard on the mouth. I nearly fainted all over again.
***
I dreamt I was at the beach by Caddy’s. I spied an old woman on a pink lounger. I walked up and sat next to her. She smiled at me with crooked red lips and poked me on the arm. She didn’t say a word. She just kept poking me gently near my shoulder. Finally, she whispered something in my ear. “Hey. You awake?”
The voice was too deep to be Glad’s. My lids flew open and I stared at two sea-green eyes. Tom! It all came flooding back. We hadn’t made it to St. Petersburg last night. Instead, we’d stopped and shared a room, and more, at the Sandman Inn. I won’t go into details, but I will say this: I’ve definitely changed my mind about cops in Quincy.
“Redneck foreplay. Ha ha. Do you always remember every joke someone tells you?” I grumbled playfully, shifting to my side under the sheets.
“Afraid so. Part of cop training.”
Tom’s blond hair was still damp from the shower. He knelt beside the bed wearing nothing but a towel and a sexy, crooked smile. He kissed me lightly on the forehead, then crawled under the covers and wrapped me in his strong, warm arms. He brushed my hair back from my face and gave me another one of his fabulous, knee-melting kisses.
“You’re beautiful when you’re all messed up in the morning,” he teased.
“Just in the morning?”
“Oh, that’s right. You’re messed up all the time.”
“That’s not what I meant!” I bit him on the ear.
He laughed and kissed me again, making my toes curl.
“I hate to say it, Val, but we’ve got to be on our w
ay. Ticking clock and all that. Are you ready to roll?”
Yes, I was ready to roll. And I was ready to be on my way.
Epilogue
I could hardly believe it. In less than a month I went from hapless hobo to happy heiress. I wish you could have seen the look on Bulldog Goldrich’s face when she found out Glad’s daughter turned out to be me! I honestly thought she might shit a puppy! And as much as I love irony, I think it must actually love me more. If Bulldog Woman hadn’t punched me in the nose, she’d have gotten away with Tony’s fortune.
And yes, it turns out that it was a fortune. Tony’s hovel of a house was in a truly sorry state. But while Tom and I and the stooges were cleaning out the mountains of garbage, we came across a trash bag full of uncashed pension checks and stock certificates worth nearly half a million dollars! Garbage wasn’t the only thing my real father hoarded, and his trash ended up becoming my treasure – yet another irony that made me smile. For helping me, I gave Jorge, Goober and Winky each a $5,000 finder’s fee. I didn’t tell them it was for helping me finally find myself.
My Double Booty synopsis didn’t win me a contract. But the book is still a work in progress. So are Tom and I. With his help, I’m learning more and more every day that it’s not the destination but the laughs along the journey that count. Life feels good. I thought about calling Tamella and a few other fair-weather friends to let them know of my good fortune. Then I realized I really didn’t give a crap anymore what they thought. Sweet!
I’m holding on to my amateur detective hat, too. Right now I’m helping Tom gather information in hopes of solving his old cold case, The Buckaroo Bandit. Jacob Timms better watch his back. It turns out that Tom is a pretty persistent guy when he finds something that really interests him.
As for Glad, I guess I’ll never know the true story of my real mother, or how we came to be separated. But I have my own precious memories of her. I cherish those six beautiful weeks on Sunset Beach when she taught me how to smile at life again. I got to know her right before her own sunset, and for that I will always be grateful. Part of me likes to believe Glad knew somehow, deep inside, that I was her daughter. But either way, she was a true blessing to many of us. It’s weird, but thinking back on it now, I found my real mother on Mother’s Day. I guess my life really was built on irony!
Glad One: Starting Over is a %$#@&! (Val & Pals Book 2) Page 24
