Ties That Bind

by Debbie White

I looked at Charles, “We have to locate Thomas or his mother. That could lead us to my biological mother.”

  I lowered my eyes briefly. When I raised them, I was looking squarely into Louise’s. “Teresa was never kind to me. I wondered why the hate. For a brief time, I even wondered if Teresa could be my mother. Wouldn’t that be a twist of fate,” I said.

  “You know dear, back in the day, it was common for kinfolk to take on babies of unmarried family members and raise them as their own. I don’t know if that is the case with your story, but it could be. I don’t know why Irma or Teresa was so evil to you, but I had heard through the grapevine that Lyle worshiped the ground you walked on. Maybe they were jealous of his love for you.”

  “I thought that at first, but something just doesn’t add up. If Irma didn’t want to adopt me, why didn’t she turn me over to the authorities when they reported finding me? Instead, they raised me as their own.”

  “Maybe Lyle was your real dad,” she said candidly.

  It was strange how this lady, whom I have discovered to be my cousin Louise, had gone from mean and not wanting anything to do with us, to being the most helpful person we had met so far. I just had to know what made her decide to open up.

  “Why are you sharing all this information with us now? Before, you were determined not to talk to us. What changed your mind?”

  She sighed, “I decided that the secrets had been kept long enough. I mean this is the year 1985. Who cares what people did back in the day? I, for one, don’t.”

  “Do you have any other secrets to reveal?” Charles asked in his best investigator’s voice.

  “Well, just that I have a couple of addresses you might want to check out,” she said as she went into the other room in search of something.

  She returned with an address book, sat down, and laid it open on the table. With one hand, she turned the pages, and with the other she wrote some things down on a piece of paper.

  Handing me the piece of paper, she said, “These will probably be useful to you.”

  * * *

  We drove to the first address. We pulled up alongside a cemetery. Charles and I took a second glance at the address on the paper and compared it to the street marker. It was the same. We parked the car and walked amongst the graves. We found a marker that read, “Thomas Bowman.”

  “Why didn’t she tell us he died?” Charles said in disgust.

  “I need to talk to Teresa again,” I said walking away, but not before taking a picture of the grave marker.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next few days were spent busily putting together the pieces of our giant jigsaw puzzle. The dining table wasn’t suitable for eating anymore as newspaper clippings, and scribbled notes on yellow legal size pads dotted the surface. Just like old times, we made our way to the large oval coffee table and there among the overflow of data, to eat most of our meals.

  “This next meeting with Francis is crucial,” Charles said as he worked diligently placing events in chronological order.

  I watched as Charles made a timeline. He scratched things out, added more items, deleted others, and on and on he went. My head was spinning from all the dates, places, and names.

  Francis had agreed to meet us at the same coffee shop as last time.

  We were fully prepared this time. Charles had a small tape recorder, and I armed myself with a brand new yellow legal pad. I learned shorthand while in business school, and, every so often, it comes in handy.

  * * *

  We arrived early and found a table where Charles could seat himself facing the door and see when Francis walked in. I was feeling nervous; the butterflies in my stomach were fluttering away. I felt a small wave of nausea, but after a few sips of water, it passed.

  Francis showed up soon after and joined us at our table. He immediately placed a large photo album on the tabletop in front of us. I was hoping it contained pictures of my family and me.

  “Thank you for meeting us today, Francis,” Charles said.

  “Yes, thank you,” I added.

  He cleared his throat. “This here is a photo album that spans about thirty years or more.”

  I instinctively reached for the album carefully opening the cover. I flipped through the pages until I came across one I remembered of Daddy, Teresa and I standing in front of our old car.

  “I remember when this was taken,” I said excitedly. “Daddy had just bought this car. He was so proud of it. He wanted a picture taken, so Mother obliged him, but she was scowling the whole time.”

  Charles and Francis let out a chuckle.

  “It seems funny now, but then, she never seemed to be happy about anything that involved Daddy—or me for that matter.”

  I continued to flip pages. But I stopped when one picture caught my eye. Francis realized what I was looking at. “That’s,” he said pointing, “Teresa, her husband, Eddie, and their son, James.”

  “Yes, I recognize Teresa. I didn’t know Eddie or James. Teresa moved back here to Iowa, and she must’ve met Eddie then,” I said looking up at Francis for acknowledgment.

  “Yes, she met Eddie Spencer at a dance hall in Sioux City.”

  I went through the rest of the album, but it was mostly people I didn’t recognize. I closed the cover and slid it back to Francis. He opened it back up and started naming names, and places of the ones I hadn’t known. I had missed a picture of Whitey.

  “He was my favorite cousin,” I said.

  “By the way, we drove out to the nursing home, but Teresa was angry and told us to leave,” I told Francis.

  “I’m sorry she did that to you. Give her some time,” Francis muttered.

  “Time? I may not have that much time. We didn’t move here to Iowa. We’ll only be here a short while longer,” I said.

  Charles told Francis about our second visit to the farmhouse and how Louise was more forthcoming and had told us about another child of my Dad.

  “Oh, you mean Thomas,” he said matter-of-factly.

  I guess I was the only one that didn’t know about him. Francis told us he was about four years older than me. I couldn’t fathom how they kept him a secret.

  “He lived with his mother,” Francis replied.

  Francis shed light on a new woman in my dad’s life, Thomas’s mom.

  “I knew Teresa was from an earlier relationship of Daddy’s but had no idea there were two children.”

  “It wasn’t just a relationship. He was married to Thomas’s mother,” Francis said.

  “Married?” I said, shocked by the news.

  Francis nodded, confirming that indeed Lyle, my daddy, had a previous marriage—other than to Teresa’s mother. I tried to figure out how that could be. Had he divorced Irma, and then remarried her later? Now things were getting interesting.

  “Her name was Mary,” Francis told us.

  “Mary?” I queried. “Mary as in the initial M that is on the census form we have?” I said shaking.

  It turned out that Francis had a wealth of information. More than we could have ever discovered on our own. He gave us names and addresses, he confirmed that Louise was indeed a cousin on my daddy’s side, and also that Thomas was indeed my half-brother.

  “Why do you suppose Louise didn’t want to talk to us at first, but then later opened up?” I asked Francis.

  “She’s kind of eccentric, that one. I think all the Bowman’s were kind of different in one way or another,” he said.

  “Different?” I asked a bit hurt.

  “Well, I don’t mean any harm by it, but it’s just that they were so good about keeping all the darn secrets—even Lyle, your daddy was good at that. He may have been a good man in your eyes, but he has some part in all of this mess,” he spluttered out.

  “That’s fair enough,” I admitted. Taking my cue from Charles that I was getting a bit over-heated, I backed down and let Charles and Francis talk.

  “Ok, we now know that Louise is related to Pat and that she has a half-brother who is now decea
sed. What can you tell us about Thomas’s mother?”

  * * *

  We agreed that the meeting with Francis accomplished something.

  “Louise must know who my mother is then?” I said as we prepared dinner.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s as if she’s been sworn to secrecy over this crap. Maybe if we stumble on the truth, she’ll come clean, but in the meanwhile we have to do all the digging,” Charles said as he set the table for dinner.

  Over a glass of wine, we went over the information we’d uncovered thus far. We laid out the information in an organized fashion among the rest of the stuff we’d collected. Charles looked at each piece with an eye of an investigator.

  We plotted out our agenda for the following day. We were going to visit the last known address of the mysterious woman who gave birth to Thomas.

  Chapter Fifteen

  On the drive to Mary’s house, I told Charles that I was getting tired of the circus, and all the running around we were doing just to find out names and associations.

  “Don’t tell me you want to give up. We’ve come a long way, and, I think we’ve done pretty well in uncovering information for the little time we’ve been here.”

  “I know you think that, but I know this family probably better than I realized. They’ve always been good at keeping secrets, not dealing with issues, and quite frankly, I don’t know why I ever felt so compelled to do this.”

  “I’ll tell you why you felt determined to do this. You felt depressed, needed answers, and wanted to find out if you had any blood relations left alive,” he said.

  “I love you, Charles. You are the best thing that ever happened to me–besides our beautiful children. It seems we’re just chasing our tails. I’m sorry for that. I know you don’t like to give up, or be defeated. I’ve made up my mind, though. We’ll check on these last couple of leads. After that, we’re packing it up and going home. Home. I love the sound of that word.”

  Charles pulled the car over, parked, and pointed to a large gray-stoned house with a wraparound porch. “This must be the house. It’s the address Francis gave us as the last known address of Mary.”

  “This is a very nice neighborhood. I wonder where my dad met this Mary person,” I said, taking in the house and the grounds.

  “Well, let’s get this over with.” Charles knocked three times. There was no answer.

  “No one must be home,” I said and turned to descend the stairs.

  Then there was a loud creak, and I turned to see the front door slowly open. There standing in the narrow doorway was an elderly woman with a walker.

  I came alongside Charles as he handed the woman one of our business cards.

  “Hello, I’m Charles, and this is my wife, Pat. We were wondering if we could take a few moments of your time. My wife,” he explained, nodding my way, “is the daughter of Irma and Lyle Bowman. Did you know them?”

  The woman looked me up and down. Then she turned her attention to Charles. She nodded. “I do. I did.”

  Charles shifted his weight. “Are you Mary?”

  She nodded, stepped back, and opened the door wide. Motioning for us to come inside she said, “I am. Please, come in.”

  We entered a large formal living room; she seated herself in the center of a beautiful brocade couch and then motioned for us to be seated in a pair of large wingback chairs.

  “Would either of you care for some tea?”

  Feeling not only comfortable in her home, but also with her kindness, for a moment I hoped that she was my mom.

  “Yes, tea would be nice,” I said nodding.

  “How about you Charles, would you like some tea as well?” Mary asked as she pulled herself up from the couch, grabbing her walker.

  Jumping up from my chair, I followed Mary to the kitchen and offered my assistance.

  “So,” she said looking at us while sipping her tea. “I don’t get many visitors. This is a treat. What can I do for you?”

  I didn’t know where to start. I wanted to spew out all the questions I had stored in my brain, yet I knew that wouldn’t be polite, and could cause her to become tight-lipped. We didn’t want that. I did the best thing and looked over to Charles giving him the cue to ask the first few questions.

  “As I mentioned, Pat was the daughter of Lyle and Irma Bowman. You must have known them. We’re trying to find out some ancestry information. Pat is searching her family tree. We’re on an extended vacation gathering data to put together the tree.”

  I loved how Charles could get people to open up to him. He was the best private investigator in the entire world as far as I was concerned.

  Mary put her cup down on the glass top coffee table and cleared her throat. “I did know them. I knew them well.” She looked at me long and hard.

  I felt a large lump in my throat, and my heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest.

  “It was a long time ago. I was young and very impressionable. I was looking for love, but in all the wrong places as the song says,” she said laughing at her words.

  I was starting to feel like I was going to get all my answers in one fell swoop—here at Mary’s house. I inched forward on the couch, eager for the few words I was desperate to hear.

  “I met Lyle over at his cousins’ house. I was friends with his cousins’ younger sister.”

  Already knowing the answer, I queried, “Which cousin is that?”

  “Louise.”

  Charles and I looked at each other then turned to Mary. “You know we’ve been to Louise’s house, don’t you?” I asked her.

  She nodded. “I’ve been waiting for you to come.”

  I swallowed hard. “Tell us more, please.”

  “I was seventeen years old and Lyle . . . well, Lyle was twenty-five and just divorced. He’d been married to Teresa’s mom. Anyway, he was sweet, kind, and something about him intrigued me.”

  “Did you get married?” I blurted out.

  “We did. It was a small ceremony. My parents were livid I was marrying an older man. They disapproved of the marriage. It tore me apart that they didn’t want anything to do with me or our son.”

  “Thomas. My half-brother,” I confirmed.

  Mary got up from the sofa and retrieved a photo album from a nearby shelf. “The housekeeper isn’t doing her job,” she said blowing off the dust. “Come and sit over by me. I can tell you more while we look at the photos,” she pleaded.

  I flipped through the album noticing the age of the pictures. Most of them were black and white.

  “This was Thomas when he was about one,” and flipping the pages she pointed to another one, “and this was when he was about two.”

  Pointing to an image of a young couple sprawled on a blanket and looked to be having a picnic, she said, “That’s your daddy and me.”

  “You both look very happy together,” I replied.

  She nodded. “I loved your daddy. He was the nicest man. I could never understand what he saw in Irma. She was so mean and domineering. In fact, he told me later that Irma was a lot like Teresa’s mother, and he couldn’t believe he fell for the same type of woman twice.”

  “What happened to you and Daddy? How did he ever end up with Irma anyway?” I asked.

  “Well, that’s the twisted part of this whole story.”

  “One night he was out with his partying cousin, and he ran into Irma. One thing led to another, and he was unfaithful to me. It was just a one-night stand, and it didn’t mean anything to him, but I was hurt, and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to trust him again. At first, we tried to work it out, but images of Lyle and Irma kept creeping back into my mind. It didn’t help that she put the pressure on him as well. She told him if he didn’t leave Thomas and me, she’d make his life a living hell. Ours too.”

  “She was an evil woman, that Irma. So between me not being able to trust him, and Irma always interfering, we divorced,” she murmured.

  “Thomas was hurt and never quite forgave Lyle. I for
gave him. I knew my heart wouldn’t heal and be able to move forward if I didn’t forgive him. I guess that’s the Christian in me,” she told us.

  “I don’t know if I could have been so forgiving. I truthfully didn’t know Daddy could be capable of anything so distasteful either. I guess in my eyes he was the hero, and nothing Irma did was right. I’m not sure if I should feel sorry for Daddy and the miserable life he had with her.”

  “Don’t be so hard on him, dear. It was so long ago.”

  “When Irma and Lyle moved to California, I was relieved. I wouldn’t have to see him, or her for that matter and . . .”

  “And?” I asked after a long pause.

  “And you.”

  “Who is my mother?” I blurted out.

  “I don’t know,” she said getting comfortable on the couch.

  “Well, we have an old census sheet showing Irma with a child at the Mt. Saint Francis convent. You wouldn’t be that M. Brown, would you?” The investigative side of me asked.

  “If you’re trying to connect me with her, don’t bother,” she said disgustedly. “I’m not related to her in any way, shape or form. The “M” you refer to is for Irma. Her real name was Mary Irma. Folks around here just called her Irma.”

  Stunned with the new information, I looked to Charles. “M. Brown was Irma. What about the P. Brown that was with her?” I asked.

  “Well. I don’t know for certain, but I’m betting it was her little pain in the butt sister, Priscilla Inez. But she was called Inez around here.”

  “When was the last time you saw Teresa?” I boldly asked.

  “Oh, it’s been years. However, this is a small town, so back in the day, we’d run into each other now and then. We didn’t hate each other; we just didn’t respect one another.”

  “Oh, why is that?” I asked.

  “Well, she always saw any woman that came into Lyle’s life as someone who had the potential to steal his love for her. She had some issues for sure. She was a bratty child, and from what I’ve been told, and, even more, hostile adult. Irma was the only one who could keep her in line. I think she was afraid of her.”