by Gail Cleare
“Wake up,” she cried happily. “We’ve got a hot lead.”
Jake opened one eye. “Where to, fearless leader?”
She smiled at him with a determination she had never felt before. “325 Hawthorne Street, to see a woman who used to work in the nursery here.”
“Aha. Sounds promising.”
While he typed the address into the GPS, she dialed her cell phone. After a short conversation, she nodded to Jake. “Okay, she’s home and willing to see me. Let’s go.”
Bridget wished she were driving so she could step down harder on the accelerator. She tried to be patient as Jake carefully pulled out of the parking lot. This was not the time to let her emotions take control. She was on her way to have the most important conversation of her life so far.
A woman in her late sixties answered the door of the little white house with green shutters. “Just call me Sandy,” she said, laughing, when Bridget stumbled over her last name. She offered iced tea, and they sat in a pair of rocking chairs on the screened front porch.
Sandy remembered Bridget’s baby very well and for good reason. “Believe me, it wasn’t every day that a child to be adopted was picked up by a chauffeur-driven limousine with a private duty nurse and a gorgeous woman, like a model or a princess, dressed all in white silk. Not to mention a tennis bracelet of diamonds the size of chickpeas.”
Bridget instantly knew the woman Sandy was describing had to be Cole’s mother, Evelyn Longworth. Bridget had seen that bracelet many times when waiting on their table at dinner. It was hard to miss.
“Sweetest little golden-haired, blue-eyed girl I ever saw.” Sandy patted Bridget’s hand. “I always felt bad about taking her away from you.”
“We thought it was the best thing at the time.” Bridget felt her voice catch.
“Well, at least you know she went to a rich home where she’d be well taken care of.”
“Yes, I’m sure she did. Her grandmother would see to that.”
“That was her grandmother, then?” Sandy rocked and sipped her tea.
“Yes, I’m pretty sure.” Bridget took a big swallow, trying to wash down her anger.
Sandy’s worried look split into a wide smile. “Well, then, see? It all worked out fine after all. Funny how that happens sometimes.”
Bridget’s anger toward Cole and his family simmered over the next few days, expanding as it grew hotter. How dare they take the baby and not tell her? How dare they let her think, all those years, that the child had gone to strangers and been lost forever?
Bridget decided on the direct approach: she called Cole on the telephone. It wasn’t hard to find him in the national white pages on the Internet. He was the only Coleman Montague Longworth listed, so his father must have died. Cole was now an attorney in West Palm Beach. She called his office number, having no desire to embarrass him at home.
When she gave her name to the secretary, she added, “An old friend from Stockbridge.”
He picked right up.
“Bridget?” His voice was a little lower but still recognizable. “Is it really you?”
“Yes, it really is.” She tried to keep her tone even and light.
“I have thought of you so many times over the years,” he said enthusiastically, the way one might speak to an old friend. “How have you been?”
“I’m well, Cole. How are you doing, and your family?” She kept her tone polite but distant, surprised that he wasn’t giving her the cold, aloof-aristocrat treatment. She had rehearsed for that but heard an unexpected warmth instead.
“My parents are both gone now, but Jack and my sisters are doing great,” he said, hesitating slightly toward the end of the sentence.
“Sisters?” she said. “I only remember Martha, the one my age.”
“I thought… I-I thought you knew,” he stammered.
“You thought I knew what, Cole?”
“Mother said you knew all about it,” he said with a panicky squeak. “She spoke to you, and you agreed it was for the best.”
“Are you talking about… our daughter?” She held her breath and closed her eyes to wait for the answer.
“Of course I am. Lizzie. Elizabeth Mary Longworth, that is. We adopted her, Bridget. Mother raised her as my sister. Nobody knows who she… really is.” His voice faded to a whisper.
Bridget felt her heart leap and soar like a lark in the sunshine.
Found at last.
Found and safe.
He rambled on, oblivious to the enormous dimensions of her silence at the other end of the connection. “She looks… like me, sort of, but with your hair and eyes. Like both of us, really. She’s beautiful, Bridget. And smart and funny. You’d be proud, I think.”
Bridget began to shake. She wanted to laugh and cry and scream at him, all at the same time. She tried to speak, but her voice cracked. Taking a deep breath, she clutched the telephone and steadied herself.
“I want to see her, Cole. Does she know who she is? She’s twenty-eight. You must have told her by now, haven’t you?”
“Well, not exactly. No, actually.” His voice trailed off.
“What?” She wanted to jump through the phone and throttle him.
“Well, Mother always thought it was important not to make her feel insecure. We didn’t want her to worry about being taken away or think she wasn’t wanted.” He sounded put upon, as though she were unfairly criticizing him.
Bridget tried to reason with him though she was still furious. “How could she worry about that if she knew what your parents went through to get her?”
“I mean, not wanted by… you, her mother. We didn’t want her to know you had given her away. You did it willingly, you know. Nobody forced you.” He shot the accusatory words at her like bullets, and they all hit the target dead center.
Bridget’s eyes filled with tears. “I was so young, and it all happened so fast, and my father forced me. I’ve been looking for her for all these years, Cole.” Her voice shook.
“Oh my God, Bridget.” Cole’s tone softened as he began to understand the truth of what had happened. “I’m so sorry. She was safe with me the whole time. I thought you knew where to find her. I figured you just weren’t interested.”
There was a moment’s silence while Bridget closed her eyes and stopped herself from shouting into the phone. “Cole, I am very interested.” She spat the clipped words out one at a time, each syllable loaded with venom.
“Okay, I get it, okay. I’m so sorry, Bridget.” He sounded sincere, and knowing what she did of his mother, Bridget found it easy to believe the woman had lied to him.
She dropped her hostile attitude and reached out to start anew. “Really? Well, then, what can we arrange?”
They talked on amicably after that for nearly an hour, and Cole filled Bridget in on the status of his life and his family. He was married, with three kids. Two were off in college. Lizzie was engaged and living in Boston. She worked for a regional magazine, and her fiancé was in medical school at Harvard.
Cole reluctantly agreed to tell Lizzie the truth. “It seems like now is the time to try and set things right.”
The only person who had kept them apart all these years, his mother, was dead and gone.
Chapter 34
Mary ~ April, 1968
Mary climbed up the front steps of Madigan General Hospital in Tacoma, Washington, a US Army evacuation hospital for troops wounded in Vietnam. At fourteen weeks pregnant, she had difficulty hauling herself toward the top, but she managed to do it without drawing attention to herself. So far, the baby didn’t show, and nobody had mentioned it. But Mary felt the tightness at her waist and knew those days were numbered.
She spoke to the sergeant by the door. She returned his salute, and he pointed her toward a desk in the lobby, where a recept
ionist confirmed she was on the approved-visitors list for Lieutenant Commander Thomas Reilly, second floor south, room 283. She found the elevator and nervously smoothed the skirt of her dress uniform. Mary’s civilian clothes were all back home at her parents’ house. Now that her tour of duty was over and she was leaving the army, she’d have to buy some clothes fast. She’d come to see Thomas straightaway after landing in the US and hadn’t had time for shopping.
Mary made her way to the room containing six curtained beds. Thomas lay in the one by the window with his left leg in a cast from foot to hip, raised up by a pulley device. His head was wrapped in bandages, one of which covered his left eye. Both hands were also bandaged, and the few parts of him that were still visible were marked by assorted cuts and bruises.
While she watched, he struggled to pick up a paper cup from his bedside table and fumbled, spilling water on himself and the bed. The cup went flying, and Thomas lay helpless, trying to pull the wet sheet off his body, unable to pick it up. He hung his head, and she saw his shoulders shake.
Mary stepped forward.
“Hello, Thomas.” She lay her hand gently on his shoulder.
His right eye focused on her face, and a smile came slowly to his lips. “Mary? Is it you?”
“Yes, darling.” She heard his voice, and a jolt of overwhelming love rushed through her. She thought of the last time she’d seen him, their engagement party at Honey’s. The way they’d felt then, so hopeful and optimistic and with such a bright future, began to trickle into her memory like light finding its way through a crack in a wall.
“I can’t believe it. It’s really you, not a dream this time.” He peered down at her left hand, where the diamond sparkled. “You’re still wearing it. My ring.”
Mary leaned forward to kiss him. “You bet I am. You didn’t think you’d get away so easily, did you?” It was really Thomas, her Thomas. Under those bandages was the tall, handsome Irishman whom everyone loved, the man she loved. For so long, she’d thought of him as gone. To see him alive and healing seemed unreal. “It would take a lot more than getting shot down and captured by the Viet Cong to escape me,” she said, teasing.
He laughed, but it obviously hurt him. She noticed his broken ribs were still taped. The report they’d sent said his eye was intact, just bandaged shut while the cornea healed. The poor man was a wreck.
Mary melted into her professional nursing personality and chatted with him, bustling around to change the sheets, bathe his hands and face, feed him some applesauce. She sat with him every day for a week, and they talked, or he slept and she consulted with the hospital staff about his condition and plan of care. Mary noticed that his flinch reflex was abnormally strong. He recoiled if she gestured suddenly as if she were about to hit him. His doctor told her they thought Thomas might have been tortured though he wouldn’t talk about it.
The phrase Post-Vietnam Syndrome was being used to describe a condition he might have to contend with, as many veterans did. The nurses warned Mary to be prepared for major changes in his personality due to depression, inability to concentrate, insomnia, and nightmares. Hopefully, those difficulties would resolve over time. His injuries would take six months or more to heal, and then he’d need physical therapy to rebuild the muscles in his leg so he could walk.
The jolly, happy Thomas Reilly seemed to still be MIA. Instead, Mary saw a frightened, brave man who needed her love and compassion to help fight off his demons. His vulnerability spoke to her.
“Do you still want to marry me, Thomas?” she asked him quite seriously.
“Are you kidding?” His one eye opened wide. “It’s what I’ve been staying alive for, like we said that night at Honey’s. If you don’t marry me now, I may as well go back to that camp and let them cut me into little pieces.”
Mary recognized the fear in his voice and made her decision. “Never say such a thing! And of course I’ll marry you. Just wanted to be sure you’ll still have me.”
“Can you wait for me, Mary, just a little longer? I’ve got this pesky broken leg… and a couple other little bumps…”
“No problem. I’ll be ready to take over any nursing duties required as soon as the doctors think you’re ready to come home. Then we can talk about planning our wedding, right?”
“I can’t wait, and boy, do I mean that. Even with just one eye, you look good enough to eat, baby.”
Mary laughed, then she looked down at her hands. “They say it will be a few months, Thomas. I’d better go home and live with my parents until then, don’t you think? I’m not officially in the army anymore as of tomorrow, and I’ve nowhere to stay out here, no job.”
“Yes, of course. That makes sense.” He didn’t sound too convinced. “Wish it weren’t so far away.”
Mary knew she had to persuade him to agree. “We can call, and write, and send photos.”
“Sure we can. That’ll be fine.” He gave in, though his tone was wistful. “I sure do love you, Mary. Can’t even tell you how much. I promise to get well real fast. It’s the perfect motivation.”
She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the mouth. In a flash, she thought of Jake, whose luxuriant moustache gave kissing a special frisson of danger. Then she brought herself back to that moment, to Thomas—the man she’d promised to marry, the man who said he loved her.
“If you’re not out of this place in a few months, I’ll come and get you,” she teased, raising one eyebrow. “So have no fear. By the way, did you hear about my friend Charlotte and that guy Steve, the ones we used to go out with?” She tried for a casual, light tone as she prepared to fish for information.
“Nope, don’t hear much gossip from this hospital bed, Mary.”
She busied herself tidying the bedside table, pouring him another glass of water.
“Well,” she said, “Charlotte was working out in one of the field hospitals and took pity on some soldier when she thought he was going to die. Turns out she got pregnant. So Steve stepped up and offered to marry her, adopt the child. Isn’t that something? Guess he was always sweet on her.” Mary chattered casually, making up the story as she went along to see how he would react.
Thomas snorted. “What an idiot. Pick up after some other GI’s roll in the hay? So he’s going to have to feed and clothe that brat for what, sixteen years? Hope he gets a hell of a lot of yard work out of him.”
Mary turned to face him. “Really? You don’t think it’s an admirable and Christian thing to do? Think of the poor child.” Her pulse began to pound faster as the discussion got heated.
“Mary, you can’t be serious. I know you have a soft heart, dear one, but please don’t tell me you’ve brought home a houseful of slant-eyed, blond-haired babies in your luggage. I want our own children, not somebody else’s.”
“But—” she sputtered, disappointment swelling over her as she realized she would never persuade him to take on the child in her belly as his own.
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Mary. I know there are a lot of kids out there who need help, but let someone who can’t have kids of their own adopt them. They’ll be thrilled to do it. If you want to help, do some charity work to put couples together with unwanted babies. Catholic Charities does that kind of work, don’t they?”
“Yes, they do.” She stared into space, her mind racing through options and calculations.
“You should check into it, Mary. It’d be good for you, keep you busy while I’m recovering.”
Mary watched his face while his good eye fell shut and he drifted off to sleep. Yes, it would definitely keep her busy for about six more months. And then something would have to be arranged.
She thought wistfully of Jake, her accomplice in pregnancy. When they were together, time stood still and the war went away for a while. When Thomas was MIA, she had thought there would be a future for her and Jake aft
er the war. Their connection was electric, shattering. But her lover, who’d carefully avoided using the word love, had apparently moved on with his life while she waited for her tour of duty to end. After his release from the hospital in Boston, he’d promptly married his former high-school sweetheart, Virginia.
Before telling Jake about the baby, Mary had wanted to find out how Thomas might react. Now she knew there was no way he would raise another man’s child as she had hoped. She suspected Jake might respond well to news of a baby coming, but his wife would probably be another story.
The words Thomas had said were prophetic: “Let someone who can’t have kids of their own adopt them.” Especially if the husband is the child’s natural father. Why not?
That way, Mary could have everything she wanted—a marriage to Thomas in Massachusetts and a safe haven for the baby with his or her father just a few hours away, as well as a chance to see Jake again and secretly visit her child. As long as Ginnie didn’t object, it would work out beautifully. Mary would have to make her a best friend, a bosom buddy. She would earn Ginnie’s trust. Then everything would be perfect forever after.
Chapter 35
Nell ~ 2014
As the summer slowly passed back at home in New Jersey, Nell drove the kids to day camp and sports, got David the special vitamins he wanted at the organic foods store, and vacuumed the pool every afternoon so it was spotless when he got home from work and did his laps. At night, she lay in the brass bed next to him and sweated while the window fan blew hot humid air across them. David thought it was wasteful to use air conditioning at night unless there was a major life-threatening heat wave.
Nell lay awake in the damp spot her head made on the pillow while she watched the way moonlight shone down through the skylight, remembering the long, snaky shadows of trees on the lawn in her mother’s garden and the scent of lemons and turpentine. She longed for green that glowed like neon and the taste of clean air.
