by Carol Coffey
“What happened then?” Eileenasked.
“I had a lovely teacher there, a nun. She wrote to Nella for me, telling her where I was and, after that, every single week for almost eleven years we wrote to each other. Sister Bernadette would come to the dorm and read Nella’s letter to me and then write a reply. Once, the day before Christmas Day, Nellacame to see me on her own. She was only twelve and I was fourteen. She’d hitched a ride to Bethlehem and then on again to Lansdale and then another to Philadelphia. She never told me how bad things had gotten for her family then. I didn’t hear about that until later. It took her fourteen hours to get here and she was soaked to the skin. She hid in my room until Christmas morning just so I wouldn’t have to wake up on my own. I’ll never forget it, never forget what a true friend she is.”
Nella stood quickly, cleared some of the plates from the table and took them to the kitchen area. She waved her hand impatiently, embarrassed by the attention.
“Then, the day I turned eighteen, I was called to the manager’s office at the front of the house.”
Cassie smiled and Nella burst out laughing. This part of the story was obviously something that had brought them much joy over the years.
“I knew my way around that whole building by then and as soon as I went into the office I could sense that there was someone else in the room. The manager said: ‘Ms Thomas, your aunt has sent her maid to take you home.’” Cassie faked a snobbish accent.
“Before I could say anything, I could hear Nella’s voice. She put on this strong southern voice. Goodness, I almost laughed out loud.‘It’s Nella,’ she said. ‘Youruncle said I should bring you home now that you’re eighteen. He couldn’t come here himself on account of his breathing problem.’”
Cassie laughed aloud and Nella raised her hands to her face as she shook her head at how audacious she had been at sixteen.
“Nella had even broken into this house which had been boarded up since Daddy died. Prudence had died by then so she typed up a letter from Prudence’s husband, directing the manager to place me in Nella’s care. She even signed his name. Lucky for us the manager didn’t care enough to check the signature or to phone him. My uncle hadn’t paid for my care for years. The manager had written to him lots of times but he ignored the letters and sent no money. There wasn’t a week that went by that the manager didn’t remind me of that.”
“Lord!” Nella said, blushing heavily from the kitchen counter. “Still can’t believe I did that!” she said shaking her head.
“So you got home?” Pilar asked.
“Yes. We didn’t have a car and we had very little money,” Cassie said. “Turned out that Nella’s family didn’t even live on the orchard anymore. My aunt had written to them some years before telling them that their tenancy was revoked! For a while Nella’s family had drifted around taking work wherever they could. Then, her father drifted on alone and Nella and her mother moved back to town here. Her momma was in poor health so she died young and, like me, Nella was alone in the world. She never heard from her father again and doesn’t know what happened to him. Anyway, when we left the orphanage, we hitched most of the way here and I think we must have looked a real sorry pair. When we got here, we pulled the boards off the windows and doors and cleaned the place up. That was when I found a letter Daddy left for me in his study, explaining everything about Melibea and how she had drowned Jonathan with her in New York Harbour, least that’s what he thought had happened. He left his will there, stating that his entire estate was to be left to me when I turned eighteen. It also said that he was leaving Prudence money so that she could manage a separate fund for my education but she never did that and, when she died, her husband couldn’t have cared less about me. I don’t know what they did with the money that was supposed to be spent on me. When I went to his attorney, I couldn’t believe how much money we had. Nella had taken a job waiting tables in town and she hated it. I said to her ‘Nella, you can quit now!’”
Cassie laughed and turned her face towards her brother.
“Half of that money is yours, Jonathan.”
Jonathan shook his head.“No,” he said.
“That’s the way Daddy would have wanted it,” Cassie answered. “I’ve got more money than I could ever spend.”
“What about the orchard?” Jonathan asked.
“I was never really interested in running it, Jonathan. I remember that you loved it, even though you were such a small boy. Nella harvests a little out front just for our own use but I’m sorry to say that most of the orchard has run wild. I don’t really know why but . . . I couldn’t face getting people into harvest it. It would be like letting the last piece of Daddy go. It’s silly, I suppose, but that’s how I felt. Daddy also told me in his letter about his relationship with Melibea and how Granddaddy had taken over when the man Melibea was with demanded a ransom. I’ll show the letter to you, Jonathan. He said that his biggest regret was not standing up to Granddaddy. He believed that if he had, you would have lived. We never found out who the man was that had helped Melibea with her plans.”
Brendan flushed and looked at Eileen. He was dreading telling Cassie Thomas that his father was responsible and that Melibea, or Mariana, was his aunt.
“It turned out that Melibea wasn’t even her real name. Granddaddy had someone investigate quietly and Melibea Lopez was an American-born citizen who’d had her passport stolen in New York several years before that. I’m sure that hurt Daddy very much.” Cassie sighed. “So, for almost two years Nella and I lived here alone while we built the house across the pathway. Nella married then –”
“Don’t remind me!”Nella yelled.
Cassie laughed. “We all lived then in the new house, Nella, Robert and –”
“Told you never to mention his name!” Nella yelled.“I was only nineteen and what a mistake! That skinny fool ran off on me and left me and Cassie with two wild boys to rear!”
Cassie laughed. “They’re both gone now, in New York working,” she said proudly.
“Surprised they turned out any way at all with your spoiling!” Nella snapped.
“So we’ve been here ever since,” said Cassie, “but we often thought about you, Jonathan. We’d still go up to the clearing and place flowers at your stone on your birthday. We’d remember funny stories and try to be happy. You were never far from our thoughts.”
Jonathan smiled.“I felt it. I knew you were thinking of me. I knew there was someone out there. It’s what kept me going all those years.”
He held his sister’s hand and looked lovingly at her. There was so much to ask, so much that he didn’t know.
“What happened to Momma’s family – they’re all dead now?” he asked.
“Yes. Prudence was the last of the Chapmans and like Momma she died young.”
“What about all the money Granddaddy had?”
Cassie Thomas groaned loudly. “Well, it turned out that Granddaddy was sexist as well as everything else. His will ignored me and stated that everything was to be divided equally between you and any sons that were born out of Prudence’s marriage. You see, he hadn’t written a new will after you disappeared.”
“Did she have a son? Brendan asked.
“As I said, Prudence was quite a socialite so there was always something to read about her in the Inquirer, sometimes even in the New York Times. Sadly, she miscarried four or five times. She was seven years married when she finally had a son but the birth was difficult and she died. The poor baby had brain damage and went into state care. That husband of hers didn’t even want to care for him. You’d think being a doctor that he’d be more caring. I guess Jan Reiter is clapping his hands together now. He has complete control over that money and that poor boy wouldn’t even understand what a dollar is.”
There was a stunned silence.
“Did you say Reiter? Dr Reiter?” Brendan asked.
“Yes.”
Pilar slammed down her coffee cup, spilling some of its contents onto the old table. �
��Oh my God!” she gasped.
“Do you know him?” Cassie asked.
Brendan looked at Pilar who sat with her mouth open, a stunned expression on her normally calm face.
She turned her head slowly to Jonathan. Brendan watched as her mouth opened and closed, trying to make sense of the news. She finally spoke.
“That’s . . . that’s why he prescribed such large doses of medication for you. I queried it but he pulled rank on me. He . . . he must have known who you were and he couldn’t afford for you to figure it out. It would mean he would have to share the inheritance with you.”
Jonathan stood and walked to the window. He turned and leaned on the windowsill, looking at the people in the room.
“I told him about Cassie and Nella, about this place, this house. He said it was all my imagination. He used my infatuation with the Nelsons to keep me committed there until he made me lose faith in my memories. But I never believed him. I just pretended to so he’d take me off the medication and leave me in peace with the few memories I had left.”
“He knew?” Brendan said. “Jesus . . . he . . . he could have . . . you could have got home years ago. He knew!” He looked at Pilar. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Pilar replied, still reeling from the realisation that Reiter had used her for his own financial gain.
“You should go to the police!” Nella yelled.
Pilar’s mobile phone rang. She lifted her bag and answered it as she made her way out of the front door.
The others sat there, silently, trying to absorb the revelation.
“What happened to you, Jonathan? Where have you been?” Cassie finally asked.
Jonathan took a deep breath and recounted as best he could his years locked in a tiny basement apartment in Harlem, his time under Dr Reiter’s care in a psychiatric hospital, the many foster homes that he ran away from which resulted in him being returned each time to the care of the cold-hearted doctor. He recalled how when he came of age he hit the road and spent several long lonely years searching for Cassie which had brought him to the shelter one fine summer evening. He declared how it looked so much like his home that he had stopped there and had sat on the swing in the yard like he dreamt he would do when he finally found his home. He told how Alice had taken him in and had cared for him and how he met Eileen whom he loved more than anything on this earth. He told her about Brendan and the strange coincidences that resulted in their paths crossing for a second time and how his friend had promised to help him find his way home. Finally, he told her that he never gave up on the idea that she was out there somewhere, wondering what had happened to him and that not one day had passed that he did not imagine this moment.
When he was finished, a silence settled in the room again.
“All that time,” Cassie said at last, shaking her head.
Brendan stood and looked at Eileen. It was the moment he dreaded.
“Eileen, we’d better go now,” he gulped.
Eileen stood and looked longingly at Jonathan.
All three walked to the door with heads bowed towards the ground.
On the porch Jonathan reached forward and pulled Brendan to him.
“Thank you,” he said as he patted his friend’s back.
Brendan did not pull back or flinch at the touch of another human being as he once would have done, and stood for a moment locked in his friend’s warm embrace.
“You’re not far away. I’ll come and see you,” he said. He looked at his sister and his friend. “I’ll let you say goodbye.”
He walked down the porch steps and over to the opposite side of the clearing where Pilar had parked the car and where she now stood, her phone conversation over. She smiled as he approached.
“Good news?” Brendan asked.
Pilar nodded. “You are now looking at the new manager of the DomusHomeless Shelter.”
“Congratulations!” Brendan hugged her.“What about Kuvic?”
“He’s sacked.Thompson said he’ll make sure Kuvic never works with vulnerable people again and, by the time the court case is over, Eileen will make doubly sure of it. I told Thompson about Jonathan and he was surprisingly supportive of him staying here. He’ll get Jane to contact the local psychiatric service today to check in on him as soon as possible. I must say – I don’t like leaving him here.Thompson’s agreed for me or Jane to come back every few days until the local services take over. I know Jonathan seems peaceful and happy now but unfortunately his problems aren’t going to go away overnight. He is still and always will be a traumatised man, Brendan. His psychosis won’t go away – he’ll still be afraid of Hispanic men, he’ll often think he can do things he saw the Nelsons do on TV. He’ll need support and understanding. I have to be sure Cassie and Nella can handle that.”
Brendan nodded. He understood what she was saying. Jonathan was never going to be the boy he had once been. He had been through so much that even with support and understanding, those memories and the awful experiences he endured would remain with him for the rest of his life.
“So . . . seems like I have a position to fill?” she grinned.
“What position is that?” he smirked.
“A job at the shelter, what did you think I meant?” she teased.
Brendan pretended to be disappointed.
“Of course, you do owe me a date,” she said. “I seem to remember you coming to my house to ask me something.”
Brendan raised his eyebrows. “You’re only answering that now?”
Pilar laughed. “You’re not going back to New York now, are you?” she asked.
Brendan shook his head. “No, I’m not. But . . . I don’t know if I’ll be staying in Dover. I . . . I’m really not sure where I’ll go from here.”
Pilar nodded, appreciating his honesty.“Well, maybe you’ll have your last meal with me before you go?”
“Okay, you’re on. Mexican food okay?”
Pilar snorted.“Puerto Rican food is better!” she replied.
“How about Irish food? Maybe bacon and cabbage?” he said as they fell about laughing.
As their laughter died, they heard someone approaching. It was Eileen making her way gingerly towards them.
“Pilar got the job!” Brendan shouted.
Eileen nodded and smiled at Pilar. “That’s good. Congratulations, Pilar! Em . . . Brendan, can I speak to you?” She looked sheepishly at Pilar.
Pilar smiled and headed towards the house to fill Cassie and Nella in on what she felt they would need to know about Jonathan.
“I’m not coming with you,” Eileen said, her voice firm but her eyes trained on the dirt road under her feet.
“Eileen!” he began but she moved a few steps backward and shook her head.
“Nothing you can say will make me change my mind, Brendan. I belong here. I belong with Jonathan.”
Brendan relaxed his shoulders and looked at her. He sighed. He took her hand and led her to some rocks where they sat and looked into the beautiful forest in front of them.
“Look – just come back with me and talk to Frank. Just for a few days.”
“Brendan – I love Jonathan. I want to be with him. There is nothing in Dover for me. I love Dad and Mom but . . . I need him and he needs me here. This will be strange for him, even if it is home. I can’t leave him and I don’t want to. I’m staying.”
“Okay,” he said.“But what will I tell Uncle Frank?”
Eileen laughed nervously. “Haven’t you learnt anything from me these past few months? I think you can handle him.”
Brendan pulled his sister to him.“I’m going to miss you!”
“I’m going to miss you too,” she replied.
“What will you do here?” he said, looking around the dense woodland of the rural setting.
Eileen followed his eyes around the magnificent scenery. “I’ve always wanted to live somewhere like this, somewhere quiet and peaceful, where I can think. Plus, the university is only a couple of hour
s from here. Maybe I’ll finish my degree. It doesn’t really matter as long as Jonathan and I are together.”
Brendan loosened his grip on her and stood up. She rose and linked his arm, and they walked towards the car.
“I’ll be back for Kuvic’s court date and to collect my car!” she said as she opened the boot and, to Brendan’s amusement, lifted out two small suitcases and her bag of books.
“Oh, so that’s why you wanted to take your car!” he laughed, shaking his head as he climbed in.
Pilar appeared, having given Cassie and Nella her contact details and told them all she felt they urgently needed to know – the rest could come later. She halted, astonished, when she saw Eileen carrying the suitcases.
“I take it you’re not coming?” she smirked.
Eileen smiled and shook her head.
As the car made its way slowly down the uneven roadway Brendan waved at his sister. He saw Jonathan come to stand beside her and place his arm protectively around her shoulders.
“Brendan?” Pilar said. “You’ve changed so much since you first came to the shelter and for the better. But . . . you’re not the only one who has changed.”
The smile he had seen only moments before had vanished and she looked at him with a determined expression on her face. Brendan frowned at her, unsure what she meant.
“Never again will I stay quiet when I know something is not right. I will be who I used to be. I’ll speak out and make sure that someone like Reiter doesn’t make me feel like what I have to say doesn’t matter.”
As Pilar and Brendan drove through the outskirts of Dover town, he signalled for her to stop outside the hospital.
“Want me to go in with you?” she asked.
Brendan shook his head and walked alone to Alice’s ward.
When he arrived on her ward, he stood in the corridor and peered into the small window of her hospital room. Theo was sitting on a chair looking at his sleeping mother while his eldest son sat slumped on another chair, sleeping soundly. Theo sat upright and moved to the door shaking his head. He opened the door and moved into the corridor to speak to Brendan.
