Probe

by Douglas E Roff

  ***

  Edward looked at Alana and Edmund, sitting together on the big sectional couch in the living room, facing toward the kitchen where Adam and his Mom were busy making the evening meal while the rest of the family was seated and arrayed between them.

  “It’s story time, and you two cannot avoid the story we have all been waiting for since you arrived. You promised, so now, no food – or dessert – until we know everything. You may begin at the beginning and go from there.”

  Alana smiled, “You’re awfully nosey for being my employer. And you can be a very bossy boss.”

  “Boss? Well, there’s that. But my nosiness, which is legendary, is due solely to the adoption of you, and your father into our family. Read the fine print.”

  “What fine print?”

  “The adoption agreement of course. It’s all there.”

  “Into the Eight Families?”

  “Close. With you and Edmund, that makes Nine. Then there was the adoption of Noki, and that makes Ten. The Ten Families. A nice round and even number.”

  Edmund smiled at his daughter but said nothing. His integration into Barrows Bay and the family had been everything he had ever wanted his entire life. It was as if he had always belonged and had just never found his way home. Alana felt the same but with an even deeper emotional commitment.

  “Should I trust him, Misti?” Alana asked.

  “Generally, no. He’s a consummate con artist and liar. But in this one matter, and in this one matter alone, he’s telling the truth. Noki has already spilled the beans on her life story. Now, it’s your turn. So, both of you: it’s story time.”

  Alana turn to her Dad, smiling. “You tell them about your folks, then I’ll finish up.”

  Edmund smiled, cleared his throat and began.

  ***

  “I was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, but almost as quickly as Mama was discharged from the hospital, my Daddy moved the family back to Alabama. I grew up in a tiny town, not much more than a general store and a land office, about seventy-five miles east of Tuscaloosa. I used to say that I lived east of nuthin’ and south of nowhere.”

  “Barrows Bay must feel like home,” Edward said.

  “Yeah, except west of the ‘Straight of Georgia’ and north of the nearest hockey rink.”

  “Like I said, home.”

  “Shhhhh,” came from all corners. “Let Edmund tell his story. Now shush, Edward.” Misti’s admonition was most definite, so Edward sank back on the couch, Bethy’s arms wrapped around him.

  “I still love you,” she said quietly.

  “Shush. You too.” Misti gave Bethy the evil eye, but that only elicited a broad smile from Bethy.

  “When I was five or six, Mama came into my room around bedtime one night, kissed my forehead, said she loved me and that she always would. I smiled at her and went back to sleep. In the morning, she was gone.

  “Daddy didn’t say much either to me or to my brother and sister. Caleb is the oldest, and still lives in my home town; Betty, my middle sibling, lived in Dothan, Alabama most of her life, but moved back home when her husband died. My brother and sister live right next door to each other, and Caleb still occupies the barn that my Daddy converted to his home and business.

  “After Mama left, things got bad for me. Not so much my brother and sister, but because of the way I looked, and the way they looked. I had blond hair and blue eyes, while my siblings were darker complexioned like Daddy. Daddy said we were ‘I-talians’ from southern Italy; where I came from was quite a mystery. Daddy never let me forget, and neither did Caleb and Betty, that I was different. That’s the reason Mama left, Daddy said, was because she couldn’t stand looking at me.

  “When I was thirteen, Betty told me she wasn’t really my sister. ‘Mama was a whore; and you’re the bastard son of that whore. Daddy will never let you inherit and he doesn’t love you anyhow. He only loves Caleb and me. So as soon as you’re old enough, you should just skedaddle out of town and leave us be. You don’t belong here, and you never will.’

  “The joke of course was on them. Daddy was an ignorant red neck who never had two dimes to rub together and was lucky enough to have been a Vet. His chosen profession was auto mechanic, which he claimed he learned in the Army. But all he could ever do was change the oil in a car and even that he didn’t do very well. But the towns folk felt sorry for the man raising three children on his own, and dutifully brought their cars, and trucks in to him for an oil change and a wash. How that man ever got into the Army was either a testament to his powers of persuasion but was probably more likely the last man needed to fill that month’s quota. It was the only decision Daddy ever made that was smart.

  “The circumstances of my Mama’s departure from our lives was an official town mystery. Some say she left town, tired of the regular beatings. Some say she never left town and is buried somewhere down by the marsh. Our local Sheriff took Daddy’s word that she up and left; there was little to investigate in those days. She was gone and not from around these parts. Nobody complained, so the matter dropped.

  “Growing up was about as unpleasant as one might imagine so I stayed away from home as much as I could. I spent all my days in the town Library and when it was closed, I spent time at the Baptist Church. The Minister was a fire breathing born-again, but his young wife looked after me as best she could. That’s how I met Alana’s Mom, my fictional wife. My fictional ex-wife. She was their daughter, Susanne Murray Maxton. What a name.

  “All we ever talked about was growing up as fast as we could and getting as far away from central Alabama as the first bus through town would take us. She was my first girl, my first love and my first heartbreak. A week before we were about to graduate from High School, Susie asked me to meet her at the Library.

  ‘I’m pregnant. It’s yours. We need to get out of town real quick like after we graduate Friday night. I got some money saved. We can get to Tuscaloosa and anywhere we want after that. Jimmy Robinson will drive us there graduation night, then by morning we’re on a bus and gone. Don’t tell nobody.’

  “Like there was anyone to tell. Three days later, the red haired, high school football hero, and son of the town lawyer Jimmy Robinson, drove Susie and I to the bus station in Tuscaloosa, handed Susie an envelope filled with cash and said his goodbyes.

  ‘Don’t ask no questions,’ was all Susie said. ‘We got some money for a fresh start. I say we go to Biloxi and try our luck there.’

  “No, I told her. ‘I have a scholarship out west to a State College in San Diego. They have married students’ housing, and we can live there. It isn’t much, but it’s a fresh start.’

  ‘We ain’t married though.’

  ‘We will be. We have a baby on the way. And a future to think about.’

  “A week later, we rolled into San Diego, California, home to the US Navy and the Marine Corps Recruit Depot. Alana was born eight months later; a month after that Susie said she was sorry, but this was no life for her. She had met someone from Camp Pendleton just up the PCH who was originally from Lexington, Kentucky and had a small farm to go back to. She was going there with him.

  “I finished college there, raised the light of my life in our crappy little rented University apartment and eventually got my master’s and Ph.D. from UCSD. We never left. Most of the rest you know.”

  Misti, never the soul of tact, asked, “What ever happened to Susie?”

  Chapter 19

  “Daddy gave you the abridged version of events after my Mom abandoned us. That’s not quite the whole story, but Daddy doesn’t like telling this part. I say it’s because it makes him the best Dad on the planet, but he says it’s not what he wants to share about us. Even if it isn’t, it should be.

  “The man Mama ran off with left her high, dry and broke in a crummy motel in Little Rock, Arkansas. Not exactly sure what she was doin’ to pay the bills after that but, in any event, a letter arrived one day addressed to Daddy fro
m Mama. She wanted to come home; she said she had made a terrible mistake and missed her little girl. Could Daddy forgive her and let her back in our lives?

  “Dad’s an idiot and a sucker for every hard luck story ever told. Plus, he’s a fool and loved my Mama ever since he first laid eyes on her back home in Alabama. He said yes, sent her money for a bus ticket and some spending money to see her through, then waited for her to arrive at the bus station in downtown San Diego. She never arrived, but a week later another letter arrived. This time she had met a nice man who said he could show her Nashville. Plenty of jobs in the Country Music biz and she was a fine-looking woman. She’d land something for sure. Lickety-split. She was sorry once again, but she had to chase her dreams in show biz. Don’t be angry, she admonished, she had dreams too, just like Daddy, and that school thing was his dream not hers. Hoped whatever it was, it was working out for him and her little baby girl. Said to say hi to little Alana.

  “A couple of years passed, no word having come out of Nashville or any other part of the contiguous United States. Then another letter arrived, same story and same response. Daddy said all was still forgiven; this had been her time to find herself, but it was time to come home to him and her little girl. This time she made it as far as San Francisco, though how that was on a direct route to San Diego, I’ll never know.

  “Three years later it was Seattle, and a few years after that it was Alaska. Then one day, Daddy received a certified letter from a law firm in Tuscaloosa, saying that a local lawyer, and ex-football player named James Llewellyn Robinson was about to file a paternity, and custody suit in state family court, and was claiming to be the rightful father of one Alana Jill McCarthy. The mother, Susanne Murray Maxton had come forward, affidavit in hand, claiming that the child was his. She was the loving mother and just wanted her baby girl to have the life she deserved.

  “Obviously, Edmund McCarthy wasn’t my father. Susanne Murray Maxton had never even slept with Edmund McCarthy and a simple DNA test would quickly prove her claim. And my real Daddy’s identity too.

  “Dad was frantic, of course. Never thought Mama would be that low and couldn’t understand what Jimmy Robinson was doing anyway. He called Jimmy right away.

  “Jimmy said this wasn’t his idea, that he was now married with a family of his own and was about to go into local politics. Somehow Mama had found out and decided it was her right to cash in. After all, she had been pregnant with the kid, me; shouldn’t she get something out of it?

  “Jimmy said he had a private investigator look into the whole matter and reported back that by all accounts Dad had been a good and loving father to me, was raising me in a great, and positive environment. Jimmy asked what Daddy wanted to do. Jimmy admitted he had always known he was my father but assumed things would eventually work out for everyone.

  “Dad said it was time to pay off Susie, once and for all. Dad’s lawyer in San Diego suggested that Susie and Jimmy agree to sever all parental rights in me and that Dad be allowed to adopt me formally. All in one transaction and all at the same time. Jimmy said he’d agree to that, and would pay whatever he needed to, to make it happen. His law firm would handle the legal matters quickly and quietly and he knew a family court judge who would seal the records.

  “Mama was paid off and dropped off the map once again. She wrote to Dad from time to time, but Dad just tore up the letters unopened. After a while, they just stopped coming.”

  “And now?” asked Misti.

  “Mama died about five years after the court proceedings. Got in a fight with a man about money she was trying to extract. Wrong sort of guy, so he took her out into the back country and put a bullet in her head. Guy got caught and is still serving fifteen years to life for second degree murder.

  “The rest you know. The end”

  The room was silent. Even Maria and Adam had stopped cooking somewhere along the way in the middle of the story and everyone was paying rapt attention. Everyone had something they wanted to say but no one wanted to go first.

  Maria spoke up, now back chopping onions. She didn’t even look up.

  “Then it’s a blessing we now have you both safely here and a part of our little family. You and our other daughter Noki. No matter where we come from or what our journey has been until now, we are all here together as one family in Barrows Bay. Dinner will be ready in an hour, if you can all just let Adam and I finish our work.”

  Edward thought that he could see tears streaming down Maria’s cheeks, but she swore later it was just the onions.

  Maria looked at Edward as he cornered her in the kitchen.

  “Shut up and leave me alone,” she said. “I know when I’ve been wrong. At least I can admit it. Something you should try sometime.”

  ***

  They all sat around the huge dinner table, food distributed strategically round about. Misti was still curious about Edmund’s brother and sister. Do they still talk; how did they turn out, and what’re they like?

  Edmund laughed.

  “Not much in common and no, we never talk. My sister sends a card for my birthday and Christmas but won’t acknowledge that I have a daughter. Not much in common and not the best examples of the devout Christians they claim to be. I’m afraid they’re both throwbacks to my Daddy’s generation, Southern Baptists, racists, anti-Semites, anti-Catholics, gun totin’, NRA card carrying, Second Amendment Right believin’ Americans who liked things just the way they used to be: in 1850.”

  “Not Progressives?”

  Edmund laughed again, “Let’s just say that they’re far more likely to want to lynch President Obama than to vote for him. They still admire David Duke, and wonder why a fine young man like that couldn’t get elected.”

  “Sounds dreadful,” said Misti.

  “When you think of it, it’s not so bad. I moved away when I was eighteen, and never looked back. If I had never known Susie, I wouldn’t now have my daughter. On balance, if I had to say who did the best, I’d say I won, hands-down. Things have always been good in my life since the day Alana was born. I couldn’t be happier or prouder of my girl. And now, I’m happier than I’ve ever been. We both are. And we are happy to be here, and a part of this family…”

  “Your family…” added Edward.

  “Our family here in Barrows Bay. And I must confess that Bethy has been hard at work on another front for me.”

  All eyes turned to Bethy.

  “She got me a date! A date! A date at my age!”

  “A hook up?” asked Alana.

  “No,” said Bethy. “It was a real first date, then a real double date.”

  “Who’s the lucky lady?”

  “Dr. Spears. Dr. Rita Spears in Botany. Always been married to her work; then she met Edmund. Now she’s seventeen again.”

  “Daddy, you dog,” said Alana, smiling. “What’s your secret?”

  “Good Cognac, and I’m absolutely fascinated with Botany.”

  ***

  Adam quietly watched his family as it grew, and tumbled about, and was proud of each, and every one of them. He knew his Mom would come around eventually, even if she could be stubborn and headstrong. After all, who in this family wasn’t?

  Pops had more grandchildren on the way and he believed there was nothing like babies in the house to keep an old man young. He remembered a time when Maria wasn’t so sure about Misti; that had changed too.

  Adam had assured his Mom that there would be no more surprises, no more additional mates added to his household. Almost true, but no need to discuss that now. Grandchildren, yes. And they would live a long, and healthy retirement surrounded by those children, telling stories of the old days, and the way things used to be in a place called Barrows Bay.

  He didn’t have the heart to tell them they would eventually have to leave their home; he would wait until the proper time came. Pops would be able to accept the inevitable, so long as his family was there surrounding him. Mom would take it hard; so much
of her happiness was wrapped up in her little home, their Labs, and the Institute. And it would be difficult for her to let go of the memories of two homes and two little boys growing up, doing so much, being so much.

  She would have to leave her home, and sooner than she thought. Everyone else would be gone, and if she stayed, a terrible loneliness would set in: the absence of her boys and their girls, and the young ones. She would be even less able to bear separation, so in the end, she too would have to decide to leave Barrows Bay.

  Adam reflected on his life and the meaning of his family. He had never thought much about it growing up. About Rod, Mom and Pops, Cindy, Dad and the Eight Families. It was all so normal to him; that most of his family came from Oaxaca and lived in Seattle never seemed odd. And, even at present, it still didn’t. When Alana, Noki and Edmund happened into their lives, their addition to Barrows Bay seemed a seamless transition from Eight to Ten. Eleven if Bethy one day decided to stay.

  Their family didn’t fit the religious or legal definition, nor even what most people would say defines a family. Theirs was a simple community of souls who woke up one day and decided, agreed, to be a family bound only by the tethers of love. Perhaps such things aren’t always possible, Adam reflected, and maybe in another time, and place and with different people, it couldn’t take root and flourish.

  Perhaps he and his community of souls were just lucky. But it was one of those things he just accepted, like his faith in God. So, in the end, he simply tried not to delve too deeply into the nature of his great good fortune.

  Everyone was happy this night, joyous in fact. They were all together, and they were all family. And, they each knew they were loved.

  Chapter 20

  Husband and father, Dr. Federico Musso, was in his study at his spacious home in Switzerland, having made up some new phony excuse to be away from his regular duties from his adopted role as Cardinal Bellinelli of the Vatican. His wife, daughter and son were also in residence, and working on some project assigned by him earlier in the week. As was custom among his extended family and larger ethnic culture, his job in the real world involved assassination; sometimes the Gens, and sometimes targets for which they received excellent compensation by private contractors. His beef with the Gens was historical, bitter, and long standing. He and his family and their work in the private sector of death, on the other hand, was their way of earning an extremely comfortable living; theirs were skills much in demand.