“So, what’s on the agenda today for you and Grandpa and the two hopelessly crazy in love tagalongs?” I teased Charlie, who rolled his eyes.
“We’re going to Baltimore to the Babe Ruth museum.”
“No, seriously,” I insisted. “We’re not doing that.”
“Then stay here with Meg,” Charlie said flatly. “That will solve both our problems.”
“I can’t believe you, Charlie Taylor,” I complained as I rested my chin on my husband’s head. “First you drag me up here, and now you’re complaining and trying to get rid of me. Cole, help me out here.” He paused a moment, causing me to lean back and stare down into his eyes as he gazed up at me rather guiltily. I twisted my mouth to the side and waited for his response.
“Actually, I kind of want to go to the museum,” he admitted quietly.
“Traitor,” I muttered, backing away. “Fine. Forget both of you – I will just take a taxi to Meg’s, and we will do girl stuff. Maybe I’ll find another fancy man to hit on me, and I can get in another fistfight.”
“Cammie,” Cole gave me a pleading look, but I resisted those brown eyes and simply glared at him.
“Don’t you Cammie me, Wyatt.” Admittedly, that was the first time I had used Cole’s first name since the wedding, but I felt it was appropriate at that particular moment. “Does Bill have something to do with this? How you two managed to find someone who is as zealous about baseball as you are is beyond me. He’s going with you today, isn’t he? Is that why you’re trying to pawn me off on Meg?”
“Hardly,” Charlie stated as he rose from his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “Bill can’t go to the museum with us, because he has to spend the day at the office putting out the fire you started with your little boxing match.”
“So that’s your issue, is it?” I scolded my brother as I fished my shoes out from under the desk, leaning against the wall to balance myself as I pulled my knee up and slid one shoe on my foot. “You’re upset with me because Bill can’t go with you? And you – Wyatt – stop staring at me like that.” As I slid on my second shoe, I took a good look at my husband, who had cocked his head to the side and was sort of half-smiling as he gazed over at me.
“I get that you’re punishing me somehow by using my given name, but I don’t think it’s having the desired effect,” he stated, allowing an easy smile to spread across his cheeks. “I think you’re pretty adorable when you’re mad.”
“No!” Charlie insisted, stepping between us. “Please, just let her be mad and let’s go before you two make me sick again. Move!” He walked past me and flung open the door, and I shot Cole a quick smirk before I started to follow Charlie, but my hand was suddenly caught in Cole’s fingers, and he spun me toward him, wrapping his arm around me firmly.
“I love you, Cammie,” he whispered, “my beautiful, dramatic little wife.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Charlie protested, gently banging his head against the door.
“Who is this Pete he speaks of?” I asked mischievously, staring up into Cole’s eyes.
“Must be his imaginary friend,” he teased right before he kissed me soundly.
-§-
Cole tried to talk me into going to the museum, but I honestly wasn’t interested. Naturally Charlie made the joke that the world must have been upside down, since I didn’t want to look at old stuff; it was old baseball stuff, though, and I knew they would spend way too much time standing idly and talking about batting averages and such, which did not sound very pleasant to me. I didn’t mind it when Cole talked to me about it so much, because he was so animated and handsome when he got excited about sports, but when he was talking to Charlie, it was just like listening in on any old boring guy conversation.
Truth be told, I felt a little sorry for Grandpa, since he had to go with them.
In the end, Grandpa told me I could borrow his car to go to Meg’s, so they pulled out of the driveway leaving me with the keys to his blue sedan, standing alone inside the house. As I lowered myself onto one of the chairs in his sitting room, I considered the fact that I didn’t really feel like going to Meg’s at all. I had brought along my laptop bag, which safely held two of the red journals, but I didn’t feel much like reading at that moment, either. No, I was itching to do something, and I couldn’t sit idly inside Grandpa’s house. Part of me wanted to snoop a bit and figure out what made Hannah tick, but that seemed like a line I didn’t want to cross, so instead I started pacing a bit. After a few minutes had passed with me still pondering Hannah, I had an epiphany of sorts.
Why not go to St. Peter’s?
The thought about St. Peter’s startled me a bit, because it popped into my head rather randomly, but once I started thoroughly considering it, it didn’t seem completely idiotic. While I surely wouldn’t find anything useful there, I might at least see that statue where Rita said she left her baby, and that would be an image to help round out the story in my mind.
Punching St. Peter’s into the search feature on my phone, I found a few possibilities, but I decided to concentrate first on the one closest to Grandpa’s house. At a mere six blocks away, it would have been the easiest to find, anyway. As soon as I started the engine of that sedan, I heard the unmistakable sound of Sinatra flowing out of the speakers, and I allowed myself a secret little smile, knowing that I had just uncovered another little tidbit of information about my grandfather.
Likes Frank Sinatra – check.
St. Peter’s was an antique-feeling stone building with a large spire and a huge wooden door. There wasn’t a lot of parking, but I found a place for Grandpa’s sedan along a side street and walked toward the building, wondering if my presence wearing cut-off shorts would be a problem.
As soon as I stepped through the door, I decided it would not be important, because I couldn’t find a soul. After yelling “hello” about fifteen times, I gave up and sat silently in a pew near the front, staring up at a statue of Mary and imagining Rita placing her baby there. A shudder went up my spine, and I fought off a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. This certainly seemed like the place, and I felt all but certain that this is where Rita, or Darlene, had been all those years ago.
After staring at the back of the pew in front of me for a few minutes, I slipped one of the journals out of my bag, propping it open to where I had left off, near the end of the story. With a sigh, I leaned my head back and propped my knees against the bench in front of me, bringing the book closer.
All wars must come to an end, they say, but that is incorrect. Physical wars must end, perhaps, because if they did not there would be no population left to fight. If a war waged on and on, enough people would perish that there would be nothing left to fight for – no hope to push towards.
There is a war that does not end, though, I quickly learned.
When it seemed things could not be bleaker, our war was finally over. Eventually the taunting and harassment ceased, and my walk to school contained no worries other than occasionally being late because I ate too much breakfast, or because I talked too long to one of the girls along the way. Freddie went back to being rambunctious, and the biggest concern in the morning was whether or not he forgot his hat once again.
The world had been set aright.
They all seemed to fail to recall that anything had happened. Forgotten was the day that someone had pelted me with a rock. Forgotten was the instance I had been forced to eat dirt. Forgotten were the names I had been called, and the yellow paint on the door, and the horrible things they had said about Papa. For each of them, the war had ended, and life could go on.
I managed to forgive them in time, mostly because they were children, after all. They were repeating things they had heard from the adults around them, or acting out because they did not know what to do with their emotions. It would have been unfair of me to hold a grudge against them.
So, I simply continued to live with my neighbors, month after month, year after year, decade after decade. No soul ev
er mentioned those despicable events to me, and history all but forgot that they occurred. On occasion, I would even tell myself those events were not important anymore. I could not wish them away, though, because the war continued to wage in my heart. Every time I thought back I became that little girl again, standing silently at the window, staring out into the rain and listening to my father weeping.
That was a different kind of rain, wasn’t it? It was the kind of rain that seared the soul and sliced its way into memory like painful scratches, left as haunting reminders of the fear that was forged during that tumultuous time. That rain had saturated my mind and left its markings like a tattoo, and had run in rivulets across the fibers of my heart. That rain was not the kind that evaporated when it saw the light of day, but instead was the kind that left everlasting scars on everything it soaked.
I had overcome, it was true. We all had, who lived in such a time. The tragedy of it all was not the fact that it happened. For me, the tragedy was that I could not forget that it happened.
The sound of a door closing caused me to drop the journal onto the floor with a thud, and as I leaned down to retrieve it, I banged my knee against the bench in front of me, making another loud noise. Muttering under my breath, I lifted the red book onto my lap as I glanced up to see an older gentleman who was near the front of the sanctuary, the side of his face tinted slightly green from the reflection of one of the large stained glass windows that lined the room. Instinctively I sat up straighter, taking a breath to compose myself. Having heard the commotion of me being a total klutz, he began to make his way toward me, striding purposefully in his head-to-toe black, with just that peek of white at the collar. The deep smile lines formed around his eyes over many years helped convince me that he was a genial man, and I relaxed slightly against the wooden pew.
“I do believe you must be Camdyn,” he stated in a deep baritone, lowering himself onto the bench in front of me sideways so he was looking into my face. Giving him a quizzical look, I squinted my eyes a bit.
“How did you know that?” I finally blurted, causing him to chuckle.
“Charlie has told me all about his long-lost grand-daughter, and since you look the spitting image of Darlene Camden, I’m guessing you must be her,” he explained, draping his arm over the back of the bench.
“Your guess is correct,” I admitted with a slight laugh.
“Father Anthony, Mrs. Carmichael is here!” a younger man announced as he popped his head through a doorway near the front.
“I’ll be around in just a moment,” my companion stated, giving me a thoughtful look. “Doing some journaling?” he asked as he pointed to the red book. “Maybe just needed a quiet place to pray?”
“No,” I sighed, but quickly rethought my answer as I didn’t want him to think I was opposed to that idea. “I mean, not at the moment, although this is a quiet place, and seems like a great spot for it. I was just thinking about things a bit, I suppose.”
“Okay,” he laughed warmly, rising to his feet. He paused before he stepped away to gaze down at me for a second.
“Um, can I ask you a question?” I began, clearing my throat. “When you had babies left here… I guess I should say, did you ever have a baby left here?” Settling back into his previous seat, he gave me a look of understanding.
“You’re asking me about Hannah,” he surmised. Sliding my fingers nervously back and forth across the red cover of the journal, I nodded my head.
“How many times did that happen?” I wanted to know. Widening his eyes, he shrugged and looked up as though he was thinking.
“It wasn’t really a common occurrence, but it happened a few times. Four that I can remember right off the top of my head.”
“Near the same time?” I tried to clear up. “I mean, were they in the same period, or stretched out?” Chuckling quietly, he merely grinned as he stared across that pew at me.
“You sound like one of those parishioners who come in here trying to justify their sins,” he remarked. “Does it matter if it’s on a holiday? What if they said it to me first, and I was just reacting? I much prefer the blunt questions, so I can give a black and white answer.”
Having been on countless missions to solve little mysteries of one sort or another, my assumption was that the easiest way to get people to open up was to ask leading questions and talk in a circle. Of course, that could have also been the way I usually wound up making an imbecile of myself to the point that people felt sorry for me.
Yeah, maybe I should have given blunt, black and white a try a long time ago.
“Okay, Reverend, I will be frank with you,” I stated, clasping my hands together so I would stop fidgeting. “Rita… I’m sorry, I mean Darlene…” He gave me a look that indicated he believed I was beating around the bush again, and I let my breath out in an exasperated huff. “My parental unit informed me that she didn’t have an abortion when she ran away from home. She told me that she brought the baby here, to St. Peter’s. I think that baby could have been Hannah, and I just want to know the truth.” As soon as the words were out, I took a deep breath and settled back for his answer.
“You know,” he began thoughtfully, “Isabel was the person I saw most often those first couple of years here at St. Peter’s. That Darlene Camden was always a beauty, and she usually had a different boyfriend here nearly every time she attended. When the family found out about the pregnancy, and then Darlene disappeared, Isabel was here nearly every day. She prayed for that baby so often and so fervently, that when I found little Hannah here, I felt certain that she belonged with the Camden family. She was the first baby here, since I was around, anyway. There were two fairly close together about three years later, and then another one nearly ten years after that.”
“So it has to be true, then,” I whispered, biting my lip.
“It certainly sounds like a possibility,” he admitted, shaking his head. “My goodness, how Isabel would have loved to know that her prayers were answered. All that time she spent on her knees praying for Darlene, and to know that she walked right in here and carried the baby…”
“…to Mary,” I finished, causing him to smile.
“Yes, I found Hannah at the feet of Mary,” he agreed. “How truly remarkable.” Choking back my emotion, I swallowed hard.
“Please don’t tell Grandpa,” I pleaded. “I want to talk to Hannah first.”
“Of course.” I placed my hand on top of the pew in front of me to rise to my feet, but he placed his hand on mine, causing me to pause. “Most young ladies I know don’t call their mothers by their given name, or refer to them as parental units. Would you like to talk about it?”
“No,” I stated hastily. “I mean, no offense to you – I’m sure you’re a great counselor and all that, but there’s nothing to say. She gave birth to me, but she’s not my mother. She never has been.”
“Why is that?”
I know your trick, and it’s not going to work. I’m not talking about Rita today - period.
“She left when I was a little girl, and she just basically wasn’t around,” I simply replied. “Until recently, when she started trying to destroy my life, but that’s another story.”
“She said that? That she’s trying to destroy your life?”
Nice tactic, I see what you’re doing.
“Of course she didn’t say that,” I laughed. “That would be ludicrous. She acts like she’s just trying to revamp her life or something, but she doesn’t have to do that near me. It’s all some nefarious scheme, although I’m not privy to the details as of yet.”
“That seems a slightly dramatic thing to believe,” he regarded me skeptically. “It would seem more plausible to think that she wants to reconnect with you, and that she’s sorry for her mistakes. Perhaps she is looking for forgiveness.”
“No, that doesn’t sound like her, and besides, she can’t get that from me.”
“Forgiveness?” he asked, looking perplexed. “Why can’t she get that from you?”
>
Um, let’s see… Because she abandoned me? Because she ignored me for a man halfway around the world? Because she let me hitchhike through a strange country? Because she let me believe I didn’t have a family?
“Because she doesn’t deserve it,” I blurted, feeling completely justified in that statement. I even squared my shoulders up a little, knowing that he couldn’t possibly disagree with that assessment.
“None of us deserve forgiveness,” he acknowledged sadly, still holding his hand over mine on the back of that pew. “Forgiveness is a funny thing, though, because it’s not meant for those who wronged us. When you refuse to forgive, it’s as though you convict someone of a crime, and you lock the jail cell and throw away the key, only to find yourself on the wrong side of the cell door. To forgive someone doesn’t mean you accept what they did, or even that you will allow them to hurt you again in the future. No, to forgive is simply the act of setting yourself free from the bondage.”
“By letting her off the hook?” I muttered, feeling tears prick my eyes.
“No,” he insisted. “By refusing to keep yourself on one. You have to ask yourself, Camdyn, whether you honestly refuse to forgive because she doesn’t deserve it, or whether you enjoy holding on to the grudge – whether you enjoy punishing her. It might feel good for a moment, to repay her the pain she caused, but don’t keep yourself locked in that cell.” Silently, I gazed at him through glassy eyes and fought a sudden swell of emotion, trying to keep it at bay. Sensing my discomfort, he patted my hand under his and then took a step back.
“It was good to meet you,” he stated. “Give my best to your grandfather, and I hope you’ll think about what I said.”
“Yes, thank you,” I murmured thickly, watching as he retreated toward the doorway where the other gentleman had appeared moments before. Taking a deep breath, I lowered myself to that wooden bench once again, pressing my one empty fist against the red velvety cushion beneath me.
A Reason to Forget (The Camdyn Series Book 3) Page 22
