by Janet Dawson
Gretchen returned, a brimming glass in one hand and a plate piled with scones in the other. She handed the glass to Claire and set the plate on the table.
“We’ve got fruit salad, sausage and frittata,” Gretchen said. “Doug’s going to make more pancakes. We inhaled the first batch.”
“No pancakes for me. I’ll have fruit salad and a sliver of frittata.” Claire sipped her mimosa, then reached for the bowl.
“I’ll have more pancakes,” Nat said.
“That’s a given, son.” Doug grinned at the boy and headed for the kitchen.
When the last of the pancakes had been eaten, they lingered over coffee, talking. Then Gretchen said, “Nat and Amy, let’s clear the table and help Dad clean up. Lindsey and Claire, I want to talk with you, privately. Wait for me on the patio. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Lindsey and Claire went outside, where Moby Cat was curled up on the chaise, nose tucked under paws as he slept. “When I saw you Thursday you didn’t mention Nina was back,” Claire said.
“She showed up that afternoon,” Lindsey said. “The move to Austin didn’t work out. I’m curious about something. Nat, and that orphanage in El Salvador where you first saw him.”
Claire pulled petals from a rose and dropped them. “Why do you ask?”
“Research for my book. I came across some articles about missing children in Central America, taken from their parents during the war down there. It seems a lot of children wound up in orphanages. It made me wonder where Nat came from.”
Claire shrugged. “An orphanage in San Salvador. Gretchen and Doug adopted him. He has a wonderful home with people who love him. End of story.”
“What if Nat has family somewhere?”
“His family is here,” Claire said.
“But his birth parents—”
“His birth parents are dead, I assume. The little guy was left in the orphanage where I saw him. I don’t know how he got there. He’s lucky to have been adopted.” Claire looked up as Gretchen came outside. “On the phone you were terribly mysterious. You said you wanted some girl talk, just the three of us, about Annabel. So talk.”
Gretchen pulled up a chair. “Sit down. Just shoo Moby Cat off that chaise.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t disturb Moby Cat for the world. It’s best to let sleeping cats lie. Don’t you agree, Lindsey?” Claire laughed, her eyes twinkling.
“Tess showed up on Lindsey’s doorstep Friday afternoon, with the damnedest announcement.” Gretchen described the conversation that had followed.
“So the blood test shows Hal isn’t Tess’s biological father,” Claire said. “That’s a surprise. But he’s been her father in every other sense of the word since she was born. Why poke around in Annabel’s past, dragging the two of you with her?”
“She has questions and she’s looking for answers,” Lindsey said. “So am I.”
“Careful what you wish for, Lindsey. You might get it. And you might not be happy with the answers.” Claire shrugged. “Sorry. I’m not much help, am I? Things are topsy-turvy since Annabel’s stroke. Hal’s mind isn’t on business. He’s been so distracted that I’ve had to take over much of the day-to-day company operations. The quarterly board meeting is coming up and all the functional meetings before that. Tess going off half-cocked on some windmill-tilting expedition is the last thing the family needs.”
Gretchen nodded. “I agree. I’m staying out of it.”
“Then we’re all agreed,” Claire said. “I’ll have a word with Tess.”
I haven’t agreed to anything, Lindsey thought. She opened her mouth, then closed it as Nat and Amy came out onto the patio. They bore trays holding bowls of strawberry shortcake, sweet crumbly golden-brown biscuits covered with sliced strawberries and whipped cream. Doug followed with more bowls. Nina brought up the rear, carrying a tray of coffee mugs.
“I thought we just ate,” Gretchen said.
“Our son and daughter were agitating for shortcake now,” Doug said as he and Nina set the trays on the picnic table and began handing out bowls. “After all those pancakes I don’t know how they have room.”
“I would love some. I didn’t have all those pancakes.” Claire took a bowl and spooned up a strawberry covered with whipped cream. “Nina, what’s next? I know you’re a technical writer, but the job market’s tight now.”
“I have feelers out with people I know,” Nina said. “I picked up some leads from a friend. I’ll take a temporary assignment, just to bring in some money. Anything I can find. I’m flexible.”
“I’ve just had a brainstorm.” Claire waved her spoon. “The perfect solution. My assistant had the nerve to get pregnant on me. She goes on maternity leave in a couple of weeks. I don’t know how I’m going to manage without her. None of the temps I’ve seen can handle the job. I need someone who can do more than just answer the phone. Nina, you’d be terrific. I could certainly use your writing and editing skills.”
“You could work for Claire while you look for a more permanent job in your field,” Gretchen said.
“Who knows, a job might turn up at Dunlin,” Claire said. “There’s a flock of writers in public affairs. Maybe you could do some temporary assignments for them as well. Although I warn you, I am a challenging boss. Are you interested?”
Nina smiled. “Yes, I am. I’d like to discuss the job, just one-on-one with you.”
“Of course. So would I. Let me check my calendar.” Claire went into the house, returning a moment later with her purse. She pulled out a smartphone and looked at the display. “Monday is busy. But I have some time at four. Can you come over then?”
“Sure. Four o’clock it is.”
Claire’s job offer was certainly out-of-the-blue, Lindsey thought. Even if it was temporary, it might be just what Nina needed.
“Lindsey and I are visiting Annabel tomorrow evening,” Gretchen said. “Come with us.”
“I’m having drinks with someone after work,” Claire said. “Then dinner with Mother. She’s going to visit Annabel, too. I’ll see you at the rehab place.”
“Drinks after work, huh? Business or pleasure?” Gretchen asked. “Are you still dating that venture capitalist from Palo Alto?”
“No, I’m seeing a new guy.”
Gretchen laughed. “Claire, the only thing that’s consistent about you and men is the revolving door. Every time I see you there’s a new guy.”
“Claire has been consistent, in her fashion. What about the Latin lover? We met him at Mr. Dunlin’s birthday party back in the Seventies. Severino...” Lindsey stopped as she recalled the man’s last name. “Aragón, right? Annabel’s cousin from El Salvador.”
13
Connection, or merely coincidence?
Lindsey reread the transcript of Flor’s recording, then Merle Sefton’s article about the massacre. Flor referred to the landowner as Don Humberto, no last name. Sefton was more specific. The men who slaughtered the inhabitants of San Blas, left the village in ruins, and took Efraín were a private security force hired by coffee planter Humberto Aragón.
Was this the same genial man Lindsey met at Mr. Dunlin’s birthday party in the summer of 1973?
Lindsey pushed away the papers. This morning at Gretchen’s brunch, when she’d brought up Severino Aragón, Claire said, “Him? Ancient history.” But there was history.
Annabel called the party a command performance, having less to do with her father’s birthday and more to do with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the company. She and Claire, commanded to attend, swore that if they had to dress up and spend an evening in a Nob Hill hotel with people in suits and fancy dresses, Lindsey and Gretchen must come, too.
Lindsey, feeling like a hick in her thrift shop dress, had been introduced to Humberto Aragón, Mr. Dunlin’s brother-in-law from El Salvador. With him were his wife, Nella, and their three offspring. Handsome, mustachioed Severino and his sulky teenaged brother, Roberto, were both dark, with their father’s sturdy frame. Cristina, a slender blonde, resembled her mother
.
Claire spent the evening flirting with Severino. The relationship came later, after she graduated from Berkeley and obtained her MBA from Stanford. She worked for the Dunlin Corporation, procuring the commodities—coffee, tea, cocoa, spices, nuts—the company imported, processed and sold. At times Claire went to Central America on business, to El Salvador, where she’d encountered Severino again. Their relationship moved past flirtation. Marriage had been mentioned, but nothing ever came of it.
Not surprising. Claire’s love affairs waxed and waned, like the inconstant moon, or burned out quickly, going from hot flames to dead ash. Sometimes the embers rekindled, though. Severino was an off-and-on relationship Claire resumed when she had a whim to do so. How ancient was that history? Besides, Claire was friends with Severino’s sister Cristina, now married to a politician named Medrano, and the patron of that San Salvador orphanage where Claire first saw Nat, the abandoned toddler.
Sunday morning’s warm sun and clear blue sky had disappeared behind the afternoon’s scudding gray clouds. Lindsey left her office and went to the kitchen. She filled the teakettle with water and set it on the stove. The doorbell rang. Tess stood on the porch, holding a white banker’s box with a lid. Lindsey wondered what sort of snakes lurked beneath the lid.
Nina, who’d been reading the newspaper, jumped up from the sofa. “Tess! It’s great to see you. I left a message on your cell phone.”
“I was planning to call,” Tess said. “Then I decided to show up in person.”
“Come in,” Lindsey said. “I’ve just put the kettle on for tea.”
Tess set the box on the floor in the entry hall. “It’s been ages since I saw you, Nina. I thought you moved to Austin with your boyfriend.”
“I moved back. Alone. I’ll fill you in later. Sorry to hear about your mom,” Nina said. “I hope she’s improving.”
“She seems to be,” Tess said. “She’s better, thanks to the therapy. But it’s slow and takes a lot out of her. She gets frustrated when her body won’t work properly. The aphasia, that slurred speech, is worse when she’s stressed.”
“Gretchen and I plan to visit her tomorrow evening,” Lindsey said. When the teakettle whistled, she went to the kitchen and returned with a tray bearing a teapot of Earl Grey, fragrant with bergamot, and all the accoutrements. She set the tray on the coffee table, poured tea and handed cups to Tess and Nina.
“It’s nice of Claire to offer you a temporary job,” Tess said. “It could work into something permanent.”
“That would be great,” Nina said. “Though I don’t even know what the job entails. I’m going over to Claire’s office tomorrow afternoon to talk about it. Even if I work just a few months while Claire’s assistant is on maternity leave, I’ll have some money coming in. I could certainly use a paycheck.”
“Are you still with the insurance company, Tess?” Lindsey asked. “Your mother said you are an ergonomic evaluator.”
“I do workplace assessments,” Tess said, “to make sure computer equipment is placed correctly in work stations. In the past, people used typewriters and they didn’t think about where they put them. When computers came along, employees plopped them down on existing desks. They still do, which means keyboards and monitors are positioned awkwardly or too high. That leads to eyestrain and repetitive stress injuries in the hands and arms. Then come the workers’ compensation cases. I’m the ounce of prevention, so to speak.” Tess stirred milk and sugar into her tea, then turned to Nina. “Will you live here for the time being?”
“Temporarily,” Nina said. “Until I can get my own place. When I have a paycheck, I can cross that bridge.”
“Speaking of crossing the bridge—the Bay Bridge—I have an ulterior motive for asking,” Tess said. “My flat in Noe Valley has two bedrooms and my roommate’s leaving at the end of June. Maybe you could move in.”
Nina brightened. “Great idea. I love that neighborhood.”
“So do I,” Tess said. “We lived there from the time I was a baby until we moved into the Pacific Heights house. It’s an easy commute downtown. I live on Twenty-sixth Street, two blocks west of the J Church streetcar line, near Twenty-fourth, where the shops and restaurants are.”
Nina crossed her fingers. “Let’s see what happens. I don’t even have the temporary job yet, much less a permanent position.”
“I’m sure you will. Claire believes in taking care of family. And you are family,” Tess said, her blue eyes piercing Lindsey like an X-ray machine. “You four—Mother, Lindsey, Gretchen and Claire—you’ve been like sisters ever since college.”
“We’re almost like sisters, too,” Nina said. “Twins. We look alike, but you’re two weeks older than I am.”
Lindsey changed the subject. “Has Sharon set the date for her wedding? And how’s your brother?”
“It’s an August wedding,” Tess said. “Adam graduates from Stanford this spring. He says he’s going to do as little as possible this summer, before looking for a job.”
“How’s your dad holding up?” Nina asked.
“I don’t know.” Tess paused. “Lindsey, there’s something I want to discuss with you.”
“I’ll give you some privacy.” Nina got to her feet, gathered up the newspaper, and left the living room.
“What’s in the box?”
“Mother’s things,” Tess said. “I went to the house this afternoon and took them from her desk. I haven’t looked through them yet. I want you to do that, with your researcher’s eye. Mother always kept old address books, no matter how tattered they got, full of crossed-out addresses and phone numbers. She said she never knew when she might need to unearth someone’s last known whereabouts. There are bits and pieces, and some folders she kept in a hidden drawer I found when I was a little girl. She told me they were keepsakes, special things from the past, but she didn’t say what made them special. Mother is secretive. Now I know why. The things in that box are clues to Mother’s past. Maybe you’ll figure out why they were important, why she kept them. Maybe my father’s name is in one of those address books.”
“You don’t know where this will lead. You may find you don’t want to go there.”
“But I do know where it will lead, to my real father. I do want to go there.”
“Do you know the story of Pandora’s Box?” Lindsey asked.
Tess nodded. “The gods gave Pandora a box full of all the world’s evils and told her never to open it. But she had a curious nature. She opened the box.”
“And let out sorrow and misfortune. Is that what you want to do?”
Tess’s eyes glittered, with tears—and anger. “How about the myth that Hal Norwood is my father? He isn’t. My whole life is based on a lie.”
We all live on lies, Lindsey thought. It’s just a matter of degree. “When—or if—you discover the answer, you may not like the truth any better than you like the myth.”
“You’re saying it’s better not to know. How can you make that decision for me?”
“I’m not making it for you,” Lindsey said. “But you’ve chosen to involve me. You’ve asked for my help, my blessing even. I’m not sure I can give either.”
“You’ve known Mother far longer, far better. I don’t think I know her at all. If you won’t help me, I’ll have to ask Hal myself.”
“No. Please don’t do that.”
“What else am I to do? This is really important to me.”
“I will think about it,” Lindsey said. “Take the box home with you.”
“I’ll leave the box here. Just in case.”
“I wish you wouldn’t. I’m not going to open it.”
Tess smiled as she got up from the sofa. “There was something else in Pandora’s Box. Hope, the only thing that helps us deal with sorrow and misfortune. That’s why we visit Mother, hoping she’ll get well and be herself again. So I hope you will open the box.”
She’s so sure she’s right, Lindsey thought as she watched Tess leave.
“Wha
t did Tess want?” Nina asked, returning to the living room.
“Something I’m not sure I can give.”
“It’s about that box, right?”
“Yes. But I can’t discuss it. Do you want any dinner?”
Nina shook her head as she gathered cups onto the tray. “After that brunch? I don’t think so. If I get hungry I’ll fix something.”
Lindsey carried the tray into the kitchen and loaded cups into the dishwasher. Then she poured out the remaining tea and washed the pot.
Ironic, to think of helping Tess identify her biological father, while denying her own daughter the same knowledge. Nina had the same anger. It had affected their relationship for years. But it was easier to deal with someone else’s demons.
Annabel and Hal were supposed to get married. Her father kept pushing eligible bachelors in her path. Hal Norwood, with an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, had the proper credentials. He was personable, attractive, and he worked with the chief financial officer at the Dunlin Corporation. So Hal was what Annabel called the latest designated suitor.
The irony was that after Annabel’s initial resistance, she and Hal had dated during the following months. And they did get married in June of 1974. Hastily, seven months before Tess’s birth. Lindsey assumed they’d consummated the relationship before the ceremony. It was the Seventies, those heady days of sexual freedom, of doing whatever you felt like, when you felt like doing it, before the chilly specter of AIDS showed up to haunt the Eighties. But there was more to the story. Premarital sex, but not with Hal. Who, then, if not Hal?
At the time, Lindsey had been consumed by her own problems—her own unexpected pregnancy, the decision to have the baby. She worried about how she’d support herself and the child, whether she’d be able to finish her doctorate and get an assistant professorship at Berkeley. Those had been difficult years. She’d managed to accomplish most of her goals. The Berkeley professorship, long sought, had almost been within her grasp. She’d been short-listed for a position in the History Department. But life intervened. She withdrew from consideration for the Berkeley position, taking instead the Cal Poly job in San Luis Obispo.
