Identity of the Heart (A Hidden Hearts Novel Book 1)

by Mary Crawford

  “I suspect my mom could’ve done without my little jaunt into juvenile delinquency, but other than that I agree with you. My grandma used to have a saying, ‘We are where we came from.’ I suspect she meant it in terms of being proud of my heritage but I think she also meant that I needed to own the decisions that I made in the past. If it hadn’t been for the rough patch in my life, I wouldn’t have become a tattoo artist and I wouldn’t have met your sister which means I wouldn’t have met you. So, I guess it all works out in the end.”

  I turn off the ignition and walk around the car to open her door. As she unfolds her long graceful legs from the tight confines of my 1970 candy apple red Mustang, I consider what a natural look it is for her. I’ve been eyeing a nice sweet little ’65. Maybe, just maybe, I need a second commuter car to share with my soon-to-be wife. Even on a casual day like today, Ivy looks stunning in a pair of crisp white shorts and a little yellow tank top.

  “Why are you staring at me?” Ivy asks, self-consciously, looking around.

  “I’m just thinking about how amazingly lucky I am,” I answer, resisting the urge to bare my soul in the middle of the parking lot.

  “From where I’m standing, I’m pretty lucky too,” Ivy responds, pressing a kiss against the side of my neck as she weaves an arm around my waist and practically skips toward the entrance’s graceful stone steps.

  It’s fascinating to watch Ivy divide up our lunch while she’s chatting excitedly about our adventures at the museum. She’s not even paying attention to what she’s doing, yet she is able to flawlessly order for me and then divide up our lunches so that we could take advantage of the specials without hassling the waitstaff. It cracks me up when she puts extra ice and lemon in my Pepsi. That’s such an obscure thing to know about me, yet she does. She even hunted down a packet of relish so she could make me her version of fry sauce. She steals the tomatoes off my burger and donates the pickles off of hers and places them on mine.

  “Are you done rearranging lunch?” I tease.

  She looks around the table as if realizing for the first time how elaborate her rituals have become. “…sorry, I guess we should have paid the three dollars extra for a custom burger. It just seems really stupid— especially when you consider we’re ideal matches for each other. We balance each other out perfectly. I like tomatoes, you like pickles. You like the hamburger buns, I like the fries. You like pizza crust, I don’t care for it much. It all works out just fine. We’re like the perfect yin-yang. Rogue and Tristan are that way too. Rogue only likes dark meat and I guess Tristan prefers white meat. It’s all kind of perfect that we found each other.”

  I reach into my jacket pocket. My fingers closing around the little wooden box. I take a deep breath and try to focus. I know that I couldn’t have been handed a better opening line if I had scripted it myself. I take a calming breath and then two and then three.

  “Ivy, you’re right. I can’t think of anything more perfect. I’ve pretty much had that opinion of you since you almost passed out in my arms the first day we met. I know it didn’t seem very romantic to you, but to me it meant the world. You trusted me to help you that day. I felt about ten feet tall for a week afterward.”

  “That’s really funny. I had the opposite reaction. I felt weak, helpless and embarrassed. But after you helped me, I felt as if you not only kept me upright, you helped keep my world from spinning off its axis. I remember feeling really sad because I thought Rogue already had dibs on you.”

  I smile at the memory of the conversation we had that day. Even though it was slightly less than a year ago, in some ways, it seems like it was a whole other lifetime ago. Everything seems so different now.

  “It’s weird that this whole adventure between us started because you thought that someone was pretending to be you and you originally went on the site because you wanted to find who you really were.”

  Ivy nods and murmurs, “To think I almost didn’t go see Tristan that day—”

  I swallow hard as I continue, “In reality, I think you actually helped me find out who I really am. You gave me permission to stop pretending to be everyone’s favorite ‘bad- ass-dude’ and just be me. With you, I can be that guy who would just as soon build picnic tables in his backyard with a troubled kid from the neighborhood than go out with a bunch of random women just to keep up appearances. I always hated the club scene, and as a recovering addict, it was never particularly healthy for me.”

  “Marcus, I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t be real with people,” Ivy offers sympathetically.

  “Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like Rogue didn’t try to call me on my superficial behavior. She did. But, it wasn’t until you nailed me that day with your dead-on personality reading that I realized I’d rather be the person you described than the person I was pretending to be.”

  “Haven’t you really been that person all along, underneath all your social armor?” Ivy asks me.

  “That’s what’s so crazy about it,” I admit. “Everyone around me seems to realize that, I was the last person to know. I think that’s what I adore the most about you, you love all sides of me. You recognize that there’s always going to be a messed up little boy inside me that may never be able to leave his dysfunctional past completely behind and you recognize the hard-working professional I am now trying to be; to make up for who I used to be. But, most importantly you see the kind of man that I want to be. Miraculously, you seem to be in love with all of me.”

  Ivy wipes a tear from her cheek as I hold the little bamboo box in my suddenly shaking hand and drop to one knee. Several thoughts hit me at once. This is symbolic on so many levels. Super-Secret-Spy-Guy manages to pull off a surprise proposal on a trip to Paris with a flawless diamond. We’re on the junkie outdoor patio of a burger joint in hot, sweaty Florida, next to the dumpster—complete with an orchestra of flies— I’m such a freakin’ romantic.

  I try to bring my thoughts back into focus so I can continue, “I can’t promise you that I’ll ever be the kind of perfect guy that Tristan is for Rogue, but I can promise you this, Ivy Love Montclair, I love you with every cell of my being. Please marry me so that we can keep being perfect together.” There, that didn’t sound half bad. It sounded almost as good as what I rehearsed in the shower this morning.

  Ivy doesn’t really wait for me to put the ring on her finger she grabs the box from my hand and starts to jump up and down as she replies through tears, “Oh My Gosh! Yes! Of course I’ll marry you. You are perfect for me. Do you see this ring? I’d be crazy to say no to a guy who understands me well enough to give me this ring…. Do you see this ring?” she asks again as she takes it out of the box to examine it more closely. Her joy is absolutely effervescent.

  I can’t help but grin as I respond, “Yes, I see the ring. It’d be hard not to—because I helped design it.”

  “No way!” Ivy exclaims as I ease the ring onto her ring finger. She tilts it in the sun so that the stones catch the light. “It’s absolutely gorgeous! Did you know that amethyst stones are supposed to promote meditation and clairvoyance and diamonds are for purity and love? They are also the birthstones for February and April, you’ve got both of my birthday celebrations covered too.”

  “Umm, that was kind of my plan—” I try to interject.

  “I can’t believe I get to have a dragonfly for my wedding ring. I never had a chance to show you my collection of dragonflies when we were at my parents’ house or you would better understand what this means to me. I started drawing and painting dragonflies when I was two and a half. It’s like I’ve always had some deep spiritual connection to them.”

  “That’s amazing. I just wanted to do something for you that was as unique as our love. A friend of mine made that for us. He’s still working on the wedding band.”

  Ivy’s eyes widen, “You mean there’s more to it than this? Oh wow! I love this so much, I can’t imagine anything more.”

  “Well, you know me, the master of coloring outside the lines
…”

  Ivy takes me by the hand and walks around the side of the restaurant and pushes me up against the brick wall. She stands on her tip-toes and begins a series of blindingly hot kisses. As I groan and clutch her waist, she whispers, “This coloring thing is a funny business, I used to be all fussy about boundaries, but then I met this really cool guy who just became my fiancé and he’s taught me that sometimes it’s really fun to do things way outside your comfort zone.”

  “ROSIE, CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE we’re here in Paris at Christmastime in front of the Eiffel tower? What strange turns our lives have taken,” I say as I rewrap her scarf. I’ve gotten a little spoiled with Florida weather. It’s a little more like Denver here although it’s raining and not snowing. But, Rosa wanted to get out of the limousine and see the Eiffel tower up close. I tried to tell Tristan that we didn’t need a limousine. Still, he insisted that we treat this trip like a second honeymoon and splurge a little.

  “No, I can’t believe it. I still have to pinch myself every morning when I wake up next to you. Officially, you weren’t even alive until we got the paperwork a couple weeks ago. Do you know how it broke my heart to have to go to court and have you declared dead? I waited years for you to come back. I even postponed the declaration for three years beyond when I could’ve filed because I was sure that you couldn’t possibly be gone. But, I needed insurance money for Rogue; I had no choice.”

  “Rosie, I don’t question a single choice you made. Neither of us had any idea that it would turn out this way, but it’s a miracle from God that our girls are safe and you still love me.”

  “Our girls are such a miracle. Especially Ivy. I can’t comprehend that she grew up only miles from our home. If I’d only had money to put Rogue into dance classes, they would’ve probably gone to dance competitions together. I feel so guilty.”

  “Do not feel bad, my love,” I murmur as I shelter her under my arm. “Did I tell you what Tristan uncovered?”

  “No, did he find more?” she asks with alarm in her voice.

  “Unfortunately, yes. The fraud goes even deeper than we expected. We were by no means the only victims. We were likely just the most unusual ones. Do you remember that you did not have an ultrasound at your regular doctor’s office because of my dad’s connections at the military base? We were so poor back then that we were trying to save money wherever we could.”

  Rosa smiles affectionately as she reminisces, “I remember. I baked a lot of bread and tortillas. I even learned how to sew and I made hand made dresses for the girls.”

  “Tristan suspects it never made it into the file that you were expecting twins. Do you remember the person who led the hospital tours? Betty White?”

  A look of recognition passes over Rosie’s face. “Oh yes! I remember now. I thought it was funny because she had a famous name. I’m a huge Mary Tyler Moore fan and I remembered Betty White from the show.”

  “Not surprisingly, it was not her real name. Her real name was Pryscila Northlend. She was the Vice President of Customer Affairs for a chain of hospitals in the Northeast for fifteen years. She worked with a ring of corrupt adoption attorneys to funnel babies onto the market. More often than not, the parents who adopted the babies didn’t know any different.”

  “I don’t understand. What was in it for attorneys like ours?” Rosa asks, puzzled.

  “That was the other piece of the shakedown aside from extremely high attorney fees, it appears there was almost always some glitch with the adoption. In our case, they threw in the story about the disgruntled hospital employee and Roger bought it hook, line and sinker. Apparently, that was a ruse they used a lot. Another one was unexpected hospital bills. In retrospect, it appears they pulled that one on the Montclair family too. They were billing your insurance for both girls and they were billing the Montclairs’ for Ivy. There was seemingly no end to their greed because they were claiming that the insurance was not paying for Ivy’s bills and they were billing Roger privately without telling Lenore. He was afraid that if he told Lenore what was happening, they would tell her what was going on with the employee he paid off. This was a pattern we saw over and over again. Sometimes, they would claim the birth mom wanted to keep the baby or they would say that the birth father had come back and asserted his rights. One of the most egregious strategies was to claim that the babies were drug addicted and needed expensive treatments to be able to go home. Of course, in the vast majority of cases, the babies were perfectly healthy and being kept at the hospital basically for ransom.”

  Rosa turns a little pale. “Ivy told me that she was at the hospital for nearly six months. That’s an awfully long time for a little baby to be at the hospital. Do you think they held her hostage?”

  “I don’t know, mi cariño, most of the participants who were caught have served their time in jail. The others like Ms. Northlend are dead or in nursing homes. She has a severe case of Alzheimer’s and has to have twenty-four hour care.”

  “Well, I guess we had a little help from a higher power,” comments Rosa.

  “My thoughts traveled in a similar direction,” I admit. “I think the only thing we can do now is move forward. The girls are back in our lives and we can’t move the clock backwards or recover memories that we didn’t have a chance to make. If we continue to fight, we will just become bitter.”

  “Very true mi cariño. Besides, I have two very important weddings to prepare for,” she replies, gawking around at the postcard-type scenery around us. It has stopped sprinkling for the moment, but people are still carrying brightly colored umbrellas.

  Rosie is so busy watching all the bustling tourists and Parisians, she hasn’t noticed that I’ve taken my glove off and have something on my pinky finger. I pull the ring off my pinky finger and hide it in my palm as I kneel in front of her. This is much more difficult than it was nearly 30 years ago when I did it the first time.

  The whispers of people around us causes Rosie to turn her attention back to me. The look of astonishment on her face is priceless. “Isaac Roguen, what in the world are you doing? You’re going to catch a terrible cold. The ground is soaking wet!”

  “Come now Rosie, has it really been so long that you don’t remember what it’s like for a man to profess his undying love and to ask his beloved for her hand in marriage?” I ask with a teasing lilt in my voice. “Come to think of it, you didn’t think I was serious the first time I asked you either.”

  “Speaking of forgetting, you silly man. Did you forget that I’m already married to you?”

  “Well, that’s up for debate. It’s a little complicated since you had me declared dead and you remarried someone else. So to address any questions about the matter, I would like to say to the world that despite all that’s happened between us, I would happily marry you all over again, Rosa Marie Cisneros Betancourt Roguen. I never stopped loving you for a millisecond of time. Rosie Roguen, will you marry me?”

  “Isaac Randall Roguen, before I go any further, please get off the ground,” Rosa instructs with a teary smile.

  After she helps me to my feet, we walk over to a wrought iron bench and sit down. She faces me and takes my hands into hers as she says, “Isaac, my heart. I never stopped thinking of you as my husband, even when I was married to Clive. That was probably why our marriage didn’t work. Well— that and the fact that he’s a dumb ass,” Rosie quips.

  I laugh out loud at Rosa’s sense of humor. I’ve missed it so much. She doesn’t ever seem to plan her jokes in advance. They just seem to flow naturally from her genuinely funny outlook on life.

  “But, in the beginning of our relationship, Clive vaguely reminded me of the way you used to make me feel. He would leave notes in my lunchbox and have flowers delivered to me at work. For the first time in a long time, I remembered what it was like to be in love. I realize now that I was never really in love with Clive, I was just in love with the feeling of being in love. I could never fall in love with Clive or anyone else because I never fell out of love with you,�
�� she confesses.

  “I hear you saying that you still love me and I still love you. Does that mean you’ll marry me?” I clarify.

  “Si, you silly, sweet man. I will marry you. I just don’t know when since we will be busy with the girls’ weddings right around the corner.”

  “Would you like to get married right now, in Paris?” I ask after I’ve kissed her thoroughly. I can’t believe how much I’ve missed the simple act of kissing my wife. “I don’t know about you, but I have been away from you for far too long. I am ready to pick up the pieces of our life again and be your husband as it should’ve been all along. We had such dreams for our lives when we were young, perhaps it’s time to start living them now.”

  “Isaac, I don’t understand. How would that even be possible?” Rosie exclaims, with hope and fear warring in her eyes.

  “Well, it turns out that the young man I work for is very resourceful.” I respond gathering Rosa in a loose embrace and fiddling with her long hair. “All you need to do is show up at room 207 at six o’clock tonight and everyone will take care of everything you need,” I explain, jotting down notes as I receive about nine text messages in a flurry. This is going to be interesting for sure. I hope that my future son-in-law knows what he’s doing.

  BEFORE I KNOCK ON THE hotel door, I look down at what I’m wearing and shake my head in dismay. No self-respecting woman wants to get married wearing purple rain boots with poodles carrying umbrellas and an orange and purple striped scarf. What was that crazy husband of mine thinking? Who gets married on the same day that they get asked? I guess the good side is I don’t have to worry about stressing over losing twenty pounds before I get married. But, there are many things to worry about when a woman gets married. Do we even know a minister who speaks English or Spanish? We are in France after all.