She shook her head, no. “They had to let me go because they found out I lied on my application.”
“What did you lie about, Patty?”
“Well,” she sniffed. “You have to be fifteen to be in the Gray Angel Program, and I so want to be a nurse, but because my grandma and I needed money for food I needed a job where I could get out of school at noon and make some money. I lied about my age, I put on the application that I was fifteen and that wasn’t true.”
“Alright darling, just calm down,” I told her. “How old are you, Patty Cake?”
“I’ll be turning thirteen this month,” she said sorrowfully.
“Gracious, Patty, you don’t look that young. When will you turn thirteen?”
“June 16th. I was born in 1967,” she confessed, “at that same hospital that fired me.”
I looked at Shay as all the blood drained from my face, I felt myself going down. Shay jumped up and grabbed me, then carried me to our room and laid me on the bed.
“Callie, I know what you’re thinking, I’m thinking the same thing. But we have to stay calm. We need more information. The list of names Willis gave us doesn’t have Patty Richards on it.” It sounded like it was taking a lot of effort for him to stay calm.
“Right now she probably thinks we left the table because we’re mad at her. She probably thinks you fainted because you were so shocked at what she’s done.”
“Go get her, Shay, go get her and bring her in here, please,” I begged.
As Shay walked into the bedroom with Patty, that sweet little girl looked so scared and alone, my heart just crumbled.
“Patty, darling, come over here and sit by me.” I patted the bed. “First, I don’t want you to think we’re upset with you, because we’re not. But there are some real important questions Shay and I would like to ask you. They are very important, so you have to try to answer them as best you can. Can you do that, sweetie?” I asked, holding her hand.
She nodded gravely. Gee, it was hard to believe this child was just turning thirteen, with make-up on and her hair up she look at least fifteen.
“Patty, we’ve never talked much about your life. Would you mind very much telling us more about yourself?” I asked gently.
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” she said.
“Patty, were you born in Hudson at the hospital on June 16th 1967?” I asked.
“That’s what my birth certificate says,” said Patty, trying to pull herself together. “I’ll tell you what I know about myself,” she said, biting her bottom lip. “I haven’t had a really good life...it’s actually pretty terrible.”
By now I was sitting up and holding her in my arms. I calmed her down and told her to take some deep breaths and just tell us what she knew.
With some effort, she continued. “My mother was dating this guy, Levi Jensen. He’s my dad. My mom was only fourteen years old at the time.”
I shot Shay a look and he put his finger to his lips, though he looked just like I felt.
“So my mom was dating this guy, Levi Jensen. He’s the son of my grandma Bertha, who I live with, as you know. Levi is her son from her second marriage. My grandma was married four times. When my mom got pregnant, my mom moved in with my grandma and my dad. My mom was fifteen when she had me, and she put on the birth certificate that her name was Alice Louise Jensen. Her last name was Richards, but she wanted me to have my dad’s last name, so she named me Patricia Suzanne Jensen. The hospital put ‘Father: Unknown’ on my birth certificate because they weren’t married.”
Patty looked down. “I guess my mom and dad started fighting a lot right after I was born. One day my mom met a guy who was a truck driver. She took a cab out to the truck stop and took me with her. We went with this trucker. Then he was really mean to us so we lived with some other guy. There were a few more men, all of them were mean and drank a lot, but my mom drank a lot, too. A couple of years ago my mom didn’t want to be bothered with me so she gave me back to my dad. But he was married and his new wife didn’t want me, so I had to move in with my dad’s mom. That’s my Grandma Bertha.” She paused. “That’s really all I know about my past.”
I just held her on the bed. We were both very emotional and Shay was sitting on the other side of the bed taking it all in, wiping his eyes.
“Kathrine, I know how upset you are with me for lying, but we needed the money so much, Grandma Bertha always bought liquor, so there just wasn’t any food, and we’d be so hungry. I’d be so hungry, Kathrine. I understand if you don’t want me to come back here to your home. I truly have always wanted to be a nurse. Please forgive me, Kathrine and Shay, I’m so sorry.”
I was brushing her hair back from her darling little face, trying to keep it out of her tears. “Patty Cake, my sweet, sweet, child. I’m not one bit angry with you. But I need a big favor from you. I need you to go be with Kelly for a while and let me have some time with Shay. Can you do that, sweetie?”
She nodded. Shay went and got Kelly and asked Kelly to take Patty to her room for a while. After Shay shut the bedroom door he came and held me. I fell apart.
“That’s our child, Shay! I know that’s our child. How many times have I looked at her big brown eyes and seen your face? That’s my baby, Shay, that’s my baby and I want her. Shay, I need her. Don’t let anyone take her away from me again,” I cried.
“Callie, for the very first time I’m going to say this: I think you’re spot on. I think we’ve found our child. And also, Callie, I think she’s definitely my daughter. I know that’s my little girl.” I could see him biting his lower lip. “Do you think we should tell her any more information tonight, Callie?”
“Shay, as upset as Patty is, I think we need to tell her right now! She’s so heartbroken. I think she has the right to know what we know. We have to go on from here and get to the truth. Yes, Shay, let’s tell her what we know and what we think.”
To Patty, her whole world had just collapsed. She had no idea she may have just put our whole world back together.
Take Me Home
Shay went upstairs and asked Patty to come back down to our room. That dear sweet child walked into our room like she was facing a firing squad.
“Come over here, darling,” I said, patting the bed. “Come here and let me hold you. Shay and I want to share something with you. There is a possibility that we could be wrong about what we’re going to tell you, but we don’t think we are. Patty, sweetie, we’re going to tell you a family secret. Then we’re going to tell you what we think has happened. Are you ready to hear some alarming news, sweet, little Patty Cake?” I asked her gently.
She crossed the room and climbed into my arms. I know she felt secure there.
Once she was nestled comfortably, I continued. “On June 16th, 1967, I gave birth to a very tiny baby who was put into an incubator. Later, when we took her home, she was a sick baby and, at ten months, she had heart surgery and died.”
“Was that the baby in the cemetery?” Patty asked quietly. “The little grave that said, Marie?”
I nodded. “But when she was ill and we lost her, we found out she wasn’t our little girl. The hospital had mixed babies up and we got someone else’s baby. There were eight baby girls born that day. We found all but one of those babies and had tests done and none of them were ours. Patty, we think you are that baby.”
I was getting shivers as I said it, my eyes filling with tears. “We think you’re our little girl. We’d like to have a blood test run to see if you’re our daughter…if that’s okay with you, Patty Cake…”
Patty looked into my face and it was as if it were Shay looking at me. Did I always see this and just not realize it? She had the look of someone wanting something to be true, afraid to hope in case it’s not.
“Kathrine, are you telling me there is a chance you’re my real mom and Shay is my real dad?”
“Yes, Patty, that’s what I’m telling you.”
Patty grabbed me, wrapped her arms around me and
wouldn’t let go. “What if Grandma won’t let me take the tests?” she cried into my arms.
Shay was sitting by her and Patty reached over and held us both close, her thin little arms wrapped around our necks so tight. Shay had his arm around her back, just like I did.
‘’Well,” Shay said, trying to talk through his own tears, “we don’t have to worry about that, Patty Cake. My attorney has a court order for blood tests for any female child born June 16th, 1967 at the Hudson hospital, so it’s a done deal.”
“When can we do the tests?” Patty asked.
“Tomorrow isn’t soon enough for Callie and me,” Shay said.
We had Kelly and Wes come to our room and told them what was happening. If you can imagine what a room full of five blubbering people would look like, well, that was us. Everyone was hugging each other with tears in their eyes.
“I knew all along you were my sister,” Wes said.
“How did you know?” Patty asked, sniffling.
“Well, ’cause you’re just like Kelly; a pain in the butt!” he laughed. “The two of you are just alike. Now I got two pains in the butt.” But he had as many tears in his eyes as everyone.
Shay picked up the phone and called Willis Hock.
“Willis, how ya doing? I called you at home because I have some news. Callie and I think we’ve found our blood daughter. Right here, she lives right here, so close to us, right in Hudson. You bet we are. You bet! We want her tested in the morning, so can you please set it up? We will be at the hospital before ten, thank you, thank you, yes I’m sure we’re right. I’ll be in to see you tomorrow. She is. She’s beside herself,” he said, smiling, and hung up.
“Patty, we have to get up early tomorrow. Callie and I are taking you to talk to your grandmother, and then we’re going to go get that test,” Shay said giving Patty a hug.
I don’t think we slept all night. We were too excited at the thought of finding our daughter. I felt safe in saying “our daughter.” I knew Shay was just as sure she was ours; not mine, but ours. The more I thought about that sweet beautiful face of Patty’s, the more I could see Shay. Did I see it in the hospital? Was that why we felt so immediately connected? How strange life is, I thought lying awake in the dark, stranger than fiction, that I should find my child, thirteen years later, in the same hospital I lost her in.
My mind was running amuck. There was no way I was going to sleep, so I wrapped myself in Shay’s arms and thanking God for the miracle of our child. Shay spent most of the night rocking me like a baby, cradling me in his strong arms.
“You know, princess,” he said, at one point in the dark. “I don’t think I really ever comprehended how you felt, when you said your arms were empty and you needed your child. As a man I just didn’t feel that massive emptiness you talked about—until today. Thinking: that is my lost child, my arms feel empty, and I just want to hold her and rock her as if she was my newborn daughter. Callie, forgive me for not always understanding that love you could never let go of. I now know that love you’ve felt, your need. Princess, I am so, so sorry that there were times I wasn’t there for you,” Shay said with tears running down his cheeks.
We were up and dressed early at the breakfast table. Mom was there, and Sterling and Maggie had just gotten home, so Shay broke the startling news. Our family was not only surprised, but we could see how happy they were for us—to think the little girl they’d all become so attached to could be their own little granddaughter. We all had a lot of tears at the table.
It had been a huge story in the Hudson paper when we were searching for our child. I remember the last articles said something like:
The Westover family may never find their daughter, but they say they will never give up the search, and they believe in their hearts that one day they will find her.
Shay had a lot of work for Wes to do that day, but Kelly wanted to go to Hudson with us to Patty’s grandmother’s, then on to the hospital for the tests. Kelly was so tenderhearted, she wasn’t about to let her little sister out of her sight.
Shay had called ahead to Patty’s grandmother’s house and asked that Patty’s father, Levi, be present when we got there. We had a long talk with her so-called family. It amazed both Shay and me how little they seemed to care that Patty might not be theirs. I had hoped there wouldn’t be a fight, but in a way this was more disturbing.
What shocked me the most was that they had no questions about their real daughter. It was like, ‘pass the baby around, where she stops, nobody cares.’ I could see that no one really gave a damn about this child or Marie. How could they not want to know about their baby, precious little Marie?
The dad seemed relieved to be rid of Patty, and the grandmother seemed downright happy to be able to go back to her life of parties and boyfriends. Did they give us their blessing for the tests? It was more like a shrug. ‘Yeah, sure, guess things like that just happen. Well, let us know what the tests say.’ What in the hell had our little girl been through?
I could tell Shay was noticing the same thing, and as the conversation wound down, he looked Levi in the eye and said:
“I’d like Patty to bring a few of the things that she wants. I plan to keep her with us until the results are in. If for some reason the tests are negative, then we need to talk, because I’d like to keep Patty either way.” He ery authoritative about the whole thing. No one argued.
Off to the hospital to get our blood drawn! I was shaking, just shaking. Shay held onto me throughout the whole ordeal. We went to the Weiner Wagon for lunch and all got the conies Shay and I loved so much. The girls wanted to go shop a little, so Shay gave them each some cash and they were off.
“I’m glad they wanted to leave for a while,” Shay said, fixing his eyes on me. “Callie, you need to calm down. The last thing I need is for you to make yourself sick. What can I do to keep you calm and level-headed for the next ten to fourteen days, princess?”
“Shay, how can I calm down? I found my baby, I feel like I just gave birth! I want to hold my tiny baby in my arms, and here she is, thirteen years old; beautiful, smart, sensible, she’s growing up to be a wonderful young lady. Shay, I missed—we missed—so much of her life, and you know what really scares me?”
“What scares you, princess?”
“Shay, what do you think she’s been through, what sort of a life has she had? Did they feed her enough; love her at all? Didn’t look like it. Did anyone abuse her? Gosh, Shay, all the boyfriends she said her mom had… I have so many questions, but I’m afraid I can’t handle the answers.”
Shay knew exactly what I meant. I could see he had been thinking the same things. “Princess, I don’t want you to even think about that right now—first things first. If she’s our child, then let’s enjoy that knowledge. There will always be time for us to think about what happened in her past. Right now, let’s concentrate on the future.”
Shay was my man of reason.
When the girls got back we went home to Westover, and the girls went horseback riding. I was still a mess of nerves. Ten days, to two weeks… this was going to be sheer agony. How could we make it?
***
I saw Shay watching me as the days passed, he watched my every move. One night, while he held me in his arms, I finally told him that he didn’t have to worry about me.
“I’m drawing on your strength,” I said. “What you’ve said to me, all of it; I think it’s beginning to sink in. You’re my rock, Shay. And when the oceans get rough, I have my rock, so I know I won’t drown.”
“You make my world, Callie. I thought the only thing I ever wanted to be was a playboy, a party guy. Then I met you and you turned my world upside down. Just look at me; I’m a husband; I have three children. I’m running the farmstead operation and I am the happiest, most content man in the world. Callie, nothing could make me happier than I am right now.”
A couple of days later, I made a decision. I knew the time had come for me to move on Marie’s baby things. I could do it now. It
took thirteen years, but I could now give them to someone who needed them. Maggie told me some years back that she had stored the crib and all of Rie-Rie’s little things in the attic. So for the first time since I’d been living in the Big House I ventured up there.
My goodness, Maggie had a lot of stuff stored in that attic! There was a lot of history up there, history that would one day pass along to Wes and his family. There it was, I could see the boxes. They were marked in black ink, “Marie’s Clothes.”
Then I just had to chuckle. Maggie had a box that said, “Wesley’s Clothes,” and, “Kelly’s Clothes.” I could even see their two cribs, and of course, little Marie’s. Well, Maggie had just been busted. Her secret was out. She was a packrat!
I sat down and opened the slightly dusty boxes. They were pretty clean for being there so many years. I was having fun looking at the little tiny outfits, the booties, sweaters, and hats, the receiving blankets. The two boxes were big and believe me, Maggie had packed them full. As I sat there holding Rie-Rie’s booties, I became aware that I wasn’t alone. I whirled around.
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