Authoring Amelia

by Lia Conklin

  On Tuesday, she forced herself into the car and drove to the one person who could offer her solace. Crouched upon her mother’s grave, she wept for her misfortune. She cried for the lopsided grin and the white hanky he had proffered. It had become the real deal, security and support in a world that threatened to upend her with each step she took. And now, it was simply a luxury she had touched but could not hold.

  Soon the startling contrast between her situation and her current setting worked its way into her mind. She had come here before to bemoan the taking of life, and now she had come to bemoan its giving. How could she grieve for life being given?

  She began to cry again but this time for the clarity that once again was hers. Not for the ramifications it had upon her future or for how it had shattered the ideals of her past, but for what was and would be. Everything else would have to be molded around the simple truth that she would be a mother. A mother, she repeated to herself, as she hugged the ground that now held hers.

  There was no rainbow when her tears subsided, but her clarity gave her resolve. She would move forward, she always did.

  “For you, I’ll do my best,” she promised, and from her crouch she bestowed a kiss on one headstone and then the other. As she ventured to stand, she noticed something peculiar between the stones, a perfect square of mounded grass, as if someone had stacked upon the ground extra layers of sod. She placed her hands upon the mound and found it to be no softer nor harder than the ground around her. Yet, unlike the mounds of her mother’s and brother’s plots that had settled and leveled with the surrounding earth, this mound appeared to be less carefully contrived to return to its original contours. A soft place to rest, she mused.

  “Dibs,” she called softly to Scottie, placing her hand upon the mound to claim her place for their next family picnic. And with that, she got back to her life, ready to make modifications for the new life growing within.

  Chapter 68

  Her first step to getting back to her life was to retrace the first step she had taken to reclaim her past. She wasn’t quite sure why she had come. Of course, she had promised Toby a visit nearly a month ago and hoped she wouldn’t be too upset that she had waited so long. But she also wanted something more. Maybe she felt that Toby could tell her something more and lead her one step closer to her father. Maybe she just wanted a reminder that she did have a family here, a hodgepodge of sorts, like a collection of rare china that, however mismatched, would serve her child the world upon each of its ornate platters.

  Amelia smiled as she stood at the information desk, watching Toby help the less-than-enthusiastic teen find resources for his research paper. Toby made up for any enthusiasm he lacked and joyously shared with him her investigative expertise. Her plump fingers went whirring across the keyboard yet again searching another website of interest when she caught sight of Amelia. How she managed to get out of her chair and around the counter so quickly without toppling the whole thing over, including the boy, Amelia had little time to contemplate as Toby’s exuberant hug nearly squeezed out her life’s breath. Didn’t appear she was too sore with Amelia for her delay after all.

  “Toby, you really have to be a bit more tender with me!” Amelia wheezed, when Toby finally let her go. “Remember, I’m one of those sickly, skinny types that blow over in a breeze.”

  “Ah, you don’t fool me. You’re not skinny, just small boned!” Then with barely a pause to hear Amelia’s chuckle, she yelled over her shoulder to anyone it concerned and everyone it didn’t, “I’m going on break!”

  As Amelia sat across from Toby in Dunn Bros, she was reminded of the lighter side of life, the optimism that came with nature, not circumstance. She knew Toby’s past was as tragic as her own: a son killed in a car accident, a husband that bailed on her and her grief. Yet here she sat in front of Amelia, the silver lining draped over her robust shoulders. It was so comforting to sit within its glow.

  This time Toby had foregone the brownie and cappuccino and sat sipping black coffee. Amelia wondered what number diet she was on. Poor Toby, she just never gave up, yet always did.

  “I was thinking the other day about that book list I gave to the FBI,” she declared, after having shared a number of lively anecdotes and clever musings over the past ten minutes. “I have to admit I took a peek at it myself as I printed it off for them. Your father sure was interested in some obscure topics. Take time capsules and safes, for instance. The Art of Time Capsules, Weathering the Storms of Time: Building a Time Capsule to Last, Is Your Safe Safe? Anyway, something like that. Do you think the FBI would have reason to worry about someone making a time capsule? I could understand if it were books on bomb-making. But safes sound pretty safe to me,” she added, wincing at her own pun. “Come to think of it,” she laughed sheepishly, “I wasn’t ever supposed to say anything about it. A ‘gag order’ they said. Suppose thirteen years later it doesn’t make any difference!”

  In spite of her confusion, Amelia had to giggle to herself. She never even asked the question, and Toby had given her exactly what she came for: more information about her father. She didn’t say that, however, and instead responded, “I can’t imagine the FBI being interested in any of that. I can’t imagine it being of interest to my father either, for that matter. He’s never been one for collecting memorabilia or safeguarding for natural disasters,” or unnatural ones, she added to herself bitterly.

  “Then again, your father never seemed to be one who did what was expected. Seemed to have a knack for setting the ordinary on its ear.” Toby frowned at her empty coffee cup as she set it upon the table. “Well, that was completely unsatisfactory,” she declared. “I better get out of here before I go for some real satisfaction.”

  As Amelia walked Toby back to the information desk, she couldn’t shake the image of safes and time capsules. Finally, she laughed at the futility of finding relevance in a few books that shared a list with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. And anyway, she thought, he could be the ‘Prisoner of Azkaban’ for all I care.

  Chapter 69

  “Hi, Jonathon? Yeah, it’s Amelia. I’ve been sick. I’m sorry I haven’t gotten back to you. No, I’m feeling better now, thanks.” She wondered if he could tell from her voice that she was different. She wondered if he’d tell from her face when he saw her.

  She really had no idea why she was enlisting him in what she was about to do. She knew that she needed to break things off with him face-to-face, but this had nothing to do with that. This was for a far more selfish reason. She wanted him with her. In a way, he had been there from the beginning of this journey, and she wanted him to be with her for this next strange step. She would tell him later. Soon…but later. There was still a little time, and maybe she would find a way to do it that wouldn’t hurt him so much. Hurt her so much. So, the subtext was left unsaid and instead, by the time they had finished their conversation, she had convinced him to meet her despite how crazy it sounded.

  It was drizzling and nearly black as they made their way forward with the flashlight. The slope was slippery, but Jonathon’s arm kept Amelia from falling. When they reached the top, he let the flashlight lie limp at his side, and in spite of the near blackness, his mouth found hers. His lips felt sweet, but as all sweetness in her life came with a price, she paid for it with her guilt.

  Then as suddenly as the kiss began, it ended with a flashlight beam to her eyes.

  “Okay, Amelia. What do you have up your sleeve? Please tell me we’re not here to exhume any bodies.”

  In spite of the gruesome thought, especially since they were standing directly above her mother’s and brother’s grave, Amelia laughed into the beam of his flashlight.

  “At first appearances it might seem that way,” she admitted, producing a trowel from her grandmother’s coat. “But we’re actually here to exhume something else. Now get that out of my face so I can see what I’m doing.”

  He pointed it at the ground, and she pushed his hand until the beam shone between her mot
her’s and brother’s headstones.

  “Do you see that mound?” she declared. “That’s where we’re exhuming.” And with that, she crouched between the stones and began to dig with the trowel.

  “This is just way too creepy, Amelia,” Jonathon confessed, shivering less from the cold than from their current occupation. “Maybe if I had known you longer, I could find some humor in this, but I’m beginning to think you should be locked up next to your father.”

  “Just be patient. You’ll soon see only my father should be locked up, but maybe not in a jail. It shouldn’t be too deep.”

  It took another ten minutes of rooting around, and Jonathon’s threats to leave her there alone, before Amelia’s trowel hit the metal safe. Within minutes she had it entirely dug up.

  “This is entirely too bizarre!” Jonathon lamented. “Before I met you I was an ordinary lawyer in an ordinary life. Now I’m standing in the rain in the middle of the night, digging up metal boxes in a cemetery. And inside I suppose we’ll find the head of Jimmy Hoffa!”

  “Nothing so glamorous,” Amelia confessed, opening the lid wide so Jonathon could see there was no head, only stacks of money. “Just a little cash saved for a rainy day. And imagine that! It’s raining!”

  Jonathon raised the beam from the safe to her face.

  “Please tell me that’s not stolen money,” he moaned as she smiled even more broadly.

  “If only my father were that romantic. No, Jonathon, just some insurance money my father couldn’t trust to our financial institutions, or to me, it would seem. Now shine the flashlight back down here so I can cover this hole up. Then we’ll haul this down to the car.”

  But before she closed the safe, she caught sight of something that made her think her father was more of a romantic than she had given him credit for. She closed the lid quickly and covered her puzzlement with a smile as she looked up at Jonathon. He didn’t need to know about that.

  Within a half hour they were warming themselves inside Jonathon’s car, the safe oozing mud all over the back seat. Jonathon sat grinning across from her. Suddenly, she wanted to spread kisses across that crooked grin and erase the past that prevented her from doing just that, but his smile quickly turned downward in an expression of earnest.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Amelia apologized, indicating the backseat. “We’ll take out what we need to get it professionally cleaned.”

  “I’m not worried about that, Amelia,” Jonathon replied, his face frowning under the dashboard lights. “I’m worried about me. Tonight, in this creepy setting, doing this crazy stunt, I felt more alive than I’ve ever felt. And it’s not just tonight. It’s every time I’m with you. You are so real, so raw. I touch you, and I feel life vibrate in my hand. I feel a genuineness that has been groomed out of my life until it’s become a sterile shell of what life should be. When I’m with you, I feel my spirit again.”

  He was holding her hands in his and looking at them instead of her eyes.

  “To be honest, I’m afraid to lose you. I know this is so fast, but I want to know, I need to know what you feel about me.” Finally, he looked up at her. “I think I’m falling in love with you,” he confessed.

  She stared at him. She didn’t know what to say about anything he had said. She wondered what she would have responded had her situation been different, had she not been carrying Donovan’s child. She knew he was the perfect boyfriend, and eventual husband, not to mention the answer to all her grandmother’s dreams. But in spite of all that, regardless of whether he could ever accept the baby within her, she suddenly knew she could not accept him. Donovan distorted his face at every turn, interrupted his kisses, and took his place in her dreams. She adored the image of him next to her, but it was Donovan who nestled within.

  Her silence told him more than he was prepared to hear. He shook his head and silenced her with his hand when she decided to finally speak.

  “No,” he said. “Don’t say it. I got your answer. Just answer me one more. Do you think you could ever return my feelings?”

  Amelia swallowed and through tears that began to pool in her eyes she answered.

  “Even if I could, Jonathon, there’s so much baggage to sift through. I haven’t even begun to organize it myself. The girl from the other side of the tracks would get old pretty quickly. And I’m from way on the other side of the tracks.”

  “That’s not what you are to me,” he objected, “but I suppose that doesn’t matter now. I have your answer.” He looked away into the rivulets of drizzle that coursed down his window to meet as a stream at its base.

  “I better get you home,” he said, putting the car in gear. She remembered another time he had said that, and like that time it carried with it regret, but this time also loss and fear. But the fear was not his. That was hers alone, and as they drove back through the darkness, it wormed its way inside her. She worried it might claim her womb for itself.

  Chapter 70

  Just wait ’til I show you—.” Amelia began.

  “You won’t believe what—” Connie interrupted. They both laughed.

  Upon seeing the safe Amelia held in her arms, Connie’s curiosity got the best of her. “You go first!” she exclaimed.

  “Well,” Amelia continued, heaving the safe over to deposit it with a thud on the table. “I found something.

  “You don’t say,” Connie remarked. “Should I even bother asking where…or how?”

  “Suffice it to say it was sheer coincidence that I found it. Just a few pieces of the puzzle fell together and a little graveside digging later…voilà!”

  “Don’t even tell me,” Connie winced at the thought. “I don’t even want to understand what went on inside your dad’s head. And I’m a little worried that you figured it out. But since we have it, let’s have a look inside!

  “Pretty much what I thought,” Amelia said as she opened the lid and began to finger the money. “About two hundred thousand dollars. There are some documents in here accounting for the money. This receipt shows that twenty-five of it is my father’s share of mom’s life insurance. And this document shows the home insurance payout for the equity they had in their home. That makes up the remainder. Doesn’t look like my father was involved in blackmail or bribery, only general mistrust of the government and our financial institutions. However…” Amelia paused for dramatic effect, as if Connie’s google eyes at seeing so much cash suggested she needed even more drama, “seems like his general mistrust extended beyond protecting one’s money.” With that, she opened her hand, and in it lay a USB flash drive.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” Connie murmured, taking it from Amelia’s outstretched palm. “Have you listened to it yet?” she stammered, her voice taking on a high pitch in her excitement.

  “Believe me, I wanted to but I didn’t have any way to play it. Grandma and I are both still caught in the twentieth century, and I didn’t feel comfortable taking it to the library.”

  Five minutes later, Amelia and Connie sat at the table, heads cocked, ears straining to hear the conversation emanating from Connie’s iPad. It was obviously a phone conversation, and the voices echoed and broke, indicative of cell phone interference. Regardless, they were able to make out most of the conversation that appeared to have started in the middle.

  “Wait a minute,” Amelia heard her father’s voice say. “You can’t think I had anything to do with that. How do you even know they were surveilling you?”

  “You think I’m stupid?” demanded a British voice with the hint of a foreign accent. “I know when I’m being followed. And they were American. You’re American. And you wonder how I know it was you.”

  “There are millions of Americans—”

  “And you’re the only one I’ve been talking to!” You’re the only one mentioning me in the papers!

  “Anonymously! I’ve never breathed a word. Never. You know I wouldn’t. This relationship, our relationship, has been mutually beneficial. Al Qaeda gets recog—”


  “You talk of our relationship? You’re an idiot. You used me; I used you. End of story. And I mean end of story. Your story!” He bellowed.

  The loud “click” that followed caused both Amelia and Connie to jump in their chairs. It was another ten seconds or so before Amelia and Connie had the nerve to look at one another.

  “Well,” Connie sighed, “like I said, he stepped on some toes. Sounds like this was his London bombing informant. The British accent gives us a pretty big clue.”

  Amelia wasn’t sure what to say, what to feel. Could that cold, British voice have taken revenge on her father? And how could that other voice, of the person she had loved and admired, have goaded him on? They were co-conspirators, she decided, equally responsible for the deaths of the two people she loved most in the world, but in her heart, it was her father who took on the true brunt of the blame.

  “This doesn’t prove anything,” Connie reminded her. “He doesn’t say he’s going to do anything; he just intimates it. A lot of people have done that without anything ever coming of it. We can’t jump to any conclusions.”

  “Why bury this flash drive after the explosion if it’s so benign? And alongside the money? It must have had something to do with it.”

  “You’ve got a point there,” Connie relented. “Or maybe he knew the FBI was investigating him, and he wanted to continue to protect his source? Or protect himself by keeping it as leverage against his source?”

  “Or protect himself from being affiliated with a known terrorist?” Amelia suggested disdainfully. “It would be just like him to continue to protect himself.”

  “Well, the next question seems to be What should we do with this new information? I think this time, we leave it up to someone else. How do you feel about turning it over to the FBI? I know they’re involved in your father’s disappearance, but maybe they’re the best people to handle this.”