by Sharon Sala
His not-real mother was recently deceased, and according to papers he’d found in her house, his birth mother’s name was Janie Chapman. It was the DNA test he took and a lot of sleuthing that had led him to Blessings, Georgia. It might be just another dead end, or it could lead to people who knew her, but he wasn’t leaving until he was sure. He was about to give up and go straight to the police station. He didn’t want to, but if he wanted to find her he was going to need help.
So he left the area and headed back downtown.
* * *
About an hour into the party, Cora and Junior walked in. Bowie saw them come in and went to meet them. He nodded at Cora, then gave Junior a pat on the back.
“I hope it’s okay that we’re here,” Cora said.
“Yes, ma’am. And Junior, good to see you up and about. Show your grandma around. Let her see what you helped build.”
Junior hesitated. “I need to thank you. For letting me work and for dropping the charges. It was good to know you, too.”
Bowie held out his hand. “It’s been an honor to meet you, Junior. Stay on the right side of life, okay?”
Junior beamed as he shook Bowie’s hand. “Yes, sir. I intend to do just that.”
Then Pearl saw Cora and came toward her with her arms outstretched.
Bowie watched the two old friends embrace and thought how long it had taken for this to come full circle.
Later, when both Pearl and Ella were otherwise occupied, Bowie and Rowan snuck out and drove back to the trailer park. They changed out of their party finery, trading it for traveling clothes. Bowie pulled the motor home out of the parking place and then stopped in the drive so he could hook the Cherokee to the tow.
While Rowan was watching, she heard someone calling her name, and when she looked behind her, Reenie and her mother, Sheri, were waving them down. Sheri and Yancy had come the day after the rescue and thanked both her and Bowie effusively, so Rowan hadn’t expected to see them again.
She smiled and went to meet them.
“I’m so glad I caught you,” Sheri said. “Frank and Jewel said y’all were leaving today, and Reenie has been beside herself to give you this present but she wouldn’t say why. They didn’t have any in Blessings, so we drove all the way to Savannah to get it.”
Rowan looked down at Reenie and smiled. “You didn’t need to get me anything, sugar.”
“But I did,” Reenie said. “You have to bend over, though. I can’t reach your high.”
My high. Rowan looked down at the little redhead and then at the serious frown between her eyes and, without thinking, knelt instead of bending over.
“Please close your eyes,” Reenie said.
Sheri looked at Rowan and shrugged, but Rowan gladly obliged. Then she heard paper rustling and felt Reenie’s knee against her chest as she leaned close and whispered in Rowan’s ear.
“I didn’t tell anyone you are really a princess. But maybe you could wear this for when you’re living in your castle.”
Then Rowan felt Reenie putting something on her head.
“You can get up now,” Reenie said.
Still smiling, Rowan stood and put her hands on her head, trying to guess what was there. And then she felt the shape and the design, and took it off to look.
“They’re almost diamonds,” Reenie said.
Rowan’s eyes were suddenly brimming as she put the tiara back on her head, then knelt once more and hugged Reenie as tightly as the day she’d held her above the water.
“Thank you, Reenie. I will treasure it always,” she said, then kissed the soft skin of the girl’s cheek before she stood.
She turned around to see if Bowie was ready, and saw him leaning against the shiny red motor home, patiently waiting.
“I see my brave knight awaits me, so it’s time to say goodbye.” Rowan touched the top of Reenie’s head. “For the bravest girl I ever knew, I am making you a member of my court. I shall name you Lorene, Lady of the Water.”
The glow in Reenie’s eyes and the smile of wonder on her face were all Rowan needed to see.
A smile passed between her and Sheri, and then she turned and walked back to Bowie, not unlike the way Pearl had sailed to the door to let in her first guest.
Bowie saw what she was wearing, remembered the story she’d told Reenie to keep her from panicking, and shook his head.
“So she crowned her princess. You bewitch us all, Princess Rowan. Your chariot awaits. Are you ready for your next grand adventure?”
“With you? Always. Remember… ‘Whither thou goest’…”
Bowie reached for her hand. “…‘I will go.’”
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in the Blessings, Georgia series
The Way Back to You
On sale December 2019
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The Way Back to You
Chapter 1
The entire forty-five years of Sullivan Raines existence crashed and burned when his mother died, but it wasn’t from grief. It was the adoption papers—his adoption—that he found in their safety deposit box, along with the will he’d gone there to retrieve. In shock, he’d dropped the will off at the lawyer’s office and took the papers and a box of photo albums he’d already rescued from his parents’ home back to his apartment. In going through the box, he found an envelope with a letter, and a silver chain with an ornate cross hanging from it.
I’m sorry we never told. This belonged to your birth mother. She left it for you.
He kept the cross and threw the letter away. It felt like a betrayal.
The rest of the day was a blur and the ensuing days up to the funeral weren’t any better. He kept replaying vignettes from his past, remembering the times he’d asked his parents why his hair was black and straight, when they were both blondes? And how did he get so tall when they were both short? They’d always laughed it off, blaming ancestors or recessive genes, and he’d bought it.
He was still going through the house, moving things he wanted to keep into a storage unit, and getting the rest of it ready for the upcoming estate auction. In the evenings, he would go through photo albums, remembering the events, and seeing anew the marked differences of his appearance within the family.
Some pictures were taken at parties, like the one he had at the skating rink for his thirteenth birthday. He grinned at the clothes they were wearing, and started eyeing the faces to see if he could remember all the names. One photo stood out from the others, because it was him holding hands with a girl out on the floor of the skating rink. They both smiled and waved at the camera as they skated past his dad, who was the family photographer. Her name was Missy, and she was the first girl he kissed. He’d had the biggest crush on her most of that year, but then her family had moved away, and when school started back that fall she was gone, and life moved on.
After that trip down memory lane, Sully put the albums up.
The evidence of his adoption was impossible to ignore and the differences in appearance between them finally made sense. Even though his parents had been wonderful and loving, this lie was huge, and he didn’t know how to get past it.
The adoption papers stated he was the baby of a teenage girl named Janie Chapman. He found out later that his parents knew her, because she had lived on their street. Although she’d signed the adoption papers the day he was born, the accompanying letter he found stated that she actually lived with Joe and Dolly Raines for the first six months of his life, nursing him, caring for him in their house while they worked, and then one morning she was gone.
Sully couldn’t get her out of his head. She’d carried him in her belly for nine long months, nursed him for the first six months of his life, then disappeared without an explanation? He needed to know why, and the few details he had were what
was on his original birth certificate.
He had her name, and where and when he was born. Boone County Hospital in Columbia, Missouri on June 4th, 1974.
Since that was all he had to go on, he chose one of the ancestry sites, took a DNA test, and after the results arrived, hired a genetic researcher named Marilyn Bedford to see if he had any blood relatives registered in the system.
Within two weeks she found genetic links to a branch of Chapmans, but the only one on the family tree who was still living, was a distant cousin.
After a couple of emails back and forth between them, Sully learned the cousin had never met Janie Chapman, didn’t know where she was, or if she was even still alive. All she remembered was hearing her mother talk about the scandal Janie had caused when she got pregnant, and that the last piece of mail the family had from her was years ago, and had been postmarked from somewhere in Texas.
Sully was still thinking about where to go next when he got one last email from the cousin. It was the return address for Janie Chapman that she’d found in one of her mother’s old address books. She apologized for the oversight and wished him well. He typed Grapevine, Texas into Google search to find the location, then packed a couple of suitcases.
And on a gray and stormy morning, Sullivan Raines drove out of Kansas City, Missouri, driving away from one storm, into another that had been fed by a lifetime of lies. He drove straight down I35, through Oklahoma, and into Texas with steady intensity, stopping only for food and fuel.
* * *
Sunset had long since come and gone by the time Sully reached Grapevine, then he began looking for a place to stay. After settling on a hotel and getting into a room, he dumped his luggage, cleaned up, and went downstairs to the restaurant to eat. His waiter arrived within a couple of minutes and took his drink order, giving Sully time to scan the menu. The waiter came back with the tall glass of sweet tea, took his order of chicken-fried steak with all the trimmings.
Sully took a long drink, and then glanced around the busy dining room, eyeing all the older women with more than curiosity, looking for glimpses of himself in their faces, and not for the first time, wished he wasn’t on this journey alone.
His one stab at marriage lasted eight years before she cheated on him with his best friend. The break-up had been ugly, the divorce even more so. After that, although he’d had a few relationships that went nowhere, he’d never been tempted to try it again.
All of his close friends were guys he knew from work, but now that he was no longer on the job, it was difficult to stay in touch. For a fireman, timing was everything, and the timing in Sully’s life was off kilter. He needed roots. He might be kidding himself that finding his birth mother would fill the hole in his life, but he had to give it a try.
His food finally came. The chicken-fried steak was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, and the white gravy studded with peppercorns was as good as the gravy Captain Chainey made at the station.
Sully went back to his room later, showered, set his alarm for eight a.m. and then crawled into bed.
The next thing he knew his alarm was going off, and sunlight was coming through a gap in the curtains over his window. Anxiety led speed to his morning routine as he showered, shaved, and dressed. After he checked out, he grabbed a coffee and a sweet roll from the Starbucks kiosk in the lobby and headed out the door. His first option to the beginning of this search was entering the address the cousin had given him into his GPS.
He set out, easily following directions, only to discover, after twenty minutes of morning traffic, that there was now an apartment building on that location.
Marilyn had given him a list of suggestions as to where to search, so he Googled the address of the City Hall in Grapevine, and with some help from one of the clerks, discovered a marriage license for Jane Chapman and Bryan Jackson, and divorce papers to the same couple less than two years later.
At that point, Jane Chapman Jackson showed up nowhere else in Grapevine, and Sully wondered if she might have left Texas altogether, so he called Marilyn.
“Hello, Sully. How’s it going?” she asked.
“It’s going. The address I had for her is no good, which figures because it was so many years ago, but I did find a marriage license for her and a man named Bryan Jackson, then divorce papers for them less than two years later.”
“Good job,” Marilyn said. “Let me have the details, and I’ll see if I can track her down elsewhere. It may take a couple of days.”
“No problem, and I appreciate your help. I’m sticking around here until I hear from you again.”
“Then I’ll get right on this. You’ll be hearing from me soon,” Marilyn said.
* * *
As it turned out, Sully was in Grapevine for three days before Marilyn Bradford called him again, this time with news that she’d found another connection to Jane Chapman Jackson. The reason it had taken a while was because Jane Jackson married again in Mobile, Alabama, to a man named Robert Carter.
So, Sully packed up his bag, checked out of the motel, and headed for Mobile. He arrived just as the tailwinds of a hurricane were passing through the area, and found a safe place to ride out the storms that followed it. But even after the storms had passed and the weather cleared, he had not been able to find a trace of Janie anywhere. Just as he was giving up, he got a call from Marilyn.
“Hello, this is Sully.”
“Sully, this is Marilyn. I have a bit of information that may help you. Jane divorced Robert Carter, about six years after their marriage in Mobile.”
“Again? Wow, she doesn’t have a very good track record with husbands,” Sully said. “Do you know where she went from there, or if she’s still somewhere in Mobile?”
“I don’t know where Jane went, but her ex, Robert Carter, never left Mobile. I have a phone number for him. Maybe he would have further information for you. Do you want it?”
“Absolutely,” Sully said, and took down the number. “Got it, and thank you, Marilyn. I’ll stay in touch.”
“Okay, and if I find anything more, I’ll let you know.”
They disconnected, and Sully immediately called the number Marilyn had given him. No one answered, but Sully left a message and his number on voicemail. All he could do was wait to see if Carter called him back.
And it was just after eight p.m. that same night when Robert Carter called.
“Hello, this is Sully.”
“Mr. Raines, this is Robert Carter returning your call. So you say you’re looking for my ex-wife.”
“Yes, I am, and call me Sully. My interest in your ex-wife is personal, and very important to me. I only recently discovered that I was adopted, and according to paperwork I found at my parents house, I know for certain that your wife, Jane, was Jane Chapman, my birth mother. You’re her second ex-husband, and I’m having trouble finding new leads. By any chance, do you know where she went when you two divorced?”
“Well, well. You’re something I didn’t know about. As for where she went, all I know is what she said she was going to do. She was looking for a place to live to start a new life, and she wanted to do it in Georgia. She found a place called Blessings on a map, and said that was the sign from God that she was looking for. I got one piece of mail from her about a week later. She’d found a key to my old trunk in her jewelry box, and mailed it back to me. The return address was 104 Brigade Street, Blessings, Georgia, and I never heard from her again. I want you to know that our divorce was mostly my fault. Jane was a good woman and I didn’t do right by her. I wish you success in your search. Sorry I wasn’t more help,” Carter said.
“No, this is perfect and I really appreciate it,” Sully said, and hung up, then sent Marilyn a quick text.
Last known destination for Jane was 104 Brigade St. Blessings, Georgia. See what you can do with that.
He got ready for bed, packed ev
erything but what he was going to wear the next day, and fell asleep dreaming that, one way or another, Blessings would be the end of his search.
He checked out the next morning, stopped at a cafe to eat breakfast, and then entered Tallahassee, Florida in his GPS and left Mobile on I-10, heading East.
He drove with purpose, stopping only when necessary. It was well past midnight when he finally arrived in Tallahassee. He found a motel on the outskirts that looked clean and safe enough, and fell into bed without changing his clothes.
He woke up to find a text from Marilyn with a brief message.
No record of Jane Carter at that address. It must have been a rental.
Disappointed, he washed up, and was gone by seven a.m., this time heading north toward Georgia on I-95. He had Blessings entered into his GPS, and if nothing went wrong, he should pull into town around mid-morning.
* * *
It was a little past ten a.m. when Sully passed the City Limit sign and drove into Blessings. The highway he was on had turned into Main Street, and he began checking out all the businesses as he drove through town. The police station was on Main, as was a hair salon, a pharmacy, a florist, and some kind of exercise place.
He’d read a few months earlier that all the Piggly Wiggly supermarkets in the South were being closed because the owner of the chain was retiring, and there was evidence of that right here on Main.
The Piggly Wiggly sign had been taken down from the top of the building housing a supermarket, but the little pig logo was still evident. Obviously someone was running it. Being the only supermarket in a town this size, it should do a good business.
There was an eating establishment called Granny’s Country Kitchen a bit further up the street, and from the number of vehicles in the large parking lot, the food they served must be good.
