by Ian Hamilton
“He’s in the den. I’ll get him,” Anne said.
She went to the closed door, knocked, and then opened it. Jack sat in his red leather club chair with his feet on an ottoman. His head rested against the back of the chair, turned to one side, and his eyes were closed. The Prince of Tides lay open on his lap.
Anne nudged his arm. “Jack, the kids are back from their walk and they’re ready to play football.”
Jack shook his head, and for a second she thought he was going to refuse to join them. Then he said, “Give me a minute. I need to go to the bathroom and then I’ll be right there.”
Anne joined the rest of the family on the lawn. Jack arrived a few minutes later, just in time to be selected by Brent for his team. Mark was the other team captain. There were times when it bothered Anne to see how competitive her children were, but this wasn’t one of them. Everyone gave it their full effort, of course, or they wouldn’t have been Andersons, but the ragging was good-natured and the scorekeeping was haphazard.
The game went on for more than an hour, until Anne called for an end. “I’ve got vegetables that need my attention, and I want to see all of you at the table dressed for the occasion.”
When they were younger, the children had often complained about the dress code that Anne imposed on Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Suits and ties were compulsory for the men, and the women were expected to wear a fashionable dress or skirt and blouse. The complaining had stopped after they all left home. Coming back meant a return to the familiar, and getting dressed up for Thanksgiving dinner was as much a part of family tradition as the turkey stuffed with oysters and sausage and their game of touch football.
The children trooped into the house, debating among themselves who would have first crack at the showers. Anne and Maggie headed for the kitchen. Jack stayed outside with Jonathan, the two of them sitting side by side on the stone stairs.
The boy looked up at his grandfather. “Mommy says I can play football next year,” he said.
“I’d like that.”
“And Mommy said that you lost your job, so you’ll visit us more. I would like that.”
“I haven’t exactly lost my job, but I will have more time on my hands. And I do like California, when it isn’t too hot.”
Jonathan leaned against his grandfather, and Jack slipped his arm around the boy’s shoulders. Their conversation died, but the two of them were content to sit quietly, absorbing the beautiful autumn day, until the front door opened and Anne appeared. “You two need to come inside and get ready,” she said.
It was three o’clock when the family took their seats around the Regency oak table in the dining room. Jack had carved the turkey and ham in the kitchen, and the meats lay under sheets of aluminum foil in the middle of the table. Wine bottles were passed and glasses filled. Then all eyes turned to Jack.
He lowered his head. “Lord, we thank you for this bounty we are about to receive. We thank you for keeping our family healthy and for bringing us together. We ask for your blessing in the year to come. Please keep everyone well and let all our dreams be realized. Amen.”
After a chorus of amens, Allison raised her glass. “On behalf of all of us, a big thanks to Mom and Dad. May the coming year be wonderful, and may all the years that follow be as happy and fruitful as the years that have gone before.”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Anne said, and then pointed at the food. “Now, I want everyone to have at least two helpings.”
Both wine and gravy flowed freely until the mounds of green beans, mashed potatoes and yams, and trays of turkey and ham were decimated. The children talked easily among themselves, Brent quizzing Tony about the economic ins and outs of the film business, Tony pressing Mark for details about how traders operated, and Maggie asking Allison for gossip about the movie stars she’d met.
Anne sat back listening, fascinated by her children’s exploits. She looked at Jack, expecting him to be as engaged as she was. Instead he sat stone-faced, as if he had no interest in the table banter. He had been quiet during the meal, but this was different, and Anne wasn’t the only person to notice.
“Mom, is Dad okay?” Allison, who was sitting next to her mother, whispered.
Anne nodded to indicate she’d heard the question and then turned to her husband. “Jack, is everything all right? You seem distracted. Is something bothering you?”
He looked at her. “As a matter of fact,” he said sombrely, “something is bothering me.”
The table became quiet, and every eye turned to him.
“You’re scaring me,” Anne said. “Are you ill?”
“No, I’m not ill. Not in body anyway.”
“Jack, please,” Anne said. “What is going on?”
“I have something I need to say to the entire family,” he said.
“You’re not going to retire, right?” Mark said. “I didn’t think you would.”
“Please, don’t interrupt,” Anne said. “Let Daddy speak.”
“What I have to say is simple enough,” Jack said. “I have a sister.”
3
Anne’s mouth flew open. “What?”
No one else spoke, but astonished glances were exchanged as Jack’s declaration began to sink in.
“More properly, I guess I should say I’ve always known that I had one,” Jack continued. “But I didn’t know until yesterday that she’s still alive.”
“But you’re an only child,” Anne declared.
“I was raised as one, and I told you I was one, but the truth is I’m not.”
“Dad, are you trying to tell us that Grandpa or Grandma had a child on the side?” Allison asked.
“Goodness me, no, nothing like that.”
“Then how can you have a sister?” Allison said.
“It’s a long and complicated story,” Jack said, looking at Anne, who sat in stunned silence.
“Are you going to tell it?” Allison asked.
“I think I’ve already upset your mother. I’m not sure I should continue.”
“Well, you can’t leave it like that,” Anne said.
“If you would rather you and I talk first, I’m sure the children won’t mind,” he said.
“I wish you’d thought of that before you made your announcement,” she said, the hurt obvious in her voice.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been thinking about this for days, and I wasn’t sure until a few minutes ago that I could actually go through with it,” he said. “Forgive me, Anne.”
She nodded. “Well, what’s done is done, and I’m sure the children are as curious as I am. It isn’t fair to make them wait.”
“Okay, but I’m not going to pretend this is easy for me,” Jack said. “Mark, could you pour me a stiff whisky, please?”
Mark nodded and went to the buffet where the liquor was kept, returning with a glass of Scotch. Jack took a large sip. “I’ve always hated the term ‘liquid courage,’ but this time it seems appropriate,” he said. “Now, where was I?”
“You just finished telling us you have a sister, which, as Mom has correctly pointed out, has left us all rather confused and curious,” Allison said.
“Grandpa and Grandma Anderson weren’t my birth parents,” Jack said. He saw his wife’s face collapse in disbelief. “I’m sorry. Maybe I really should stop.”
“You’re in too deep for that,” Allison said.
Jack shook his head. “With all of us together, I thought this would be the best time to talk about this. I’m not sure now that I made the right decision.”
“I agree with Allison. You have to tell us the rest of the story,” Brent said. “Mom, are you in agreement with that?”
Anne hesitated and then looked at her husband. “I want you to finish what you’ve started.”
“You don’t sound particularly convinced,” Jack said.
“What I am is unhappy that my husband has kept this secret from me all these years.”
“You’re leaping to a conclusion, Mom. This is something Dad may have just learned himself. I know that a lot of information about their birth families is kept secret from children who are adopted when they’re young,” Allison said. “Dad, is this something you’ve just found out?”
“No, I’ve always known. I wasn’t a baby when it happened,” Jack said.
“Then why didn’t you tell me?” Anne said.
“Because I preferred to believe that I wasn’t adopted, that Martin and Colleen were my real parents. They wanted to believe the same thing, so we believed it together,” he said. “Right from the moment I was adopted, Colleen loved me and called me her own, and I was only too happy to be hers. We pretended for so long that I was born to her that it became our reality. She and Martin never saw any harm in it, and neither did I. So why should I talk about my early life when I had convinced myself it never happened?”
“How old were you when they adopted you?” Brent asked.
“Six.”
“My god. Did you know your birth parents?”
Jack nodded. “Their names were Andrew and Jessie McPherson. They lived in Glasgow, Scotland. I think he was a labourer of some kind.”
“You remember that?” Brent asked.
“It isn’t so much.”
“Life must have been very difficult for them to have put you up for adoption,” Maggie said.
“They didn’t put me up for adoption. They . . . discarded me.”
“I don’t understand,” Maggie said.
“More Scotch, please,” Jack said to Mark, holding up his glass. “You might as well leave the bottle on the table.”
“People can’t just get rid of children,” Maggie said.
“Maybe not in Massachusetts, but in Glasgow in 1934 it was simply enough done,” Jack said. “My mother took me and my sister to a matinee at a movie theatre, left at intermission to take my sister to the bathroom, and never returned. I was told that the authorities contacted my father later that night to tell him what had happened and where I was. He said they could keep me. He didn’t want me.”
A silence fell over the table. Everyone looked awkwardly at each other, unsure about how to react. Finally Maggie said, “How terrible.”
“That’s one word for it,” Mark added.
“And you were only six?” Brent said.
“Yes.”
“But you remember all that?” Allison asked.
“How could he forget it?” Brent said.
“Well, I did try to forget it, for many years. The most painful part of what I’ve been going through these past few months is that once I decided that I wanted to remember, those are the memories that came back to me most vividly.”
“But how did you get from Scotland to Watertown?”
“When my father refused to claim me, I was taken in by a Catholic charity. Glasgow was mainly Protestant, so there wasn’t a big demand for adopting Catholic children, especially six-year-old boys. Luckily, one of the nuns with the charity was from Boston, and even more fortunately, she had a younger brother named Martin Anderson who was looking to adopt a child.”
“Dad, do you know how weird all this sounds?” Mark said.
“I know it isn’t what you’ve been raised to believe.”
Allison left her chair and walked to the head of the table. She stood behind her father and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her cheek against his. “How awful those memories must be for you.”
“I’m trying not to be overly dramatic, and I don’t want you to be. At the end of the day, I was as loved as any child could be, and I had a wonderfully supportive upbringing.”
“How can you call being abandoned as a small child anything other than dramatic?” Allison said.
“I think ‘cruel’ and ‘heartless’ are better descriptions,” Maggie said, her voice catching and tears welling in her eyes.
“Whatever you call it doesn’t really matter to me,” Jack said. “I’d rather deal with the present than the past.”
“And the present is this sister you’ve uncovered,” Anne said.
“It is.”
“Do you know where she is?” asked Anne.
“According to the U.K. National Health Service, she’s living in a town called Irvine on the west coast of Scotland.”
“Dad, what prompted you to look for her in the first place?” Mark asked.
Jack paused, sipped his whisky, and said, “I guess she was always lurking in the back of my mind. Not often, but every now and then I’d get a flash of memory and I’d wonder what became of her, and my blood parents. Then, about six months ago our legal department brought in a new crop of interns, and among them was a young woman named Moira. That was my sister’s name. I didn’t see Moira the lawyer very often, but whenever I did it would trigger thoughts of my sister.
“I also think my upcoming retirement was a factor. I’m not, as you know, given to much sentimentality, but as I began to contemplate leaving Pilgrim, I found myself reliving the old days — when I first joined the company, my climb up the corporate ladder, and my years as CEO. As I thought about that past, the other past intruded. It began to feel like unfinished business.”
“When did you start this search?” Mark asked.
“About two months ago. I had thought about hiring a private detective, but Larry Andrews, our comptroller, mentioned at a meeting — completely by coincidence — that he was constructing his family tree and that most of it was Scottish. I asked how he was going about it. He said the U.K. government has terrific records and mentioned that the health services were particularly helpful. So I wrote a letter to the U.K. National Health Service office in Glasgow explaining who I was and where and when I was born. I told them about my relationship to Andrew, Jessie, and Moira McPherson and asked if they could provide information on any of them. About three weeks later I got a reply saying they had forwarded my request to an office in London. A few days ago I got a letter from London.”
“Telling you that Moira is alive and living in Irvine?” Mark said.
“Yes. They even provided an address. But there was nothing on Andrew or Jessie. I assume they’re dead.”
“Good riddance to them,” Allison said.
“Allie!” Anne snapped.
“After what they did to Dad, how else am I supposed to feel?”
“What do you know about this Moira?” Maggie asked.
“Only that she lives in Irvine.”
“Does she have children?”
“I have no idea. I don’t know if she married or became a nun. I know absolutely nothing about her except the fact that the health service says she’s alive.”
“What are you going to do now that you know where she is?” Mark asked.
“I’m not sure. That partially depends on your mother,” Jack said, looking at Anne. “I think I would like to contact Moira, and if she’s agreeable I might visit her, but I would like your mom to be okay with it all.”
“Why?” Anne asked.
“We’re a team. I know I should have told you about this sooner, and I’m sorry I didn’t, but now that I have, I’d like you to be part of this with me.”
“No, I meant why would you want to see her,” Anne said.
“Ah,” Jack said. He fell into a silence that lasted for perhaps a minute but seemed much longer.
“Dad, Mom asked you a question that interests all of us,” Allison said, finally breaking the quiet.
Jack looked around the table, but his eyes seemed to be wandering, not focusing on anyone. “I guess you could say I want to know how, and I want to know why.”
“What are you trying to say?” Anne asked.
“I want to know how a mother could abandon one child and s
ave another,” he said. “I want to know why she left my father, her husband. I want to know what happened in the rest of her life, and if she ever thought of me again.”
“Do you think this Moira will be able to answer those questions?” Anne asked.
“Perhaps.”
“What if Moira doesn’t want to see you?” Allison asked.
“Then I guess I’ll never get my answers,” he said.
4
The days following Jack’s disclosure were emotional. While the family tried to be supportive, there was some tension as everyone tried to absorb the fact that Jack Anderson — as a husband and then as a father — had concealed such a large truth from them. Anne was the most affected, and when she discussed it with her children in Jack’s absence, she was subject to moods that swung from empathy to anger.
On the Sunday following Thanksgiving, Jack was in town with Jonathan. Anne was sitting with Maggie, Brent, Allison, and Tony at the kitchen table when the discussion turned again to Jack’s admission.
“Will you go to Scotland with him to meet the sister?” Allison asked her mother.
“Before I make that decision, he has to decide if he’s going himself,” Anne said. “He has been drafting a letter to her, but he’s rewritten it at least four times.”
“Why doesn’t he just phone?” Allison said.
“He doesn’t have her number, and he suspects she might not have a phone.”
“Okay, but what if he sends it and she tells him to get on the first plane to Scotland? Will you go with him?”
“I don’t know,” Anne said, and then added quickly, “Part of me wants to because I think he could use the support, but another part of me feels betrayed — as if I’d just discovered he’s been having an affair all these years, and now he wants me to meet the mistress.”
“That’s a ridiculous comparison,” Maggie said.
Four surprised faces turned in her direction.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but for the last three days I’ve listened to everyone bemoaning the fact that Jack kept a secret from the family, and I have to say I think we’ve got it all backwards,” Maggie said. “Instead of focusing on the impact on us, we should be asking why he kept it buried for so long, and thinking about the pain he’s going through now that he’s finally confronting what happened to him.”