Finding Mrs. Ford

by Deborah Goodrich Royce

  Jack homed in on her, focusing his pale blue eyes with laser-like intensity. He barely listened when his son introduced him to the table and he waited, not very patiently, for his son to shut up so that he could talk to this woman. Jack was a man who knew what he wanted and, at that moment, she was it.

  For the first night of what was to become many, they talked for hours of life in all of its iterations. History was his interest. Movies were hers. In the sixteen years that had passed since Annie had taken on Susan’s enthusiasms, they had fused with her own. Books, religion, and dogs, they both loved them.

  Jack had a passion for boats, antique wooden boats. He collected them. There, their experiences differed. She did not elaborate on her own boating history back in Michigan.

  For a man of his age and generation, Jack was extraordinarily talkative. She knew many younger men who did not have Jack’s communication skills. Jack loved women who laughed at his jokes. Fortuitously, she found him very funny.

  Jack asked her if she’d been to Watch Hill, where he’d just finished building a house. She had not. She visited him at that house, Gull Cottage, over Labor Day and they were married by the end of the year. It was a first marriage for Susan, a second for Jack.

  After their dreamy snow globe wedding in New York, Jack and Susan piled into his old Jaguar and drove through the snow—up to Watch Hill, to Gull Cottage, his creation, the house that would always remind Susan of Jack—for their first night as husband and wife.

  Later, as they were sharing a glass of wine and the little picnic of cheese and bread their friends had packed, Jack was uncannily prescient.

  “Here’s to new beginnings.” He held his glass up to hers. “We are not children. We both have lived full lives before we met. Complicated lives that helped to shape us and lead us to each other. May we honor the past but also keep it behind us. It is with great hope that I look to our future together. A little secret about me—I always need something to look forward to. Little surprises along the way.”

  She smiled as she raised her glass to her husband. “I’ll do my best to surprise you.”

  70

  Time: 3:00 a.m.

  Annie burrows deep into the memory of Jack. It is always like this when she dreams about him. She feels herself waking and harnesses every ability she has to propel herself back into the dream. Her powers, of course, are insufficient. She floats up to consciousness against her will—no matter how many mental weights she ties around her imagination to keep herself below the surface—and finds herself in a world without Jack. It is always a brutal splash of cold water in the face.

  This time, she senses Jack next to her, touching her, and feels like her trick might be working. The sensation is so real.

  Fuck. The sensation is so real.

  Annie snaps open her eyes to look straight into the face of the woman from the rest stop. She immediately reels her head back and whacks it hard on the window of the bus. Her right hand flies up to hold her head while her left-hand edges toward her littlest bag.

  “I was having a very pleasant dream.” Annie recovers some composure. “I wish you hadn’t disturbed me.”

  “Good morning, sunshine!” The woman clearly thinks that line is the pinnacle of wit for she laughs heartily.

  “You’re very close to me right now and you’re making me uncomfortable.”

  “I just thought you might need a friend. You look a little out of place here. Like you don’t belong.”

  “You can’t even imagine the kinds of places I belong.”

  “Look.” The woman gets an A for effort. “I can tell you have a pile of money there. I didn’t see you gambling tonight, but I was at the slots. You must have been at the big boy tables. Wontcha just share some with little ol’ me?” She says this in a cutesy voice.

  “I do not have money in these bags.” Annie enunciates every syllable. “And I am asking you for the final time to move to another seat.”

  “I have a lot of friends in the city. They might even be at the Port Authority when we get there.”

  Annie lifts her left hand from the bag. She points Sammy’s little .38 directly into the woman’s obnoxious face. “Lady,” she says in her lowest, most menacing voice, “you are fucking with the wrong blonde.”

  In the face of such persuasion, the woman slides back and moves to a different seat.

  And, with that, Annie is fully Annie again.

  71

  Sunday, July 27, 1980

  New York

  Disconsolately, she stared at the news on the hospital television.

  On the world stage, the important milestone that occurred on this day did not happen in New York City. On this hot summer Sunday, when much of the city was deserted by those who had the means to desert it, when she, who went by the name of Susan Bentley, was giving birth to a baby girl in the maternity ward of Roosevelt Hospital—on this same day, the deposed Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last and final ruler in a 2500-year lineage going back to the coronation of Cyrus the Great, died of cancer in Cairo.

  She, the new mother, and the dying old man had little in common save their shared status as exiles, living on the run, far from their homes and their people.

  In Iran, the ancestral home of the Shah, his replacement, the Ayatollah Khomeini, had returned triumphantly the year before, in February 1979.

  Iraq, the country next door, also had a new ruler. Saddam Hussein had taken the office of president on July 16, 1979, during the very summer when Susan and Annie, Sammy and Frankie were marking their days at a disco in Warren. She knew that only Sammy had paid attention to it at the time.

  She thought about her baby, born on this day in New York, who carried the surname of a dead woman, a woman with whom she had no blood ties. Baby Girl Bentley was not aware of events playing out in the Middle East. She was not aware of her own genetic links to that region. She was not aware of war or peace, of human bonds, intact or broken, of love or loss, of forgiveness or redemption as she cried in her bassinet and was comforted by a nurse, a stranger, with a baby bottle.

  The woman whose name she bore lay in a grave in Michigan. The woman whose name was etched in stone above that grave—she—Annie, or whoever she was—right now lay in a bed at Roosevelt Hospital, down the hall from the nursery where the baby girl cried.

  The baby’s father—she imagined Sammy sitting in a café in Baghdad—was unaware of her birth. Was he right now planning his return to the US, hoping to escape the drumbeats of war that Annie, even now, could hear?

  And, for that brief moment—inspired by new life or induced by morphine—she grasped the whirling swirl of the cosmos. She saw that the world turned then as it turns now and would continue to turn ever after. Human bodies came together and moved apart, but no connections were ever truly severed. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. And, then that clarity left her.

  72

  Saturday, September 6, 2014

  Suburban Detroit

  Annie is home. The scene of her childhood. The scene of the crime.

  She has been in Detroit for a week. Her first task was to find Jacob. They met at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a Chaldean Catholic church in Warren. She remembers this church as St. Sylvester. She had friends who were parishioners there, who were baptized there, who made their First Communions there. And now it is Chaldean.

  Documents secured, identity changed again, she moves on. She thanks Jacob; tells him that Sammy is well. She does not say more. She does not know how much Jacob knows about his cousin’s life and work. Jacob does not ask questions, does not inquire about her need for an identity switch, the second in her life. He delivers the docs and takes the cash. They hug awkwardly and say goodbye.

  At two o’clock in the afternoon she walks into a different church, farther west, the Shrine of the Little Flower. A stunning example of Art Deco architecture, with a soaring tower and a chapel in the round, it stands as a monument to the highest ideals of Christianity.


  She gets down on her knees. In the chapel dedicated to St. Therese of Lisieux, Annie lowers her head in prayer. Next to her lies a bouquet of white roses, a symbol of the saint. She lights a candle. She says a novena.

  She leaves the church and crosses the wide expanse of Woodward Avenue, taking two lights to do it. The first light gets her to the median strip, the second light to the corner beyond and the entrance to Roseland Cemetery. Five white stone pillars stand tall, each topped by an urn of stone flowers. She enters the little gatehouse on the right, gives a name, requests a map and sets off onto the cemetery grounds.

  It is some distance onto the property, after a few stops, to recalibrate her directions in consultation with the map, but she finds what she is looking for. A double headstone in pale grey granite faces away from her. She must walk around it to read its inscription:

  Annie Wales Johnston

  Annie Johnston Nelson

  Born October 9, 1902

  Born May 11, 1958

  Died July 26, 1980

  Died September 6, 1979

  Across the bottom of the stone, in what must have cost her mother and stepfather a fortune—money that she has trouble imagining them spending—are the words:

  Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for Us Sinners,

  Now and at the Hour of Our Death.

  Amen.

  She mentally fills in the rest of the prayer—her favorite. She realizes, as she does so, that her parents did not pay for those words. Her grandmother must have had the stone created when she died—when Susan died—and was buried by Annie’s family. Her grandmother must have had Annie’s name inscribed to the right, leaving room for herself on the left. She must have taken money from her savings, money that would never go to her dead granddaughter, her favorite, the child who had broken her heart and hastened her own death.

  She drops to her knees on the cold, hard ground, feeling the weight of what she has done to her grandmother—the woman who loved her completely. The woman she completely deserted. She holds up the bouquet of roses, raises it to her forehead, then places it on the ground. She reaches out to touch the gravestone. It is then that she stops short. She looks at the date of her grandmother’s death; one day before a little girl was born in Roosevelt Hospital in New York City.

  And she glimpses a moment of clarity once more.

  She gets up, wipes the dirt off her knees, and strides down the cemetery road.

  73

  Saturday, September 20, 2014

  Speramus meliora; resurget cineribus. We hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes.

  Detroit, the phoenix, the city that has burned and burned again, is rising from the ashes, fulfilling the prophecy of its motto.

  At the corner of Canfield and Cass, an area where, twenty years before, bodies in Dumpsters would not raise an eyebrow, Annie—her hair dark once more—waits in a trendy restaurant. She has only a cup of tea and keeps her attention riveted out the window. It has taken her a long time—long in all measurable ways—to get to this place and she does not want to miss her moment.

  Across the street is a Bikram yoga studio, also trendy. Annie keeps her eyes trained on the studio’s door. Presently, it opens.

  A group of young people emerges. Dressed in yoga clothes, carrying eco-water bottles and towels, they spill outside. They laugh and talk, then split up, singly and in pairs, walking to their cars or down the block together.

  One among them is a tall, dark beauty. There is something about her walk—an awkwardness that isn’t quite graceful but is appealing nonetheless. Sure enough, she trips, just a little, on the sidewalk. The young man by her side reaches out to take her elbow and steady her. It is clear to an impartial observer that she does not need saving. But Annie can see that the man is not impartial.

  Annie throws a twenty on the table and leaves the restaurant. She steps out onto the pavement and is about to cross the street when another woman emerges from the yoga studio, holding a bag, and calls out, “Susan!”

  The heads of the older woman and the younger woman turn in unison at the name.

  “Did I forget something?” the younger woman responds.

  “Your bag!”

  “Oh, thanks!” The younger woman laughs. “I don’t know where my head is! What would I have done without this today?” She skips back to take the bag from her helpful friend.

  Annie smiles to herself as she remembers scrawling a name on a birth certificate in a hospital long ago.

  Susan.

  The adoptive family kept the name.

  She steps off the curb to meet her daughter.

  Just then, a car rounds the corner and cuts her off, blocking her passage across the road. It is a bland-looking car—American, like most of the cars in Detroit.

  She stops in her tracks to study it. Champagne, she would call that color. But then, it is gone, rounding the next corner before she can get a proper look.

  She turns to scan the opposite sidewalk. Her daughter is still there.

  Once more, she looks back in the direction in which the car just disappeared. It is probably nothing. Jitters, she thinks. It isn’t even likely. No one would find her here. She has covered her tracks so well.

  Just then, a hand grabs onto her upper arm, the hand of someone behind her.

  She closes her eyes reflexively. For just one second, she does not want to know if it is Johnny or Danny or the FBI who has tracked her to this spot.

  “Wait!” she says to the specter. “Just give me a minute. Please. I’ll go wherever you want me to go. Just give me a minute more.”

  She opens her eyes and studies her daughter, working hard to commit her face to memory. A sense of futility hits her. She will never meet her. She will never be able to explain to her the way things happened and why. She will never get to hear her daughter’s triumphs and tears and growing-up stories. This is all she will ever have of her. Just this vision on a street in Detroit on a random autumn day. She uses every ounce of her being to savor it. To memorize it. To store it.

  “Okay,” she finally surrenders. “I’m ready. Do what you have to do.”

  “Then let’s go meet our daughter,” the voice behind her says. A voice with a very slight accent.

  She spins to look at Sammy.

  “I’m off of the fence,” he says. He shrugs and smiles a very white smile. She’d never noticed how white his teeth were. “I’m ready to make a commitment.”

  She has to admit that she’s surprised. In fact, she is utterly speechless.

  “I’m sorry,” he continues. “There’s so much I’m sorry for that I’ll just give a blanket apology. And, I’ll probably just keep apologizing.”

  “Well,” she finally says. “I owe so many apologies myself. I probably have you beat.”

  “We could make it a competition. Shall we start right now?”

  This makes her smile. “I think we have something better to do.” She holds out her hand to him. He takes it.

  Together, they cross the street.

  The End

  Acknowledgments

  This book would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of a village of family, friends and colleagues. First, to my Teacher, I send gratitude and love abounding. A very special thank you to the late Gene Wilder—the earliest of the early encouragers—and to Jan Kardys and Barbara Ellis of the Unicorn Writers’ Conference. Enormous thanks to my agent, Mollie Glick, and to Anthony Ziccardi, Maddie Sturgeon, Emi Battaglia, Devon Brown, Ellis Levine, Molly Lindley Pisani, Becky Ford, Cassandra Tai-Marcellini, Lydia MacLear, Lindley Pless, May Wuthrich, Saskia Maarleveld, Jenn Hansen-de Paola, Sam Huss, and Nikki Sinning, the most talented team of professionals.

  I am deeply thankful to my very own personal posse of the brightest and most generous friends and family, listed alphabetically, because there is no other fair way to count them: Chuck Adams, Cyndy Anderson, Susie Baker, Mary Randolf Ballinger, Nancy Bolitho, Charlie Bommarito, Tom Bommarito, Peter Bundy, Cilla and Hi
llary Bercovici, Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg, Sean Byrne, Bob Callahan, Murph Carmody, Darby Cartun, Patricia Chadwick, Lillian Clagett, Jenny Clark, Tania Clark, Harriette Cole, Michael Cooper, Sarah Cooper, Trudy Coxe, Ian Cron, Kelly Cunningham, Chantal Curtis, Freddie Davis, Lucy Day, Brigitte Stacey Dennett, Melissa Devaney, Lauren DiStefano, Djuana Dolan, Lily Downing and David Yudain, Jean Doyen de Montaillou and Michael Kovner, Diane Eichenbaum, Kathy Eldon, Deborah Foreman, Icy Frantz, Tony Fulgenzio, Missy Gagarin, Marcia Geller, Mitch Giannunzio, Valerie Gibala, Kathie Lee Gifford, Anne Goodrich, Bill Goodrich, Kathy Goodrich, Cee Greene, Louisa Greene, Claire Tisne Haft, Myrna Haft, Julie Hardinge, Melinda Hassen, Hilary Hatfield, Mary Ann Henry, Nina Holden, Daniel Hostettler, Kim Hubbard, Toni Hudson, Medvis Jackson, Whitney Kershaw, Jennifer and Dan King, Alexandra and Cody Kittle, Laurette and Kit Kittle, Sheila Kotur, Mary Kramer, Anharad Lewellyn, Laura Lewis, Tim Lewis, Kamie Lightburn, Patricia Lovejoy, Barbara Lusk, Layng and Linda Martine, Jessica McShane, Heidi McWilliams, Christopher Meigher, Leigh Rappaport Michaelessi, Barbara Miller, Warren Miller, Scott Mitchell, Iliana Moore, Lansing Moore, Linda Munger, Jan Ogden, Joan Patton, Annie Philbrick, Justine Picardie, Tim Plaza, Pliny Porter, Tess Porter and Danny Forrester, Brian Posler, Carrie Pryor, Amy Steele Pulitzer, Katherine Pushkar, Annie Rehlander, Kirk Reynolds, Victor Rivera, Andrea Robinson, Jane Rosenman, Alice Ross, Carmina Roth, Amanda Royce, Chuck Royce, Sharon and Chad Royce, Wesley Royce and Patrick Conlisk, Leah Rukeyser, Salvador Salort-Pons, Chelsea Schelter, Sue Goodrich Schelter, Betsy Schwengel, Ammanda Seelye Salzman, Adrianne Singer, Max Sinsteden, Vicky Skouras, Joanne Sloneker, Robin Springborn, Susan Sterling, Robert Sturnialo, Alease Fisher Tallman, Ken Tigar, Julia Nimfa Timber, Ben Tomek, Elaine Ubina, Brooke Warner, Jack Weatherford, Jennifer Weier, Kim Whalen, Tina Whitman, Jessica Wick, and Beatriz Williams. A special shout out to the most mysterious group of writers that I am privileged to be among.