Love,
Marcia
Liz placed it back into its envelope and handed it to her sister.
September 26, 1969
Dear Sally,
I’m sorry it’s been so many weeks since my last letter. Truthfully, I’ve felt low and couldn’t seem to muster the energy to write. I’m useless here. Josephine interferes in everything, including raising my daughter. She makes every decision for Karen: what she eats, what she wears, who she spends time with. I’ve been relegated to nothing more than a bystander in my daughter’s life.
Most days, Warren doesn’t get out of bed until the afternoon, at which time he starts drinking martinis. He goes out after dinner. Only God knows where. He comes home in the wee hours of the morning smelling of booze and cheap perfume. I don’t know if he has a girl or if it’s multiple girls. I kicked him out of our bed weeks ago.
I want to escape with Karen. It would have to be in the middle of the night because they don’t allow me to go anywhere without our driver. Regardless, I don’t have any money of my own. Warren made sure to leave me off the bank account. I know we could come stay with you, but I don’t know how I would get there.
Love, Marcia
Heart pounding, Liz handed that one to Peggy and opened the next.
December 29, 1969
Dear Sally,
Thank you for the lovely Christmas presents. The Afghan you knitted is beautiful and so soft. I’m glad Lola liked the gifts I sent. I know it gets cold up there, so I hope the coat will be useful. It made me laugh to hear she wore it to bed. I remember doing that with a pair of Hush Puppy shoes I got for Christmas. I can’t for the life of me remember which foster mother gave them to me. Being five years older than I, you might? The homes all blur together in my mind. It gives me great comfort to know that you finally have your home. Jimmy is a good man and has provided a good life for you. When you married a farmer from southern Oregon and moved to his family home, I worried you would be unhappy. I know it’s not a lazy life, which suits you. You always liked to be doing something, accomplishing something. Perhaps if I’d been more practical, I wouldn’t be in the mess I’m in.
I don’t want to alarm you in any way, but if anything happens to me, I want you to take Karen. I’ve had terrible bouts of paranoia. Warren insists it’s in my head, but I have a feeling. An awful, dark feeling. Last week Josephine took me to lunch and pressured me into having a cocktail. You know I don’t drink, so my brain became fuzzy. That’s when she offered me money to disappear. Enough money that I could live comfortably for the rest of my life. I became irate and made a scene at the restaurant, yelling and screaming that over my dead body would she force me out of Karen’s life. No amount of money would ever make me desert her.
Josephine wants me out their lives so she can have Karen. I’m certain of it. One way or the other, she will make it happen. I’m afraid, Sally. I’m afraid she may hurt me or try to prove that I’m an unfit mother. Warren doesn’t believe me when I tell him what she does or says. I don’t know what to do. My only ally is Warren’s younger sister Rosemary. She’s away most of the time at boarding school, but she was home for holiday break. I believe she sees what’s going on here. She advised me to stay quiet and do what they say. She said they sent her away to boarding school because she wouldn’t keep quiet and do what they wanted. Just keep your head down—that’s what she said to me. But I don’t even know what that means. I’m their prisoner. I can’t make a phone call without using the phone in the main sitting room. Servants are everywhere. She has them spying on me.
I have to go now, or I won’t have time to sneak this into the mailbox. I’m afraid to ask the housekeeper to mail it for me. It would most likely not get to you.
Love, Marcia
January 18, 1970
Dear Sally,
Thank you for your kind offer to send Jimmy down here to get us. I wish it were that simple. The Binghams have the kind of wealth that buys what they want, even if it’s not right. They would gladly get rid of me, but there’s no way they’ll let Karen go.
I finally got it out of Warren why we had to move here. As you know, he was running the Portland branch of the family’s business and a bunch of money went missing. Embezzled is the word he used! Markham blamed him—he said Warren should have known what was happening in his own branch. But Sally, I have a terrible suspicion that Warren took the money. I don’t know what’s happened to the money, but it was upwards of a hundred thousand dollars. I’m praying that Warren hid it away in some foreign account so that we all might escape from this hell. Whatever his plans, I don’t know if they include Karen and me. He’s grown skinny and jittery. You wouldn’t even recognize him as the same handsome man I married. He won’t look at me most of the time. I got him to tell me about why he lost his job when he was very drunk one night. That’s the only time he’ll talk to me. But Sally, he seems desperate, like a trapped animal. I’m afraid of what he might do.
Josephine has told all the servants that I’m ill and not allowed to go out of my wing. Anytime I try and sneak out, Edward grabs me. He’s a large man and very strong. I’m weak living here, which makes it easy for him to haul me back to our wing. Last week when I tried to leave, he pulled me back inside the house by my hair. I’m bribing the maid to put this letter in the mail for me. If you get it, my plan worked.
Regardless, please do not send Jimmy down here. It will only make it worse.
Love, Marcia
Liz’s hands shook as she opened another letter. The date was six months after the last. Why had it taken her that long to write?
This letter was on a lined notebook paper, not the usual thick stationary of the previous letters.
June 13, 1969
Dear Sally,
I haven’t gotten a letter from you since February. I believe they’re confiscating them in a further attempt to isolate me from the outside world. I’ve written at least five letters since January. I wonder if you’ve gotten any of them? If you have, I haven’t gotten any of the responses.
I’m writing this one in the middle of the night. After I’m done, I’m going to escape out the window to mail it. I said it in my last letter, but I know you didn’t get it. I was wrong when I said not to come. You and Jimmy need to come get us. I will try and call you, but if you don’t hear from me, plan to pick us up at the Catholic church on 215 Foothill Blvd on June 30th. I may have only the clothes on our backs, but unless they kill me trying to escape, we’ll be there.
Praying you get this.
Love, Marcia
That was the last of them. Liz passed it across the table to Peggy. What had those people done to her grandmother?
Lola arrived back with cake and coffee. “Well, what do you think?”
“She was a prisoner at their home,” Liz said. “I had no idea.”
“Mother never said a word about them being controlling,” Peggy said. “But that doesn’t mean anything. She doesn’t really talk about her past much.”
“Almost never,” Liz said. “And she said she remembers almost nothing about her mother. Do you remember her, Lola?”
Lola poured cream into her coffee. “I’m five years older than your mother, so I do have a recollection of several visits. I know once we went to visit them in Portland. I was probably around eight, which would have made your mother about three. I remember walking up a long stairway to their apartment. It looked out onto a dingy street. I don’t remember Uncle Warren that trip. Several times they visited us here on the farm. I remember a visit when I was about ten. It was summer, and we spent a lot of time at the river swimming. I recall that your grandmother loved the water. Both she and my mother were swimming with us in the water. Our fathers were sitting in the shade drinking beer.” She closed her eyes. “I can see my dad in his orange shorts with his white chest. His arms and neck were tan and the rest of him was deathly white.”
They all laughed. “We were talking about his overalls,” Peggy said. “We don’t remember him we
aring anything else.”
“Those awful overalls.” Lola’s eyes filled with tears, but she brushed them aside. “Anyway, I remember another time too. It must have been the year before they moved to California because I was thirteen. I remember calling myself a teenager like I was the queen of everything.”
“What year was that? 1968?” asked Liz.
“That’s right. Your grandmother died in 1970. They moved to California in 1969, according to the letters.”
“Do you know if your parents went to California to try and rescue them?” Peggy asked.
Lola shook her head. “She died before June 30th.”
“Do you know how?” Liz asked. “My mother said she didn’t know, which is just weird. She was eight, not two.”
“They told my mother it was suicide. She electrocuted herself in the bathtub,” Lola said.
“But you don’t believe that?” Liz asked.
“I do not. The woman who wrote these letters was not a woman about to end her life. She was a fighter. Like my mom.”
“Do you think it’s possible Josephine killed her?” Liz asked.
“I don’t know,” Lola said. “All I know is she clearly felt she was in danger and trapped there. Who knows what she wrote in the missing five letters.”
“But how will we ever know?” asked Peggy. “Everyone is dead.”
Lola shook her head. “Not everyone.”
“Our grandfather Warren is still alive, but he has dementia. He doesn’t even recognize our mother,” Liz said. “Even if he knew the truth at one time, he doesn’t know it now.”
“Not your father. Rosemary. The sister. She was ten years younger than your father, which would make her seventy now. Your grandmother says in the letters that she was an ally of sorts. Maybe she knows something.”
“It’s a long shot,” Liz said. “But maybe.”
“Do we even know where she is?” Peggy asked.
“Mother might. If she’d tell us,” Liz said. “She thought it was preposterous that anything malicious had happened.”
“She may not be a cooperative witness then.” Lola said. “There’s such a thing as Google.”
Liz smiled. “There are also friends at the county records office.”
Lola clapped her hands together. “Excellent.”
“Did Aunt Sally ever talk about any of this with you?” Peggy asked Lola.
Lola nodded. “At the time, she was sure there they’d done something to her. She and my dad tried to get the police to look into it, but they got nowhere. After that, she didn’t bring it up to me but a handful of times. As a matter of fact, I had no idea these letters existed.”
“It was evidence,” Liz said. “She kept them all these years just in case.”
“I wonder why she never said anything to us about her suspicions?” Peggy asked. “Or to our mother? It’s weird, don’t you think?”
Lola shrugged. “I agree. We’re missing something. I just don’t know what it is.”
**
They drove away from the farm in the glow of twilight. Orange light peaked through trees. By the time they were on the paved road, Beth was asleep, her face curled into her shoulder. Liz turned on the radio. Soft notes of a love song played as they traveled into town.
At the lodge, Liz found a parking spot and turned off the car. They sat in the comfortable silence of sisters and watched the last moment of the day’s sun slip behind the mountain.
“I’m glad we came here,” Peggy said.
“Me too.”
“Do you think it’s a good idea to poke into this business with our grandmother?”
“I’m not sure,” Liz answered. She wasn’t sure. Was it better to leave the past alone or to delve into the mystery in the pursuit of the truth? Did the truth heal or open old wounds to bleed afresh?
“I was thinking just now that it’s like Grant’s situation. His parents lied to him his entire life about his birth father. Did it have a consequence?”
Liz looked over at her sister. This was a rhetorical question, but she answered anyway. “It had a huge consequence. The fact that he thought his own father didn’t love him, in fact, hated him, has colored every part of his life.”
“It ruined his relationship with you.”
“Yes,” Liz said. “Learning the truth might heal him, but it could hurt him worse. What if he’s rejected again?”
“What if looking into all this hurts Mother?”
“Or hurts our somewhat tenuous relationship with her?” Liz asked.
“Right.”
Liz shifted in the seat to get a better look at her sister. “Let’s sleep on it.”
Peggy smiled and yawned. “Good idea.”
“We should get some rest.”
“I agree. This mountain air makes me tired.” Peggy paused, yawning again. “And, no matter what we decide about this thing with Mother, I’m glad we came. I’m going to be able to figure out what to do with my life here. And Lola’s wonderful.”
Liz smiled. “She is. It’s a chance for us to get to know her, even if she ends up back in France.”
“Right. And let’s face it—we don’t have that much family to go around.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Grant
IN THE MORNING, Grant and his sisters picked up their father’s ashes from the funeral home and drove out to the state park. They left the car in the lot above the beach and meandered down the stairs to the pebbly shore. As much as their worlds had changed since that day almost twenty years ago when they’d a semblance of a happy family outing, the beach had not. Other than a small patch of sand on the far end of the cove, the beach consisted of pebbles and driftwood. Today, a soft breeze brought the scent of marine life, seaweed, and the briny sea. Overhead, seagulls screamed. The morning sun was soft and the tide low.
His sisters walked arm in arm to the end of the beach where they’d had their picnic near the small patch of sand. Grant followed, carrying the urn. When they reached their destination, Grant squatted and touched the damp sand with the tips of his fingers. The girls sat on a large piece of driftwood and stared into the water with somber expressions.
“What do we do now?” Kristen asked.
Grant had no idea. He hadn’t anticipated it feeling awkward. Now they were here, he wasn’t sure how to proceed. The day from long ago flashed before Grant’s eyes once more. He saw his father in the lawn chair with his jeans rolled up and his feet in the sand, drinking a beer and smiling. Relaxed. Mom was next to him, reading a book and wearing a sun hat that kept her face in shadows. Had she had a good day? No one knew.
Hadley picked up a stick and threw it toward the water. It landed in an incoming wave and was swept out to sea. “I guess we should say something, then toss the ashes into the wind. Or water. Somewhere.”
“I’ll start,” Kristen said.
Grant handed her the urn. She twisted off the top. “Dad, I’m sorry life was hard for you and that it seemed most people and things disappointed you. I hope you’re in a better place now and at peace. Thank you for providing a home for us.” She shook the urn. Ashes lifted in the air and floated out to sea.
Hadley went next. “Dad, I forgive you for all the times you hurt me. I understand that you were hurting and that it was the only way you could be. I will not forget the lessons you taught me through how you lived, or didn’t live. I choose to forgive you so that I may move forward. I know you’re in a better place now. I pray for your peace and for our continued healing.” She shook the urn. Ashes wafted in a cloud before drifting out to sea.
Grant took the urn from his sister’s outstretched hand. Think of something nice to say. “I didn’t understand you, but I loved you.” He spoke the rest silently. I know you didn’t love me, but I loved you. Despite everything, I looked for your approval and affection all my life. For my sisters’ sake, I do hope you’re someplace good. I’ll look after your daughters as I always have. “Thank you for providing for us in the best ways you could. Rest in pe
ace.” He shook the remainder of the ashes into the air. The Oregon breeze carried them away. Hadley cried without making a sound. Kristen knelt with her arms wrapped around her knees and her face to the sun.
**
Around four that afternoon, Grant drove down the main street of River Valley. It was slightly smaller than Legley Bay and far quainter. Neither Lizzie nor Stefan had exaggerated the attractiveness of River Valley. From what they’d told him, there was a group of business people who’d combined their resources to transform what was once a dingy little town into a tourist destination. He passed the Second Chance Inn. Stefan and Gennie had stayed there while they were filming. Next door was the infamous restaurant Riversong. He’d just read an article about it in the travel magazine in his hotel room last night. The town square Stefan had gifted the town looked gorgeous in the June sunlight. An old-fashioned gazebo was surrounded by lawn, and brick pathways begged for a wedding or a concert.
He passed a toy store and a fly fishing shop, named Rivertoy and Riverfly, respectively. Clever. Despite his misgivings and nerves, the picturesque town lifted his spirits. Although, Lizzie was going to fall in love with this place. He might never get her home.
At the end of town, he turned right and drove up a meandering road for a mile or two until he reached the lodge. Made of rustic beams and dramatic slants, it seemed to sprout from the mountain.
Lizzie had reserved a room for him. He checked in and headed upstairs to the sixth floor. His room consisted of a king bed and a view of the mountains, but he couldn’t enjoy either of them now. He wanted Lizzie. Only she would do.
He texted. Here. Checked in.
Right away, a text came back. Great. We’re down at the pool. Join us?
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