That Chesapeake Summer (Chesapeake Diaries Book 9)

by Mariah Stewart

  It promised to be a good night.

  Chapter 2

  IN addition to the delicious chicken salad Sis had left for her, Jamie found a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs—long a comfort-food favorite—and a meat loaf wrapped in foil. She called Sis to say thanks while she heated the spaghetti, her mouth watering at the thought of her aunt’s tomato sauce. Sis and Lainey had a firm date to make sauce together on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, and they’d never missed a year. Jamie sat at the kitchen table and savored every bite as she watched the evening news on the wall-mounted TV that Lainey had sworn she could not live without.

  After dinner, Jamie went into her father’s study and turned on the overhead light and the desk lamp and promptly forgot about her plan to spend the night shredding. Her attention was drawn to the bookshelves, and almost without thinking, she began to sort through them. Those volumes that had been treasured by her as a child went into one box. Her father’s favorite detective novels went into another. Those she would ship to herself before she left Caryville. The remaining books would be donated to the local library. Other items—her father’s collection of bronze bookends, the photographs, the ashtray shaped and painted like a turtle’s shell that she’d made for him one year at summer camp—would go home with her.

  She groaned aloud when she opened the drawers of the five filing cabinets and found they were stuffed with endless folders of canceled checks, bank statements, paid bills, and tax returns. The task was more involved than she’d assumed. She closed the open drawers, turned off the shredder, and turned her attention to her father’s desk, which she’d planned on saving for last, but surely it would take less time than the filing cabinets. She could do them tomorrow.

  In the years since his death, Lainey had used the desk for writing checks and letters. Jamie found the shiny white pen with “Lainey” written in script; she’d given it to her mother for her birthday a few years ago. She set it aside to take with her when she left. On the corner of the desk stood a green vase holding a handful of dried hydrangeas next to a stack of unpaid bills and Lainey’s checkbook.

  Clearly, Lainey had moved into the space, though she’d kept her husband’s personal items intact. His favorite pen and the money clip shaped like a feather, both gold and bearing his initials, were in the top drawer, along with a pile of paper clips, some rubber bands, and a box of staples. Several sheets of stamps and a stack of note cards, a worn leather address book, and lead refills for her mother’s mechanical pencils were in the second drawer.

  The next drawer held her mother’s stationery, some envelopes, some postage stamps, and a fat file containing warranties for appliances that had long since been replaced. Jamie dumped the contents of the drawer into the recycling bin after confirming that none contained identifying information.

  The bottom drawer was a file drawer. Jamie’s eyes filled with tears when she found that each folder held mementoes from each of her school years, from her first attempts to make Js in kindergarten to several papers she’d written in high school that had earned her As. There were school pictures from first grade (I remember that dress! I LOVED that dress! Drove Mom nuts that I wanted to wear it every single day) to fifth grade (Oh my God, Mom, who thought it was a good idea for you to cut my bangs?) through senior year (I can’t believe I dressed like that. Did I really think that was cool?). There were photos and programs from dance recitals alongside prom pictures, dried flowers, and birthday cards. She was pretty sure she could have accurately dated each year by the style of her hair, from its untamed state in grade school to the sleek ponytails of her senior year. And there was a folder containing her old artwork. Inside were her early drawings of houses and people, most notably of Rosalia, her imaginary friend, who had aged along with Jamie. The drawings stopped when Jamie was ten or so, but until then, every time Jamie had a school photo taken, she’d drawn a picture of Rosalia wearing the same clothes.

  She put the drawings back in the folder and left it on the desktop. She wanted to ship her school records to her house. She had no idea what she’d do with them once they arrived, but it somehow seemed sacrilegious to dump them here, after her mother had taken such pains to preserve every moment of her childhood.

  She pushed the drawer, but it stopped midway and refused to close. Jamie leaned over to try to force it, but it was stuck. “Must be off the track,” she murmured as she pulled the drawer out halfway, then tried once more to close it. The drawer remained stuck.

  She leaned closer and saw a file wedged into the very back of the drawer. She stuck her hand inside and removed it. The date written on the file was October 12, 1979. Her birthday. Jamie smiled and opened the folder.

  Inside was an envelope addressed to her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert James Valentine. The return address was a law firm in St. Dennis, Maryland.

  Curious, Jamie peered into the envelope and saw that it contained several sheets of paper. She pulled them out and began to read.

  For a long moment, she could not breathe.

  She read and reread the first page, but no matter how many times she saw the words, they bounced around inside her brain, a jumble that refused to make sense. She lowered herself onto the chair, her heart pounding in her chest, her mind buzzing wildly.

  “There must be some mistake.” Jamie shook her head as if to clear it. “This can’t be true. It can’t be real.”

  Dated January 28, 1980, the letter read:

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Valentine:

  Our sincerest congratulations on the adoption of your baby girl!

  Please be advised that all legal issues have been resolved as per our discussion. The birth mother, who wishes to remain anonymous, has signed the final agreement and requested the adoption records to be sealed. Please note that she has legally relinquished any and all rights she may have to the child. Rest assured there will be no change of mind or heart. The enclosed birth certificate has been duly revised as per our conversation of November 1, 1979.

  A copy of the social worker’s report and recommendations are also enclosed. You will receive a copy of the appropriate court documents directly from the law offices of Scott C. Parsons, Esquire, who represented your interests in the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas.

  Please do not hesitate to contact me or my staff if you have any further questions or require additional services in the future. On a personal note, I wish you and your daughter all the very best.

  Very truly yours,

  Curtis

  CURTIS L. ENRIGHT, ESQUIRE

  Mr. and Mrs. Valentine were crossed out and Herb and Elaine written in pen. Below his name, the lawyer had handwritten, Delighted to have assisted you in this happy matter! Herb, I’m looking forward to seeing you at the next reunion. ~ C.

  Jamie had no idea how long she sat and stared at the letter in her hand.

  Had her parents adopted a child who died? Surely her parents would have told her if she’d had a sister who died. And wouldn’t there have been photographs?

  But if not a sibling, then who?

  She tried to convince herself that the baby girl referred to in the letter could be anyone but her.

  Hadn’t she’d seen pictures of her happy parents standing outside the hospital where she was born? She’d been wrapped in a pink and white blanket, wearing a tiny pink bonnet edged in white eyelet, and cradled in the arms of her beaming mother. She’d seen one of the photos just two days ago, when she removed it from her mother’s dresser and wrapped it carefully in tissue and tucked it into the box of photos and albums that even now sat on the dining room table, waiting to be mailed to her home.

  She removed the other documents in the envelope and almost wished she hadn’t. The birth certificate that bore the name of Jamie Louisa Valentine was dated October 12, 1979. There was the social worker’s report, assuring the state that the Valentines more than met the criteria for adoptive parents—had exceeded them, actual
ly, on every count. It was her recommendation that the adoption of the baby girl born on October 12, 1979, be finalized at the earliest possible time.

  All the air went out of the room, and for what seemed like an eternity, Jamie sat frozen on the edge of the chair. Then she rose, grabbed the file, and went into the kitchen, where she snatched her bag from the table. She removed the key from the hook near the back door and walked on legs she could not feel to the car parked in the driveway. Jamie jammed the key into the ignition and backed the car onto the street.

  She drove in a daze to the bungalow three blocks away and parked at the end of the driveway. She forced herself to walk, rather than run, to the front door and opened it, entering the home without knocking, something she had never done before.

  “Who . . . ? Oh, Jamie. I was just about to call you to see if you’d like to . . .” Sis stood in the hall outside the kitchen doorway. She paused, studying her niece’s demeanor. “Sweetie, are you all right? You look so pale. Come in and—”

  “You knew, didn’t you?” Jamie thrust the file at Sis. “All this time you knew, and you never told me.”

  A long stream of air escaped Sis’s lungs, as if she’d been holding a breath for the past thirty-six years and was grateful to let it out. It seemed like forever before she found her voice.

  “It wasn’t my place to tell you.” Sis’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I told Lainey and told her: ‘You have to let Jamie know.’ The last time we had that conversation was a week before she passed. I’d yelled at her when she admitted you still didn’t know and she promised she’d tell you when you and she went to Rehoboth next month.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s not going to happen,” Jamie snapped. “Why didn’t they tell me?”

  “She and Herb had agreed they’d tell you when you were six. But that was the year my mother passed away, remember? Lainey said she just couldn’t deal with anything else then.”

  “That was thirty years ago,” Jamie reminded her. “Surely at some point during those thirty years she could have ‘dealt’ with it.”

  “She certainly should have. But she and Herb . . .” Sis shook her head and walked into the living room and lowered herself into a wing chair near the front window. “There was always an excuse. You were going to camp that summer, and they didn’t want you to think they were sending you away because they’d changed their mind and didn’t want you anymore. When you changed schools, the excuse was that you were having a hard enough time making the transition without adding to your stress.”

  Sis motioned to the chair opposite hers and Jamie sat. “Lainey was so afraid you’d be upset, that you’d run away and look for your birth mother. She loved you with all her heart and soul. Herb did, too, but he didn’t have the same fears that Lainey had. He was against keeping it from you, several times threatened to tell you himself.” Sis’s voice lowered. “I think Lainey couldn’t bear the thought that you’d reject her as your mother.”

  “That’s crazy.” Jamie dismissed the idea.

  “Is it?” Sis reached out and touched Jamie’s knee. “For a woman who’d longed for a baby, who’d had miscarriage after miscarriage after miscarriage, to finally have the child she’d so desperately wanted—whether she’d given birth to that child or not—can you try to understand the devastation she felt at the thought of losing you?”

  “She never would have lost me. She was the best mother in the world. I was so lucky to have her. I loved her and my dad more than anything.”

  “And they both adored you. Imagine how she’d have felt to lose that love.”

  “But she wouldn’t have.”

  “She never got over that fear.”

  “I had no idea she was so insecure. She was always such a force.”

  “Underneath it all, Lainey was always a little insecure.”

  Jamie leaned forward, her head in her hands. “I don’t know what to think about all this.”

  “Try not to judge them too harshly. They both wanted what was best for you, always. Yes, they should have told you, unquestionably, and yes, there’d been ample time to do that. But after your dad died, it became harder and harder for your mother to even talk about the fact that you were adopted.” Sis sighed heavily. “Frankly, I think she wanted so badly to believe she was your mother—your only mother—that she was beginning to believe it herself.”

  “She was—is—my only mother.” Fat hot tears rolled down Jamie’s cheeks. “I wish I’d had the opportunity to tell her. I wish she’d have given me the chance. I wish she’d have trusted me that much.”

  Sis gently took Jamie’s hands. “I do, too, sweetheart. And I’m so sorry you had to find out this way.”

  “Aunt Sis, if I hadn’t found the file . . . if I hadn’t read the letter from the attorney . . . would you have told me?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been wrestling with this since the day your mother died. Should I tell you? Did I have the right to tell you?” Sis shrugged. “Would you have believed me if I had?”

  “You wouldn’t have made up something like that.” Jamie softened. “It’s such a hard thing to get my mind around. There’d never been a hint, you know? Not one thing. I never suspected . . .”

  “I’m so sorry, sweetie. I’m sorry your parents didn’t tell you when your dad was alive, and I’m sorry that I didn’t push my sister harder to tell you. And God knows I’m sorry you found out the way you did.”

  “Did they know her . . . my birth mother?” Jamie asked.

  Sis shook her head. “The lawyer—the one who wrote that letter—he arranged everything. He and your dad went to law school together and were friends up until your father’s death. They got together every year at their law school reunion. Herb told his friend how the doctors had cautioned Lainey against getting pregnant again—she’d had so many miscarriages, I think there’d been three or four—and they were thinking about adopting a child. Some months later—gosh, it must have been at least a year later—this attorney called Herb and asked if he and Lainey were still interested in adopting. They’d already gone through home studies with the agency they were working with . . .”

  “He knew someone,” Jamie said softly. “Dad’s friend knew someone who was having a baby she didn’t want.”

  “I’m not so sure it was a matter of not wanting . . .” Sis paused.

  Jamie’s head shot up. “It’s okay. You can say it. A lot of babies are unwanted. At least she—my birth mother—didn’t abort me or leave me in the ladies’ room at some turnpike rest stop.”

  “I think it was a matter of the girl being very young—your mother said the lawyer told them she was only sixteen—and having come from a family that was unsympathetic to her situation.”

  “You mean her parents forced her to give me away?”

  “That’s the impression I got from Lainey. After the attorney called Herb, he and your mother talked about it for all of about ten minutes before they made a beeline to Maryland to talk it over with the lawyer. From everything Lainey told me, it all went very smoothly.”

  “So just like that . . .” Jamie snapped her fingers.

  “Just like that.” Sis nodded. “The attorney had it all worked out before your parents even arrived at the hospital after you were born.”

  “Did they meet her?”

  “No, no. No one wanted that, not your parents, not the girl or her family. No, the attorney was there, and the social worker, and your parents. You were turned over to your parents, and they left the hospital with you.” Sis smiled. “I know you’ve seen the photographs a million times of the three of you the day they brought you home.”

  Jamie nodded. “At least a million times. Mom always said that was the happiest day of their lives.”

  “Oh, it was.” Sis hesitated, then said, “You know they brought you here, right?”

  “Here? What here?” Jamie frowned.

 
“They were living outside of Pittsburgh when they got that first call telling them there would be a baby. Once things got under way, they decided to buy a house here, move to Caryville, so they could raise you where there was family.”

  “And where no one would know that I was adopted?” Jamie asked. “Where no one would know she hadn’t been pregnant?”

  “I do think that played in to her decision, I’m not going to lie, Jamie. But she also wanted to be near me and our mother. We were all Lainey had, you know, and it was important to her—and to your father—that you grow up among family.”

  “I always wondered why my dad left that big-city firm to become a small-town lawyer, as he liked to describe himself. I always thought he sounded a little wistful.”

  “There may have been a touch of that. Your dad was a partner in a large, prominent firm out there. I’m sure more than one person wondered why he’d give up the one for the other.”

  “Was he happy with that choice?” Jamie asked. “Do you think he regretted it?”

  “Not for a minute. He loved his life—his family and his work. He wouldn’t have changed a thing. Herb was very happy with his choices and with his life. He never looked back.”

  Jamie nodded, then rose to leave.

  “Stay. Please.” Sis stood and took Jamie’s hand. “You really shouldn’t go back to the house now.”

  “I appreciate your concern, I really do, and I know that this has been hard on you, too. I’m sorry that you’ve been left to deal with it. But I need to be alone for a while and process this. I don’t even know how I feel. I was so angry when I realized what those papers meant. I’m still angry.” Jamie held up a hand as if to ward off any protests her aunt was about to launch. “Yes, I understand everything you told me. I understand how depressed my mother must have been after so many miscarriages. I can even understand her wanting to believe that I wasn’t adopted, that I’d been hers all along. But what I don’t understand is how she could have let me believe a lie my entire life. It’s all such a shock. Something inside me doesn’t want to believe it. But I have to make peace with the truth, and I have to do that without her, without my dad. This would have been a lot easier if I’d heard this from them when I was younger.”