“Nostalgia, you said? Are you a long lost relative of Anne’s or something, like a great-uncle? How long have you known her?”
James Lamric smiled at Steven then let a gentle laugh escape. “That really depends on one’s reference. I would have to say little more than a day, or nearly a lifetime.”
“You’re being rather cryptic, Mr. Lamric. If your purpose is to baffle me with riddles and leave me dangling around in suspense, then I would rather not play the game. I’m a very serious man, Mr. Lamric, and very busy at the present time, needing, at this moment to return to my office. So please, cease the game and come to the point of your visit.”
“Very well,” James said as he cleared his throat. “You see, I met your wife some time ago in the eerie evening light of a waning Charleston summer storm,” he paused, walked over to the sliding glass doors leading onto a rather small patio taking up the better part of a fenced back yard, then turned, faced Steven and slowly continued, “July seventeenth, nineteen-forty-three.”
Steven’s mind froze for a brief second, and then shifted into high gear as he suddenly comprehended what James just said. “You were there!.... She’s there... now... she made it?” Steven couldn’t stand still. He rushed the length of the kitchen and back again, turning several circles. His excitement was uncontrollable. He spoke in quick, short sentences, sometimes not making any sense.
“It worked... It... Where... How is she? It really worked... And you were there... And you saw... You saw it... Did you see it?”
“No.” James broke in.
“No, but you were there; I mean you talked to her... And she made it.” Steven dropped himself into a chair. James was leaning against the glass doors, his arms crossed, waiting for Steven to slow and return to a level of rationality.
After nearly a full minute during which Steven had caught his breath, he turned a serious gaze upon his guest. “How is she?”
“It’s been many years, Steven, but I remember it almost like yesterday.” The old man’s deep, strong voice uttered the words he had rehearsed many times. “Right now, she’s very well. However, she’s still quite confused. She’s been rather busy for the past two days.”
“Then she really made it?” Steven felt a layer of tension peel away; tension he didn’t even realize was there. “What do you mean, busy?”
“Elizabeth Anne has been keeping her quite occupied.”
“Elizabeth Anne? Who’s Elizabeth Anne?”
James Lamric walked over to the desk on which he had seen the open book of baby names, picked up the book and delivered it into Steven’s hands. Steven looked at the page and the highlighted name, and then looked up at James who had a broad grin on his face.
“You’re a father, Steven.”
Steven stared at the page, the highlighted name, his mouth hanging open. Slowly he said, “I have a daughter. She had the baby!”
“She was born early yesterday morning. A very healthy little girl.” The old man placed one hand on Steven’s shoulder and held out his right. “May I be the first to congratulate you?”
Steven stood up, accepting the hand. “I’m really a father!”
“Well, by my calculations you became a father 44 years ago. Come on, let’s go into the other room and sit down. We have a lot to talk about.”
“Elizabeth Anne!” Steven could only say as he allowed himself to be guided by this old gentleman, not fully realizing the total importance of this meeting. The questions had yet to begin to form in his mind.
A couple sat in their private limousine talking quietly. Their vehicle, with dark tinted glass and a faithful chauffeur of fifteen years, was parked along the curb opposite the entrance to the cul-de-sac. The individual they had come to watch was sitting on his front step drinking from a glass.
“He’s drinking orange juice,” the man said as he lowered his binoculars to his lap. The woman picked up the binoculars and studied Steven for a few seconds.
“He looks too relaxed.”
“Hmm,” was the gentleman’s reply.
They noticed, without interest, a blue truck enter the cul-de-sac. As time passed and no one got out, the gentleman picked up the binoculars and studied the truck. “North Carolina plates.”
“Related, do you think?”
The gentleman picked up the car phone and punched in eleven numbers from memory. He waited. The woman took the binoculars and studied the truck.
“It’s moving,” she said.
“Norman!” he said into the phone. “Samuelson here... Doing just fine. We’re on a little holiday down in South Carolina... Yeah, somewhat hot but livable. I need a favor. Could you run a plate for me and tell me who the registered owner is?”
“He’s getting out of the truck,” the woman said.
The gentleman recited the plate information to Norman and accepted the binoculars from the woman. “Sure, I’ll wait.” He inspected the back of the man who was apparently speaking to Steven. “Hmm,” he murmured as they disappeared into the townhouse. He set down the binoculars, then sat in silence with the woman and waited, the phone pressed to his ear. A woman and two kids came out of another townhouse, apparently dressed for the beach. The older child, a girl near teen age, walked purposely to the driver’s side rear door and got in. The other, a much younger girl, skipped around to the passenger’s door and jumped in. “Beautiful family,” the gentleman said. “Yes, I’m still here, Norman.”
The woman looked at him expectantly, while he listened to what Norman was saying.
“Thanks, Norman. I’ll take you to lunch when we get back. You can hold me to it.” The couple looked at each other when he hung up. She, anxious to hear, knowing from the look on his face it was related; he, holding the suspense until he knew she couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Well?” she finally said.
“It’s James Lamric, Officer James Lamric, retired.”
They both looked toward the house.
“Not good,” he added. “Could get complicated.”
“Maybe not,” she said. “Maybe not. Let me think on it awhile.”
Chapter 15
Monday ~ July 19, 1943
“I know it’s crazy, James. But it’s the Christian thing to do. I will not let a woman and her baby live on the street.”
“Yes, Ma.”
“You give this to her. Make sure she has no doubt this invitation is from me, not you. And unless her illusions have ceased and she’s figured out where she is really from, and has a means to get there, I will not take no for an answer. I said as much in the letter.”
James held the letter in his hand. “Yes, Ma.”
“Now go. And let me know right away what she says. If I have to, I’ll go see her myself. Right now I have a lot to do.”
James went out the door. Mrs. Lamric watched him pull away, and then went into the living room. She passed by her reflection in the hall mirror, then stopped and turned back to it. “What are you doing, Ruth?” she said to the image looking back at her. “Christian thing to do wasn’t the reason the idea came to you. What was it? You’re obsessed by this, you know.”
You have a reason, Ruth.
“Who is that in there talking to you? Am I going nuts, too?”
No, Ruth, you are not crazy.
Ruth Lamric stared at herself for several minutes, waiting for the voice in her head to say something else. That wasn’t her voice talking. You are not crazy, the voice said. Should she be comforted by that or consider that she may in fact be going nuts? Voices in her head. She turned away from the mirror, self-doubt growing. She looked at the portrait of her late husband in the rich, ornate frame next to the mirror. She had asked Henry for help many times in the years since his death. But she never heard a voice give an answer. She turned away.
Ruth, the voice chimed up again. She stopped. Prepare the room.
She looked back at the portrait and shook her head. “No, I will not acknowledge that I’m hearing voices.” She again turned away and purposefull
y climbed the stairs to the second floor where her two boys grew and played, where one still lived, where the other stayed on those rare times he got an overnight liberty. ‘No more overnight liberties,’ he had told her even though his ship was in until the end of the week. She opened the door to Johnny’s room and brushed off the always-lingering fear that some day he might not come home at all.
Prepare the room, Ruth, and he shall.
She shrugged away the voice and walked into the room. It was neat because that was the way she insisted he keep it. Her boys had no other choice. “Store it or lose it,” she told them and they learned at a young age she meant business. Now she looked at the room and envisioned frilly curtains and a lace bedspread. What shape was the crib in? Would it need to be painted? She rolled up the rugs and carried them downstairs to the back porch. She would get James to hang them and beat them, even though they had just been done in June. She stood for a long time where she dropped the rugs and played through her imagination the sound of a baby in the house again. And not just a baby, but a baby girl, and the baby’s mother. The thought of having female company to talk to, besides the rare visit of her sister, sent a warm glow through her.
Ruth Lamric breathed a sigh of contentment, and then turned and headed up the stairs, to the attic. No more voices. As a matter-of-fact, Ruth no longer remembered the voices. She carried with her into the attic a growing obsession, however, that she must prepare a place for Anne and Elizabeth Anne Waring. And she knew, in some unconscious way that by doing so, Johnny would come home from the war alive.
The handmade crib was still covered with the old blanket, as she had insisted when Henry put it up there seventeen years ago. “Someday we’ll need it again,” she recalled saying even though they both knew she could never have another child. She removed the blanket and dragged the crib to the top of the stairs where James could easily get to it.
James sat at a spare desk at police headquarters, splitting his off duty time between finishing a burglary report and perplexing over his mother’s sudden idea. Not just her idea, but also her entire change of attitude. She was inviting a stranger into her home, not just for a visit, but to live. He didn’t know what to think of it. It was his home as well. He shook off the thought and paged through his notebook for the information to complete the report.
James was just finishing when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey! What are you doing out in the daylight, James?”
“Hi, Eddie.” James pushed his papers aside and turned toward his lifelong friend. “How are things on the streets today?”
“Fairly quiet until the butcher, Brokman, had a heart attack.”
“Oh, no!”
“His wife didn’t take it very well. Spent the morning dealing with that and locating his daughter at the shipyard.”
“He didn’t make it then.” James said.
“No. Afraid not.”
“Too bad. ‘We’ve been married 32 years,’ he said to me the other afternoon. Wanted to know when I was going to get a woman. Come meet my daughter, he told me more than once.”
“Well, I met her today, James. You could do worse. You’re almost 26 years old. You need to settle down.”
“I am settled down.”
“I don’t mean with your mother.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“What about that Nurse Morgan? She’s been hot for you for a year or two now.”
“You and my mother! Do you two get together to make sure you’re on the same path or something?”
Eddie laughed. “No. But maybe that should tell you something. We probably both know what’s good for you. Two reliable sources of advice.”
“I’m not so sure about the reliability of my mother. I think she’s gone off the back end of the boat when I wasn’t watching.”
Eddie pulled up a chair. “So, what’s going on?”
James leaned forward, his forearms on his knees. “Remember the woman I told you about, pregnant, and with amnesia? She showed up in a barracks on the shipyard.”
“Waring or something. Right?”
“Anne Waring. Nothing much has changed with her. She’s still making far-fetched claims, although she appears to understand the impossibility of it all. I made the mistake of telling Mom about her, and now she’s inviting her to come stay with us when she gets out of the hospital.”
“Does she have any place else to go?”
“No. It doesn’t appear so.”
“Your mother is being charitable. She’s a good-hearted person, but you may have a crying baby waking you up at odd hours. I lived through my little sister when I was fourteen. You’ll get used to it.”
“I didn’t even think of the crying baby part. I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“It’s not like she’s inviting a hobo in off the street, James. This is a young woman, with a new baby, and quite pretty, I’ve heard.”
James remembered carrying her into the hospital, so small, so fragile, and then going in to see her the next day. Even smaller but so beautiful, and so intelligent. He looked up at Eddie, but said nothing.
“Oh!” Eddie’s face lit up. “Now I get the picture. You’re smitten with her. Oh, boy! A married woman, with a child no less, and you’re on your way down.”
James looked at Eddie incredulously.
“The problem, my friend, is not your mother.”
“No! No, Eddie. That’s not it at all. We just don’t know who she is, where she came from. Her appearance is awfully suspicious.”
“Sure, James. I understand. You’re afraid she’ll knock you and your mother out in the middle of the night, drag you off to some hideout and torture top-secret military information out of you. The baby is just part of her cover.”
“You’re making fun.”
“I wonder if she uses water torture.”
“Come on, Eddie.”
“Needles up your finger nails. I’d tell her anything then. Or better yet, she’ll scratch your back gently with long fingernails and threaten to stop if you don’t start talking; or maybe she’ll parade around just out of your reach wearing nothing but an evil grin. Now, that would be real torture. She’ll have you spilling your guts just before you spill your seed. Yes, I sure do understand. You’ll have to lay awake all night in fear of this woman scheming and planning just a few feet away, and in all places, your brother’s bedroom. You certainly do have a problem, James.”
James shook his head and smiled.
“And we got to think about this baby, too. That could just be a disguise. You never can tell what these Germans are capable of. Probably an eighteen-inch midget.”
James started laughing.
Eddie couldn’t keep from laughing as well. “They probably planted the midget inside her.” He was laughing so hard he had a hard time continuing. “And then she just spit the midget spy right into the doctor’s hands. Can’t think of a better cover.”
They rolled back in their chairs and laughed until tears came to them. “Okay, okay. That’s enough,” James breathed.
“The code book was probably rolled up in her placenta,” Eddie said seriously.
“Placenta?” James questioned.
“The after birth,” Eddie said and started them both laughing again.
Captain Ortmann walked into the room. “What in the hell are you two laughing at?”
“An eighteen-inch midget, Captain,” Eddie tried to bring himself under control. The Chief-of-Police dropped a file folder on a desk, shook his head and walked out. Eddie took a deep breath and said to James. “So, you’re smitten with her and the last thing you want is having her sleeping in your brother’s room.”
James shook his head again.
“I know smitten when I see it, James. I’ve been there, been smitten myself. The difference is I was able to marry the object of my smuttiness. I really understand how you feel because if I couldn’t have touched Janice, ever, I would have gone crazy.”
“It’s not that way, E
ddie.”
“Well, maybe not. Maybe it’s only a little smitten. You may have control of it right now, but deep down you know that having to sit at the same breakfast table with a woman you are only a little smitten with will only turn it into a big smit.”
“I don’t think smit is a word.”
“Then it will turn into an extremely high smitten situation. A high level of smuttiness. And somehow you are going to have to keep it not only from Mrs. Waring – I emphasize the ‘Mrs.’ part – but also from Mrs. Lamric, your dear mother. My friend, James, it’s not your mother who has gone off the back end of the boat; it’s you who has gone off the precipice of the cliff.”
“That’s an awfully big word, and you’re really blowing this way out of proportion.”
“Big word for a serious situation. And, hey, I’m not the one who brought it up. I’m not the one who is smitten.”
“All right! So I find her a bit attractive.”
“James, James. You find women walking in the park a bit attractive. I think you find her a lot attractive to the point you are smitten.”
James shook his head again and wished Eddie would just get off it.
“Answer me this truthfully. Have you ever gotten tongue-tied talking to her?”
James felt a rush of blood up to his face. He didn’t say anything but could feel himself getting angry.
Eddie raised his eyebrows. “I rest my case.” He stood. “Got to get back on beat. I agree with you though. You’ve got a problem.” He walked toward the door. “See you later, Buddy.”
James sat for a while considering Eddie’s accusations. No! He thought. That’s not the case at all. It’s just so unlike my mother to invite a stranger into her home, and to live there at that. Of course, people do it all the time around Charleston. Since the shipyard expanded, workers have needed places to live. Families whose sons have gone off to war have rented out rooms and those with extra space have rented out rooms and beds. Many people have invited strangers into their homes. So that’s no big deal.
James turned in his report and then stepped into the hot afternoon air. The cool, rainy spell was past and the humidity was hanging high. “Eddie is wrong. I am not smitten,” he said to himself as he walked toward the Desoto.
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