The Road Home

by Patrick E. Craig

  “I mean, just think of all the things that have happened. How did I end up at that traffic light just in time to almost hit you? How did we end up finding out about my family? How did you find the cave? The list goes on and on. And it seems like every time I pray, I get an answer. I’ve never gotten answers before—not with Buddha or Krishna or any of the drugs I took. Maybe your mom is right. Maybe God is trying to tell me something.”

  Jenny didn’t know what to say to this admission.

  In the front seat, Reuben smiled.

  Bobby Halverson sat at a metal table in a grim, olive-green room at Sing Sing prison. The single fluorescent light above his head made the setting even starker. The man across from him was slouched in his chair, staring at Bobby. A guard stood at the door, and another was outside looking through the observation window. It was obvious that the prison officials considered Sammy Bender worth watching.

  “So what do you want from me, copper?” Sammy snarled.

  He was a scruffy, heavyset man with bad teeth. Longish black hair curled down his neck, but he was balding on top. The sleeve of his prison issue T-shirt was rolled up and held a pack of Camels. Bobby looked closely at the man. Underneath the Camels, Bobby could see a large tattoo on Bender’s shoulder. Bobby recognized it. It was the same tattoo the man in the pond wore on his shoulder.

  “Sheriff,” Bobby said, “I’m a sheriff.”

  “Like Sheriff Matt Dillon?” cracked Sammy. “Hey, Chester, woo-woo.” Sammy guffawed at his own joke.

  “Not exactly,” Bobby said patiently. “Matt Dillon is a TV marshall. I’m a real sheriff, and I’m here on official business.”

  “Yeah? What official business?”

  “I want to know about the bank robbery that put you in here. I want to know about the car you were driving, and I want to know about the man who was with you.”

  “What man?” Sammy asked. His eyes blinked several times, and he fidgeted in his chair.

  “We found the stolen car in a pond outside of Apple Creek, Ohio, in the spring of fifty-one,” Bobby said, ignoring Sammy’s question. “There was a dead man in the pond with the car. Interestingly enough, he had a tattoo just like yours on his arm.”

  Sammy jerked upright. “Joe’s dead? I mean…the guy is dead?”

  He looked away from Bobby and grimaced as he realized he had given himself away.

  Bobby smiled pleasantly. “Now that we know you knew the man, I just need a few details. The man had been in the pond for a few months, so there was no way to take fingerprints. But his tattoo, the one that matches yours, was still intact, and there was a military service number under the statue. Based on that number, we believe the man was Joseph K. Bender, a former naval officer, and since he has the same last name as you he must have been related. Is that true?”

  Sammy slumped back down. “My brother,” Sammy muttered. “Joe was my brother.”

  “Go on,” Bobby said.

  Sammy looked stunned. “So Joe’s dead. I always thought he got away to California.”

  He sat in thought for a few moments.

  “So the man’s name was Joseph K. Bender?” Bobby asked again.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Sammy grunted. “It must have been Joe. We did the heist together. He was outside the bank waiting for me in the car. I messed up and let the teller trip the alarm. The cop on duty shot me. I got off a couple of shots and I guess I hit him and got the teller too. I never blamed Joe for running. I would have done the same.”

  Bobby took a chance. “What about the woman and child that were in the car with Joe?”

  Sammy looked at Bobby with surprise. “You know about Rachel?”

  It was late in the afternoon. Bobby had called and asked everyone to meet him in the restaurant at the motel where they were staying in downtown Ossining. He promised that he had some exciting news. Jenny, Reuben, and Jonathan were waiting in a back booth when Bobby arrived. Jonathan was sitting next to Reuben, and Jenny sat across from them by herself. Bobby walked over to the table and sat down next to Jenny. A skinny teenage waitress came over and asked if he wanted coffee. He nodded, and she left to get him a cup, giving them a strange look as she went. Bobby smiled. It wasn’t often that you found a sheriff, an Amish man, a short-haired Amish girl, and a hippie all seated at the same table.

  Jenny looked at Bobby expectantly.

  “The man in the car was definitely Joseph K. Bender,” Bobby said. “He was Sammy Bender’s brother. They grew up in Patterson, New Jersey, and started getting into trouble when they were teenagers. Sammy knew about the tattoo on Joe’s shoulder and confirmed that the number was a service number. It seems that when the war came, they both enlisted and got a tattoo. Joe got picked for officer training, so he added his service number under the Statue of Liberty. Not that it makes any sense, but then these guys aren’t noted for their smarts.”

  “But the report said he got a dishonorable discharge,” Jenny said. “What about that?”

  “From what Sammy said, Joe did pretty well during his first year as an officer. He was trained to be a pharmacist mate, which is like a petty officer. He was assigned to a battleship in the Pacific. I guess he got wounded in one of the battles. It wasn’t bad enough to get him discharged, but he did need pain pills while he recovered.

  “Sammy says he got hooked on the medication. He got caught stealing narcotics from the infirmary, and they drummed him out of the service. He ended up in New York and graduated from pain pills to morphine and then to heroin. Sammy got tossed out of the service for slugging a superior officer, and he hooked up with Joe. Their life of crime went from there and ended up with the bank robbery.”

  Jenny felt sadness overtake her. So her father was a dope addict. That thought was foreign to her, but she tried to understand it anyway.

  Bobby saw the look on her face and took her hand. “Jenny, I’ve got some news for you.”

  Jenny looked up. She felt the possibilities for her life getting smaller and smaller. What could Uncle Bobby say that could possibly help?

  “Joe Bender was not your father.”

  Jenny looked at Bobby with a blank stare. “Not my father?”

  “No, he was not your father.”

  Jenny felt the darkness beginning to lift from her spirit. “Not my father,” she repeated softly.

  Jenny looked at Reuben. He was so strong and handsome. He had always been there for her. He had protected her all her life, cared and provided for her, carried her when she had fallen, encouraged her when she failed, and always loved her. What had she been thinking? Tears formed in her eyes. She saw her papa’s jaw working as he tried to keep his emotions from showing. Jonathan stared at both of them.

  Jenny got up slowly and went around the table. She stood in front of Reuben and picked up one of his big, strong hands. She put it next to her cheek and felt his calloused palm against her face. Then she kissed his hand and looked into his eyes.

  “Of course he’s not my father,” she said to Reuben. “You are.”

  Reuben’s arms came around Jenny, and he pulled her close. “Jenny, Jenny, my dochter, my precious dochter,” he said softly.

  Jonathan and Bobby looked at each other and then turned away so they wouldn’t show each other the tears welling in their eyes.

  Jerusha suddenly smiled. She had been sitting at the kitchen table, praying for her family. She opened her Bible to the Psalms and was reading through them. She stopped when she came to Psalm 68:6. The words leapt up at her. She reads aloud, “God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains.”

  A great weight lifted from her heart. She stood up and walked to the front door, opened it, and walked out onto the porch. The sun was just setting in the west. The smells and colors of fall assaulted her senses, and her faith began to rise up. Away in the east, her daughter and her husband were finding answers, and all things were working together for good. Jerusha smiled again. The words of her beloved Lobleid came to her lips. Her clear, sweet voice
lifted in song.

  “Lässt loben Ihn mit allen unseren Herzen! Weil Er allein würdig ist!”

  “We praise Him with all our hearts! Because He only is worthy!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  A Missing Link

  “HOW DO YOU KNOW Joe Bender wasn’t Jenny’s father?” Jonathan asked.

  Before answering, Bobby got the waitress’s attention by holding up his coffee cup. She scuttled over and poured them all a fresh round.

  When she left, Bobby said, “After Sammy gave himself away when he heard that Joe was dead, he loosened up and pretty much spilled the beans about everything. As I understand it, when Joe Bender came back from the Navy, he was addicted to the pain pills they gave him when he was wounded in battle. Sammy said that Joe tried to go straight, but he couldn’t hold down a job, and the addiction pretty much took over his life. He was already using heroin when Sammy got kicked out of the Navy and met up with Joe in New York. They started doing robberies, small stuff, knocking over liquor stores and breaking into houses so Joe could support his habit.

  “In nineteen forty-nine, Joe and Sammy lived in a crummy apartment in Manhattan near Fifty-Second Street. From what he said I gather there were a lot of nightclubs there and plenty of drugs. Heroin seemed to be the drug of choice, so it was easy for Joe to get some. Joe got friendly with some of the big-time musicians and became a heroin dealer. He and Sammy lived a pretty sad life, hanging out in the clubs by night and holed up in their apartment during the day, taking drugs. Sammy said that one day Joe had been out buying some drugs, and he showed up back at the apartment with a young woman and a little girl.”

  Jenny looked at Bobby, wide-eyed. “Was the little girl…me?”

  “Yes, Jenny, I believe it was you. The young woman’s name was Rachel, and the little girl’s name was Jenny.”

  “Rachel…Rachel,” Jenny said the name slowly. It might sound familiar, but she couldn’t be sure.

  Bobby went on. “Joe found Rachel sleeping under a stairway behind his supplier’s apartment. Sammy said that when Joe brought her home she was mixed-up and very sad. She wouldn’t say much about herself except that she had only been in New York a few months. She had one suitcase and a tote bag for the child—that’s all. Sammy did find out that she came from somewhere in Pennsylvania, but other than that she was very private about her past. She came back to the apartment with Joe because she needed a place where she could get her little girl off the streets.

  “Sammy said that after they had been there a few weeks, Joe got Rachel to try some heroin. He told her it would make her blues go away. I guess it did, because Sammy said Rachel got hooked pretty quickly. After you and Rachel had been with them several months, Joe and Sammy pulled the bank job, Sammy got caught, Joe and Rachel got away, and that’s the last that Sammy ever saw of them.”

  Jenny felt like she was staring at a thousand-piece picture puzzle with most of the important pieces missing. Rachel was her mother, maybe. At least the way Sammy told it, Jenny wasn’t Joe’s child. She had already been with Rachel when Joe found them. But how could they find out who Rachel really was? Jenny put her chin in her hands. Then a thought came to her. This is the way, walk ye in it.

  Jenny looked at her papa and then took his hand. She remembered when she had been lying helpless in the cave and had to learn to trust the Lord completely.

  “Papa,” Jenny said, “will you pray? I feel very uncertain, but still I know the Lord is leading us. We just need to fit the puzzle together.”

  Reuben held out his hand. He looked at Bobby and Jonathan. Jonathan took Jenny’s hand and held the other out to Bobby. Bobby awkwardly took Jonathan’s and Reuben’s hands, and the four of them bowed their heads.

  “Lord,” Reuben prayed, “You have gotten us this far, and You have showed us part of the mystery. Would You help us now to uncover the things that will fill in the gaps? We ask it in Jesus’ name.”

  “Amen,” Bobby said a little too loudly.

  Reuben smiled at him. “No atheists in foxholes, eh, Marine?”

  Bobby returned his friend’s smile and said, “There’s one other thing that might help us. When Sammy got busted and knew he was going to jail, he called his mother and had her come clean out their apartment. She might know something about Rachel. Sammy gave me an address and a phone number. She lives in Patterson, New Jersey.”

  They were parked next to a dusty playground across the street from a ramshackle bungalow in Patterson, New Jersey. It was a hot fall day, almost Indian summer, and Jenny had rolled the window down in the car. Her uncle Bobby and her papa were standing on the porch of the bungalow talking to an elderly woman.

  “Jenny, Jonathan, come on in,” she heard her papa say. She and Jonathan looked up and saw her papa motioning to them to come.

  The old woman looked at them sadly. There were still tears in her eyes, but she had composed herself and dabbed most of them away with a hanky, and now she sat slowly rocking in a chair by the window. The room was musty and stale, and paint was peeling off the walls in several spots. A rickety old table sat in the small dining room next to a doorway that led into the kitchen. A small upright piano stood against the wall, with hymnbooks piled on top next to a small brass lamp. Above the piano on the wall was a needlepoint. It showed the sun’s rays behind the words, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

  Next to the piano was a plain wooden bookshelf. On the top shelf were three pictures. One was of a smiling blond boy with a missing front tooth, and another was of a younger boy with dark curly hair. The third was a picture of the two boys seated together on the front step of the bungalow. The blond boy had his arm around the younger boy’s shoulder. They were both smiling.

  “I used to hold him in my arms and rock him to sleep when he was a baby, right here in this very chair.” Magdalena Bender reached into a pocket of her apron, pulled out the hanky again, and dabbed her eyes.

  “You know, you try to help them become men, you do everything to teach them right from wrong, and still they turn out like Joseph and Samuel. It wasn’t easy after their father ran away in the Depression. If I hadn’t owned this house, I would have been out on the street. Oh, Joe, my poor boy. I read to him out of the Bible every day. He used to love the stories.”

  Bobby and Reuben had pulled up chairs, and Jonathan and Jenny were sitting on a dilapidated old couch.

  “Mrs. Bender, can I ask you a few questions?” Bobby asked. “About Joe?”

  “Why, yes,” Magdalena said.

  “Sammy said there was a young woman with Joe when they robbed the bank and that she had a young child, a girl, with her. Do you know anything about that?”

  “That would be Rachel and Jenny,” Magdalena said.

  “You knew my mother?” Jenny blurted out.

  Magdalena turned and looked at Jenny intently. “Rachel was your mother?” she asked. “You’re Jenny?”

  “I’m Jenny,” she said. “But I don’t know who my mother was.”

  “Come here, child,” Magdalena said.

  Jenny got up from the couch and came close to the old woman.

  “Come down here where I can see you,” Magdalena said.

  Jenny knelt down by the rocking chair while Magdalena searched her face intently. After a few moments, she said, “Yes, you are Jenny. I know those eyes and that red-gold hair.”

  “But how do you know me?” Jenny asked.

  “Whenever Joe got tired of having you around, he used to bring you out here and leave you with me. You were such a good little girl. Rachel didn’t like it when Joe made her do it, but the poor girl was so beat down that she just did what Joe said. I think she was glad when you weren’t around to see what Joe had done to her. She was such a sweet thing. I felt so bad when Joe told me she died.”

  “You were there when she…died?” Jenny asked. She looked around at her papa and Jonathan.

  “Well, not exactly, child. It was the day before Thanksgiving, nineteen fifty. I remember the day because the
big storm was moving through—biggest in a long time. There were all kinds of warnings on the radio, and I was really worried that I might not have enough coal to keep from freezing. Joe called me late that afternoon. He said he was calling from a pay phone in Stroudsburg. He was crying, and he kept saying, ‘She’s dead, Mom, Rachel’s dead.’ I kept asking what was wrong and he just kept crying. I asked him why he was in Stroudsburg, but I couldn’t make any sense of what he said. He kept saying that Sammy was shot and Rachel was dead and he had to get away to California, and then he hung up. You can imagine how I felt. After a week or so, Samuel called to tell me about being shot and arrested. He wanted me to bail him out, but I didn’t have any money, and besides, the police got the judge to say that he couldn’t be bailed out.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police about Rachel?” Bobby asked.

  “Sammy said not to tell them anything about Joe because Joe had got away. Joe used to call here all the time acting real crazy and saying the strangest things, so I thought he and Rachel had got away to California. I didn’t want to see my other boy in jail too, so I just kept quiet. I wasn’t sure your mama was really dead, child, but I think I knew all along. I guess that’s why I felt so bad about her.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell us, Mrs. Bender?” Reuben asked.

  “Well, I don’t think so…” She paused. “Wait,” Magdalena said. “There is something.”

  She stood up slowly and went into her bedroom. They could hear her opening a drawer, and then she came back in the room. In her hands she held a small blue book. Magdalena sat down and opened the book. In between the cover and the first page was a photograph. Magdalena took it out and handed it to Jenny. It was a small black-and-white photo, faded around the edges but still clear. There was a young woman in the picture holding a small girl in her arms. The woman had mid-length dark hair and a sweet, lovely face. She was wearing a cheap-looking dress and flats. The little girl was wearing a thin summer dress and a coat.