Safe and Sound

by Fern Michaels

  “What’s our next move?” Kathryn asked.

  “I think we need to find a way to get into the Ryans’ house—excuse me, Ben’s house. According to Ben, they don’t go out much at night. Usually just dinner. Connor doesn’t work every single day of the week, sometimes only two or three days, which means we can’t count on the house being empty during the daylight hours. Natalie, Ben said, goes shopping and lunches out just about every day; plus she has her beautification appointments,” Yoko said. “I can’t wait to get my hands on that witch!”

  “I think we’ll have to take turns staking out the house to get a feel for what they do during the day, then make a plan for the dark hours. We could probably come up with some gift idea, say they won some kind of prize or something. Maggie, dear, you are so good at stuff like that. You could say you’re doing an article, or want to do one on Ben because he will get his college degree in December. And in appreciation for their talking to you, their reward is a night on the town, hotel, the whole nine yards. I think they’ll snap it up in a heartbeat,” Myra said.

  Maggie laughed. “Okay, then. Consider it done.”

  Chapter 10

  The two big yellow buses, a camper, and two SUVs rolled along into the small town of Sycamore, Mississippi, population 1,481, over a rough country road full of potholes, with scrub weeds growing out of the holes. Trees were sparse and already shedding their leaves. Dr. Jonathan Philbran knew they were in the right place when he saw the people lined up on the side of the road. He looked at his watch. He was only forty-five minutes behind schedule.

  It only took Jonathan and his aides thirty minutes to set up their makeshift clinic. He put on his pristine white medical coat, reached for his stethoscope, and looped it around his neck. The Dr. Jonathan Philbran Clinic was open for business.

  What Dr. Jonathan Philbran didn’t know when he checked in his first patient was that, in a matter of hours, that day would change his life forever.

  The time was ten minutes past the noon hour. Twenty-five miles away, Eleanor Lymen and her two friends stopped at a rural café that the women later claimed made the best fried chicken they had ever eaten.

  Ninety minutes later, stuffed to the gills with all the delicious homemade food, Rita ordered three coffees to go. Irene paid the bill, and the three women left the café with instructions on how to find the traveling doctor.

  The three women were giddy yet apprehensive about the upcoming meeting.

  Eleanor was too nervous and jittery to drive, so Rita took the wheel of the big Range Rover. Eleanor sat in the back, kneading her hands as she stared out at the countryside, her thoughts everywhere. What if Jonathan refused to talk to her? What if he didn’t believe her? So many what-ifs. How could she have been so wrong about a person? Why had she been in such denial about her own daughter? How? As much as she hated to admit it, this was all on her, and she knew it. Irene and Rita knew it, too, but good friends that they were, they had never said a word of reproach. “There’s no fool like an old fool,” Eleanor muttered.

  “Ellie, put a cork in it already. You can’t undo the past, so accept it. What you can do now is make it right. Some people never get the chance to right a wrong. Consider yourself one of the lucky ones,” Rita said.

  “You’re right, of course. I can see that group of people from here, near the blue tent. I guess we park and go to the end of the line. I don’t want to interrupt Jonathan’s caring for his patients. I’ll stand in line. If you two want to stay in the car, that’s okay.”

  “We’ve come this far together, and we aren’t going to sit out the moment you confess all your sins and beg forgiveness,” Irene said, a gentle smile on her face. “We love Ben as much as you do, and we are here to provide support. That’s the bottom line.”

  “Then let’s get to it.” Eleanor squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and stepped out of the Range Rover. Together, in single file, the three women headed to the end of the line of waiting patients.

  “I count twenty-two people,” Rita said. “That has to mean a couple of hours, maybe more.”

  “And your point is?” Ellie snapped.

  “I have no point. I was merely making conversation,” Rita replied testily.

  “From what I can see, it’s like an assembly line. There are two people in the tent with the doctor, and one person who is filling out patient information forms. Looks to me like this guy has it going on. No one appears to be wasting time or energy,” Irene observed.

  Finally, the last person in front of Ellie broke off and entered the tent. A young man approached with a clipboard and forms. He introduced himself as Dr. Edwin Lancaster. He reached for his pen and was about to ask Ellie her name when she said, “We’re not patients. We just need to speak with the doctor on a personal matter. That’s why we were at the end of the line. We didn’t want to take time away from any of the patients.”

  The young doctor stared at the three women, not sure what he should do. “Do you know Dr. Jon? That’s what we all call him around here.”

  “Yes, the three of us know Jonathan,” Ellie said. “We’ve been trying to find him for months, but somehow we were always a day or two too late. Now that we have finally found him, we do need to speak with him, in person, about a very serious matter. You might say that the matter we need to speak to him about could change his life forever.”

  “Well, it looks like you are about to get that chance. His last patient just went to the lab to have blood drawn. Follow me.” The three women followed the young doctor like ducklings trailing their mother.

  “Jon, there’s someone here to see you.” The young doctor turned and walked off, leaving Jonathan and the three women alone.

  Jonathan’s jaw dropped, and his eyes popped so wide, Ellie thought they might fly right out of his head. “I imagine I’m the last person you ever expected to see, Jonathan. And I’m sorry about that. I’m not here to cause trouble. I’m here to . . . to . . . right some wrongs. Can we sit down and talk, or do you have things you still have to do?”

  Stunned, Jonathan motioned to a bench, then he pulled up a stool and sat down because he didn’t think his legs would hold him upright a moment longer. “To what do I owe the . . . pleasure of this visit? I have to be honest, I never thought I would see you again in my lifetime. You made the need for my . . . um . . . departure pretty clear to me that last day.”

  Eleanor closed her eyes and prayed for guidance. She nodded. “I don’t have the words to tell you how sorry I am about all that. If I could turn back the clock, I would. It wasn’t easy to track you down, Mister Holland. But I was determined to find you. The three of us have been on the road for six months searching for you. A couple of times we came close, but when we got to where you were supposed to be, you had already left.”

  “Why?” The question was a bark of surly sound.

  “To . . . apologize to you. I made a mistake, and I need to make things right. And I wanted to do it face-to-face. I was wrong about you, so very wrong, and for that I am sincerely sorry. I had no right to send you off. Buy you off is more accurate. You never cashed the check, did you?”

  Jonathan stared at Eleanor as he tried to think how to respond while he groped in his back pocket for his battered and tattered wallet. He withdrew a folded slip of paper. “This is your check. Even if you had made it out to Jonathan Philbran instead of Jonathan Holland, I still wouldn’t have cashed it. I’m not even sure why I kept it, I just did. Sometimes over the years, I pulled it out and looked at it.”

  “Why not?” Irene asked. “A million dollars is a fortune.”

  “As you must know by now because you were able to find me, I certainly did not need the money. But more important was that I was already planning on leaving when you bribed me to leave. The day before you came to me, I had asked Diana to marry me, and her response was, ‘Who are you again?’ Until that moment, I was in such denial where Diana was concerned, just as you were, Mrs. Lymen. I couldn’t and wouldn’t accept that Diana was mental
ly challenged. I finally had to look the unicorns, the pixie dust, and the fairies in the eye and make a decision. And I had finally come to my senses when you approached me. I just let it all play out because I sensed you needed me gone. Like I said, I was going to leave anyway. I headed back to Boston to lick my wounds and grieve for what I had just lost. I want you to know that I loved your daughter with every breath in my body. There was nothing I wouldn’t have done for her. I imagine that’s how you felt about her, too, since you were her mother.

  “I didn’t know she had passed away until six months afterward. I had a complete meltdown not unlike the one after I left her. It took me a long time to . . . to come to terms with it all.”

  “I’m truly sorry, Jonathan, for all your suffering. I’m asking for forgiveness, but if you can’t see yourself giving me that, I will understand. But that’s only a very small part of the reason I wanted to find you. I have something to tell you. Maybe I should just show you instead.”

  Eleanor reached into her purse and withdrew a five-by-seven color photograph of Ben that had been taken at the Institute. She handed it over. “That’s your son, Ben. He’s seven years old in that picture. Now, he’s eight, and he will be graduating from college in December. He is, to put it mildly, a child genius. He attends the Institute. He looks just like you. But your being a doctor, I’m sure you would want to do a DNA test.”

  Jonathan Philbran’s face turned white. He reached out to grab hold of the folding table so he wouldn’t fall off the stool he was sitting on. “You kept this from me for all these years? Why would you do that? My God, why?”

  Eleanor bit down on her lip. This, she told herself, is where the rubber meets the road. “Because I’m a stupid old woman, and I wanted Ben all to myself. I didn’t know anything about you other than, as it turned out, the alias you used, and I didn’t think you would want to be burdened with a baby. At least that is what I told myself. But that is no excuse. And, of course, I knew nothing about you or where to find you. Diana simply wasn’t capable of taking care of him. She thought of him as some doll she would play with, then walk away and forget about him, so Rita, Irene, and I raised him at first.”

  Jonathan’s eyes were glued to the picture in his hands. “This is really my son?” he asked, awe ringing in his voice.

  “Yes,” the three women said in unison.

  “Why now? Did something happen? Why did you wait eight years to seek me out? Is this some more of your game playing? Is your conscience bothering you after all these years?” Jonathan asked, bitterness ringing in his voice.

  Ellie tried to stem the tears that were pricking at her eyelids. “No game playing. I told you that I wanted to keep him to myself, so yes, I have a guilty conscience. This is as real as it gets, Jonathan.

  “Ben is a wonderful little boy. As I said earlier, he is a child genius. He lived with me up until Diana found this man at some wild concert and married him. Seven months after Ben was born, she just showed up at my door one day, introduced her new husband, and took Ben away, kicking and screaming. I think her husband, Connor Ryan, married her for her money. He adopted Ben lickety-split. After Diana died, he left Ben with me for a couple of years until I went to court to get permanent custody. There was a court battle, and when Ben was four years old, I lost my battle. And let me tell you, I had a shark for a lawyer. Unfortunately, it turns out that grandparents have no rights, so I was unable to gain custody. I do not even have visitation rights, and Ben’s stepfather hates my guts and will not allow me to see Ben. After I sued to obtain custody, Connor Ryan married some two-bit floozy, and the two of them presented themselves to the court as a loving family. Which they most definitely are not, not by a long shot. I filed every appeal there was, but to no avail. Ben’s living conditions are not what either you or I would want for him.

  “When my lawyer told me which way the wind was blowing, I divested myself of all my holdings so that they couldn’t get Diana’s or Ben’s money. Right now, for all intents and purposes, I am a pauper dependent on my two friends here. I guess I should tell you that they now own all my former assets, which are all earmarked for Ben, along with their own assets.

  “Ben rides his bike in the park off the Circle and happened to come in contact with a friend of mine, the architect who designed the Circle and the Institute, who became his friend over a period of a few months. When Ben became comfortable with her, and she told him she knew me well, he asked her if she could help find me. She said she had friends who would do that. I just found all this out a day or so ago. And here we are.”

  “Are his adoptive parents abusing the boy?” Jonathan barked.

  “Physical abuse, no. He pretty much takes care of himself. He ran away over the weekend and went to Rita’s house by climbing in the cellar window. He’s a very resourceful little boy. Right now, he is safe and sound, and no one knows where he is except the three of us and the people who are watching over him. I assume that the Ryans are looking for him, but as far as anyone knows, they have not contacted the authorities. Believe me when I tell you he is safe with friends. I also need to tell you we could all go to jail for this. Ben is a wonderful boy and as I told you he has a brilliant mind.”

  Jonathan, his eyes glazed, got up and walked around the tent in circles. He had a son. A son who was a child genius from the woman he had loved with all his heart. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Come back with us as soon as you can make arrangements to do so. File for custody of the boy. You are his biological father. I don’t know how much of a fight the Ryans will put up, since they were spending Diana and Ben’s money like it was Monopoly money. That money has run out, and they’re now desperate for funds. From their point of view, this is all about money and not about Ben at all. He is nothing more than a meal ticket to them. You need to understand that.

  “The only thing I ask of you is that you let me and my friends see Ben from time to time. And I know I have no right to ask that of you, but I’m asking anyway.”

  Jonathan thought about Eleanor’s words and the fact that he had just learned that he was the father of a child he’d never seen and didn’t know about until ten minutes ago. He felt shell-shocked. “I would never deny a grandmother the right to see her grandson. Do you have any arrows in your quiver, Mrs. Lymen?”

  “Only you and my friend who is taking care of Ben,” she said softly.

  Jonathan’s mind raced as he contemplated his situation. He wanted to know more. He needed to know more. He needed to know every single little thing from the moment his son had exited Diana’s womb. He wanted to know about every burp, how many bottles he had taken, how he slept, did he get all his shots, when his first tooth came in, when he said his first words, when he took his first step. He knew the only person who could tell him that was the woman staring at him with tears rolling down her cheeks.

  Jonathan realized he didn’t hate Eleanor Lymen; how could he, she was Diana’s mother and his newfound son’s grandmother. But right now he didn’t like her very much. He stared at the three women, who reminded him at the moment of three precocious squirrels. They were waiting to hear something positive and forgiving from his lips.

  Jonathan cleared his throat. “Obviously, we need to talk further. I have things to do here before we close up shop for the night. There’s a little hole-in-the-wall café about ten miles down the road. There is nothing gourmet about it, nor does it sell alcohol. I can meet you there in say . . . two hours if that is agreeable to you. Two of my PAs have cars we tow behind our caravan when we travel. I’ll borrow one of them and meet you there.”

  Eleanor sighed so loud, the others simply stared at her. “That works for us.”

  Jonathan looked at the picture in his hand. “Can I keep this?”

  “Of course. I have more on my phone that I took while he was with me. I’ll be happy to send them on to you. The one I just gave you is what Ben looked like eight months ago. He’s a sturdy little boy, gangly, all angles and planes but still sturdy. Smar
t as a whip, too. He has your mannerisms, from what I’ve just observed. He also has the same gap between his front teeth as you do. I told him we would work on that later, and he said no because he loves to suck spaghetti that way.”

  Jonathan laughed. It was a genuine sound of pure merriment. “That’s exactly what I told my mother when I was growing up.”

  “I guess we’ll leave now and let you do what you have to do. We’ll meet you at the café in two hours. I do want to thank you for treating me far better than I deserve.” Jonathan just nodded and turned away.

  Back in the Range Rover, Eleanor climbed into the backseat and burst into tears even before the ignition turned over. Rita and Irene wisely kept silent, knowing Eleanor was crying tears of relief. They both knew it because their own eyes were misty with tears.

  “Just drive around, Irene. Give us a tour of Sycamore, Mississippi, until it’s time to meet Jonathan. He appears to be a fine man and certainly has his wits about him. What he’s doing is phenomenal, and he pays for it all himself. Who does that? Not many that I know,” Rita said. “I can’t believe the three of us ever thought of him as a scalawag.”

  “You didn’t. I did. It was all me. I convinced you both that I was right in doing what I did,” Ellie said from the backseat. “What I can’t believe is how I could be so blind.”

  “The past is prologue, Ellie,” Irene said. “You’ve taken the first step in righting all your wrongs of the past. That has to count for something,” she said reassuringly.

  “I still have to live with what I did,” Ellie said as she continued to cry into a wad of tissues.

  “There’s not much to see in this backwater. We’re approaching what appears to be the main street. I’m basing this on the fact that there is a grocery store, a hardware store, and a small pharmacy. This road we’re driving on appears to be the only paved road around here; all the rest are dirt roads. I see a post office there at the end, next to the café Jonathan mentioned. Once we drive to the end of the street, we’ve seen all there is to see in this town. We will be there in about thirty seconds. What do you want me to do after we get there?”