by Amalie Jahn
“And this is why we should have called first,” I said, opening the car door.
“We can always just go have dinner and then come back,” she offered.
“Let’s at least go knock on the door. Maybe her car’s parked in the garage.”
Sure enough, after ringing the bell several times, there was no answer from inside. I noticed the morning’s paper on the front porch, yet another indication no one was home.
“Now what?” I asked, as we headed back toward the street. “We don’t even know if this is the right place.”
“Let’s come back a little later,” she replied.
We were just getting back into the car when a mid-sized SUV slowed in front of the house and pulled into the driveway. After several seconds, a sharply dressed African American woman stepped out of the vehicle.
Brooke and I exchanged glances. “I guess she’s out,” I said quietly.
“You don’t know that,” she whispered. “Maybe Beverly Moore moved and this is someone else. You should ask, just in case.”
The woman looked at us skeptically as she pulled her briefcase from the passenger’s side of the truck. “Can I help you?” she asked.
I took a step in her direction. “Are you Beverly Moore?”
“Who wants to know?”
I introduced myself as I walked up the driveway, extending my hand in greeting. She shook my hand firmly, clearly annoyed by our presence, but not irate.
“Well, yes, I’m Beverly Moore. What is this all about?”
After concisely explaining my situation, I apologized for the imposition. She assured us it was no big deal, and quickly headed toward the house without making any further small talk. However, as Brooke and I were climbing back into the car, she called to us from the porch.
“He was killed in a drive-by shooting while he waited for the school bus. Ten years old. Straight A student. Never saw it coming. Police said it was gang related, but no one was ever arrested.” She opened the front door of the house and stepped inside without looking back. “That’s why you didn’t find my son in your search.”
She shut the door behind her and turned on the porch light. Brooke and I wasted no time buckling our seatbelts, and we were halfway down the street before I finally stopped holding my breath.
“That was tough,” Brooke said.
“Yeah. I feel bad we disturbed her. What a horrible tragedy. She’s obviously still really angry about it.”
“Wouldn’t you be angry if your son was killed in a senseless act of violence and no one was ever held accountable?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
My head hurt. I was beginning to think we were searching for my mother in all the wrong ways. “So, three strikes.”
“Three strikes, but we’re not out yet. We still have to explore the possibility that Victoria Weddington is the one.”
With an afternoon of disappointment behind me, I was finding it difficult to stay positive. “I don’t know, Brooke. What are the chances she’s my mother? Even if she is, she’s dead. It’s not like I’m going to learn anything from her.”
“That’s true, but her parents are still alive. They might be able to provide some valuable insight into the details of your adoption. And they might know who your father is.”
I stretched my back against the car seat. I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. My heart and my head needed a break from questioning who I truly was. I just wanted to hang out with Brooke and forget about how completely lost I felt. I wanted to make her laugh. I wanted to see her smile. I wanted to pretend we were young and in love, and that nothing else mattered.
“I’m proposing a moratorium on any conversation surrounding my father, my mother, or any plans regarding either one of them henceforth. From this point forward, until tomorrow, those who do not follow the rules will be shot on sight. Objections?”
She giggled. “No, Sir.”
“Perfect. Then direct me, beautiful navigator, to the café where dinner awaits us!”
We shared a delicious meal of barbequed ribs and for a few hours, it was almost as if time was standing still. It was just the two of us, Brooke and Charlie, without a care in the world. All the while, there was a little voice in the back of my head cautioning me just how fleeting the moment would be.
C HAPTER ELEVEN
I spent several weeks attempting to ‘work out some of my issues,’ as Brooke suggested. Between family time and double shifts at work, I made time to join Melody at Dr. Richmond’s office on a Thursday afternoon. With his laid back approach and empathetic demeanor, it was easy to understand why Brooke was fond of him. After reassuring us it was normal to be feeling angry, hurt, and broken, he suggested valuable techniques to help Melody move through the grieving process in a healthy way. He also suggested we meet alone to discuss my relationship with my father, and although I told him I would try to find time in my schedule, I had no intention of returning. I knew there was only one way to fix what was wrong with me, and talking about Phil Johnson wasn’t part of the solution. Figuring out my place in the world would begin and end with my mother.
I spent a great deal of time fixating on Victoria Weddington. I devoted the better part of three days digging around the internet, looking for information about her. But just as Brooke discovered, there was little to be found. I didn’t find a single photograph. No newspaper articles. No school records. If it hadn’t been for her son Andrew’s birth certificate and her own death certificate, I might have believed she never actually existed.
The more I thought about her, the more I couldn’t imagine a congressman’s daughter being an addict, forced to give her child up for adoption. Certainly her family would have never allowed something like that to have happened. Indiscretions of that sort didn’t happen in prestigious, well-known families. Drug-addicted mothers were an impoverished, inner city hardship, not a predicament of the suburban elite.
Despite all the indications that Victoria Weddington was not my mother, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was. I began having nightly dreams about the woman in the photograph. She returned to me as soon as I fell asleep, asking me repeatedly why I didn’t want to be her son. With each passing night, the dreams became more vivid and distressing. By the fifth night, I woke to the sound of my own labored breathing and found myself shaking, dripping in sweat. I was suddenly convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was Andrew Weddington. Without thinking, I picked up the phone and called Brooke. She answered groggily on the fourth ring.
“Charlie? What is it?” she slurred.
“Victoria Weddington is my mother.”
I could hear her yawning. It took her several seconds before she spoke again. “We just talked about this yesterday. You said you were convinced that she wasn’t your mother. What in the world has changed your mind?”
“The very thing that convinced me she wasn’t is now convincing me that she is.”
“I’m not following. I’m tired, Charlie. What time is it?”
I sat up and looked at the clock on my nightstand. It was three in the morning.
“Oh, God, Brooke, I’m sorry. Go back to sleep. We can talk about this later.”
“No. No. It’s fine. I’m waking up. You must be pretty convinced to call me out of nowhere in the middle of the night. Now go on. Explain it to me again.”
“It’s just that, I’ve been thinking all along that the story my mom told me about my birth mother being unfit to care for me because of drugs didn’t fit the image of the wealthy daughter of a US congressman.”
“Okay. So what’s changed?”
“I just dreamt about her. About her family. And in my dream hers was a lot like mine. Just think about my family, Brooke. We’re a mess. Families like ours, we only share the version of ourselves we want the public to see. The glossy 8x10 version, not the awkward candid shot. We don’t tell the truth. We don’t tell the world that we hate our fathers and we’re completely dysfunctional.”
There was silence on the
other end of the line.
“So if your family hides secrets about the kind of people you really are, why wouldn’t the Weddingtons be doing the same thing,” she said finally.
“Bingo,” I replied.
Brooke sighed heavily into the phone. “So what does all this mean, Charlie?”
“Well, it means there’s a good chance the Weddingtons are my grandparents. If that’s the case, they might know who I am then, right? They would know about their daughter being pregnant and giving birth, don’t you think?”
“I suppose,” she said.
“And even if they don’t, they might be able to help me find the information I’m looking for just the same.”
The wheels in my head were already spinning at a tremendous speed, devising a plan which included a trip to the Weddington estate. I was sure I’d have no trouble finding the answers I was looking for within its walls.
“You work the afternoon shift today?” I asked.
“Yeah.” She paused, and I could almost hear her rolling her eyes in loving annoyance. “I already know where this is going, Charlie. I’ll go with you, but you don’t even know if he’s around. He might not even be home. He could be in DC.”
I hadn’t considered whether congress was in session and was briefly taken aback, but I quickly recovered. “Even if he’s not there, she should be. She might have more information than he would anyway. A mother would definitely know about her daughter’s pregnancy.”
She laughed weakly. “Well, since you have everything figured out, can you at least let me get a few more hours sleep before you whisk me off on the next leg of your pursuit?”
“Yeah, of course. I’m sorry. Go back to sleep and I’ll call you in the morning. Well, later in the morning. You know, after the sun’s up.”
She laughed again. The bright, melodic laugh that instantly made my heart ache with longing. “I love you, Charlie. Call me later. When normal people are up.”
“I love you too, Brooke.”
As I hung up the phone, it struck me just how lucky I was to have someone in my life who would not only answer a call in the middle of the night, but would welcome the conversation. She was beautiful, she was funny, and she was my best friend. I talked myself out of driving across town in my pajamas to sneak through her bedroom window as I’d done so many times before. During our first summer together, I mastered the art of silently scaling the porch rail beneath her room. I spent many pre-dawn hours tucked beneath her covers, before slipping away as quietly as I’d come before sunrise. But on this occasion, I knew she needed to sleep. And frankly, so did I.
I stared at the ceiling, making a mental list of everything I wanted to research in the morning. But after only a few minutes, I gave in to the cacophony of ideas fluttering around my head, like gnats on a summer day, and got out of bed. I threw on my robe and booted up my laptop, which sprung to life, blinding me in the darkness. Without hesitating, I typed ‘United States Congressional session dates’ into the search engine. I was excited to find they were on break, which meant there was a good chance Weddington would not be in DC. It dawned on me that they could be on vacation, but I quickly thrust that possibility out of my mind. They needed to be home. There was no other option.
Next, I began the search for the location of his residence. I knew he was living in Virginia; I just didn’t know how far away he might be. I found traditional search techniques were not providing the information I was looking for, and that discovering his address was going to take far more detective work than I was expecting. At long last, I backed into the information through a channel of public tax records. Seeing the address flash onto the screen brought an immediate sense of fulfillment and relief. It took almost an hour, but I finally did it. I was giddy to discover his estate was less than an hour’s drive away, and even though I was only grinning on the outside, I was doing a touchdown end zone dance worthy of a penalty on the inside.
I watched out the window as the silhouettes of the trees began turning from grey to soft rose. I stretched and stood from my computer, considering what to say when I confronted the people I now believed to be my grandparents. I came to realize their daughter may have hidden the pregnancy from them, as it was the only explanation I could rationalize for why they hadn’t been willing to take me in as their next of kin. I decided to assume they didn’t know I existed and wing it from there. Plus, I had Brooke. She was blessed with the uncanny ability to react normally in the most bizarre of situations.
I waited until just after 7 o’clock before making my way downstairs, fully dressed and ready to start the day. I found Melody eating a bowl of corn flakes at the kitchen table.
“What’s up, Squirt?”
She looked up and met my gaze. Dark circles framed her eyes and her complexion seemed sallow. “I heard you up in the middle of the night talking to Brooke. Why are you up so early?” she asked.
“Oh jeez, sorry I woke you…”
“You didn’t wake me,” she said, taking another bite of cereal. “I haven’t really been sleeping.”
“You wanna talk about it?”
“No. Not really. My mind’s just sort of going all the time. About Dad. And you. And everything else.” She stared into her bowl as though the secrets of the universe dwelled within. “You’re all dressed up like you have somewhere to go?”
“Am I?”
She shook her head. “Where are you going, Charlie?”
I felt as though I was being interrogated by my own sister, but was reluctant to discuss the search for my mother for fear of upsetting her in any way. “Brooke and I are just going to take a little drive today.”
She took another bite of cereal. “Can I come?”
I sat beside her at the table. I didn’t want to tell her the truth. It would have been easier to lie. But lying was something that was no longer in my repertoire. “We’re going to see some people I think may be my biological grandparents.”
She looked at me blankly as if I told her I was going out for eggs and milk. “Okay. So can I come?”
I hadn’t planned on the extra company, but I certainly wasn’t going to keep her from joining us, as long as she actually wanted to come.
“You’re okay with helping me track down my mother?”
“Of course. You’re my brother. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to help.”
She had always been wise and compassionate for her age. I hadn’t considered her as an ally in the search for my mother, but here she was, surprising me with her maturity.
I grabbed a banana from the table and slid my tablet into my knapsack. “I’ll leave a note for Mom and meet you in the car in five minutes. Can you be ready?”
A glimmer of something passed across her face. Something that almost struck me as excitement. She jumped up from the table and headed for the door before I could react.
“Meet you in the car,” she called over her shoulder, with a twinkle in her eye as she bounded up the stairs.
C HAPTER TWELVE
Brooke and Melody spent the entire drive to Weddington’s house embroiled in a fascinating discussion about the risqué bathing suits everyone was wearing at the lake and the lack of attractive leading men in the summer’s new movies. Just when I thought I was going to have an opportunity to join the conversation, Melody inquired about the best waterproof mascara. It was at that moment I realized my Y chromosome would prevent me from having an opinion about anything they discussed, so I resigned myself to the role of chauffeur and quietly eavesdropped on their schoolgirl banter. Brooke’s upbeat nature had an intoxicating effect on Melody’s mood, and I was grateful I’d invited her along. Listening to them together, I couldn’t help but be enchanted by the warmth of their friendship.
However, once we arrived at the sprawling estate, I became increasingly despondent as my resolution weakened. I pulled around the circular drive, and parked just shy of the marble staircase leading to the front door. A pair of stone lions, ominously resting upon massive stone pillars at the b
ase of the staircase, defied me to continue, and the confidence I felt at three in the morning was no longer strong enough to encourage me out of the car. Brooke and Melody sat silently, waiting for me to open the door, but I remained firmly planted in the driver’s seat.
Brooke rested her hand on my thigh.
I could not move. It seemed as if my hands were soldered to the steering wheel.
I expected her to urge me on, but it was Melody’s voice that surprised me from the back seat. “It’s time to find your truth, Charlie. Go on. See what they have to say about your mother.”
Her words compelled me into action, and I turned to look at my sister as I opened the door. The little girl I encouraged through gymnastics tryouts, swim meets, and science fair projects was now supporting me.
“I love you guys. I’ll be back,” I said, my voice thick with apprehension as I stepped out of the car.
The lions glared at me as I strode past and made my way up the steps. The stately three-story brick colonial was shaded by elm and birch trees from the side garden and the stone foundation indicated the home was probably built prior to the civil war. As massive as it was beautiful, it did nothing to ease my anxiety as I stood before the oak door. I hesitated, not knowing whether to knock or ring the bell. I took a deep breath and pressed the bronze button.
Almost immediately, a crisply dressed gentleman with broad shoulders and a stocky frame opened the door and invited me inside. He was built more like a bodyguard and less like a butler, and I wondered what I was getting myself into. Before I finished explaining the reason for my visit, an elegant looking woman with a tightly pulled salt and pepper chignon entered the foyer. She wore a trim pantsuit and an air of superiority. I recognized her immediately from the congressman’s website as his wife, Linda. I searched her features for any resemblance to my own but I saw nothing to indicate we were related in any way.
“May I help you?” she asked in a tone suggesting I’d interrupted something important.