The Remedy for Regret

by Susan Meissner

  “Blair, I wish you would have told me sooner.” I patted her shoulder. “I feel bad that you’ve had to bear this alone on top of everything else.”

  I don’t know what I would have said to her in the last four days had I known, but it is true that I am aching for her in a fresh way.

  “I… it wouldn’t have mattered,” she says miserably. “You wouldn’t have been able to stop it.”

  “Stop… stop what?” Surely she can’t mean I wouldn’t have been able to put an end to Brad’s affair. His own death had already taken care of that.

  “I think I know why all of this is happening to me,” she says, ignoring my question and looking off toward her girls, two dark blue dots at the far end of the expansive back yard. “I think I know why.”

  Then Blair wipes her eyes and looks at me.

  “I think God is punishing me.”

  I have never heard Blair talk like this about God. Not in this way.

  “Blair, I don’t think—”

  “He is, Tess. I know it.”

  “Blair, Brad having an affair is not your fault! He’s the one who blew it! And you certainly can’t hold yourself responsible for his heart attack. He had a heart condition no one knew about.”

  But I can see by the look on Blair’s face that she has already given the matter hours and hours of desperate thought. She has mulled it over for four days. She doesn’t see how incredibly irrational she is being. All she sees is a horrible situation that must have a divine cause.

  “I know why He is punishing me,” she continues. “I found something awhile ago. Something that doesn’t belong to me. Something I should’ve returned a long time ago, but I never did. I had almost forgotten about it. But then I found it again a couple months ago when I was cleaning out closets. I found it. And I think I was supposed to do something. But I did nothing.”

  She pauses and I nervously raise my head looking past her to see if the minister who performed the funeral is still here. I am searching the torsos of the men on the patio, looking for someone in all black except for a square of white at his Adam’s apple. I need help. Blair needs help.

  “Blair, I am sure whatever it is you have done—”

  But as I am saying this, Blair reaches into the pocket of her black linen jacket and pulls out a tiny, worn piece of paper and a silver locket on a chain. She hands them to me.

  “Read that note.”

  I stop mid-sentence and look at the piece of paper she has handed me. It fits in the palm of my hand. I carefully open the yellowed note, which is folded in quarters, and read what is written on it:

  I am sorry.

  I am only 16.

  I am going home.

  I will always love you.

  I have no idea what the note means or who wrote it. I’m beginning to wonder if Blair might be losing it mentally.

  “The locket and the note were with the baby, Tess,” Blair says softly, not daring to look at me. “They were underneath the baby. When you went to get the blanket and Jewel went to get a baby bottle, I found them in the peach box. There were left there by the mother. She wanted the baby to have them…”

  Blair is weeping again. I’m in shock at this revelation, but I put my other arm around her to hold her as she cries.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody. I just wanted to keep something that belonged to that baby. The note was so beautiful, Tess, and her locket… I was just so taken by her affection for him. I just wanted to imagine what it must be like to be loved like that. I know I should’ve given them back but when the police came and took the baby I didn’t want to yet. And then when I wanted to, it had been more than a year! I was afraid. I was afraid, Tess!”

  She clings to me, sobbing like a child, and I hold her, remembering that day; seeing it all in my mind…

  Blair had come back from Kroger’s with a couple cans of Similac and a package of newborn-size Pampers. She climbed up the tree in my backyard with a white plastic bag hanging from her arm. The baby had fallen asleep in Jewel’s lap.

  “Jewel, did you get the bottle and the wipes?” Blair said as she reached the top step and crawled into the tree house.

  “Well, no, I’ve been sitting here holding this baby!”

  “Well, go get them!” Blair commanded, as she pulled out a can of formula from the bag and started to shake it.

  Jewel sighed, placed the baby gently back in the peach box, and climbed down the stairs.

  “That sweatshirt he has been lying on is wet and it stinks,” I remember saying.

  “I should have told Jewel to bring us a baby blanket,” Blair said, peering out the tree at Jewel’s retreating form.

  “I know where my baby blankets are!” I said. “I’ll go get one.”

  I’d remembered that my grandmother had convinced my dad to save some of my baby things for me and I knew just where they were; in a box in the closet of the spare bedroom.

  I had left then. I was not there for what happened next but I can picture it now.

  Jewel was in her house sneaking a baby bottle out of the kitchen. I was in the spare bedroom of my house, opening a box of my old baby things. Blair was alone in the tree house with the infant. The baby began to cry. She lifted him out of the peach box and the wet sweatshirt started to come with him. She started to pull it away and she noticed there was something in the corner of the peach box under the sweatshirt. It was a locket. And a note. As she read the note and fingered the locket, a place that was already hurting in her heart began to throb. When Jewel and I started to make our way back to the tree house, Blair made a split-second decision. She shoved the note and the locket into her pocket. And never mentioned it to anyone.

  When Jewel and I were back in the tree house and the baby was properly diapered, wrapped in a blanket, and starting to suck formula out of a bottle, Jewel said that we simply had to let her mama call the police.

  “Why the police?” Blair had said.

  “Because it’s against the law to abandon your child,” Jewel replied plainly.

  “Well, maybe the mother had no choice,” Blair said pointedly.

  And I remember now that Jewel and I were both struck by Blair’s sudden compassion for the anonymous mother. She knew what we didn’t. She knew the mother hadn’t abandoned the child because he had a clubfoot. She left him because she was not much more than a child herself.

  “Blair,” I say, coming back to the present. “Listen to me! God is not punishing you. You meant no harm. And keeping the note really didn’t change anything for the baby, Blair. This note doesn’t have a signature or an address. The police wouldn’t have been able to use it to find the mother.”

  Blair pulls away from me.

  “How can you say keeping the note really didn’t change anything for the baby?” she says to me. “It changed everything! He has grown up thinking his birth mother didn’t want him, didn’t love him. But I know that she did. And I am the only one who knows!”

  Blair’s big eyes are wild in a way that frightens me.

  “Don’t you see, Tess? I have to make this right! I have to.”

  I can scarcely believe she is saying these words. These same words. Corinthia’s words. They are like a spell I cannot seem to come out from under.

  “I have to find him, Tess,” Blair says. “I have to find him and give him the note and the locket. They are his. She meant for him to have them. I have to find him or I will never again have a moment’s peace!”

  My mind is spinning. Blair is blowing this completely out of proportion. I don’t know much about God but I am fairly sure Blair is wrong about this. She is young and attractive, she has two beautiful little girls and she is financially set for the rest of her life. It’s terribly unfortunate that Brad had been cheating on her. But I don’t think this is the end of Blair’s charmed life. She still has so much to be thankful for. So much that I confess I envy. But she apparently sees the rest of her blessings as handy, additional assets that God can strip from her if she doesn’t rid hers
elf of this skeleton in her closet.

  I don’t know how to combat this “the-gods-must-be-angry” state of mind. Blair is in a place of grief I have only ever read about: She wants to bargain her way out of sorrow.

  Besides, what Blair is proposing is probably impossible. The baby was adopted eight months after we found him. I don’t know the family’s name. We were way out of the picture by then. I don’t know much about family law, but I am fairly certain adoption records are closed to the general public.

  “Blair, I don’t think it is that easy,” I say.

  “I don’t care. I don’t care how long it takes or how much it costs.”

  “I don’t think it’s a matter of time and money, Blair, I think it’s a matter of the law. I don’t think—”

  “It’s not like we’re strangers! We rescued this baby. And I even remember the names of the people who adopted him. That social worker I kept calling told me a couple by the name of John and Pamela were going to adopt him.”

  This surprises me. I didn’t know Blair had kept tabs on the baby by calling the county social worker assigned to him. But I suppose hiding the locket and the note kept her somewhat on edge.

  “John and Patricia, who?” I ask.

  “I don’t know their last name.”

  “No one is going to tell you their last name, Blair,” I say gently. “I don’t think anyone can.”

  “I don’t see why this has to be such a big deal. I already know the first names!” Blair says defensively. “And we rescued that baby! It’s not like we’re not a part of this.”

  Blair’s use of the words ‘we’ and ‘we’re’ silence me. She is including me somehow in something she is planning.

  “I have to find that boy, Tess. I have to. I have to make this right before God does something else to me.”

  I can think of nothing to say in reply.

  “I am going back to Blytheville,” she says. “I am going to start there. And… and I want you to come with me.”

  “I couldn’t possibly!” I stammer. “Blair, I have a job back in Chicago. And Simon… Simon needs me at home.”

  “I’ll pay you what you would make at the boutique. I’ll pay you double. If Antonia fires you, I’ll buy you your own boutique. I don’t care what it costs, Tess. And Simon is a man, not a little boy. He can live without you for a few months.”

  “A few months! Blair, this could take years!”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Tess, please come with me. I won’t make you stay more than a couple months, I promise.”

  “Blair, I can’t just take off for two months.”

  “Yes, you can. I’ll pay for everything.”

  “But what about the Chloe and Leah?” I say, trying another approach.

  “I would bring them with me if I could, but I can’t. You know I can’t,” Blair says. “I know Brad’s mother will keep them for me. And I have to do this, Tess. I have to or it won’t stop. If we can’t find him, I’ll come back. But only for a little while. I won’t rest until I find him.”

  She sounds like she’s making a holy oath and perhaps in her anguished mind, she is. I’m about to come up with another protest when it suddenly occurs to me I have just been afforded a wonderful opportunity. Truly splendid. Suppose I join Blair on her campaign for inner peace. Suppose I undertake with her this quest to “make it right.” It is highly probable we will not be able to find a fifteen-year-old boy who was left as a baby on a church doorstep. And of course we are assuming he is still alive. But yet it is possible. It is possible we can find him. And if we do, we can show him his mother loved him. We can tell him it didn’t matter about the leg. We can make it right. And I will have been a part of it.

  I cannot give my mother back her life, but perhaps I can give a son back his mother, in a figurative sense. If I can make that happen then perhaps it will not matter what Simon thinks he knows. Maybe then it won’t matter what he and my father argued about. I will have bargained for my own peace, participated in my own act of restitution. I will have found and drunk my own remedy for regret.

  “All right,” I say to Blair. “I will come with you.”

  Ten

  Telling Blair’s parents and in-laws that she and I have decided to take a little road trip is easy. No one raises an eyebrow, not even when Blair says she does not know how long we will be gone. They are all supposing that a trip to a childhood home full of happy memories will act like a tonic on the young widow. Blair does not mention the real reason for the trip.

  “The girls can stay with us,” Brad’s mother says as soon as Blair stops talking, like she is afraid Veronica will ask to keep the twins first. I can’t imagine Veronica volunteering to take those little girls for who knows how long.

  Blair nods and says thanks.

  Brad’s father wants to know where we will be staying and if Blair needs any cash. He also wants to know which car she is taking so that he can make sure it is ready for the trip. It’s only a three-and-a-half hour drive to Blytheville—not exactly a taxing drive for a top-of-the-line car—but I say nothing. It is Mr. Holbrook’s way of showing concern for Blair. She is lucky to have him for a father-in-law. I wonder if this man has any idea what his son had been planning.

  “Brad had plenty of cash here at the house,” Blair answers. “And I guess we’ll take the Lexus. We’ll get a hotel room in Blytheville. I am sure the Holiday Inn is still there.”

  “I think this is a very good idea,” Veronica chimes in. “You need to get your mind off these troubles, Blair. Go and have a good time. Forget about all this.”

  I have a hard time not snickering. Those last two sentences of Veronica’s are like her dual-sided mantra. Have a good time. Forget what waits for you at home.

  “Tess and I will leave in the morning,” Blair says and the mission seems to be set now in motion even though we have not left yet.

  In a few hours, Veronica and Jack are gone. Dane takes them to the airport to catch their flight back to Texas, back to whatever life they have managed to carve out for themselves.

  After they leave, Blair and I take the twins upstairs to pack their clothes and get them ready for the extended visit with their paternal grandparents. As we head up the stairs, Brad’s father goes into the garage to check the tires and oil on the Lexus and Brad’s mother heads into the kitchen to find leftovers for a light supper. The housekeeper has gone home for the day.

  The twins’ immature chatter as we pack is soothing, though each one asks at different times if their Daddy can change his mind and come back home. I was not in the room when Blair told the girls their father had died. I am not even sure she told them he died. Does the word ‘died’ have any meaning to a three-year-old? I don’t know. Chloe and Leah seem to know that their father is gone and that he is far away and I suppose that is sufficient for the time being.

  There is a palpable heaviness in the entryway as Blair hugs her girls and her in-laws goodbye after we eat. Dwindling afternoon sunlight is filtering through tall windows above and on the sides of the front door, bathing the little group in hushed light. Perhaps Blair’s eyes are empty of tears and need replenishing but I am still a little surprised at her dullness in saying goodbye to Chloe and Leah. When they are gone and the door is closed behind them I say what is on my mind.

  “You are so lucky to have those little girls.”

  Blair, looking out one of the panes on the side of the front door, nods and says nothing.

  “Blair, I know it’s none of my business, but —”

  “You don’t have to say it, Tess. I am not going to do to them what my mother did to me.”

  Then she turns to me and looks at me like it’s very important that I understand something.

  “I am doing this for them,” she says. “I am doing this so God will leave me alone. So He will leave us alone.”

  There is nothing I can think of to say in response to this. If I thought it would interest Blair, I would say that it is amazing that she attributes the grief in her life to
God’s intrusions, while the grief in mine I attribute to His absence.

  “You probably have calls to make,” she says as she turns and walks toward the stairs. “You can use Brad’s study.”

  Simon. My father. Antonia. None of them will be thrilled with my change of plans. Actually, my dad will think it’s a little odd, but he won’t lose sleep over it. He may even think it is a quaint thing to do. A proverbial sentimental journey. Antonia will be annoyed. She can get along without me but she doesn’t like to. Elena and the other girls can take up my slack. Elena in particular will be thrilled. She has been asking Antonia for more hours for months. And Antonia is not planning to go back to Europe until September. I will be back way before then.

  I’m not sure what Simon will think. He is not the tortured man I last saw sitting in our hand-me-down chair. Through our phone conversations I can tell that he is slowly returning into the confident man I fell in love with three years ago. He will think it’s a fool’s mission; that we won’t find the boy. He may even be disappointed I am not going to be home in a few days to hear his startling revelation about me.

  I will call him last.

  I look at my watch, noting that it is five-thirty. I can call Dad at the clinic where I know I will get his answering machine. That will make for a quick, uncomplicated call. Then I can catch Antonia just before she leaves for the day, which will be better than catching her at the beginning of one, as she would then have the whole day to stew over what I am going to tell her.

  I pick up the black handset on Brad’s phone and try not to think about the plans he had been making at the desk it sits on. I dial my dad’s direct line at the clinic and leave a cheery message saying that Blair and I are going down to Blytheville for a little R and R. I say that I will tell him all about it when I get back. Just before I say goodbye I tell him to be sure and wish Shelley a happy birthday and to let her know I will pick something up for her in Arkansas.