The Remedy for Regret

by Susan Meissner

  “How beautiful they are! Oh, my, how precious!” Corinthia says.

  “That one is Chloe,” Blair says, relaxing a little. “And the other one is Leah.”

  “Truly enchanting. I will have to show you pictures of my grandchildren when we go inside,” Corinthia says, handing the phone back. “Y’all can stay for supper, can’t you?

  “Sure, we’d love to,” I say before Blair can say anything.

  “Samuel will be so happy to see you. Marigold won’t remember you, of course, but she knows your names. We’ve never forgotten you girls.”

  When she says this I can picture the Mayhew family gathered around their beds, offering up nightly prayers year after year for Blair and me. It makes me wish I had written Corinthia or called her from time to time.

  “Did you find what you needed on the Internet, Blair?” Corinthia asks, refilling our glasses.

  Again Blair looks to me for a cue. Corinthia sees it this time.

  “It’s all right, Blair. You can speak freely. Tess has told me why you’ve come. I’d like to help you if I can.”

  “Well,” Blair says, looking from Corinthia to me to Corinthia again. “It looks like I will have to convince a court to open the files. Adoption records are sealed by state law and cannot be opened unless a judge rules otherwise.”

  “I see,” Corinthia says. “That is not what you were hoping to hear.”

  “No,” Blair says, and it seems like her load is lightened a tiny bit now that one more person is in the loop.

  “May I see the note, Blair?” Corinthia says.

  Blair pauses a moment and then reaches into her pocket where the note has been all day, close to her body. She hands it to Corinthia.

  Corinthia unfolds it carefully and reads it. When she is done she refolds it and gives it back.

  “Here is the locket,” Blair extends her hand and gives the necklace to Corinthia.

  Corinthia is pondering something as she fingers the necklace, but she says nothing for a few seconds.

  “What is the worst that can happen?” she says to Blair.

  “Well, I guess the worst is I petition the court and I am turned down,” Blair says.

  “Would you tell the court about the note and the necklace?”

  “Yes,” Blair says, swallowing hard.

  “Do you suppose you could get into some kind of trouble for having kept these?” Corinthia asks.

  “I don’t know. I hope not,” Blair answers honestly.

  “But you will try anyway.”

  “Yes.”

  Corinthia stretches out her hand and gives the necklace back. “I think it is a very admirable thing that you want to do for this boy, Blair,” she says.

  I am wondering if I should’ve told Corinthia Blair’s motives are little more selfish than that.

  “I am thinking you are going to need a little help,” Corinthia continues.

  Blair’s face brightens in a way I haven’t seen all week.

  “You know someone who can help me?”

  “Oh, indeed I do,” says Corinthia.

  And I know exactly whom she means.

  “You do?” Blair asks, leaning forward.

  “I know someone who knows where this boy is,” Corinthia says plainly, leaning back.

  “Who? Who is it?” Blair says excitedly.

  “I know someone who knows if this boy needs to see this note and this locket.”

  Blair sits back. The words, “Who could know a thing like that?” are written all over her face.

  “Who?” Blair says, with slightly less intensity.

  “God knows, Blair. He knows where this boy is. He knows if it would help him to see this note and this locket. You don’t need a courtroom to ask Him for help. You don’t need to file any papers to ask Him to help you find the boy.”

  “Yeah, but why would… why would God do that for me?”

  “Why, indeed?” Corinthia said, grinning. “We won’t ask Him to do it for you. We’ll ask Him to do it for this boy. Isn’t that why you are here?”

  I’ve watched the dialogue take place like a spectator at a tennis match, saying nothing. If I didn’t know better, I would say Corinthia knows more than I’ve told her.

  Corinthia holds out a hand to both Blair and me.

  “Let’s ask Him. Right here. Right now. Go on, join hands.”

  We take Corinthia’s hands and join our own. Corinthia bows her head and we follow.

  “Oh, Father God. You know all things. You know the dilemma we face. You know whether or not there is a young man hurting out there who needs to know he had a momma who loved him just as he is. We don’t know what is best, but You do. It doesn’t look like there’s a way to find out where this boy is on our own. We don’t know what a judge might say, but Father God, it doesn’t look good. So if there is a way You can show us where this boy is, then we just pray You’d show it to us. We ask forgiveness for the many times we have failed to do the right thing and ask that You would help us do the right thing now. In the mighty name of Jesus we ask, Amen.”

  We lift our heads and open our eyes and Corinthia is beaming at us.

  “I am so glad y’all are here,” she says, like the last few minutes weren’t fraught with philosophical questions about the goodness of God.

  Blair looks stricken and pale, but hopeful, too. I don’t know what expression I wear on my face; a mixture of shock and awe, probably. A breeze overhead causes me to look up and I notice for the first time that we are sitting underneath a giant magnolia tree, and the blooms are as big as dinner plates.

  Thirteen

  I awaken in our hotel room to see that Blair, lying in the bed next to me, is awake also. She is watching me, expressionless.

  “What time is it?” I say, yawning.

  “Eight-thirty,” she says softly. Her voice doesn’t sound sleepy. I wonder how long she has been lying there, awake and unmoving.

  “Did you sleep okay?’ I face her with my head on my pillow.

  “Sort of. I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep.”

  “Too much on your mind?”

  She neither nods nor shakes her head. Blair says nothing for a moment.

  “I should have guessed,” she finally says. “He was spending so much time at the office and he kept taking all these business trips. I bet they weren’t all business. I bet she was meeting him at those places.”

  “Blair—”

  “But I was too busy being the socialite, too busy showing off my girls. What an idiot I’ve been.”

  “You’re not the one who messed things up,” I raise my head and rest its weight on my elbow.

  “He had all those papers in his desk. In our house. He had a note from her in his pants pocket, Tess. He must have thought I was truly brainless.”

  “He was the brainless one. Only a stupid man would leave things like that lying around his own house.”

  “Or a desperate one.”

  “What?”

  “I wonder if he was leaving clues for me so that I would find out on my own. I would’ve gotten mad and confronted him. I would’ve yelled at him and told him to get out. It would have been so much easier to walk away from an angry wife than a wounded one.”

  “Don’t do this,” I sit up in my bed and throw my legs over the side. “Don’t torture yourself like this. You didn’t do anything you should be sorry for.”

  “I’m just saying I should have figured it out,” she says, rather emotionless.

  I’m about to say something else, something about not letting bitterness ruin the rest of her life, when the phone rings in our room.

  I reach over to the bedside table between us and pick up the receiver.

  “Hello?” I say.

  “Good morning, Tess. This is Corinthia. I hope I haven’t called y’all too early.”

  “No, no, Corinthia. We’re up.”

  Sort of.

  “Well, I waited as long as I could. I have a visitor here at the house. A lady. She would ve
ry much like to meet you and Blair.”

  “Corinthia, what’s this about?”

  “Let’s just say I think you will very much like to meet her, too. Can you come over?”

  “Um, yeah, sure. We haven’t eaten yet, so it might take a little…”

  “Oh, just come on over. I’ll make y’all some waffles.”

  “Well, all right. We’ll get there as soon as we can. Bye.”

  I hang up. Blair is sitting up, looking a little peeved.

  “What is so important that we have to go over there right now?” she says.

  “She said there is a lady at the house who wants to meet us. She said we would want to meet her, too.”

  “Is this about the baby?” Blair says, interest entering the picture.

  “She didn’t say.”

  “Well, if it doesn’t, we’re not staying. I want to go to see the court people first thing.”

  By nine o’clock we’re on our way, this time finding my old street without any wrong turns. As we pull up to Corinthia’s house, I can see that Samuel is walking toward the Church of the Beautiful Gate. He waves to us but keeps walking. It had been a very pleasant evening the night before; sharing a meal with Corinthia, Samuel and Marigold, although it had seemed a very quiet affair compared to the old days when the house was full of children. I was sort of disappointed that Corinthia insisted Blair and I relax in the living room after supper while she put the dishes in the sink to soak.

  As we get out of Blair’s Lexus I notice a blue sedan parked in front of Corinthia’s house. We walk up the cement steps and knock on the screen door. Corinthia is there in seconds.

  “Come on in,” she says warmly. “Come on into the kitchen.”

  We follow her into the kitchen and right away I notice a woman whose face is vaguely familiar. She is sitting at the kitchen table where Jewel and I used to do homework; where Corinthia showed me what my name means.

  The woman stands up.

  “Tess, Blair, this is Penny Mollet. She lives here in Blytheville, too, but she and I have not had the pleasure of meeting until today,” Corinthia says.

  “Nice to meet you,” I say, but I am struggling to remember where I’ve seen her face before.

  “Please have a seat,” Corinthia says. “I’ll pour y’all some coffee and I’ll get the waffle iron goin’.”

  Blair shakes Penny Mollet’s hand and sits down. She is anxious to get back to the county building. She mumbles a greeting.

  Corinthia places hot mugs of coffee in front of Blair and me and I see that her eyes are twinkling fiercely.

  “Penny, why don’t you tell these girls what you told me?” she says, turning to the waffle iron and pouring batter into it.

  “Well, it’s like this,” Penny Mollet begins. “I had a real hard time sleepin’ last night and I awoke at first light with this heavy on my mind.”

  Blair and I just sit and stare at her when she pauses.

  “See,” she continues. “I remember you girls.”

  Then she reaches down by her legs, picks up a brown photo album and lays it on the table. She flips through some pages and then stops. She turns the album around so that Blair and I can see it. Under a cheap, plastic-covered sheet is the fifteen-year-old article from the Courier News; the same article I read in Blair’s car yesterday.

  I glance at Blair and I see that she is now very interested in Penny Mollet.

  “I remember when you girls found that baby,” Penny continues. “I remember how y’all cared for him until the police arrived. How you fed him and wrapped him in one of your own baby blankets. I thought what you had done was very kind and y’all were just young girls. That’s why I saved this article.”

  As she says this I suddenly remember where I have seen this woman before. She was waiting in the chair behind us at the county recorder’s office yesterday. She had heard Blair’s desperate plea for information. She had heard every word.

  “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help hearing what y’all were saying at the County Recorder’s yesterday,” Penny continues. “I was sitting behind you. I heard what you asked for and I heard what the answer was.”

  Blair’s face is unreadable. I look over at Corinthia who is practically glowing as she lifts a golden waffle out of the black iron.

  “Ms. Mollet,” I say, “Can you help us find this boy?”

  “Yes, I think I can.”

  “Do you know where he is?” Blair says, suddenly finding her voice.

  “Well, no, but I know the last name of the family who adopted him and I know where they lived when they got him.”

  “That’s great!” Blair says and her eyes are misty. “What is it? What’s their last name?”

  “Well, perhaps I am not supposed to say, and I wouldn’t if I thought you weren’t going to do right by this boy, but I think he should have that locket.”

  “Yes, yes,” Blair says, impatient to hear the name.

  “See, I’d overheard a conversation between my daughter—she was a court clerk back then—and another court employee while I was waiting to take my daughter to lunch on her birthday. She and this other person were talking about that baby that had been abandoned, that it was being adopted by a family that lived in Paragould.”

  “Paragould,” Blair echoes. It is her first big clue.

  “Just like this time, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I just couldn’t help hearin’. And I wouldn’t have remembered the last name except that it’s the same as my first name. Penny. Only they spell it with an ‘e’ before the ‘y.’ I know because I heard my daughter spell it.”

  “John Penney,” Blair says and she sits slowly back in her chair.

  Corinthia turns to us with a plate full of hot waffles in her hands.

  “Who wants waffles?” she says gleefully.

  Over bites of waffles, Blair pokes at online white pages on her iPhone, looking for a John Penney in Paragould. There isn’t one.

  “There’s a John Penney in Jonesboro,” she says. “Think that could be him?”

  “It’s a worth a try,” Corinthia says.

  Blair touches her phone and holds it up to her ear.

  “You’re going to call right now?” I say, my own mouth full of a bite of waffle.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, what are you going to say?”

  “That we want to see him. How could his parents refuse? We rescued him.”

  The three of us anxiously wait as Blair holds the phone to her ear. Within seconds she closes her eyes in frustration. She pulls the phone away.

  “That number is no longer in service. And there is no new number.”

  There is a collective sigh around the table.

  “They must have moved recently,” Blair says. Then she stands up, reaching for her oversize purse. “I’ve got to get on my computer. I’ve got to get on the Internet to see how many John Penneys are out there.”

  “You go on over to Samuel’s office,” Corinthia says to her. “He’s got the Internet over there. Password is Solideo7

  “Great. Thanks.” Blair starts to head to the front door. “Oh, thanks, Ms. Mollet.”

  “My pleasure,” Penny Mollet calls out to her.

  When Blair is gone, Penny Mollet stands, puts her brown photo album under her arm and announces she should be getting home.

  “Well, I am so pleased we have met,” Corinthia wraps an arm around Penny as she walks her to the door. “I hope I will see you again sometime.”

  “Yes, that would be nice.” Penny Mollet steps out into the midmorning sunshine. “Let me know how things turn out, will you?”

  “Of course,” I say as I wave goodbye.

  When the door is closed for the second time, Corinthia and I head back into the kitchen. I start to stack plates from our breakfast when Corinthia asks if I want to join Blair over at the church.

  “Why don’t we do these dishes real quick first?” I say.

  Corinthia smiles at me.

  “Just like old
times,” she says.

  And I smile back.

  We work in silence for a few minutes and then I ask what has been on my mind since meeting Penny Mollet. “So, was Penny the answer to your prayer?”

  “Well, what do you think?” Corinthia was always good at answering a question with a question.

  “I think maybe she was,” I say, surprising myself a little.

  Corinthia just smiles and takes a dish from me.

  “How did you know?” I say.

  “How did I know what?”

  “How did you know God would answer it?”

  “Well, Tess, God always answers our prayers. I knew He would answer it because that’s the way He is. I didn’t know how He was going to answer it. I asked Him to help us if this boy needs to see the note and the locket. This boy must need to see the note and the locket.”

  I hand her another dish and formulate a question in my head that I hope will not hurt her feelings.

  “But Corinthia, isn’t it possible that Penny Mollet could’ve come to your house this morning anyway, even if you had not prayed?”

  But Corinthia’s feelings are not hurt. She finds my question amusing, I think.

  “Well, one day when I get to heaven—and if I think of it, of course—I will ask God if she would have come anyway.”

  Then she turns to me and winks.

  When Corinthia and I join Blair in Samuel’s study, she is sitting in front of her laptop with a look of exasperation on her face.

  “There are nearly a hundred John Penneys in the United States,” she says. “He could be anywhere.”

  “Any in Arkansas?” I ask.

  “Just one, and I already called that number,” Blair says. “He’s a Catholic priest in Little Rock.”

  “So I guess that’s not him,” I sit down in a chair next to her.

  “It’s quite possible the family stayed in the South, though,” Samuel says, leaning against a bookcase with his arms comfortably crossed on his chest. “It’s pretty costly to move.”

  “Well, there’s six in Tennessee, another half dozen in Alabama, a couple in Kentucky, some more in Missouri and Texas,” Blair says. “I should just start calling them.”