Half Past: A Novel

by Victoria Helen Stone

  The offices were simple and had obviously been built in the ’70s, but she was surprised by the welcoming smile of the middle-aged Asian woman who sat behind the desk at the recorder’s office. Hardly the stereotype of an unhelpful government employee. “Can I help you?” the woman asked as if she were excited to be of use.

  “Hi! I’d like to get copies of a couple of deeds. I have the record numbers and the physical address.”

  “No problem.”

  That was it. Ten minutes and forty dollars later, Hannah had copies of two deeds in her hand.

  “Oh,” she said, just as she was turning to leave. “Are voting records in this building? I was hoping to see who was registered to vote at this address.”

  The woman winced. “Sorry. Voting records aren’t public. I mean, you can look up a name and see if they were registered to vote, but that’s it. No address. Nothing like that.”

  “Shit,” she muttered, then winced to herself. “Sorry. Thank you for the information.” There went her best guess at how to find all the adults living at the commune. But maybe hippies didn’t register to vote anyway. Back to square one. Or maybe square two. She was making progress.

  She took the deeds to the hallway and sat on a bench to look them over.

  They both seemed to be standard documents with unfortunately no mention of the gang of misfits Jacob Smith may have brought along with the deal. But his signature was there, and the overly large J and S in his name somehow made him less a figment of her imagination. He’d been a real man. One with an ego, probably.

  Her phone dinged, and she remembered the messages she’d ignored earlier and pulled it from her purse.

  Two missed calls. One from Becky and one from Jasmine. Jasmine had left a message, and Hannah smiled as soon as the recording started. “Hey, chick! I’m calling from Planet Earth with some great news. Not about me. Well, I went out on another date with Terrance, and he was pretty great, but that’s another story. I mean I have great news about this whole Iowa situation. Are you intrigued? Call me!”

  Instead of calling Jasmine back, she clicked over to her texts to see what the other alerts had been. Both texts were from Becky.

  Mom’s feeling better today. She’s more lucid. I told her you’d gone back to Chicago for a visit.

  Hannah was simultaneously happy that her mom was doing better and pissed off that Becky was adding more lies to the situation.

  She typed out, If Mom is more lucid, maybe you could ask her about Big Sur instead of lying about where I am. Then she stared at the sentence for a full minute before deleting it. Becky wasn’t going to ask. She never would. There was no point throwing punches over it.

  Plus Becky’s second text was a bit of an olive branch. Have you found anything new? Are you doing ok?

  Hannah decided not to slap the branch from her sister’s hand. Nothing new so far. I’m good. Glad Mom is better. I’ll be back in Coswell as soon as I can. Tell Mom I love her. Give her a kiss for me.

  “But better not tell her it’s from me,” she muttered as she hit “Send.” “She might hide.”

  After responding to her sister, Hannah couldn’t avoid her email icon anymore. She clicked it, and there was a new email from Jeff, waiting in bold at the top of the list. Her heart fluttered like a crippled bird as she opened the email.

  Holy crap, Hannah. What is going on? I didn’t know your dad that well before he died, but . . . this is kind of mind-boggling. And your mom is just so . . . I don’t know. I’ll check out the link you sent me and see what I find. Call me when you can.

  Hannah felt a rush of relief so powerful that a sob fell from her mouth before she even realized she was crying. No one else in her family had tried to help her. Her mother couldn’t. Her sisters would rather not be emotionally inconvenienced. But her ex-husband . . . Was he even considered family now? Maybe he was, since the divorce wasn’t final.

  She drew a shaky breath and wiped her eyes. He was going to help. He still cared. She hadn’t ruined everything quite as thoroughly as she’d thought.

  Reading his email one last time, she saw that he hadn’t signed his name, which was a blessing. If he’d left off the “Love,” it would have hurt. But if he’d used it, that would have been worse. Hannah backed out of the email and tried to steady her breath so she’d sound normal when she called him.

  As she stood to leave, she glanced at a paper taped to the county recorder’s glass door. It listed all the documents that were available. Instead of leaving, Hannah stepped back inside the office. “It’s me again. Can I get a copy of my birth certificate while I’m here?” She’d ordered one online, but why wait?

  The woman cheerfully handed her a short form. “It’s twenty-five dollars.”

  Hannah filled out the paper and handed over her credit card. Five minutes later she had a copy of her birth certificate stamped with the seal of the state of California. But it wasn’t any more legitimate than her other copy. Same information. Same lies. At least her parents hadn’t been secret forgers. The state had the exact information on file that she’d found at home. Another dead end.

  As she folded the certificate to fit it into her purse, her gaze caught on a name near the bottom. Maria Diaz. The woman who’d claimed to have attended Hannah’s birth. She had obviously lied about the birth, but if Hannah could track her down, maybe she’d be willing to tell the truth now.

  It was one more name she could look into. One more person to ask about. This trip to Salinas wasn’t a total loss.

  She walked outside into the smell of fresh flowers and thought about stopping at the oceanfront to have lunch. She could pretend she was on vacation. A confident, carefree woman with something wonderful to return home to.

  But first, she’d call her soon-to-be ex about her adulterous dead father and pretend they weren’t fighting over her money. “Good times,” she whispered as she sat on the curb beneath the lime tree.

  She called Jeff’s number and listened to the phone ring as she nudged a tiny, desiccated lime around with her foot.

  “Hannah?” he said as soon as he picked up, and tears filled her eyes again. Clogged her throat. Her mind.

  “Hi, Jeff. I-I’m sorry to bother you, I just didn’t know who else to call.”

  “Hey, are you crying? Don’t cry. Please. It’s fine.”

  But of course, his soft “don’t cry” only made her cry harder. And she hated crying. Stupid vulnerability. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d cried in front of him during their marriage.

  She lifted the hem of her shirt and scrubbed her eyes dry. “Sorry. I’m fine. It’s just been crazy, you know?”

  “I know. Or actually, I don’t know. Because I still can’t get my head around it.”

  “Neither can I. But it looks like my dad had an affair during some hippie-crazed fever dream of a summer. And I have no idea who my real mother is.”

  “What about your birth certificate?”

  “It names Dorothy, but it was issued weeks after my birth. A home birth. At a fucking commune, Jeff.”

  He blew out a long sigh, and she could practically see him dragging a hand through his wavy brown hair. “I looked at that picture you sent. I’m just starting to track down more information, but I’ve verified that Jacob Smith was a traveling evangelical preacher. Traveling preachers were pretty common back then before cable. How else were people going to find God?”

  “Right. Makes sense.”

  “The records on him are scarce, but it looks like Jacob was originally from Arkansas.”

  Hannah’s lashes fluttered. Arkansas? She’d never heard word one about Arkansas from her father. “Okay. So how did an itinerant preacher from Arkansas end up in a hippie commune in Northern California?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said, but she could hear the hesitation in his voice. He wasn’t sure, but he suspected something.

  “I’m running into dead ends here, Jeff. There were so many people congregating in Big Sur around that time. There’s
an actual commune still in existence, if you can believe that. But no one seems to remember my family. Or my mother. And I just . . . I’m running out of time. Mom is getting worse. She can’t—or won’t—tell me anything. But if I can just get a name, maybe I can find the woman who gave birth to me.”

  “Even with a name, you might find nothing. Or she might not want to be found. I think you’re investing too much into this, Hannah.”

  It was so strangely familiar. The sound of her name on his lips. No one said it like him. Like a sigh. An endearment. She missed being dear to someone. Or she hated it. She wasn’t sure anymore. She couldn’t stay in a relationship just because she wanted someone around to help her through periods of stress. That wasn’t fair.

  “I am probably investing too much,” she finally said. “It’s just . . . It’s always felt like something was wrong. Like I was wrong. But maybe it wasn’t me, Jeff. Maybe I was sensing this. All of this boiling just beneath the surface.”

  “Maybe,” he agreed, and tears burned her eyes again, because he hadn’t reassured her. There’s never been anything wrong with you, Hannah. A lie, of course, but one she wanted to hear. Just for a moment. She’d laugh and tell him to stop trying to comfort her with flattery, and then he’d chuckle and tell her she’d be fine.

  But he wouldn’t do that for her. Not anymore.

  She cleared the sorrow from her throat. “I want to know where I come from. Who I really am. Why I’m . . . like this.”

  A pen tapped against a desk on his side of the line. Another old sound she hadn’t realized she missed. “Okay, I have a suspicion.”

  “What?” she pressed.

  “These traveling preachers were a popular attraction in small towns and at fairgrounds, that sort of thing. They would set up a big tent on county land and preach for a week or two. Then they’d move on. Which meant they were on the same roads the hippies traveled.”

  “Okay.”

  “It was a strange mix of people who were searching for something more and people who were there to promise it. Have you ever heard the term Jesus freak?”

  “Sure. Of course.”

  “We use it today to mean someone who’s a rabid evangelical, but that’s not what it meant then. Back then a Jesus freak was a weirdo, long-haired hippie who’d found Christ and was happy to tell you all about it.”

  “Really? There were Christian hippies?”

  “Yep. And I’m thinking this intersection of your preaching grandfather and the young people in Northern California might have resulted in a group of Christian hippies settling down for a little while.”

  “Oh,” she said as the idea sank into her. “Oh my God! I think you might be right! I couldn’t imagine my mom and dad as hippies, but maybe that’s because they weren’t. They were just trying to convert them!”

  “Exactly. And maybe your dad got a little too close to one of the women. He, uh, probably hadn’t been exposed to much free love before then.”

  “Wow. That’s crazy. But it makes sense. I think. Maybe?”

  “I found a reference to a place called Jacob’s Rock in Big Sur. Have you heard that name?”

  “Yes! I heard it yesterday. Where did you see it?”

  “It was mentioned in passing in an evangelical newsletter in 1969. There were no details aside from it being in Monterey County, but I’m thinking that could be your grandfather’s place.”

  “That’s what I assume too. I’m just . . .” She dropped her head and stared at the dried lime resting against her shoe. “This is so crazy. I found her blood type, and then my world exploded. My sisters didn’t want me to come here. They wanted me to just leave it alone. Accept it. Do you think you could just accept it and never look for answers?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t think anyone could know unless it happened to them.”

  “It’s why I’m so different from them, Jeff.”

  “I guess it must be.”

  She didn’t want to get off the phone, which was as good a reason to hang up as any. “I’m really sorry I had to involve you. I couldn’t think of anyone else to call, so . . . thank you.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “No. It’s something, and considering the circumstances . . .”

  The pen tapping stopped abruptly, and an uncomfortable silence dropped into place like a slamming door. “We can talk about the circumstances later.”

  “All right. Can you email me if you find anything else? I won’t have cell service.”

  “Sure. I’ll see what I find.”

  She sat under the lime tree for a long time, phone in hand, heart on her sleeve. Anyone who passed would see right away that she was going through a breakup. She’d seen heartbreak a hundred times on women’s faces. Just not on hers. Not since she was young and throwing herself into bad relationships with gusto.

  By the time she got out of entanglements with men, she’d long ago moved on in her head. But with Jeff it was different. This was a dull ache waiting to blossom into scalding pain with only a little prodding.

  They’d had what anyone else would have been satisfied with. Love, respect, fidelity. Hannah felt as if she were the only woman in the world who couldn’t be happy and fulfilled with those three things.

  She still loved him. She did. She just wanted more than that. Or less. Even she didn’t know. All she was sure of was that walking out of their condo had let her breathe easily for the first time in years.

  Finally pushing up to her feet, she opened the map on her phone and mapped out driving directions to the main library, hoping they’d have more old newspapers than the ones she’d found online.

  They did. The library was in Monterey, and it was surprisingly small for a wealthy little town, but the local history area was rather sprawling. She searched the microfiche files for her father’s name, then her grandfather’s, but she found nothing. Then she tried “Jacob’s Rock” and got a hit.

  “Nice,” she breathed, and set off to the cabinet to pull the correct file.

  After ten minutes of scrolling, Hannah felt seasick. And discouraged. None of the hundreds of articles rolling by had been about anything called Jacob’s Rock, much less her Jacob’s Rock. She’d found the location referenced on the computer, but there were only three articles on that page. One was about an auction of a property in Carmel. One was about two new school buses. And there was a tiny, one-paragraph story about a partial lunar eclipse that she suspected had been written by someone who’d failed science class.

  She backed up two pages, then forward two, then went back to the page it was supposed to be on. Finally, she sat back and let her eyes roam over the ads on the page. And there it was. A tiny square in the middle-right column of page six.

  Welcome, brothers and sisters! An invitation to join in the worship of Christ, Our Everlasting Lord and Savior. Save Your Eternal Soul from Damnation! Worship services at 9:00 a.m. sharp each Sunday. Prayer and song every night at 7:00 p.m., weather permitting. Jacob’s Rock, Big Sur, mile marker 49.

  “Holy shit,” she breathed. She let out a sharp laugh at the appropriateness of the curse, then quickly hit the “Print” button before the damn thing slipped through her fingers.

  Jeff had been right. They hadn’t been hippies after all. The date of the paper was April 10, 1967. Only a few weeks after Jacob Smith had purchased the property. Perhaps tired of wandering, he’d started his own church. And a few little lost hippie lambs had found a shepherd.

  She wasn’t sure this led her any closer to finding her mother, but it satisfied at least a few of her questions about who her father had been. He’d been exactly who he’d seemed. A quiet Christian man, albeit one who’d been led astray at some point. But whatever mistakes he’d made, he’d obviously tried to atone for them by living an uneventful life afterward.

  She paid for her copy and headed back toward the wild coastlands with a sense of triumph. Rolling down her windows, she turned up the music and slipped on her shades. The forecast had been right for once. It was
sunnier than it had been since she’d arrived.

  A curve took her out over the ocean, and she spotted the little crescent beach ahead, all golden sand lapped by white foam. The water was still painfully blue, nearly as turquoise as the Caribbean. When she reached the turnout, she slowed and pulled in.

  Screw it. She wanted to walk on that beach.

  Ignoring the couple taking a selfie at the other end of the turnout, Hannah headed toward the sandy trailhead she’d parked next to. Fortunately, she’d worn her tennis shoes. Unfortunately, she hadn’t brought any water to drink, and even as she started down, she knew she’d regret all of this on the long hike back up. But hell, she was an expert at dealing with regret. She’d sail through with flying colors.

  Seagulls squawked somewhere down below, but the birds that circled on thermal currents overhead were black. When a shadow glided over her, she stopped to shade her eyes and look up. Condors?

  She wondered if she was imagining the red color of the birds’ heads. She’d thought condors were all dead or dying, but here were some right above her.

  Taking the rare bird as a good sign, she worked her way down the switchbacks of the trail, trying to keep her eyes on her feet despite the beautiful lure of the ocean.

  When she finally reached the bottom, she looked up to a private world. She could hear the cars whizzing by far above, but she was the only soul on this beach. The only set of eyes seeing the high cliffs and raucous waves and blindingly blue water.

  The beach was rockier than it appeared from above, the sand strewn with surf-smoothed stones, but she took off her shoes and walked barefoot anyway. The sand was warm and shifting beneath her toes. Crabs scuttled at her fearsome approach, and she grinned at the way they waved their claws in threat.

  After jumping over a pile of old kelp, she rolled up her jeans and edged closer to the water. For a moment she indulged a fantasy of skinny-dipping. She might be visible from above, but surely she’d be too small to gawk at. And if someone had binoculars, well . . . she’d make their naked-middle-aged-lady dreams come true. Her ass wasn’t in quite the same place it had been at nineteen, but it was passable.