by Joanna Scott
His words gave Sally a mixed feeling of guilt and relief. Clem Werner had always followed the rules and lived his life in a predictable fashion. Sally, on the other hand, had followed a river, and she’d run into new problems at every bend.
She couldn’t ask outright about her child, not with Clem filling the air with small talk and their beagle braying on the porch and those three boys too restless to sit for long. Dinner was over in no time, and before Sally could have a proper conversation with her brother, Clem announced that he had to drive the boys to their Little League game. In a blink he already had his own cap on, his wife and the boys had said good-bye to Sally and were waiting in the pickup truck, and Clem was telling his sister how good it was to see her. Wasn’t it a shame she’d stayed away, but she was always welcome in his house, he assured her with honest conviction. Sally thanked him for that. And out of the swell of gratitude she blurted, “Clem, I need to find our cousin Daniel.”
“What could you possibly want with Daniel after all these years?” Clem asked. Only then, standing close to him by the screen door off the kitchen, did Sally realize how tall he’d grown, more than six feet, she guessed. And his hair was blonder than she’d remembered it, more strawberry blond than red.
“I want to find out what happened to my baby.”
It was the final word that caused Clem to respond with a noisy inhalation, which he held inside puffed cheeks.
“Can you tell me about my baby, Clem?”
“I don’t really know.”
“I heard…” She paused, trying to sort out the difference between what she’d been told and what she’d imagined. “I heard he gave the baby away.” There, she’d put her wish into words. She said it aloud to give Clem the chance to say it back to her. “Is it true, Clem? Did the baby go to strangers? It’s all right, if that’s what happened. I just want to know. Tell me, please, what you know. Was the baby put up for adoption?”
“Listen, Sally, I can’t prove anything. But I think —”
“Yes?”
“I think you’d better go talk to Myra. You remember Myra, Daniel’s sister. She’ll be able to tell you more. You go talk to her and find out what Daniel did with that boy you left behind.” The last words were pronounced slowly, with obvious accusation, and for the first time since she’d arrived at his house, she saw something cruel in his eyes, a look of unyielding blame that reminded her of her father.
“I’ll do that,” she said softly. “I’ll find Myra and ask her. Thank you, Clem. You’ve been very helpful.”
Only then did Sally hear the sound of Clem’s sons arguing in the bed of the pickup truck, each one trying to yell louder than the next. Clem whistled with his fingers to quiet them. He apologized to Sally, but he had to run.
“Go on, sure,” Sally said. “I’ll follow you out.”
She stayed with Tru in Lafayette, in her tidy little house lined floor-to-ceiling with green-and-brown-striped wallpaper, the rooms lit up with bulbs that were so bright Sally had to blink hard to adjust after stepping in from the dusk. Tru couldn’t take off from work and accompany her on her visit to their cousin’s the next day, but she called ahead to Myra to tell her that Sally would be coming. Myra said she was expecting her, since she’d already heard from Clem. Clem had called her that morning. Yes, Myra was expecting Sally, and if she could come to the Edelweiss Coffee Shop in Tauntonville, she’d be glad to treat her to lunch.
Sally remembered Myra, Daniel’s older sister, as a strong, athletic girl. Waiting for her in a booth at the coffee shop was a stout woman with a broad, ruddy face and iron gray hair pulled into a bun. Myra Werner? Yes, of course, and here was Sally Werner. “Little Sally,” she said, “who had been loved by all the boys.” With a sweeping look around the coffee shop, she conveyed her disdain. She didn’t need to speak her thoughts aloud to communicate them.
Word had it that Sally Werner was a loose girl — and the right words aren’t easily forgotten, even after twenty-seven years.
Myra murmured, “You’re all grown up.”
“I guess I am.”
As if she’d uttered plain nonsense, Sally’s reply provoked a burst of laughter from Myra. Contemptuous laughter was what Sally heard. The bitter, ugly laughter of blame.
“What’s so funny?” Sally asked in direct confrontation.
“Nothing,” Myra said with a shrug. She stirred sugar into her watery coffee, clattering her spoon against the side of the cup. “Mmm-hmmm. Are you hungry? I’ve already eaten.”
“I’m fine.”
“Yes, of course. Now Tru said you wanted to ask me something.”
“Tru said that over the phone? I was standing right next to her. I didn’t hear her say that.”
“No? Well, then that’s what Clem said. It’s understandable. After all these years, it has occurred to you that pleasure isn’t the only purpose of life. Yes, you’ve grown up.”
Her iron-haired cousin with her clattering spoon was like a guard at the gate, playing with Sally, taunting her, denying her entrance for just a little while longer so she could mock her some more.
“You broke my brother’s heart,” she said. Her teeth remained clenched, and the spoon kept circling the cup.
“I would have broken more than that if I could have.”
“Ah, you wicked girl. It’s good you ran away.”
“Tell me what happened to my baby. What did Daniel do with him?”
“Your baby?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know, Myra. Daniel gave the baby away, didn’t he? I’ve come to find out what happened to my son. Tell me —”
Sally Werner had already guessed that there were no surprises awaiting her in the coffee shop in Tauntonville. She was wise to the game. Though her brothers and her cousins were in cahoots, they couldn’t hide the truth from her, nor should they want to try, for Sally had never intended her son to be raised by Daniel. She’d left the baby in place of herself. He was supposed to fill the space of Sally’s absence, to be raised by her parents, to endure in the household she had fled from and even to thrive, for she’d been providing for him, or she’d attempted to provide for him, she’d sent money, hundreds of dollars, which was intended to buy him special privaledges… no, privileges.
Myra couldn’t tell Sally what had happened to all that money. It never made its way to Daniel, of that she was certain. And the boy, Daniel Junior, never received it, for he disappeared —
“What do you mean, he disappeared?”
If Sally would be patient, her cousin Myra would explain that the boy disappeared into the world after Daniel relinquished guardianship. He was given a different name and raised in a different family.
“What was his new name?” Sally asked.
“Why does it matter to you?”
“Because…” What could she say? She could make up a reason. After twenty-seven years, she wanted to know the name of her son because… because “I think I’ve found him.”
The spoon stopped circling; the clenched teeth separated. When a strand of Myra’s hair fell free of the pins, Sally was reminded of the ash breaking off a lit cigarette. She could have used a cigarette right then, but she’d smoked the last in the pack that morning. She sensed a tingling that began in her toes and spread up her ankles, as though she were being lowered into ice water. She would have welcomed help right then. If only she’d asked Arnie to come along for the ride. No, she couldn’t have asked Arnie because he didn’t know the truth about her past, nor did her daughter, which made Sally feel more alone than ever and more desperate to escape that loneliness through the boldest of admissions: I think I’ve found him. Now she’d not only thought it, she had said it aloud, and in doing so made it possible for Daniel Werner’s sister to encourage Sally’s fantasy, thus diverting her from any other line of inquiry that might have led her to the truth.
“Well.” Myra shifted her weight and seemed to tilt her head to listen to the creaking of the bench’s vinyl. “Well, well. Who is he, then?”
>
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“But you said you’ve found him.”
“I think I’ve found him. I’m not sure, Myra.” By saying her cousin’s name, she was attempting to signal a new potential for honesty. She’d revealed so much already, and now she needed Myra’s help, dear Myra, please, if you can’t help Sally, direct her to someone who can.
Myra mentioned Sylvia. Yes, she might be able to help. She didn’t reveal that Sylvia was the sister of Myra’s dead husband. She just said that her friend Sylvia worked in the county clerk’s office, she had access to the records, and she could help Sally find out for sure, one way or the other, whether the fellow Sally thought was her son —
“What did you say his name was?” Myra asked.
“I didn’t say.” For some reason, Sally hesitated. But at this point she had nothing to hide; already she’d discovered that the more she revealed about her suspicions, the more she learned. “Abe Boyle.”
“Abe…?”
“Abraham. Abraham Boyle.”
“Boyle… ah, yes, I do think that name… after all this time… that name does sound familiar. But I’m not much use, am I? Listen, go talk to Sylvia. Go to the county clerk’s office in Peterkin and ask for Sylvia. She’ll be able to help. I’ll call her,” Myra added, “to tell her that you’re on your way.”
See how easily one piece of evidence led to the next. Having followed through on a hunch, Sally was on the verge of finding her son. If her claim to him meant that he would have to redraw the boundaries in his relationship with her daughter, that was a small price, she thought. They were young and in the early stages of their courtship. Surely they each could be persuaded to fall in love with someone else and to share with Sally an appreciation of what had been recovered. It’s like he has risen from the grave — a thought she was about to speak aloud but decided to keep to herself at the last moment, fearing that the iron-haired sister of Daniel would find her blasphemous.
Sally never guessed that the information she was gathering with her determined inquiry was invented to satisfy her leading questions. That there was a difference between the truth and the Werners’ version of the truth didn’t occur to her, for they gave the impression that they were offering the facts only with great reluctance. They were embarrassed, as well they should have been, by their hypocrisy: as Sally understood it, they blamed her for leaving her baby behind, yet there was no one among them who had been willing to care for the child, and they’d let Daniel Werner give him away. On top of that, all the money Sally had sent over the years in support of the child had disappeared into someone’s pocket — whose, she would never know. It was inevitable, wasn’t it, that her brothers and cousin would claim ignorance and reveal the truth only haltingly, in dribs and drabs?
There was evidence to be found at the county clerk’s office in Peterkin, but it wasn’t available to Sally just yet. When she spoke with Sylvia, Myra’s sister-in-law, the following day, she was informed that a fire in 1957 had destroyed many of the county’s files, and those remaining had been boxed haphazardly and stored in a basement vault in a different building. It would take weeks for the woman named Sylvia to sort through the files and find the relevant documents involving Sally’s child. That’s if the documents had survived at all.
Sally spoke with Sylvia across a scratched mahogany counter. This woman named Sylvia, masked with a thick coating of makeup that gave off a swampy smell, didn’t have time to help Sally with her search right then. She had a line of impatient taxpayers to deal with, and all she would offer was that she’d look for any documents related to the adoption and get back to Sally as soon as possible. How soon would that be? Sally dared to ask, and Sylvia snapped back that it might be weeks.
There was no use staying in the area any longer. Tru, who with her forgiving disposition was set apart from the others, didn’t hold Sally’s past against her, but the other members of the family would only ever consider her an intruder. She spent one more day at Tru’s house and over dinner described to her the nature of her search. She explained that she hoped to locate her son. She didn’t admit that she might have already found him, and luckily Tru didn’t think to remark upon Abe Boyle’s resemblance to the Werners. Really, the prospect of hearing Abe’s name spoken aloud was enough to remind Sally of how absolutely ridiculous the notion was, far beyond anything a reasonable person would be willing to believe. If someone had described it to her, she would have thought it sheer insanity to have pressed the issue this far, and she would have been willing to dismiss the evidence she’d begun to gather. Yet she’d settled into a new confidence after her meetings with her brothers and Myra and had come to understand her suspicion about Abe as more than a vague effort to sort out the facts. She wasn’t just pursuing a possibility. She was actively trying to rule out the only other possibility she had allowed herself to entertain — the infinitely more likely possibility that while her son had been given up for adoption, he was not Abe Boyle. This was the falsehood she needed to disprove now that she was nearly convinced she was right. What she felt, or thought she felt, was instinct rather than suspicion — a mother’s instinct, which she could allow herself to idealize, if only privately at this point, as an awareness surpassing plain knowledge.
It was August of 1974. The highway, completed in the mid-sixties, was the fastest route home, but Sally took a detour on the back roads to the city of Tuskee. She was dismayed to see so many storefronts boarded up along Main Street and the gutters full of trash and broken glass. The drawbridge she’d loved to watch yawning open was in such a state of disrepair that it had been permanently closed to traffic. She turned down State Street in search of Potter’s Hardware and found in its place a convenience store. She stopped in the store to ask about Buddy Potter. The young teenage girl at the register had never heard of him. Sally borrowed a phone book and paged through the listings. Though there was no Buddy Potter listed, she found the address for Arthur Steerforth, husband to her old friend Penny Campbell, and she drove to their house. It was a large, well-kept Victorian on one of the thoroughfares leading out of town, belted around the front by a thick garden of black-eyed Susans. While there was a quaint homemade Welcome sign on the front door, the rooms were dark behind the sheer curtains, and Sally wasn’t surprised when no one answered her knock.
She drove back to the city of R, arriving at home shortly after dark. Penelope was out, sparing Sally the effort of having to lie about the nature of her trip. Penelope knew where she’d been, but not why she’d gone. Sally wasn’t ready to reveal anything until she had indisputable evidence. No matter what she felt instinctively, she had to be cautious, for she still could be wrong about Abe. Yet what if she was right? Then his relationship with her daughter was a perversion — unless, as she became increasingly convinced, there was nothing serious to it, nothing more than a few shared kisses at the movies, just another passing flirtation, forgettable in the long run. But really, she couldn’t deny that her daughter was happy these days, happier than ever, and she went out with Abe at every opportunity. If she’d already begun thinking of him with the future in mind, well, this would complicate things. It was foolish for Sally to assume that she could take her time with this matter. She hadn’t been home for an hour and she already regretted abandoning her search without having received the documents from the county clerk. Sylvia had said it might take weeks to sort through the files. Sally should have offered to search those boxes herself. Now she was obliged to wait for Sylvia to contact her, and for the time being she had to pretend to be absorbed by her normal routines.
As it turned out, the world didn’t cooperate, and neither did her daughter, who late the next morning came out from her bedroom, poured herself a bowl of cereal, and as she ate her breakfast casually asked her mother why she’d gone back to Tauntonville after she’d said repeatedly that she would never go back.
Sally pretended that she’d been invited to visit her sister, which seemed to satisfy the girl. Bu
t then she decided to change the subject and say that she was concerned about all the time Penelope spent with Abe. “That Abe,” she called him, infuriating her daughter and provoking her to remind her mother that she was twenty-one years old, she wasn’t a baby, and she could make her own decisions when it came to love.
There, she’d used that word — love. She didn’t mean it, she wasn’t worldly enough to mean it, Sally thought. No, she mustn’t love Abe, not that way, but Sally couldn’t say so.
The best she could do was to make up distractions to keep the two apart. In the weeks left in the summer, she paid for her daughter to spend a few days in Niagara Falls with her girlfriends from high school. She took her on a trip to the Thousand Islands. She took her shopping and spent money extravagantly. When Abe called, she didn’t relay his messages.
If only that woman named Sylvia would provide her with the information she sought. A whole week passed, and Sally didn’t hear from her. Another week passed, and another. It was plenty of time for Penelope to get used to the feeling of love, and still Sally had no hard evidence in hand. She had to put a stop to the romance, but that was impossible. She had no justification for interfering, unless she made up some damning lie about Abe, and she didn’t want to do that, for then when she actually said something that was factual, she wouldn’t be believed.
As it happened, she didn’t see Abe Boyle again for a long while. Her daughter went back to school, and Abe was mostly out of town, driving long hauls around the country. Sally waited to hear from Sylvia. And then came a turn of events that she had long since given up expecting.