by Geeta Kakade
“Do I know Christy and Mark?” she asked.
“No. You might have heard me mention Mark. Christy is one of the most easy going people I know. Her maiden name is the same as yours. Cupid. Before your accident we were going to visit them and research your family history as soon as we both got Stateside.”
“We can’t stay free with anyone for more than three days,” Laurel protested. “That’s when guests and fish begin to stink.”
The minute the words were out Laurel realized she had made her first joke in a month. Did it sound corny?
Jacob smiled again. “You’re right. Christy runs Cupid Lodge the house she inherited from her father as a bed and breakfast so we will be paying for our stay.”
“Oh.”
The thought of being dependent on Jacob irked. Uncle Paul had given her money and said it was for her last birthday in March and told her to go shopping with Carol. Jacob had given her a credit card and her driver’s license and she’d looked at them surprised the name on both was still Laurel Cupid and not Laurel Lightfoot. A Captain Holt had brought the card and the license over and joined them for dinner one night. She’d liked the cheerful intelligence officer who would be in Silver Lake while they were there. Every story he’d regaled them with had been laced with his great sense of humor.
“Do I have any money beside the bank account into which my salary goes?” Laurel asked Jacob.
He nodded. “Your parents carried huge life insurance policies and your aunt and uncle invested the money very carefully for you. You have a great deal of money. I have enough for both of us too.”
Their gazes met and then Laurel looked away. The comment was steering them into that thin ice area she didn’t want to explore just yet. Were wives in name only entitled to share a husband’s bank account when they didn’t share their husband’s bed?
Aunt Grace had meant to come down to D.C. after Laurel got there but Uncle Theo had gone down with pneumonia and she didn’t want to leave him. Laurel promised to visit her in the Fall.
Right after I divorce Jacob.
In the next week she and Carol would go shopping.
Was there a store where she could have memory chips installed in her brain that would permit total recall?
July 2013
“So what are you going to be working on?” Phillip asked Stephen.
“I came between my son and his wife and cut them off without a penny.”
“You did?” It was the same mistake Phillip had to repair. It seemed to run in the family.
“She was a dancer, a trollop who seduced him.”
“Older women in that profession are always luring boys into their beds.” Phillip agreed.
Stephen shook his head. “She wasn’t an older woman. She was the same age as Brian. 18. They had a child who the mother told Brian had died at birth. She left the baby at the Orphanage of St. Mary’s near Reno.”
Phillip knew Bridget’s story. Ma and he had helped her fall in love with Andrew Blackwell, for his second assignment.
“You’re going to tell Brian about his daughter now?”
“Should I?”
Phillip nodded. “That’s the only way to go. Getting them back together is your assignment. It’s the way you’ll make amends. If you hadn’t been against Brian’s marriage, his wife wouldn’t have had to leave her baby with the nuns.”
His mind flashed back to his son Jacob. He had been 16 and White Feather the girl he had fallen in love with had been 15. Phillip hadn’t found out they were seeing each other for a whole year and then he hadn’t understood their feelings for each other either and gone ballistic. Now he discovered White Feather’d had a child.
Without Agnes there to guide him now, Phillip hadn’t a clue what came next. He’d better work on this mentor thing. Telling other what to do was always easier than doing things oneself.
“What are you going to do?” he asked Stephen.
“I don’t know how Brian will take the fact he didn’t know his daughter was alive all this time. He’s headstrong and stubborn.”
“Just like we were?” Phillip couldn’t resist the jab.
“Not to worry,” said Ma floating back in time to hear Stephen’s last remark. “The wheels are already in motion.”
Queensland, Australia.
“Pops look! I was reading Mama’s journal and see what I found.”
Brian looked up at his nineteen year old daughter Emma. She didn’t call him Dad as her half brothers and sisters did. Lucy, his first wife, had liked it that she called him Pops and the name had stuck.
He looked at the book in Emma’s hand. He knew as time drew around to Lucy’s birthday each year Emma liked to re-read the journal her mother had always kept.
“What?”
“The cover. Look.” Emma’s hands were trembling as she showed him the leather bound journal. It had come apart at the binding and his daughter’s hands were holding the leather part away from the cardboard beneath it.
Brian’s eyes widened. Between the two was a piece of blue paper. He pulled it out carefully and saw it was two thin sheets of parchment folded in four.
“Do you think it’s a letter?”
He couldn’t speak. He’d unfolded the sheet of paper and Lucy’s handwriting jumped off the page.
“I’d like to read this alone.” He looked up but Emma had already left the room.
“My darling Brian,
Will you ever forgive me? I’m dying but my selfishness does not want to confess this to you in person. I want to treasure these last days with you and Emma before I leave you without any anger or recriminations. I’ve always been afraid of your temper.
If there is a Heaven I don’t suppose I will be let into it.
I have committed a sin no one can overlook.
I told you our first child had died at birth but it wasn’t true. We had a beautiful baby girl. I was alone and very sick. You were away in South Lake spending your days in the casino trying to win some money while you waited for your mother to tell you your father had forgiven you. I knew he would not. I didn’t know if you would come back to me or choose to return to your privileged life at Cupid Lodge. I knew how hard our life without anything was on you.
I was so ill after the baby’s birth, I thought I was going to die so I wrapped the baby up in a blanket and left her on the steps of St. Mary’s Convent. The nuns there have an Orphanage and a reputation for being very kind to the children. I left her with a paper pinned to the blanket that said her name was Bridget Cupid and I left the ring your mother gave you there too. We had sold all the other jewelry for our living expenses but I had hidden the ring as I wanted our firstborn to have it as proof of connection with your family.
You returned two weeks later and said you didn’t care that your father had disowned you but I know you did because you drank so much in the next few days.
I thought of our baby with every breath I took but I recalled the look on your face when I told you the baby had been stillborn. It was almost as if you were relieved not to have the responsibility of a child just then. I told myself I had done what was right for both of us and the baby.
I collapsed one day and woke up in the hospital at Reno. When you finally realized how sick I was you changed. You sobered up, you stayed with me instead of drinking or gambling and you promised you would take care of me.
You did all that and more, my darling but it was hard to find work and I knew it was only a matter of time before you gave in to what you could do and went back to the casinos.
Then one day you came back sober and happy from the casino. You had won an orchard from a man and it was in northern Queensland, Australia. The man hadn’t been able to pay his gambling debts and had signed his orchard over to you.
You told me we had to find a life away from Silver Lake and I knew you were right though I did not know what awaited us in Mareeba shire, Queensland, Australia. Even the name scared me. For all I knew we could own a property that was non-existent.
/> I fell sick again at the thought of leaving our child behind but you were happy after so long; the same carefree young man I had fallen in love with and we were happy. I kept quiet telling myself in a year I would return for our baby and she was safe but I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
I borrowed some fancy clothes from a friend and went to the Convent and told them I was a rich benefactor who would like to see the Orphanage. I saw my little baby with a young nun. Mother Superior told me Sister Winifred loved children. From the look in Mother Superior’s eyes I knew she had guessed I was lying about who I really was and why I was there. Before I left, she told me again that the children were given the best care and love and I could visit whenever I wanted to. She said if I had an address Sister Winifred would write to me about any child I was interested in. Mother Superior blessed me and said miracles happened when we had faith.
What a difficult visit that was. I hated myself for not telling the nuns I was Bridget’s mother but Mother Superior’s words about miracles stuck in my head and I started praying every night.
On the voyage to Australia the first miracle happened.
I was sick not only in spirit but physically and stayed on deck to get as much sea air as possible hoping it would help me grow stronger. I noticed this elderly gentleman with a tanned face and long white hair who also spent his time on deck. He had a look of great dignity and his eyes seemed to penetrate my soul as we exchanged greetings every morning.
He must have noticed me crying at the rails every day because one day he stopped and asked me what was wrong. I told him I was ill.
He asked if he could help me. He said he was an old Maori tohunga or priest and if I would allow him he could give me some medicine. I knew I had to do something if we were to have a good life in our new country. How long would you have patience with a sick wife anyway?
He asked me to step inside with him and in the library he drew a circle on a piece of paper, folded it into four and asked me to fill each quadrant of the circle with the eight sacred symbols he gave me: snake, flower, butterfly, bird, path, mountain, shelter, tree.
When I was done he studied my etchings and then he told me the things I hadn’t told a soul: I had done something that went against my innermost beliefs and I was mentally tortured by it. I was also in need of treatment for what ailed me physically. He said he could see we would do very well in the future and I should stop worrying.
All that from etchings on a paper?
I broke down then and told him about the bleeding that wouldn’t stop and the child I had left on the Convent steps. He gave me some medicine in a bottle. He said that Maori medicines were made from plants and this one had been made with leaves infused in water.
Taking the medicine helped me and by the time we reached Australia I was feeling better. The bleeding that weakened me so had stopped. You had made money gambling on the ship and added to what we’d brought with us, we had more than we’d ever had in our lives.
When we arrived in Cairns we drove to our farm in a rusty old car that you bought. The directions the man in Reno had given you said the farm was forty minutes from Cairns and twenty minutes west of Mareeba. We could not believe our eyes when we saw the place for the first time. We had twenty acres of fruit trees, five creeks, a house and paddocks for horses. True the place was derelict but it was ours.
With your winnings we slowly restored the orchard and named it Silver Lake Orchards. You liked the warm climate and began to work as hard as the worker we had hired to help us, determined to grow the best fruit you could. I experimented by making the instant wine my mother had made when I was a child, flavoring it with the fruit we grew. That first year I made two kinds, mango and lychee and there were an instant hit. I was surprised by the demand for our wine at the local market where I sold it and in one year you had put up a shed for the wine making and we had travelers stop, taste and buy the wine. I was happy and in secret saved for the fare back to America to fetch Bridget.
Two years after we arrived in Australia our daughter Emma was born in 1993. Raising her made me always wonder about the child I had left behind. I vowed to go bring Bridget here as soon as Emma was older. Alas, my health got worse within three years of Emma’s birth.
This time I haven’t responded to any treatment and the doctors say I have an incurable form of cancer.
As the end draws near, I am writing this in the hope you will forgive me for the truth I hid from you and for being such a coward and not telling you in person.
There is something else I did that might help you find Bridget. When Emma was born I bought two identical dolls. I sent one to Bridget at the Orphanage, with the name Emma pinned on it. The one Emma has I named Bridget.
In the name of our love, will you do what I couldn’t and go back and find Bridget and bring her home? I want all three of you to forgive me for what I did, Bridget most of all. I pray you and Emma will find Bridget and make up for lost time.
With all my love my darling to you and our daughters,
Lucy.
Brian was stunned to say the least. He was still sitting there reading and re-reading the letter when Emma came back into the room.
“What is it Pops?” Alarmed by his grey color and the tears in his eyes she took the letter from him and read it.
When she lifted her head her eyes were flooded with tears too. “I have an older sister? Pops we have to go and find her and bring her home like Mama wanted us to. We have to.”
“We have to do what?"
They both turned as the woman he had married three years after Lucy’s death stood in the doorway. He held his hand out to Alex and she went to his side and listened as he told her about the past that had suddenly unlocked a new door.
CHAPTER THREE
Agnes was so proud of Laurel. That was one brave girl. She liked the fact not only was she a soldier by profession, she was a fighter.
Having watched some of Mrs. Kemp’s shows on TV, Agnes appreciated the fact Laurel didn’t indulge in bouts of crying and wringing her hands because she’d lost her memory…just a ‘hold your head up high and get on with life’ attitude. That kid was a Cupid and Agnes was glad she had Jacob at her side.
A woman needed the right man beside her when the going got tough.
It was going to be harder to convince Moira to open her heart up to Holt. Maybe, thought Agnes, as she returned on the attic to check on the men, Laurel could help with Moira.
Pa and Stephen were touring the attic and they were both standing over the last trunk and chortling. “No one’s going to believe what’s in there,” Phillip was saying.
“No one was going to believe what Brianna had hidden either,” Agnes thought with a touch of smugness.
“The letter in Lucy’s diary was brilliant,” Agnes complimented Stephen.
“Grandpa helped me with that. He said journals have always been big in our family,” Stephen told her.
Pa looked pleased. If you had the touch, you just had it.
SILVER LAKE…AUGUST 2013
Mark, Andrew and Holt were together in the family room of Andrew and Bridget’s rented house on the pretext of a poker night. Bridget, Christy and Moira were at Cupid Lodge. They were having a movie night, watching The Fugitive. Frank was sleeping over at a friend’s and the Kemps were in Tahoe with some friends who were visiting from Florida.
Holt had just returned from a trip to D.C and reported he’d met Jacob and Laurel for dinner and they seemed to be doing fine. Holt looked doubtful though as he made the rest of his report. “Laurel’s received threats since she’s been back both by e-mail and snail mail. Luckily Jacob intercepts and vets her mail so Laurel hasn’t seen the crude notes. The General changed Laurel’s e-mail address with Andrew’s help before she got here so she doesn’t know about the e-mail either.”
“What the…?” said Andrew in shock. “So someone’s found out where they’re staying?"
“Seems so,” said Holt.
“Someone doesn’t wan
t her to recover her memory.” Mark added. “Wonder what she knows? It has to be something huge for them to send her threats.”
“That isn’t all,” Holt continued. “She was on the escalator going down to the lower level of the mall a few days ago and someone pushed her from behind.”
“Did she fall?”
“She’s strong and she was holding on to the side rail so she just stumbled. Besides Jacob was in front of her and he blocked her fall.”
Washington D.C.…August 2013
The next day General O’Keefe invited Jacob and Laurel for lunch.
He was glad to see Laurel looking better than he’d seen her look since her return. He was even gladder about the gentle way Jacob had with her. Looking at them he wondered if there was a possibility they might fall in love.
“Well,” he said, after they’d been served dessert and coffee. “Have you two decided what you want to do?”
Jacob looked at Laurel and she raked her fingers through her hair and said, “I’ve decided to go to Silver Lake with Jacob for a few weeks Uncle Paul.”
The overwhelming sense of relief he felt manifested in the hugest smile Jacob had ever seen on the General’s face as he patted his niece’s hand. “I’m glad Jacob’s won your trust.”
Laurel looked at Jacob. “He has.” Her voice was soft. “He’s helped me in more ways than I can count.”
Jacob gave her the intent look she was becoming used to. “You are great at helping yourself Laurel. You’re a fighter and that’s what’s getting you though all this so well.”
“Only because my mind knows that I can bank on you and Uncle Paul and you won’t let me fall.” She turned to her godfather. “He gave me this book to read by Eckhardt Tolle, ‘A NEW EARTH’, that emphasizes living in the present and since I read it I’m focusing on NOW not the past not the future. It’s helping me though it’s a real challenge to keep bringing my mind back to the present.”