Unraveling the Pieces

by Terri DuLong

  I stopped knitting and nodded. “Yeah. It went okay. I think I was surprised at how quickly things seemed to have changed between me and Cynthia.”

  “Well, you’re both at that age where you reach a turning point in your life. From the sounds of it, her path is much different from yours.”

  “Way different. She’s carefree with nobody to think about but herself. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with that, but . . .”

  “But you’re quite happy to be where you are in your life?” Sebine asked.

  I nodded. “Yes. I really am. I won’t lie. I wish it could have been different with Peter. But having the baby? I wouldn’t change a thing.”

  “Good. I’m happy to hear that. Oh, by the way. I finished the painting of you knitting. I hope you’ll like it. I think it’s one of my best. Actually, now I’m not sure I can part with it.”

  I laughed. “Really? You’re not going to sell it?”

  “Maybe not. But if you don’t mind, maybe I’ll do another one that’s similar.”

  “Sure. That would be fine.”

  “See,” Lillian teased, “I told you if you weren’t careful, you’d end up being Sebine’s model.”

  When I got ready for bed, I went over the day’s visit in my mind again. I was glad Cynthia had come to see me. Maybe we’d stay in touch with letters or postcards, but I had a feeling she’d never be returning to Pennsylvania and probably wouldn’t be coming back to Florida either. So I was pretty sure we’d probably never see each other again.

  As I got into bed and closed my eyes, I saw Peter’s face. Smiling. Laughing. Looking at me in that very special way. I was just as certain that I’d never see Peter again either. I felt like there was a scab on my heart. Some days it seemed to be healing. And other times, like tonight, it was raw and open, and it hurt like hell.

  I placed my hand on my stomach and was grateful that for the rest of my life I would at least always have a part of him with me.

  Chapter 17

  Ben picked me up at ten Sunday morning and we headed north on I-95.

  “Thanks for letting me tag along with you,” he said.

  I smiled. “It’s nice that you offered. But what’s Jonah doing today?” I felt bad that maybe he was spending the day alone without his father.

  Ben laughed. “Oh, he’s fine. He was invited to a barbeque at a friend’s house this afternoon. He said to be sure to say hello to you, though.”

  “It’s nice that the two of you are so close. He’s a great kid.”

  Ben nodded. “He really is, and it wasn’t easy at first when Emily died. But I think we’re in a good place now.” He paused a second before saying, “I pretty much isolated myself after the accident. It wasn’t good for Jonah and it wasn’t good for me. Having Betsy come to stay with us was a big help, though. She was excellent for both of us.”

  “The grieving process is different for everyone. Losing a spouse and somebody you shared a life and a love with has to be difficult.”

  “I’m afraid the love wasn’t all that strong at the end,” he said. “And that only added to my guilt feelings.”

  “Oh,” was all I said.

  “Emily resented the long hours I put into my work to grow the practice, so it created a lot of disagreements. And I have to admit I never took the steps to make it better. In retrospect, I’m not sure it would have helped. When Jonah was five or six, Emily wanted another child. Under the circumstances, I didn’t think it was a good idea. I thought we should wait. Make sure our marriage was strong and that it would survive.”

  I remained silent, waiting for him to continue.

  “She said she agreed with this decision only . . . obviously, she didn’t. She never brought it up for further discussion, but when she was killed in the accident . . . I found out she was pregnant.”

  I reached over and touched his arm. This had been a double tragedy for him, and I could see it disturbed him to talk about it.

  “I hope you don’t mind . . . but I want you to know what happened. I’ve never discussed this with anyone . . . but I want to with you.”

  I nodded and squeezed his arm. “Go on,” I said.

  He cleared his throat. “As I said, we had not discussed anything about her getting pregnant, so when the medical examiner told me she was about eight weeks along, I was pretty surprised. I met with her obstetrician and was even more surprised to learn that he thought the pregnancy had been a mutual decision, because Emily had purposely stopped taking the birth control pill the year before.”

  I let out a sigh. Another example of a woman attempting to save a marriage with a child.

  “I imagine that created a lot of different emotions for you,” I said.

  “Yeah, it certainly did. I was angry that she had deceived me. Hurt that she hadn’t even discussed the pregnancy with me. And . . . now I was also grieving for a child I would never know.”

  “You were certainly justified in your feelings.” I began to understand Ben Wellington a little better, and I admired the man that he was.

  “Well, it took me a while to work through all of it, but I have. It reaches a point where we have to let go of the past or we have nothing for the future. And after two years . . . I’ve done that. This is why I wanted you to know. Nobody else does. I saw no point in telling Jonah or even my brother. It served no purpose.”

  And yet he felt it was serving a purpose to tell me. Knowing that this was important to him raised the friendship level a little more.

  “Thank you for sharing this with me,” I said.

  He reached over and gave my hand a squeeze as a smile crossed his face. “Thank you for understanding. Now . . . I have something else to tell you, and if you’d rather not do it, that’s fine.”

  I shifted in my seat, curious to hear what he had to say.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Well, as you know, my brother and his wife live in Jacksonville. So I gave him a call last night to tell him I was going to be there today. Zak and Sue have invited us to their home for dinner. If you don’t want to go, I certainly understand.”

  Meeting his family? Call me silly, but a feeling of warmth came over me, and I felt special.

  “I’d love to meet your brother and his wife. It was so nice of them to invite us. Of course we’ll go.”

  “Oh, that’s great. I think you’ll like them.”

  “They have two boys, right?”

  “Yes. Ian is thirteen and Sam just turned eleven.”

  “I look forward to meeting them.”

  Ben pulled into my driveway, and after being away for two months I was surprised at the lack of nostalgia I felt. I had wondered if perhaps when I saw my home again I’d be ready to come back. I hadn’t even walked inside yet and already I knew I wasn’t.

  Ben leaned over to look out the passenger window. “What a lovely house.”

  “Thanks,” I said, reaching for the keys in my bag.

  “You have a caretaker for the house, right?” Ben asked as we walked inside.

  “Yes, it’s a property management company. They arranged for a cleaning service to come and somebody checks on the house frequently.” I tapped the security pad inside the door. “And the house is protected with a security system.”

  “Would you like some coffee?” I asked, heading to the kitchen.

  “Sure, that would be good.”

  Ben sat at the counter while I prepared the coffee machine.

  “You’re still not sure if you’re staying in Ormond Beach or coming back here?”

  I shook my head as I pushed the button for the coffee to brew. “No, but I love Ormond Beach, so I’m in no hurry to get back here. If ever.”

  I saw a smile cross his face. “If you decide to stay down there full-time, would you put this place on the market?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I think it would sell pretty easily. Come on,” I said. “Let’s go get those paintings out of my closet.”

  Ben helped me carry the four paintings out to the
living room, where we leaned them against the sofa. They were approximately 22” x 28” in size and covered with padding.

  “Have you seen these before?” he asked.

  “I’ve seen one of them. The one that was similar to what Elaine has. But no. I don’t think I’ve seen the others. When I moved them from my mother’s house, I never bothered to take off the padding to look at them. I guess I didn’t think they were that important.”

  I carefully removed the padding from the first one. Holding it on each side, I leaned it back against the sofa and gasped. It was the largest of the three and showed a woman sitting on a patio in a blue Adirondack chair holding a baby in her arms. There was no doubt that woman was my mother. And the baby had to be me.

  “Oh, my God,” I whispered. “That has to be my mother holding me.”

  Ben stepped back to get a better look. “It’s really beautiful. The artist caught the tenderness of the moment.”

  I nodded. “She did,” I said, as I picked it up and saw SL in small letters on the bottom left of the painting. “SL. That has to be the artist.”

  “Does that ring a bell at all?”

  I slowly shook my head. “No. Not at all,” I began to say, and then something occurred to me. “Wait. Sebine. Sebine is the name of the woman my mother lived with here in Jacksonville when I was born. Actually, my middle name is Sebine. My mom never mentioned her very often to me. She only said the woman had been very kind to her.”

  “Had they stayed in touch? Did you ever meet her?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not sure, but I don’t think they stayed in touch after my mother moved back to Pennsylvania. If they did, I wasn’t aware of it.”

  “So do you think Sebine is the artist?” Ben asked.

  “I don’t know. It seems the more I find out, the less I know.”

  I removed padding from another painting. “This is the one that Elaine has,” I said. I stared at the patio area with the three blue Adirondack chairs and felt a shiver go through me. I then took off the padding of the third painting and saw my mother sitting on a sofa, head bent, holding knitting needles and a small white sweater on her lap.

  “This is also my mother,” I said before uncovering the last painting. This one showed a toddler sitting on a carpet with two large dogs on either side. One was a black lab, the other a golden retriever. A feeling of déjà vu came over me.

  “Something wrong?” Ben asked.

  “I know this child is me. I’d say I was probably around two. And the dogs . . . they seem familiar to me. Like I know them.”

  “Maybe they belonged to Sebine, and you remember them from living at her house.”

  I nodded slowly as I struggled to untangle what all of this meant.

  We both stood there staring at the paintings for a few minutes.

  “Let’s have that coffee,” I said, walking to the kitchen.

  I filled two mugs and joined Ben at the counter.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I am. Just confused. If the artist is Sebine and she’s the same woman my mother lived with, I don’t understand why she never showed me these paintings. I don’t get it.”

  “Hmm, I understand what you’re saying.” Ben took a sip of coffee. “But maybe there’s more to the story. Maybe it would have been too painful for your mother to discuss any of this with you.”

  “Well, she certainly was a private person. She never shared very much with me. Despite all my questions. All I know is that she worked at that hotel on Amelia Island, left there, went to live with a woman named Sebine in Jacksonville, attended secretarial school, supposedly married somebody named Jim Garfield, had me, and after my father died, she returned to Pennsylvania.”

  “I think many people were like that back then. People are much more open today. But years ago, almost all families had secrets of one kind or another. It’s just the way society was. It certainly wasn’t like today with social media and reality TV shows where everyone shares their dirty laundry.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. And I’m truly not sure which way is better.”

  “Probably somewhere in the middle,” Ben said.

  I let out a sigh. “You’re probably right. Let’s finish our coffee and go visit your brother.”

  Rhonda March 1970

  I had been in Florida fourteen months and my entire life had changed. Most of all it had turned into one huge lie.

  After lying to my mother about my pregnancy, the next lie came when I put a false name for my baby’s father on the birth certificate. I simply made up the name Jim Garfield. Then I compounded this lie by telling my mother I had gotten married the previous September. I fabricated a story based partly on truth and partly on fiction.

  I had met a nice fellow the summer before. Cal Hampton was the son of the pharmacist who owned the local drug store. I would stop in for a vanilla coke at the soda fountain and Cal would wait on me. He was a few years older than I was and friendly. He could see that I was pregnant but it didn’t seem to matter. We would chat about music and movies and current affairs. I’m not sure if there might have been more on his part, but for me, he was simply a friend. And I desperately longed for a friend. The girls in my secretarial class had formed a clique and I hadn’t been included. That was fine with me—but I still yearned for a companion. And a friend had appeared with Cal.

  So when I told my mother I had married Jim Garfield, I told her he was the son of the local pharmacist. As for her new granddaughter—I told her I was pregnant at Christmas, but she still didn’t know I had given birth eight weeks before.

  I looked at my daughter sleeping soundly in the carriage on the patio. I reached over to adjust the blanket covering her and smiled. Both the pregnancy and delivery had gone very well. The pain of labor had been intense, but all thought of it had been forgotten as soon as I saw my baby. Petra. I had known all through my pregnancy if I had a boy, he would be named Peter, and if a girl, Petra.

  I let out a sigh and resumed working on the sweater I was making for my daughter. My daughter. And Peter’s daughter. Yet he had no idea. And he never would.

  “Did you have lunch?” Sebine asked as she walked to the patio from her studio.

  “Yes, I did. It’s so beautiful out I thought I’d sit here and knit for a while.”

  Sebine peeked into the carriage. “And our little angel is sleeping away. She’s an excellent baby, isn’t she?”

  I laughed. “She really is, but I think you’re a tad biased.”

  I had been surprised at how both Sebine and Lillian fussed over Petra. It was obvious they adored her.

  “Nah, I’m just being honest.” She looked down at Sonny and Cher curled up on either side of the carriage. “Well, she’s certainly well protected, isn’t she?”

  I nodded. “They really take their job seriously. It’s great that they like her so much. I was worried they might be a little jealous.”

  “I knew they’d be great with her. Dogs usually love babies. I’m going to get some sweet tea. Would you like some?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  Sebine joined me a few minutes later and sat beside me in the Adirondack chair tilting her neck from side to side, stretching out muscles.

  “I’m working on the painting of you holding Petra. I think it’s going to be beautiful.”

  “You’re such an accomplished artist. It must be wonderful to do something you enjoy so much.”

  “It is. I’ve been fortunate to be able to pursue my career as an artist. But you’re turning into quite the secretary as well.”

  I smiled. I would be resuming the last semester of my classes in a few weeks and by the fall I would have my certificates in typing, shorthand, and bookkeeping. Lillian’s office manager Darlene was now pregnant. She planned to stay until August and then I would take over her position at Lillian’s practice.

  “I’m so grateful to be working for Lillian. You have no idea how comforting it is to be able to bring Petra to the office with me.”

&n
bsp; It was Lillian’s idea to set up a portacrib in the break room where I could keep an eye on her as I worked. We had decided when she got bigger and began crawling, I would hire a woman to stay with her at the house.

  “Are you kidding? Lillian loves having Petra right there. Not to mention all the patients gushing over her.”

  I laughed. “Hmm, you’re probably right.”

  “So how’s Cal doing?”

  “He’s good, but I’m worried he might be enlisting in the army. He’s been talking about it recently.”

  Sebine nodded. “Yeah, so many of the young guys have either been drafted or enlisted.”

  I thought of Earle, who had adamantly refused to go. I had gotten a few postcards from Cynthia when they got to San Francisco but the last one was from Vancouver. All she said was they would be staying there for a while, which led me to believe he was a draft dodger.

  “He’s a really nice guy,” Sebine said. “No chance of anything developing between the two of you?”

  I shook my head. “No. Not at all. I like him a lot as a friend. But . . . that’s it.”

  Sebine blew out a breath. “You know, Rhonda, you’re barely twenty. You have your whole life ahead of you. I know how you loved Peter, and you’ll probably never love like that again. But it doesn’t mean you can’t have a relationship with somebody else.”

  I knew what I felt in my heart, but I said, “Yeah, maybe.” I also knew that the soul was only capable of one great love in a lifetime—and Peter Maxwell would always be mine, leaving no room for anybody else.

  Chapter 18

  The dinner at Zak and Sue’s house had been a lot of fun. They were a happy couple who appeared well suited, and both had welcomed me into their home as if they’d known me forever. I enjoyed watching the sibling banter between Ben and his brother. Zak was two years older and kept joking that he was also the favorite of their parents. I had found out that their parents still resided in upstate New York but would be relocating to Fort Lauderdale in September.