I think that if Mimi hadn’t wanted to get the rest of the story, she would have slapped Mrs. Reynolds. She didn’t look compassionate at all. But Mrs. Reynolds didn’t seem to notice and she continued,
“A few days later I asked Charles what happened to the other little girl, and he said Mackey, the blond boy had taken her to his, sister’s house. He wouldn’t tell me anymore and I was afraid to ask.” She looked at Tracy, “Maybe you could try to find a blond boy named Mackey?” She dozed off again.
Tracy jumped up and handed the tape recorder to me.
“When she starts talking again, hit this button,” she told me, “I’m going to make a phone call and get someone to get on our data bases on the computer with the little information we have and see what they can find.”
After Tracy left, Mimi motioned me over by the window, “It’s taking everything in me to not deck this broad. All I’m hearing are a lot excuses. She had friends back then. The sorority sisters would have helped her. We were always there for each other. She wanted to marry him. If she didn’t have enough backbone to help herself she could have at least helped two little girls, no…”
“Vera, Vera” Mrs. Reynolds’s voice was barely a whisper now. We went back to the bedside. “Thank you so much for being here for me. You’ve always been so kind and good.” Mimi looked at me and made a gagging motion, but Mrs. Reynolds didn’t seem to notice.
I turned on the tape recorder but she had little to add. Most of it was self pity, telling us how she had suffered throughout the years. But the last thing she said before she closed her eyes for good was the worse and it chilled my blood.
What she said was, “I hope he didn’t do anything to hurt Julia when he visited her in her room all those nights in the middle of the night. Let’s pray he didn’t.” I don’t like to sound disrespectful of the dead, but I was glad the old bat was gone.
Remembering back to the way she treated me when I was in her house and husband wasn’t around, I didn’t buy her apology.
As we started out of her room a nurse came in and began removing tubes and wires. Mr. Reynolds was nowhere to be seen. When Tracy rounded the corner we soon discovered why.
“The stupid fool tried to skip bail, but we expected it. He was picked up at the airport and he’s now back in jail. No more bail for him. I was hoping he’d try this. Now we don’t have to worry about him for awhile. I’m going to take you two back to the bungalow. You must be beat. Then I’m going to find me a hotel room.”
“Just stay with us, Tracy. We have plenty of room and you’re probably more tired than us,” Mimi said.
Tracy paused for a couple of seconds, then agreed.
CHAPTER 17
We all slept late the next morning. Not late for me but late for them. We asked Tracy if she wanted to have breakfast with us in the coffee shop at the hospital, but she declined. She said she wanted get right to work.
“I’ll call you if I find out anything more about Mackey, Hannah, or Mark,” she said.
We were having coffee and their special homemade cinnamon rolls in the coffee shop, when Dr. Anna came and sat down with us.
“The nursing staff tells me that Julia had a good night, the first since she’s been here. She didn’t wake up screaming once.”
“Is she still being sedated?” asked Mimi.
“Not anymore. You’ve probably already guessed by now, I’m not one to prescribe drugs unless someone’s physical health is endangered and I feel it’s more important to get the necessary rest. I think it’s important for her to have natural dreams, since I believe in dream work, and incorporate it into my therapy.
“Again, I’m in the minority on this and there’s really no scientific evidence of this, just a lot of case studies. But this is one of the reasons that psychology doesn’t work as a science. It’s more of an art and you either have enough insight and natural talent to work with someone or you don’t. Woo, I lapsed back onto my soap box again. Where’s that waiter? I want one of those delicious cinnamon rolls and a cup of coffee.”
Just then a waiter walked up, “I know what you want Dr. Anna, and it’s on the way. We had to bake an extra batch today and they’re just taking them out of the oven, nice and hot. How about you two? You need anything else? Okay, be right back, Dr. Anna.”
“Thanks Chester. As soon as I finish here we can go see Julia. Do either of you have any questions before we go?”
Mimi and I had been talking about this before Dr. Anna joined us and didn’t have any questions. I could tell Mimi was both nervous and excited. I took her hand and squeezed it and she squeezed back.
When Dr. Anna finished her breakfast, we went down the hall and stopped in front of Julia’s room. Dr. Anna again took the key out of her pocket and unlocked the door.
“I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised Judith,” she said as she pushed the door open.
The first time I saw her here, Julia had been curled up in the corner. Today, she was sitting on the side of the bed. She was wearing a bright green sweater and jeans. Her hair was up in a ponytail. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and was barefoot. I thought at that moment, she was the most beautiful person I had ever seen. I happen to glance at Mimi and she had tears in her eyes.
Julia got off the bed and ran toward me and grabbed me in a long hug.
Pulling back, she said, “I’m so glad to see you. Is this the special visitor that Dr. Anna told me about?” She said looking at Mimi.
“This is Mimi, My grandmother. Mimi, this is Julia”
I could tell that Mimi was itching to hug her and I was surprised when Julia reached over and hugged Mimi.
“I’m so glad to meet you. Where do you live? Do you live in New Orleans too?”
“No dear, I live in Houston.”
“Houston, huh?” Julia said, “I don’t think I’ve ever been to Houston. Unless it was when I was real little and just don’t remember it. I think my parents used to live there but that was before I was born.” Again she was chattering away. “Have you seen my parents?”
I looked over at Dr. Anna who was standing by the door.
“I think it’s a good idea if you spend some time with Judith right now,” Dr. Anna said. “We’ll talk about your parents in individual therapy later on today.”
“Hey, it’s all right with me. I feel like I’m finally being allowed to grow up. I love them dearly but sometimes I would like to have my own life. I mean, cut the cord already. I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but for the first time in my life I feel like I have a life of my own.
“It’s just a damn shame I had to end up in a nut house to get this. There’s just one thing I don’t understand. You called her Judith,” She looked at me, “Is that what you want to be called now?”
When I said that I did, she said, “Well it’s all right with me. In fact, I like it. It sounds a lot like my own name.”
We didn’t stay long and I promised her I would come back later in the afternoon to visit with her.
As we were walking down the hall, Mimi laughed, “She’s still the chatterbox. You were always the quiet one and she was all over the place. By the way, we need to tell Anna that there’s a possibility of sexual abuse.
“I avoided it this morning due to the time limit. I was anxious to go to and see for myself that she was okay. Judith, why don’t you go on back to the bungalow and let me catch up with Anna so I can tell her about our suspicions. Here, take this key, I’ll see you later.”
I decided to walk around the grounds on my way back. The setting was beautiful. It was amazing to me that this place was right on the beach but at the same time being among so many huge old oak trees. I discovered a swimming pool, Jacuzzi, and tennis courts. I decided to ask Dr. Anna if I could bring Julia out later this afternoon. I thought it would be good for her, but of course I wasn’t the doctor.
I was sitting on the porch in the swing when Mimi came back. I had been watching all the people walk past coming and going to the hospital to se
e loved ones.
“I hope you don’t mind, Judith,” she said, “but I need to have a little nap. I don’t usually run out of steam like this. I think it is emotional overload. Anna said she already suspected sexual abuse because of Julia’s confused feelings about her father.
“She’s going to have a session with her now to tell her about her mother’s death. She said she might have to sedate her after this and you might have to put off your meeting today. She suspects that Julia is going to be feeling a lot of guilt about her mother’s death if there was sexual abuse by her father.
“This sometimes happens. The way I understand it, she felt like the other woman. I don’t understand it very well. But I’ll tell you right now, I’m damned mad about everything you and Julia have had to endure because of those two.
“Anna gave me a little pill to take to relax me but I don’t think I’ll take it. I might split it with you tonight. It’s called Xanax, 0.25 milligrams. You might want to rest for a little while too.”
She went into the cottage to rest but I decided to sit there. It was so peaceful. I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew, Dr. Anna was gently shaking my shoulder.
“Judith, I don’t think you will get to see Julia today. I had to sedate her. She took her mother’s death pretty hard. I think she has so many unresolved issues with her mother.”
“She was doing so much better I thought she would be upset but able to handle it.”
“Julia is more fragile than you realize, Judith. She has become very good at compartmentalizing, that is, she can keep different parts of her life separate. When she’s with you, she can totally focus on you and forget about anything unpleasant in her life.
“This defense mechanism has worked for her in the past, but now it’s not working, because all the different components are overlapping.
“Believe it or not, it’s a good sign. It means that she is becoming more real. But I’ve got to tell you, she has some rough times ahead. This is not going to be a quick fix. I will not give her meds to help her function and let her go. We will work through this. At one point, I’ll want to do some family therapy. Also both you and Julia need to do some rage work.”
“I don’t feel angry.”
“I know you don’t right now and it might take awhile to get to it, but it will be worth it.”
This kind of scared me. Mimi came out while I was thinking about this and Dr. Anna repeated what she had told me. After she left Mimi sat down on the swing beside me.
“Judith we have some decisions to make. It sounds like we could be here awhile. I don’t see any sense in renting the house in New Orleans right now. I think we should plan on staying right here for now. You need to call you friend, Rosa, and make sure they are out of the hotel suite so I can let that go too.”
When I called Rosa she said, “I’m glad you called. What’s going on?”
When I caught her up on everything and asked if she was still in the hotel room, she said, “No! If you’ll remember, I didn’t want to go there anyway. John has pretty much moved in with me. I have a feeling you won’t be coming back here anyway. I almost forgot! What about Ben? He’ll be here in a few days.”
“I’d love to see him, but I’ve got to concentrate on this right now. I’m going to be in therapy too. Isn’t that wild?”
“Good luck with that. Better you than me. If Ben wants your phone number down there, you want me to give it to him?”
“Yeah, that would be nice.”
When I got off the phone, Mimi said, “Since we have the rest of the day to ourselves, let’s do something fun to take our minds off all this. Our nation’s oldest city, St Augustine, is just down the road and I have never even seen it. We could rent a car and drive down there along the beach route. That’s one possibility.
“The other is that I’ve been dying to take you shopping. Let’s do both. We can drive along the coast and maybe find a seafood restaurant where we can stop for lunch. When we get to St. Augustine, we can get on one of those sightseeing trains and do the whole tourists bit. After that we can go shopping. Does that sound good to you?”
“Well, actually Mimi there’s not much shopping in St. Augustine. When I was down here before, Julia and I came up here to Jacksonville to shop. Why don’t we save the shopping for another day? It looks like we’re going to be here awhile anyway.”
“All right then let’s just play tourist today and go for seafood. I’m going inside to arrange for a car.”
CHAPTER 18
Mimi had rented a Porsche 911 convertible. I laughed in delight when I saw it. I had the coolest grandmother. Since we were already on the beach, we continued south towards St. Augustine.
When we passed through Ponte Vedra Beach, Mimi said, “Oh, this is where a lot of the golf pros live. I never knew exactly where it was before.”
It was just wonderful spending a day with my grandmother, and I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world.
After riding along in silence for awhile, I said, “Tell me about my parents, Mimi.”
“Let’s stop at this restaurant up ahead that I keep seeing advertised. It’s called Paw Paw’s. According to the signs, they have crab cakes. That sounds good to me. Then we can sit and talk. I won’t be concentrating on getting used to driving this sports car.”
We found the restaurant a couple miles down the road. It looked like a shack, but I loved it right away. We had a choice of sitting out on the porch or the dining room inside. We chose the porch. We both ordered sweet iced tea to go with our crab cakes.
The waiter told us that the restaurant was built on top of an ancient sand dune. The porch was jutting out over the ocean. We sat and watched the waves until the waiter brought our iced tea. Even though it was toward the end of November, it was still quite warm.
As we were sipping our iced tea, Mimi began to talk.
“Your dad was an only child. He was always a good-natured little boy. When he was a baby, he didn’t seem to mind whether he was laid down or held. When he began to talk, we knew he was smart. He made all A’s. In high school he was what you’d probably call a nerd, but he made friends easily.”
Just then the waiter brought our food. It looked and smelled delicious. He asked if we needed anything else and Mimi told him we were all set. When the waiter walked away, Mimi continued.
“We had hired a nanny for him when he was about two,” Mimi continued, “Her name was Hannah, and she was allowed to bring her own little boy with her. Her little boy’s name was Mark. Now understand, Judith, we hired a nanny because we were in the process of building up McCain Oil. I was helping with all the secretarial and technician work.
“Phillip had taken on a partner, Charles Reynolds, who we thought was our friend. At first, all the money was going out and not much coming in. Phillip and I had both grown up poor, but Phillip had worked for Gulf Oil out of college, and we had saved up to start our own company. We found we hadn’t saved nearly enough, so when Charles wanted to come on board, we welcomed him. He had been working for Shell Oil.
“We were renting a big old house in the Montrose area of Houston. It was a huge house but cold in the winter and hot in the summer. It was large enough for us to fix up separate quarters for Hannah and Mark.”
I was so engrossed in what Mimi was saying that I didn’t, at first, hear the waiter. “He asked if you wanted dessert, Judith.”
“Just coffee,” I said.
“Same for me,” she said.
We sat in silence watching the pelicans dive for fish until we got our coffee. Mimi continued.
“Where was I? Oh, yeah, we were all struggling along until finally we found our first big oil field in offshore Gulf of Mexico. We bought both Phillip Jr. and Mark brand-new bikes. Phillip bought me a mink coat and bought himself a Jaguar. I cringe now when I think of that coat. I will not wear animal fur today.
“Anyway, your dad was in the second grade by then. A lot of money was coming in really fast, and we soon moved to the Ri
ver Oaks area. Our house had servant’s quarters in the back, and that’s where Hannah and Mark lived. Since both boys were in school by then, Hannah helped with the housework also.
“I did all the cooking because I like to cook, and I had more time now that I didn’t have to work in the company anymore. We were soon involved in all the high society functions, charity balls and things like that. Phillip also had more time because he was able to hire some other geologists and geophysicists.
“It wasn’t until two years later that Phillip began to notice something wrong with the books, and he hired an accountant. Of course, I already told you this part.
“If Phillip would have sent Charles to jail, you would have not been kidnapped. But what good does it do to look back? When they were in high school, Mark started dating Jennifer, your mother. He dated her for about three years, until they all went off to Austin to the University of Texas.
“There, they all started hanging out together as they would say. Before long, Mark had noticed another girl named Gloria and he started dating her. And your father and mother started dating. When they all got home, Mark and Phillip Jr. went to work for McCain Oil. Jennifer got a job with Merrill Lynch as a stockbroker and did very well.”
The sun was going down, and we had two refills on our coffee. Mimi looked at her watch. “I can’t believe it’s so late. What do you want to do?”
“I can show you around down on St. George street. Actually, they have a lot of good shopping there but not like shopping in a mall. I think you’ll like it. Julia took me there when I was here before.”
We ended up on St. George Street and I found out that my grandmother loved to shop. She bought shoes, purses, jewelry and even a sharp looking dress for herself. She bought me several things but my favorite was a purse she bought at a place called The Bag Lady. It was the prettiest purse I had ever seen.
“I just love this place,” she said. “Why didn’t I know about it before? I would have made a special trip just to shop here. We have to come back here Judith.”
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