Hearts That Survive

by Yvonne Lehman

  Finally she dried her eyes and resumed her work but shook her head looking at the report. Amazing, how a life could be reduced to one page. A brief description, a bit of history, sometimes a comment by a loved one.

  Then she read the rest of Beau's letter. There being so many people with the same name was one reason they hadn't tracked him down sooner. But this one seemed likely. Beau was busy on a project, but Joanna could contact Alan Morris.

  One of her duties at the museum was to contact anyone related to the sinking. The fiftieth anniversary memorial would be held in less than two years. The plans for that were already under way.

  Joanna had been in love with the book and the possibility of a movie. She'd visualized their finding little Henry, now a grown man, and hearing his story. She thought he'd be proud of his dad for writing such a wonderful book. Now she learned he died an alcoholic.

  Beau's letter said she shouldn't mention the movie. He likely felt as she did, that he might not be the kind of person with whom he wanted to conduct business. She would just try to find out if Alan Morris's dad was Henry Stanton-Jones, but the thrill of it wasn't there now.

  75

  Alan Morris had accomplished one major feat in twenty seven years. He'd become a failure. Although sobriety wasn't doing much for him, at least he hadn't followed in his dad's footsteps. He added yet to that thought.

  His dad died of alcoholic cirrhosis that had led to kidney failure. He left nothing of value. Alan couldn't criticize though, because he was nowhere. He'd tried his hand at writing the great American novel and had visited a couple of major publishing houses in New York. He took editors to lunch and established a short-lived relationship with a first reader, but still got rejected—by the editors and the first reader.

  Newspaper reporting for a small town suburb of New York City and an occasional article in a magazine about subjects that didn't interest him weren't exactly his idea of success.

  Besides that, the actress he'd met after the first reader also broke his heart when she jilted him.

  He had friends he invited over to watch football, or he went to games and vented by yelling at the players and referees. And sometimes at the crowd. The bigger the crowd, the better.

  Sometimes his buddies talked about when they were kids and their dads took them to ballgames. His never had. Said he couldn't stand the noise and yelling. Then he'd drink himself silly and fall asleep and later wake up the entire household, yelling "Feeb! Feeb! Feeb!" because of a nightmare and didn't know what it meant.

  Afterward, those buddies went home to wives and children. He went home to a lonely apartment, where a typewriter sat on the kitchen table sporting a blank sheet of paper, and a refrigerator stood empty, begging for food.

  Today was no different. Same old routine. Report what's going on in the suburbs. Don't think about bigger papers. They have their city reporters, and the suburbs can't compete. The murders aren't as drastic, the fires are not as big, and the high school football games are not as impressive as the pro games. He'd given up looking for the big story. When his dad gave up, he'd turned to the bottle. Alan had hated that. Now he began to understand.

  He trudged up four flights of stairs, weary from chasing a false lead for half a day, and threw the mail on the kitchen countertop. While the coffee perked, he tore open the envelopes with his finger. Bills! Junk mail.

  He came to one from an unfamiliar address. A museum? Nova Scotia? He laughed and ripped open the envelope. "Want a donation, huh? I could use what you spent on that stamp." The aroma of the coffee livened his senses, so he poured a cup. After an ample gulp, he unfolded the letter and read.

  Dear Mr. Morris:

  Due to previously undisclosed information about the sunken Titanic, and after intensive investigations, we have reason to believe you may be a descendant of a victim of the disaster.

  We have important material that should interest you. Please contact us at your earliest convenience.

  Plans are currently under way for the Fiftieth Anniversary Memorial of the sinking of the Titanic. Relatives of victims and survivors will be recognized in special ceremonies. We would appreciate knowing of your intentions so we might prepare properly.

  Sincerely yours,

  Joanna Bettencourt

  Assistant to the Director

  If he'd had a mouthful of coffee, he surely would have spewed it across the room. What kind of farce was this? Organizations offered to include your name for a price. Was this something like that? Besides, so what if he was a descendant of a Titanic victim?

  Turning toward the trash can with the letter, he laughed aloud. Now, if whomever had left him a bundle of money . . .

  Whoa!

  A lot of rich people died when the Titanic sank. He took another look at the letter. Information. Investigation.

  There had to be a catch here somewhere. But, looking toward the blank paper in the typewriter, he reminded himself he was supposed to be a reporter. Maybe he could get some kind of story out of this. A lot of people brought up the Titanic almost as often as they did World War II, their surgeries, and the weather.

  He studied the letterhead. Halifax Museum, Nova Scotia. Couldn't afford to go there.

  Tomorrow, he'd call and check it out. Maybe.

  When tomorrow came, however, he was reminded that it never really came. It was today again, and he was still in the same rut. Some of the old stirrings started. Like someday that big story would fall from the sky. But only the rain kept falling.

  He might get some mileage out of this.

  He'd put a little mileage on that rattletrap of his and see what awaited him at the museum.

  So this is what it had come to. If you can't write the great American novel, go to a place that commemorates times and people long gone.

  They could put him on display.

  That would be fine, as long as they fed him.

  76

  Joanna was sitting at the desk in the entry of the museum when the door swung open. In her peripheral vision she glimpsed casual pants and a knit shirt. She lifted her index finger to indicate she would be right with him. "Yes," she said into the phone, "I will send official confirmation. Thank you. Goodbye."

  Just as her left hand meant to hang up and her right hand meant to come down out of the air, she looked up. The receiver banged to the desk, the finger pointed at him, and her mouth opened to say, "May I help . . . ?"

  But her eyes stuck. Her words stuck. Her entire being shouted, "Help me!"

  Oh, this should not happen.

  He should not be in her dream this way. He should be with his wife in that country garden. She obviously had read the book too many times, had obsessed about that movie too much.

  Go away.

  But the phone was urnt-urnt-urnt-urnt-urnt-urnt-urnturnt-urnting until he picked it up and casually placed it on its base and it stopped and she wondered if he had a magic formula to stop it in her heart.

  He'd walked off the back of the book and stood there now, right in front of her, embodying the description she'd heard many times. Tall, dark, extremely good-looking.

  "Joanna Bettencourt," rolled off his silver tongue, and she almost rolled off her chair when he said, "I believe you summoned me."

  That proved it was a dream. Or worse, an apparition.

  "I-I didn't summon anything—anybody."

  "There's another Joanna here?"

  The apparition gestured to her shoulder. She threw her hand up, and it landed on her name tag.

  "Alan Morris," he said.

  He didn't offer his hand. Maybe he knew a woman should be the first to offer—or did he know she'd not just lose her cool but would completely melt?

  And he wasn't the picture on the book cover.

  He wasn't in black and white.

  This one showed up in living color.

  "I believe you wrote that we might have a little business to conduct." A jaunty grin displayed his dimples. A touch of silver gleamed in his deep blue eyes. "I'm all yours."


  Everything in her struggled against saying, "Thank you."

  But why shouldn't she? He'd come in response to her letter.

  Maybe he'd come as an answer to Armand's prayer. To her longing for someone able to sweep her off her feet. Someone to give her a great love story to tell over the years, to cherish for decades like Armand and Caroline, like Lydia and John, and Lydia and Craven.

  The grandson of the novelist who wrote about the English Country Garden.

  Perfect!

  She showed him the stateroom keys that had been found in Stanton-Jones's and Lady Lavinia's clothing.

  "What's—" he questioned, "that got to do with anything. Those names? Lady? The double name?"

  He knew nothing of them. "That's it?" Disappointment shrouded his face. "You have the wrong person."

  "You'll know when I show you something else."

  He followed her home in his car.

  When Caroline saw him, she grew emotional and wanted to hug him. She did. They sat at the kitchen table. Caroline handed him Once Upon. He looked blandly at the cover and turned it over.

  He was startled. "My dad resembled him."

  Caroline told him about Stanton-Jones on the Titanic, and little Henry on the Carpathia, the birthday party, the package he'd held onto, the Meccano set.

  "I have that set," he said with wonder. "Everything in the house burned. Dad kept the set in the trunk of his car. Said he'd had it since he was a child."

  Caroline told him what his sister had written. "Mary and Bobby Freeman forbade her to mention the disaster, said Henry was too young to remember and if she told him it would warp her brother's mind. He had nightmares," Caroline said. "He would call for Phoebe and—"

  "Wait," Alan interrupted. "He'd call for what?"

  "Phoebe. His sister."

  "Phoebe," he said slowly. "Dad had nightmares and would scream out something like 'feeb.' I thought it had no meaning." Alan raised his hand to his hair and clenched it, as if this were all a wad of something difficult to untangle.

  "He never mentioned a sister. But he often said he had nothing." Alan spoke the words self-consciously, as if he hadn't meant to imply his dad considered him nothing.

  Armand spoke wisely, "Childhood trauma, it sounds like. Maybe he didn't remember the tragedy, but he experienced it. It was in there."

  Joanna wondered if Alan was living with childhood trauma. She shared the information Beau had sent. "That had to be horrible, your watching that fire."

  Alan shook his head. "Dad didn't let me watch the burning. I just saw the ashes."

  That held the sound of a double meaning.

  "Dad was in the yard. I'd just gone inside when it happened. The boom. The flash. He rushed for me. By the time he got me to safety, the house was engulfed. He held my face to his chest and kept murmuring that he was there, to listen to his heart and I'd know everything would be all right."

  Caroline wept. When she was able to speak, she told him about being in the boat. Told him how she held Henry, what she told him, and that Phoebe kept saying she was there.

  Alan's voice trembled, "If either of us had known, things might have been different."

  Armand touched Alan's arm. "We can't do anything about the if 's. We deal with what is."

  Alan nodded. "I learned about that in the war. Fight and survive."

  They agreed, and because Lydia's secrets were known now, Caroline began to tell about precious little Henry as a ring bearer. They all laughed and delighted in the memories. She told Alan about Lady Lavinia. Through the day, through dinner, into the evening.

  Finally, they decided there were so many stories, so much to talk about, they'd invite others to tell him more. In the meantime, he could stay at the lake house.

  Caroline had a good feeling about him, and Armand gave Joanna a knowing glance before taking Alan to the lake house.

  Joanna hoped Alan would get busy with his broom, because her feet were ripe for the sweeping.

  77

  Alan thought he'd found a gold mine in meeting the beautiful Joanna but realized she wasn't someone to toy with, but a girl a guy might take seriously, something he hadn't considered before. Not that he'd had much opportunity in the past few years, having been on the front lines with a weapon in his hands.

  He was fascinated that she held in her hazel eyes the green secret Armand told him about, inherited from her grandmother. Joanna cooked a dinner for him in the lake house. They walked along the lake, watched the sunset, embraced in the twilight, kissed in the dark, and returned to the lake house, where she walked right past as if without a thought of going inside. She took him to church on Sunday. He hadn't done that since his childhood, with two parents, a lifetime ago.

  Joanna called Phoebe, and Alan talked to her. Phoebe cried. He had an aunt. His dad's sister.

  He had friends and family and a girlfriend who were beyond anything he could have imagined, and he was an imaginative fellow. He'd never known family life could be like this. He met Caroline's family and Bess's family and heard their stories.

  He said he'd send for the Meccano set, but they didn't want to chance it being lost in the mail. His landlord would be notified, a servant . . .

  Servant?

  . . . would be sent to get it, and Lydia Dowd would fly in with it.

  Lydia Dowd. Beautiful older woman with hair like snow. Eyes like sapphires. Money written all over her, and around her neck and on her fingers, looking like a jewel herself. With some people you just knew. Anybody in New York knew the name.

  Lydia, as she insisted he call her, told him a shortened version of her story. Even so, it sounded like a best-seller to him. Alan's dad had been a ring bearer in her wedding on the Titanic.

  Who wouldn't sit—stand up and listen to that?

  He remained sitting, but it wasn't easy. Stanton-Jones, his grandfather, had become John's best friend on the Titanic. These people had been first-class passengers on the Titanic. They treated him, one who struggled to pay rent, like a firstclass person.

  Their stories, his story, became bigger than life. But he could get it on paper, and it would be his life.

  Each night before turning out the lamp, he stared at Once Upon on the bedside table. He hadn't read it. Just reading the author's name was enough.

  Henry George Stanton-Jones, II.

  What a name.

  So Alan Freeman Morris's dad was really Henry George Stanton-Jones, III.

  Or, Henry George Freeman Morris Stanton-Jones, III.

  Alan was, if he took his dad's name, Alan Freeman Morris Henry George Stanton-Jones, IV.

  That wouldn't even fit on a book. He could use it and take up two lines or shorten it to Alan Stanton-Jones, IV.

  He could write the Titanic book in time for the fiftieth memorial. It would be celebrated all over, even in England and Ireland.

  At last, the great American novel was laid in his lap, meant to be. His time had come.

  They all acted like he was somebody. Well, his grandfather was a famous novelist. His great-grandmother and greatgrandfather were royalty.

  As if that was not enough, they all became ecstatic about Lydia's son arriving.

  Beau Dowd!

  No. Couldn't be that one. The biggest movie producer in Hollywood?

  But he was.

  And he moved into the lake house with Alan. He wanted to get to know him.

  This slowed down Alan's interaction with Joanna.

  After all, he had to make a living. No, make that a mint.

  Beau talked to him like he was just another guy, so Alan reciprocated. He was a descendant of royalty, after all. He finally mentioned he might write a book about the Titanic and discovered what he should have known all along. Beau had the rights to everyone's stories. Legal right. Contracts.

  Alan had nothing.

  Until he learned that Beau Dowd needed Alan Morris's legal permission, his being Stanton-Jones' heir, to make a movie of Once Upon.

  Alan stared at the contract
. The advance would enable him to give up the rinky-dink apartment, be financially secure for longer than he could estimate. And he wouldn't need additional work anyway since he'd be consulting on the filming of the movie.

  Considering his newly-acquired background and the association with Beau Dowd, he could almost see the greenbacks covering his life like springtime across a meadow.

  Several weeks later he strolled along the path by the lake while the sun dropped into the horizon and the sky turned dark and he found himself alone.

  Lately, he hadn't given much thought to eye color.

  78

  Joanna had grown up with family and friends who shared their confidences, admitted their weaknesses, and prayed together. She didn't feel the time had come for her to share just yet. She knew Alan needed the acceptance they offered. He had family now. He had friends.

  Having spent a restless night and awakened early, she made coffee, filled her cup, and went out back. Fog lay across the landscape like the mist that lay over her mind.

  "May I join you?" she heard as she stood staring into visibility obscured.

  "Any time." She recognized the voice of Beau, with whom she'd had a special bond since she was twelve and approached him about Once Upon. They'd discussed it as if he valued her opinion.

  Since then, she valued his opinions in particular. In silence she finished her coffee, set the cup on a table, and walked with him through the English gardens Caroline loved to tend. They looked like they belonged in an impressionistic painting.

  "Why did it change, Joanna?" Beau asked.

  "He changed."

  "How?"

  "When I first saw him, I knew my fantasy of a love story like the English Country Garden had arrived," she said. "He could, and did, sweep me off my feet. I fell in love with the good qualities in him." She sighed. "Maybe I thought something was there that wasn't."