by Jean Stone
“Hey.” Ginny’s eyes were dancing, her face brightening. “If you want to find out about your baby, it’s probably your best shot. You can do it, kid. Just think about all the devious things I taught you.”
Jess laughed. “That was a long time ago, Ginny.”
Ginny shrugged. “Like I said, I think it’s your best shot.” She glanced around the restaurant and added, “I wonder if this place has anything decent for dessert.”
Chapter 5
Two days later Jess found herself back on the other side of the continent, standing once more at the front door of the weathered Cape Cod cottage, wondering if she was out of her mind. She was not, after all, Ginny, who had been born with a gene called “brazen” and baptized into a life that necessitated its use for survival. And as Jess held her breath and rang the bell, she reminded herself that Ginny had nothing to lose. Ginny was not the one who had spent five years thinking her daughter was dead. She was not the one who had Maura, who would have to face Maura no matter what the outcome of this search.
She fixed her eyes on the door. Maybe this was wrong. Maybe she should leave. But then she heard the shuffle-shuffle of feet from within and the door opened.
“What do you want now?” barked Miss Taylor’s sister, Loretta.
“Please,” Jess said. And suddenly the words came out in a rush as she told the woman there might have been a mix-up with her baby. “I’m sure it’s a mistake,” she continued. “I was hoping you might have some old records of Miss—of your sister’s. Something to help me find out the truth.”
The old lady grumbled and wiped her gnarled hands on a faded, cross-stitched apron.
“Please,” Jess begged again, “I was so fond of your sister. She meant so much to me.…”
The woman scowled. “I never did understand why Mary Frances wasted her life with young girls who got themselves into trouble.”
Into trouble? Jess winced at the old-fashioned attitude. “My mother died,” she said quietly. “My mother died and I was a scared little girl. I don’t know what I would have done without Miss Taylor. She was so kind … so kind to all us girls.”
“Kind?” The woman laughed, a laugh that bordered on a cackle. “Mary Frances?”
A small heat rose in Jess’s cheeks—a combination of the humiliation she was feeling and a need to defend poor Miss Taylor. “Perhaps we never see our families through the eyes of the strangers who they touch. I don’t expect you to understand, but your sister was like a guardian angel to many, many girls.”
“A guardian angel?” The woman laughed again. “Mary Frances?”
Jess doubted that even Ginny would bother to continue wasting her time on this woman. “Never mind,” she said and began to turn away. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
“Wait a minute,” Loretta Taylor called. “If you’re so fired up to find something, you might as well come in. My sainted sister might never forgive me if I let you get away.”
The cackle was still there, but did not seem as threatening. Jess hesitated, then turned around. “Do you mean it?”
“There are some old boxes in the spare room,” the woman said with a sigh. “But I think it’s just a bunch of junk.”
Jess braved a step forward.
“You’ll have to move them yourself. I’m not lifting a finger.”
“Thank you,” Jess replied. “Thank you very much.” She took a last breath of salt air and went into the house.
The smell of must was choking. Must and mildew and mold spores clung to the unwashed muslin, ball-fringed curtains that hung on the small-paned windows, laced the yellowed quilt that covered a narrow twin bed, and coated the stacks of boxes and tilting piles of magazines that Loretta announced were Saturday Evening Posts, her favorites. She proudly told Jess she had saved every single copy since 1942, even though she’d canceled her subscription twenty years ago when the people changed the format and she didn’t like it anymore.
“Mary Frances used to tell me the magazines were worth something, but that was Mary Frances, always thinking about money. I used to figure that was why she stayed in that business, on account of there was so much money in taking care of rich girls who got into trouble.”
There was that phrase again. Jess hauled the first accessible box onto the creaking bed. She did not say that she doubted there had been much money in “taking care of rich girls who got into trouble”; she could not afford to alienate Miss Taylor’s sister until she found what she was looking for, if there was anything to be found at all.
A corner of old masking tape was curled; Jess easily peeled it back and opened up the box. More dust, more mustiness. Her sinuses throbbed. “Do you think we could have some tea, Loretta?” she asked.
“Tea? Mary Frances loved tea. I, for one, never had much use for it.… Give me a stiff bourbon any day.…”
“Never mind.” Jess looked into the carton, maybe a stiff bourbon was exactly what she needed.
She pulled out a stack of file folders—file folders, but no leather-bound journals. She smiled and hoped Ginny would not be too disappointed. The first folder was marked 1974, the second, 1975. Jess opened the first.
On top lay a yellow lined pad with a handwritten list, divided into five neat columns. Date entered, the title of one column read. Name. Due Date. Birth. Released. She scanned the sheet, her eyes grazing the dozen or more names, including Sally Hankins, Beatrice Willoughby, Janelle Pritchard. A small catch came into Jess’s throat as she realized she was reading the names of other girls, girls who had followed the group she’d been with, girls who, like Jess, Ginny, P.J., and Susan, had become pregnant out of wedlock, had had their babies and given them up to other people, people like Jonathan and Beverly Hawthorne.
Then the page was blurry, and she realized tears had risen in her eyes. “Oh my,” she whispered. “There were so many others.”
“Maybe I’ll go make you that tea after all,” Loretta said. “Never was much for digging up the past.”
Jess was barely aware when Loretta left the room. Instead, she turned the pages of 1974, studying the entries of the girls. Separate small files were included for each: medical records, financial transactions, notes of whom to call in case of emergency. Jess wondered if her father’s name had been included in her file as the emergency contact. Probably not, she thought. Probably it had been his secretary. Not him. For he had not wanted any knowledge of what transpired at Larchwood Hall. He had only wanted it over and done with. He had only wanted it out of his sight, out of his mind.
She sighed and closed the file. Then she dug deeper into the box. The records were for later years, not 1968.
Returning to the closet, Jess pulled out another box. As before, it was packed with files. The first read 1973. She held her breath and lifted it out. Below it lay one marked 1972. Half closing her eyes, Jess reached deeper. And then she pulled it out. The one marked 1968, the one at the bottom of the box, the one from the first year that Larchwood Hall had opened.
“Oh.” The small moan escaped from her throat. Holding the file in her hand, she hesitated. She could not open it. And then she remembered when she had done a similar thing: sitting in her own sewing room at the home she had once shared with Charles, she had unsealed the box of her treasured memories, the box filled with bits and pieces of 1968—her own 1968—bits like the bracelet from the maternity ward, and … and Richard’s Bible. No matter that he’d abandoned her, no matter that he’d broken her heart, Jess had never been able to throw away his Bible.
She took a deep breath and slowly opened the file. And there it was. The list of names: Jessica Bates. Susan Levin. Pamela Jane Davies. Ginny Stevens.
“Oh, my,” Jess cried again. “Oh, my.” It had been so many years, and yet it seemed so real again. So real, and yet so unreal. As if she were reading other people’s names, not theirs, as if she were delving into other people’s lives, not theirs, not the lives of poor-little-rich-girl Jess; gorgeous, brilliant P.J.; scholarly, hippieish Susan; and …
well … Ginny. Streetwise, frightened Ginny. She took another deep breath and carefully turned back the page.
Red and blue notations littered the yellow paper, scribbles of memories now born again: the time Ginny had tumbled down Larchwood’s tall, wide staircase; the time Jess nearly miscarried after the girls had sneaked into town to the Dew Drop Inn and Jess had become so sick from the Scotch.
Staring at the words that evoked so many images, Jess wondered if a miscarriage might have been better; if there had been no baby, she would not be sitting here now, trying to learn if her child was dead or alive, trying to figure out if she had been deceived by a woman she had trusted with her life and with the life of her baby.
She turned over the paper. Her eyes fell on another yellow lined sheet, this one a list, with names and addresses neatly aligned. She scanned the sheet: Jessica Bates, read one line. Baby girl. To Jonathan and Beverly Hawthorne. The address was the Georgian brick mansion in Stamford. The house where Amy—her baby—had lived and died. “Tea’s ready.”
The sharp sound of Loretta’s voice made Jess jump. The contents of the file spilled onto the floor.
“You’ll have to drink it at the kitchen table,” Loretta said, “I’m not going to carry it in there.”
Jess closed her eyes. “I’ll be right out.” She quickly gathered up the papers as if they were on fire.
As she stood to return the file to the box, a small envelope slid from the folder and dropped to the floor. Jess picked it up and tucked it inside. Then she hesitated. There had been something different about it. Everything else had been written in the housemother’s fine penmanship, but the envelope had been marked in heavy black ink, scrawled with Miss Taylor’s name and address.
Jess took it out and studied the handwriting. It was bold and unfamiliar. Carefully, Jess opened the unglued flap and removed the small note that was inside. “Enclosed,” read the same bold handwriting, “$50,000. Thank you.” There was no signature.
“Tea’s getting cold,” Loretta barked from the kitchen.
Quickly, Jess tucked the note back into the envelope and returned it to the file. “Corning,” she yelled, and left the musty room.
Loretta plunked a mug on the small oak table. “Find what you’re looking for?”
Jess hesitated. “No,” she replied. “It’s only some business papers about the girls at Larchwood. And medical records, things like that.”
“I knew it was a bunch of junk. Don’t know what you expected to find.”
Raising the hot tea to her lips, Jess felt her head pound, her sinuses twinge. “I was hoping to come across your sister’s journals.” She did not want Loretta to know she was trying to find out if Miss Taylor had lied. She did not want to give the unpleasant sister reason to think Jess was prying too much.
“Those old things? She burned them. Guess she didn’t want anyone to find out about her old boyfriend.”
Jess nodded. She suspected Loretta was talking about Bud Wilson. The image of the small-eyed man who doubled as the sheriff and the postmaster crept into her mind. Maybe the journals had detailed memories of Miss Taylor’s affair with him. Maybe they had also contained other private information, such as who Jess’s baby really was and what had happened to her. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. But the journals had been burned. And with their ashes, perhaps Jess’s answers had been charred into oblivion. Unless there was another way to find out.
Jess looked around the unkempt kitchen, trying to act indifferent. “Loretta,” she asked, “I’ve been thinking about buying property on Martha’s Vineyard. Do you know anyone who lives there?”
“The Vineyard? No. Who the hell wants to live on an island, anyway?”
Someone who wants privacy, Jess thought, but said, “I suppose you’re right.”
“Only people like Mabel Adams like it there.” Loretta chuckled. “Served her right, too. Not long after she went her husband up and died. Left her with a huge headache, I heard.”
Jess sipped her tea.
Loretta frowned. “Guess I do know someone there. But that was a long time ago and she was old then. She’s probably dead now, too.”
Jess did not feel the need to agree that, indeed, an old, dead woman named Mabel Adams would probably be of no help. Any more than Loretta Taylor would. She checked her watch and wondered how soon would be polite enough to leave. “How long have you been living on Cape Cod?” she asked in a halfhearted attempt at small talk.
“Hmm. Let’s see. Since right after the war. When was that? Nineteen forty-five? Forty-six?” Loretta leaned across the table and surprised Jess with a wink. “Was the best place to meet all those sailors coming back from overseas.”
Jess sat back. “Sailors?”
“Sure. Me and Mary Frances. We were on our own. But Mary Frances took a different road from me. I married one of them, then found out the bastard already had another family. Men. Damn men.”
“And you’ve lived here ever since?”
“Well, I left for a while, trying to get work. They gave all the jobs to the boys coming home.”
Jess nodded and sipped her tea again, the pressure finally beginning to ease from her cheeks.
“Had a few rough years. Until the late sixties. That’s when Mary Frances bought this house.”
Jess paused. She glanced around the kitchen again. “Did you say your sister bought this house?”
Loretta laughed. “Said she was tired of supporting me. Bought this house for me to live in and take care of for her until she retired.”
“My goodness,” Jess said, “I didn’t realize your sister owned this house.” She had assumed it had been Loretta’s. She had assumed Miss Taylor had been the less fortunate sister, the one who needed Loretta’s generosity to survive her retirement years.
“Like I said, there was money in taking care of you girls. Big money, if you ask me.”
Jess did not ask. Her thoughts, however, drifted back to the note she’d seen. Fifty thousand dollars seemed like a great deal of money back in 1968. Even for taking care of those “girls.” She stared into her mug. Who would have paid Miss Taylor that much money? Was fifty thousand dollars what it cost to go to Larchwood Hall? And was that why Miss Taylor could afford this house?
Then another memory gushed to the surface, a memory of another exorbitant amount of money Jess had learned about so long ago. It hadn’t been fifty thousand dollars. It had been two hundred thousand.
Two hundred thousand dollars. It was the amount her father had paid Richard’s family. Paid the father of her baby’s family to have no contact with Jess, to pretend that this had never happened, to disappear from sight.
She closed her eyes to the sight of Loretta Taylor’s kitchen and remembered how she’d felt the day she learned about the payoff. She’d been so scared, so lonely. She’d sneaked from Larchwood Hall into the city; she’d risked her father’s wrath by going to his office, needing only to see him, to feel if there was any love there for her anymore.
He had not been in his office, yet Jess could smell the scent of his pipe tobacco and knew that he was near. She sat in the big leather chair behind his desk and waited, opening one drawer, then another, looking for something, anything, some clue that he still loved her, that he, unlike Richard, had not abandoned her.
That’s when she saw the checkbook. That’s when she opened it and ran her finger down the entries.
LH. One thousand dollars, one entry read. The one below it read the same. Jess realized LH must have stood for Larchwood Hall. She was struck by a sick feeling that Father had not even been able to spell out the name, as if he was afraid someone, at some time, might come across it, as if someone would find out his only child, his fifteen-year-old daughter, had gotten herself “in trouble” and purposely shamed his name.
Then she saw the next entry: Bryant, it read. Two hundred thousand dollars.
That was when he came into the room.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he shouted. The checkbook fell to the floor.
“Why?” Jess managed to ask, her voice cracking. “Why did you pay Richard’s family this money?”
He smiled an I-told-you-so smile. “As I suspected,” her father said, “he was only after you for your money.”
She protested.
He laughed. “He’s gone, Jessica. He and his lowlife family took the money and ran.”
Took the money and ran. His words echoed in her mind now. She opened her eyes and looked around the house that Miss Taylor had bought.
Fifty thousand dollars was a long way from two hundred. Yet something about it now seemed very, very strange. She wondered if there was a connection.
Or was she imagining things? The handwriting, after all, had not been her father’s. Nor was it his secretary’s, which she knew so well—the secretary who had been responsible for sending Jess her money, the one person, after her mother’s death, who corresponded with Jess at all.
The handwriting certainly bore no resemblance to what was on the anonymous letter she’d received. There was no real reason to think there was a connection.
Still, it nagged at her. And as she politely finished her tea, Jess became anxious to return home, to call Ginny, and learn if the sum fifty thousand dollars meant anything to her or not.
But before leaving, Jess gave Loretta her telephone number, asking her to call if she thought of anything that might help. Loretta grumbled, then retreated to the mustiness of the house that her sister had bought.
“Are you crazy?” Ginny asked later that night when Jess finally reached her. “The fee for that place was a thousand a month, plus medical expenses. Believe me, I remember. I stole just enough from my stepfather to go there. Ten thousand total.”
“Oh, God, Ginny,” Jess said with a moan. “What should I do now? There was nothing else there.…”
“I’d say fifty grand is enough to prove something weird went on. It was thirty years ago, Jess. That was a shitload of money … for most of us.”
“Do you remember when we were at Larchwood—and I told you that I found out my father paid off Richard’s family?”