“Oh.”
“Oh, is right. I want you so much I can’t think. The mere thought of you being my sister is killing me.”
I hesitated. This was information that absolutely stunned me. “How sure are you? Cause my Aunt Sally says it’s my adopted father, err, my real father.”
I threw him a grin. “Wouldn’t Lenny have told you something if he thought I was his child?”
He thought on that. “I don’t know. I do know that Angie has had it in for Maudie for years.”
“Why?”
“Maudie told her husband about her affair with the minister, her husband divorced her after that.”
“That might do it.” The timer went off, and I removed the biscuits from the oven. “Why not sit and eat dinner and talk this out.”
“Talking won’t do any good. Not if it’s true.”
“And if it isn’t?”
Grant grimaced. “There is that.” He grabbed the glasses from the table and filled them with ice.
“Honestly, Sara, I could have punched her out, she looked like she enjoyed telling me about my father.”
“Maybe she was lying. Women who cheat, and men too, lie. They lie to themselves and to the people who love them, why not lie to someone else, it’s in their nature.”
He filled up the glasses with tea and returned them to the table, while I filled up both of our plates and set them down.
I pushed the biscuits into a basket, and placed it next to Grant.
He smiled, took a sniff, then smiled again. “They smell good.”
“Yes, they do. Are you going to talk to your father?”
He sighed. “I’ll guess I’ll have to.”
“As far as we can tell, Maudie didn’t fool around. And I think I know the reason for that.”
“You do?” He asked.
“I think so. She was a good person. A friend to everyone. Except those who ‘fooled around.’ She was loyal in that way. Why would she sleep with your father?”
He looked at me with that calculating gleam in his eye. Apparently, he hadn’t thought of that.
“How did Angie manage to tell you this?”
“She came to my office on a legal matter.”
“A real matter, or something that really didn’t need your attention?”
Smiling, he said. “Ever think about becoming an attorney?”
“No. Baking biscuits from scratch is hard enough.”
“Her reason was feeble. I guess her real purpose was to drop that information on me.”
I dug into my food. Suddenly famished. “That poses another question, why?”
Grant thought for a moment. “Revenge.”
“Perhaps. I wonder what your father ever did to her?”
“Good question. I’ll have to ask him.”
I pulled apart a steaming biscuit and slathered some butter on it. “I’d ask him about the ‘affair’ too.”
“Yes, I’ll do that.” He smiled, then began to eat in earnest. “We’ll go after we eat.”
I sat there for a moment, listening to his little moans of enjoyment. What I really wanted to hear were his big moans of enjoyment.
* * *
Lenny didn’t seem that happy to see us. He opened the door, saw us standing there, turned around and left the door open.
Grant grabbed my elbow and led me inside.
Margie was coming from the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel. She shrugged and looked at Lenny’s retreating back.
When she was closer, she whispered. “He’s been like that since he slapped you, Grant. What happened?”
Grant looked down at his feet. I guess he was feeling ashamed.
“I accused Lenny of being Sara’s father.”
A bucket of ice water couldn’t have shocked her any more. She gasped and put her hand to her mouth.
“You didn’t!” Margie said.
He glanced up and looked at her. “I did. I need to ask Dad some questions.”
Margie was mad. “I think you need to apologize first. Both your father and I have taken enough abuse from you.”
He glared.
“I have my reasons,” he said.
Margie snorted. “You think you do.”
She led the way into the living room.
Lenny sat on a recliner. The television set was off. He glanced in our direction, then turned his head away.
“Apologize, or get out. I’m tired of your anger, Grant. It’s time to cut bait.”
Grant walked over and stood over his father. His hands were in fists. “You didn’t deny it.”
“Deny it! What in the world were you thinking? I’ve never fooled around on your mother. Or on Margie. I have more respect for myself.”
“Respect for yourself? Is that why you couldn’t wait until my mother was cold in the ground before you remarried?”
“Do you want to know why I married Margie?”
“No. This isn’t about Margie.”
“Like hell it isn’t.” Lenny dragged his hand through his hair . “You’ve been sporting a pouting lip ever since I introduced you to her.”
“That was a few months after Mother died.”
Lenny sank into the recliner. Deflated. Tired. He seemed old for the first time. His hands rubbed his face for a moment, then sat back.
“Sit down Grant. It’s time you heard the truth.”
Grant looked around, lost for a moment, then sat across the room from his father.
“It’s about time.” Grant said.
I wanted to knock him. I knew the truth. But he never wanted it before now.
“Your mother was sick for five years, Grant. Five horrible and wonderful years.”
Grant looked stricken. “Five years? She was only sick for a few weeks.”
“Think about it Grant. You were only nine when she took ill. We didn’t want you to know. We tried to give you a decent normal childhood, and we did it for as long as we could.”
Lenny had tears in his eyes. “Do you know how hard it was to keep a smile on your face when your life is crumbling away?”
I handed him my hanky and he used it, rubbing his eyes dry and blowing his nose.
He gave a deep sigh and continued. “It meant everything to your mother that we keep her poor health hidden until we couldn’t anymore.”
He looked up at Grant. “All those trips to visit her mother, she was in the hospital in New Orleans. Thank God for Maudie, she would take you in so I could visit her without you knowing.”
“Why didn’t Maudie ever tell me about any of this?”
Lenny sighed deeply again. He looked directly at me.
“Maudie kept a lot of secrets.”
Then he continued. “She felt it was in your best interests, that’s what you don’t understand. We loved you too much to have you hurting too. We all wished that we could live each day in ignorance of what was going to happen.”
A long silence fell over the room. I picked at a piece of lint on my pants, waiting. The quiet was so profound you could hear the clock on the bookcase, ticking away, a reminder that time does go on.
“And the horrible and wonderful part, what did you mean by that?” Grant asked.
Lenny shook his head. The pain on his face touched my heart. This was a man who spoke from his heart, a man who loved deeply and long. A man who raised a son, much like himself.
“Horrible because the woman I loved with all my heart was dying and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Not a damn thing.”
“And the wonderful part.”
“Because we knew that each and every day was a precious gift to us.” He looked at Grant, with hope in his eyes. “That there wouldn’t be second chances. There was only now.”
Grant was still angry. “So if your love was ‘so precious’ why were you married at the end of three months?”
“Because your mother told me to.”
Grant jumped up. “What kind of bullshit is that!”
Lenny sighed, resigned to telli
ng the truth, at last.
“It isn’t bullshit, it’s the truth. I loved Margie since the day I saw her in the first grade. When I was six years old, I told her I was going to marry her, and I would have if her parents wouldn’t have stepped in. Tell him Margie.”
Lenny’s gaze was full of love as he looked at his wife, anyone could see it, it was almost as if it had a life of its own.
“Tell him everything.”
Margie lowered her face and looked at her hands.
“It’s true, we were childhood sweethearts, up through junior high and high school. It was our senior year when my parents realized that we would be getting married as soon as graduation was over. They always thought it was ‘puppy love’.”
She sat on a chair next to Lenny and interwove their fingers together, giving him a sad smile.
“The day after graduation they booked a tour to Europe. I went along, planning my wedding the whole time. Then came the phone call.”
“We were in Paris, Daddy called home and looked grim as he put down the receiver, he took me by the hand and told me that Lenny was killed in a car accident.”
I gasped. What kind of father would do that?
“I was devastated.” She squeezed Lenny’s hand.
I reached forward and took her free hand. “Go on.”
She smiled wryly. “They suggested I go to college in California. Their plan backfired. I refused to come home, ever. I stayed in Paris, and went to school there. Got a job as an interpreter. I cut off all ties to Boggy Bayou, and I never came home again, until our twentieth high school reunion.”
Lenny smiled then. “She made quite a stir. I walked in, and she fainted.”
Lenny picked up the tale then.
“Her parents told me that she found a new love in Europe. They never would give me her address, and none of her friends heard from her, so she was lost to me, love was lost to me, until Lorraine came along. I’ve been the most fortunate man in the world to have two such wonderful women to love.”
“After my faint, Lenny, Lorraine and I talked.” Margie said. “Lorraine was so understanding, she cried for the both of us. I left town the next morning.”
Lenny squeezed her hand. “I didn’t know it, but Lorraine managed to get Margie’s address and she wrote to her.”
Margie chimed in. “Every month. She wrote me, telling me all about Boggy Bayou, Grant, Lenny and herself. At first I was angry. Lorraine had everything that I wanted. Everything that I thought I deserved. She was everything that I wasn’t.”
Lenny patted her hand. “Now, now. You know better than that.”
Margie gave a weak smile. “I resented her monthly letters at first. I would place them on the mantle, until I couldn’t ignore them anymore and then devoured them.”
Margie smiled a real smile.
“Then I began to look forward to them. It wasn’t about Lenny anymore. I loved him still, but that was an old memory. What Lorraine was giving me were new memories, she was holding out the hand of friendship in those letters, and I came to wanting them. Wanting her in my life.”
Margie let out a deep sigh.
“She was the best friend I ever had.”
Silence overtook the room again. The clock once again letting us know that time moves forward.
Margie looked at Grant.
“I loved your mother. When she wrote me of her illness, I couldn’t bear to hear the news.”
“But I still don’t understand why you had to get married so soon after her death,” said Grant.
Lenny coughed. “It was my fault.”
“No. It was mine.” Margie interjected.
“No, Margie. I’m taking the full blame. And it’s time Grant knows the truth.”
“Margie came for the funeral. I don’t know if you remember, but she was there.”
Grant replied. “No. I didn’t know. It’s hard for me to remember that day. It was such a blur.”
“I stayed with Maudie. Lorraine had given her my phone number and she was the one who called me to come to the funeral.” Margie said.
“I was going to leave right away, but Maudie encouraged me to stay.”
“Why would she do that?” Grant asked.
“Lorraine managed to convince Maudie that I would be Lenny’s salvation, and yours.” Margie gave a wry smile.
Lenny looked at Grant as he said. “She was my salvation.”
He walked over to her and placed both hands on each of her shoulders. “I was drowning in pity. Self-pity.”
Margie resumed the conversation. “I took to going to church late in the afternoon. One Sunday, Lenny was there. Kneeling at the altar, crying.”
She pushed her hand through his hair, smoothing it down, caressing his head.
“It was pitiful.” Her eyes searched Lenny’s face.
“I couldn’t stand it, so I walked over and placed my hand on his shoulder.”
Lenny said. “She told me that I didn’t have to be alone. I cried even harder.”
Margie murmured so low, Grant could barely hear her. “I knelt down beside him and began to cry too.”
They enclosed their arms around each other. Finding peaceful reassurance in their embrace.
Grant glanced at me with a new look in his eyes. Was he finally getting it, that they loved each other. His gaze shifted back to them, thoughtful, appraising, wanting.
“I took him back to Maudie’s, she was gone, and we made love for the first time.” Margie said.
“I came to realize that Lorraine was smarter than all of us. She knew we belonged together, that’s why she kept the channel open.” Lenny said.
“We were going to wait for at least a year, for your sake, Grant.”
“So why didn’t you?” Grant demanded.
“I became pregnant.” Margie said.
“What?”
I watched the interplay on both of their faces. You could tell that Margie was embarrassed to be discussing this subject. Grant seemed shocked.
“Margie was pregnant, and I wasn’t going to have any child of mine branded a bastard. We got married.” Lenny said.
“I had a miscarriage on our honeymoon in San Francisco.”
“No one, except Maudie, knew the real reason and I didn’t think it was anybody’s business.” Lenny said.
“Not even mine?” Grant said.
Lenny looked at Grant defiantly.
“No, son. Not even yours.”
Grant’s eyes showed a flash of anger, then the light went out, defeat settled in.
“What did Maudie think of the affair?” I asked.
“She said the strangest thing when I told her I was pregnant.” Margie said.
“What?”
“She said, history repeats itself.”
That was strange. “What do you think she meant by that?”
“I honestly don’t know, but I always remembered the exact words. History repeats itself.”
We all sat in silence a moment. The clock moved on. Tick. Tick. Tick.
“Maybe she was referring to herself.” Grant said.
I snapped my head in his direction. “What do you mean?”
“Pregnancy. The circumstances. Maybe the same thing happened to her. History repeating itself.” Grant said.
I sat there staring in his direction, but not seeing him. What if he was right? What happened in Maudie’s past that could be ‘history’ repeating itself.
“The fire.” Grant and I spoke at the same time.
“What fire?” Lenny asked.
“The fire that killed Maudie’s friend. Maudie was standing next to her husband in the funeral photograph in the newspaper.”
“That couldn’t be, they were only friends.” Lenny said.
“Lenny, you’ve kept secrets. What if this was Maudie’s secret? What if they slept together? It would have been right after or around the funeral, the dates work out.” Grant said.
“Shit.” Lenny said.
“Maudie would have been ashamed.”
Margie said.
“Ashamed enough to give away the child?” I asked.
All three looked at me, the answer in their eyes.
I think that’s when the truth really hit me. Maudie was ashamed of me. Ashamed enough to give me away. Ashamed to have me in her life.
I crumpled on the sofa and began to cry. I could hear chairs scraping backwards. Then arms enfolded me, hands patted me on the shoulder. Murmurs fell on my ears.
“Don’t cry.” Margie said.
“Ah, shit.” Lenny said in a soft tone.
I could feel Grant’s breath against my hair as his arms wrapped even tighter around me. “Maudie adored you. She wasn’t ashamed.”
His words entered my brain, spinning it around. I held back my sobs and pushed him away so that I could look into his face.
“What do you mean?”
“The photos. All the pictures she took of you. She adored you. She wanted you in your life, only if it was one dimensional. There had to be another reason she gave you up. I think I know what it was, but we need to talk to her friend’s husband. He might know the real reason.”
I felt a glimmer of hope. “You think so?”
“I think it’s worth a try.”
I smiled weakly. “Anything’s worth a try.”
Lenny slapped his hands together. “Come on then. I know where this guy lives.”
“Now?” I squeaked.
“Yes. Now. You’re going to be miserable to live with until you know the truth, let’s finish this.” Grant said.
I looked into his deep chocolate eyes, there was a warmth there. A wondrous warmth that I wanted to slide into.
“Yes, let’s.” I answered.
* * *
Lenny led the way in his car. It was determined that Grant and I would talk to Claude alone. Lenny and Marge would show us the house, then leave.
Lenny stopped at a modest house set amongst some tall trees. The lawn was trimmed to within an inch of its life. The borders held manicured flower beds that reflected an English country charm. It was streamlined, yet riotous with autumn color.
Just as riotous as my heartbeat.
Grant parked and we stepped out of the car. Lenny and Margie waved their hands at us and left.
We were on our own.
* * *
October 18, 1984
The Devil Has Dimples Page 17