Tenderly Beats the Lonely Heart

by K. J. Janssen

  Tenderly Beats the Lonely Heart

  K. J. Janssen

  © Copyright 2019 Beacon Publishing Group

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part, by any means whatsoever, except for passages excerpted for the purposes of review, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  For information, or to order additional copies, please contact:

  Beacon Publishing Group

  P.O. Box 41573 Charleston, S.C. 29423 800.817.8480| beaconpublishinggroup.com

  Publisher’s catalog available by request.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-949472-85-1

  ISBN-10: 1-949472-85-1

  First Edition. New York, NY 10001.

  Printed in the USA.

  CHAPTER 1

  The woman fidgeted with the napkin, completely ignoring the cup of coffee in front of her.

  The man sitting across the table had no such problem. He was busily scarfing down an apple turnover; his coffee cup nearly empty.

  “How can you be so sure that it’s him?”

  He continued to chew until the large mouthful was fully masticated and swallowed.

  “I just got this information yesterday. I can’t be one hundred percent certain, but he is the only Thomas E. Mortinson that I’ve been able to locate. All the specifics are there. He is twenty-three years old, born on October 6th, 1993. He attended Owensburg High and he was raised by foster parents, Emily and Walter Peyton. Incidentally, the father is now the Police Chief of the town. Thomas graduated from Ohio State last year with a BS in Finance. He’s working for a steel company in Akron, in their finance department. This is a picture of him from the Ohio State University Yearbook. It’s the only picture I’ve found so far.” He handed her the picture which was a slightly left side profile of Thomas Mortinson wearing a blue knit sweater. Miriam took the picture with a trembling hand. She tilted her head back in an attempt to keep the tears in; a gesture that was too late, as her eyes welled up and tears began their journey down her cheek, causing a line to appear in her makeup. “This is definitely my Thomas.” With pride she added, “My little boy grew into such a beautiful young man. He looks just like his father, God rest his soul.” As she ran her index finger over the picture a shiver ran up her arm.

  “I must caution you to hold back on any conclusions. I realize that everything points to this young man as the Thomas E. Mortinson you gave up twenty-three years ago, but until I can do a little more digging, we can’t be absolutely certain. Any premature contact could be very damaging psychologically to both the young man and yourself. You do understand that?”

  “Yes, but I know it’s him. The nose, forehead and chin are identical to his fathers.”

  “That may well be, but I know of cases where a man got two women pregnant with boys at the same time. He was a bigamist and to protect against a possible slip-up with either family, he named both boys exactly the same. There was even a similarity in their appearances due to the common sperm donor, so you can see where mistaken identity would be possible.” He reached over and took her hands. “Sometimes identifications of long lost children or parents are not as clear cut as they seem. I read recently of a case where the paperwork trail on a young man led right up to age twenty-one and then hit a brick wall. It turned out that he had a sex-change operation and Patrick became Patricia.

  “Compared to that we’ve been really fortunate. The state of Ohio deciding to open up their adoption files has been a real boon for these searches. Without that, it would have been close to impossible to trace Thomas down. So please don’t do anything for few more days. Let me do my job.

  Give me time to make one final check.”

  “I can’t promise you that. Tomorrow is the Owensburg’s 200th Anniversary. There will be a parade, picnics and all kinds of activities during the day and a dance in the park at night.

  Thomas grew up here. If what you’ve found is accurate he lives and works only a few towns over. He’s bound to attend. We’re both Alumni of Owensburg High. I received an invitation for the Anniversary celebration and I’m sure he did too and besides, his foster parents will be there, for sure. I just have to go, to see him if he shows up. I want to see what he looks like in person. Seeing this picture isn’t the same. You can understand that can’t you?”

  “Sure I can, but I just don’t think that it’s a good idea to get too close to him right now.” He looked into her tear-filled eyes. “I’ve got a feeling that you’re going go there anyway. Will you at least promise me not to make any personal contact with him, accidently or otherwise?”

  “I guess I can do that, but it’ll take every ounce of my self-control, not to run up to him and hold him in my arms. My husband is on a business trip in Europe for the next two weeks. That should be more than enough time for me to do this. He doesn’t know about Thomas and I didn’t want to cross that bridge until I knew for sure that this is really my son. I’m just not certain how he will react when he finds out.”

  The tears started again and Mike Tolliver, who always considered himself to be a hard-boiled lawyer, felt his own eyes filling up as he handed her a clean handkerchief. “Hang in there, Mrs. Walton, were almost at the end of the journey.” * * *

  Miriam Walton reflected on how she got to this position. Two months ago, she hadn’t even heard of the attorney that she was meeting with for the third time. One day she was leisurely reading the local paper The Spartanville Times and noticed a small box ad on the personal page advertising investigative services for lost persons. It mentioned dead-beat dads, teen-age runaways and lastly searches for children or parents involved in adoptions. His office hours were by appointment only at his office in town. She cut the ad out and placed it between the pages of a book she was reading. There it remained for two weeks until she came across it when she reached the page where it was secreted. She held it in her hand, rereading it for several minutes. She knew that the only way to end the reverie was to find out what happened to the son she gave up when she was too young to know what effect it might have in her life as time passed.

  She went to the kitchen and made a cup of tea, with fleeting glances of the scrap of paper she placed on the table. Finally, she picked it up and called the number listed in the ad.

  “Good morning, you have reached the office of Michael Tolliver, Attorney at Law.”

  “Yes, Good Morning. My name is Miriam Walton and I would like to make an appointment to meet with Mr. Tolliver.”

  “May I ask the nature of your case?’

  “Certainly, it has to do with an adoption case twenty years ago.”

  “I can fit you in at three this afternoon or eleven fifteen tomorrow morning. Are either of these slots good for you?’

  “Yes, I can make it this afternoon.”

  “We’ll look forward to seeing you then.

  Good bye.”

  Miriam didn’t share the facts of her younger days with her husband on the premise that it would only muddy the waters. They both understood that there was baggage that would be best left unopened. That’s the way it has been for the eleven years of their marriage.

  Now doesn’t this have all the makings of an emotional rollercoaster? Hold on!

  CHAPTER 2

  Thomas Edward Mortinson continued to live with his foster parents, Emily and Walter- Peyton until he finished college. They took Thomas in when he was three months old and provided a strict but nurturing environment for him for twentyone years. They wanted to adopt him when he was old enough to understand what the procedure was all about, but he was dead set against it. Knowing how psychologically impacting the whole process could be, Emily and Walt
er acceded to Thomas’s decision and the matter was never brought up again.

  For reasons that Thomas would have difficulty explaining he always held out the hope that someday he would get to know his real mother. This deep desire had nothing to do with his appreciation for everything that the Peyton’s did for him. He was happy living with them. It had more to do with the longing for a true identity that goes with being a foster child.

  The Peyton’s paid Thomas’s way through four years at Ohio State where he graduated with a BS in Finance in 2015; Two Hundred and fiftieth out of a class of 11,000. He began his business career in the Finance Department of Matson Steel in Akron. Although his employment site was within a short commute from Owensburg, he set up an apartment in Akron, adding independence to the long list of traits that slowly became the hallmark of the man Thomas Edward Mortinson was becoming.

  Most notable of his good traits is a fierce loyalty towards his friends and acquired family; never finding fault or trying to compete with them. His only battles were with himself; to constantly better his past performance.

  Best of all, is his high regard of women. His foster mother, Emily Peyton, is a staunch advocate of Women’s Rights and an active campaigner against spousal abuse of any nature. Growing up in such an environment he developed a deep respect for women, an attribute that made him especially attractive to the many girls he dated in high school and college. Of course, the 2010 Ford Mustang convertible that the Peyton’s gave him as a graduation present may have added to his attractiveness. He nicknamed the car “Cassy” after his first dog that was hit by a Mustang when Thomas was only ten years old.

  Not that Thomas needed any help with women. At 6’ 2”, weighing 180lbs he was lean and lanky; any musculature on his frame coming from hard work helping out at home or from a variety of jobs he held as a youth and not from bodybuilding, an activity that he found particularly loathsome.

  Thomas excelled at softball, playing on the Owensburg High Spartans team for three years as a star pitcher with a record of 30-2.

  His cheeks were usually accented by three or four days of stubble that constituted his “bad-boy” look. His friends frequented sports salons to get their hair styled, but his ash-blond hair, neatly parted on the right side was trimmed once a month at an old-fashioned barber shop frequented by his foster father.

  It was these attributes that helped Thomas capture the heart of Louise O’Neill, a fellow finance major at Ohio State. They met near the end of their last year at school and instantly fell for each other. Hailing from a small town in Pennsylvania, Louise started working in the Finance Department of a small company in her home town, immediately upon graduating, allowing her to avoid having to find her own place to live.

  Being able to see each other only on weekends took a toll on the relationship, prompting Thomas to invite Louise to attend the Anniversary celebration with him with the intent of using the romantic setting of the evening dance to “pop the question”.

  He would also use the celebration to show off “Cassy”, his prized Mustang, which he kept in pristine condition.

  This is where things stand as Thomas prepares to participate in Owensburg’s 200th Anniversary celebration, but there is much more in store for him, than being with his fiancé, family and friends at a town celebration, but that will have to wait until later.

  CHAPTER 3

  PREPARATIONS FOR THE CELEBRATION

  Tiecher Park, named after one of the town’s founders Joshua Tiecher, was bequeathed to the town of Owensburg by Jed Tiecher who died childless in 1998. Transference of the deed for the 169 acres, that once held his lavish mansion and stables, was delayed by a legal case brought by the corporation that Jed owned and operated. It took two years for a judge to rule that the estate was personal property with no ties to the corporation. It took another two years for the town zoning board to approve the plans to turn the property into a park.

  Finally, in 2002 the buildings on the property were razed to make way for a concrete dance floor with a seventy-five hundred square foot bandstand as the centerpiece. The second phase was for a softball park with bleachers. Two lots, one at each end of the park, provided parking for a total of five-hundred cars along with bike racks. The architects took care to preserve the natural setting of nature walks with dozens of century old trees and pristine flower gardens, which they turned into a small Arboretum. The last phase of construction was for a man-made three-acre lake dubbed the “Pond” by town residents.

  * * *

  Five months ago, the 200th Anniversary Celebration, Dance Sub-committee voted unanimously to contract with Bobby V and the Rhythm Riders, a popular local band to supply the music for the dance and a special allotment was made to rent “The Beast” soundstage, a spectacular laser and fireworks structure, to be the centerpiece for the anniversary dance. The Beast was uniquely designed to fit over a towns existing bandstand, requiring little if any modification. The budget for the dance was easily exceeded by the cost of leasing the monster, but one of the sub-committee members, Payne Eaton, a town Elder wrote a check to bridge the gap. “After all,” he said, “We want this celebration to be one that the town will remember for the next hundred years.”

  No one could have known then, how prophetic those words would become.

  CHAPTER 4

  Erecting “The Beast” required extensive planning and preparation. This marvel of sound and science boasted a stge with a revolving deck at the top that spouted pyrotechnics hundreds of feet into the air with multi-colored laser beams, synchronized to the music of the band, splaying an effusion of color over the stage and the audience. The sound system for the dance necessitated installing thirty Sytex Hi-Fi wireless speakers mounted on 20-foot poles, orchestrated to surround the dance floor with the “savage groans” emanating from the stage.

  It took two trucks to haul the thirty tons of gear that made up “The Beast.” A crew of ten workers and technicians required two days to assemble and test the equipment. The framework of the soundstage needed to be nested on top of the original bandstand, a task that required four cranes working in tandem. The Owensburg soundstage caused problems for the installation crew. When it was originally built, the construction crew ran into unexpected bedrock and the Steel I beams driven into the ground to support the metal foundation frame were eleven inches shorter than the design called for. As a result, the Owensburg soundstage was higher than it would normally be for the design code. On its own this was not a problem, but with a behemoth like ‘The Beast” setting on top of it, a concern was raised.

  Instead of settling to the ground, when “The Beast” was mounted over the soundstage an 11” gap resulted, but since “The Beast” came with 8” sliding panels around the periphery, even with them engaged, the super-stage was still sitting three inches from the ground. The panels gave the installation a finished appearance; although they did not provide any additional support for the 60,000 lb structure. To be safe, the engineers connected metal- rope guy lines to concrete blocks buried in the ground behind the stage with the other end hooked to fin plates at the top of the truss structure of “The Beast”.

  The construction of the bandstand wasn’t without incident. In spite of the specialized training of the crew, several of the workers were injured; one with a shoulder dislocated by a fall from scaffolding and another with a twisted ankle from a slip off the edge of the stage.

  “The Beast” needed to be tested so the band showed up on the third day to be indoctrinated on the high-tech features of “The Beast”. Bobby and his guys were fascinated by the “big time” software and hardware associated with the massive soundstage that would provide the opportunity to showcase their new material that seemed to fit right in with “The Beast’s” pyrotechnics and laser show’s “warp and woof”. This gig was the chance of a lifetime for Bobby and his crew.

  Immediately after the rehearsal, a bus with the name Bobby V and the Rhythm Riders in psychedelic letters and colors emblazoned on bot
h sides and on the back, headed south for a gig that night in Bluefield, West Virginia. * * *

  On Anniversary “eve” the soundstage program manager met with the Dance Sub-committee to sign-off on the preparations. With everything given the okay, they just had to wait until the next evening. The program was set to begin at 8pm sharp.

  CHAPTER 5

  Miriam Walton was nervous as she began dressing for the parade. Miriam lived in

  Spartanville, Pennsylvania with her husband, Nathan Walton, CEO of Walton Enterprises. Nathan was away on a trip, so she made the trip to Owensburg alone. This was her first trip back to the town where she grew up, since she gave up her newborn son two weeks after she graduated high school and now, thanks to the diligence of Attorney Mike Tolliver, she would finally have the chance to be reunited with her son and explain to him why she had made that fateful decision.

  The boy’s father, Thomas Wendell Mortinson left for a tour of duty in Iraq several months before her son’s birth. They planned to be married upon his return, but two days after he arrived overseas, he succumbed to injuries received when an IED blew up two feet from where he was bunkered. Miriam knew that as an unwed mother she would be the subject of gossip and denigration and in a state of despair she decided to give the child up. She moved in with her aunt in Owensburg, Ohio and upon the birth, gave up her son who she named Thomas Edward Mortinson, after his father. She felt that that was the least she could do in the father’s honor. Her son’s middle name, Edward, was her father’s first name.