The Marine (Semper Fi; Marine)

by Cheryl Reavis

  “I don’t have any real proof, but I think, if I’m anything, I’m your first cousin—once removed.”

  He frowned. “Your picture—it was in a pending adoption file they had at Social Services.”

  “It’s not me. It’s my cousin. Sandra Kay.”

  “Sandra Kay,” he repeated.

  “Sandra Kay Williams. Our mothers were sisters. We grew up together. Her mother—Barbara Williams—took me in after my parents died.”

  “I’m not getting this,” he said. “At all.”

  “The picture you have—it was in my wallet. I either lost the wallet or it was stolen when I was sixteen years old—about the same time Sandra Kay left home. I think she may have taken it and used my ID. When she had you.”

  “This is crazy. Why would she do that?”

  “I don’t know—but it’s not that surprising to me that she would.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she—” Grace glanced at her daughters and decided not to elaborate. “It doesn’t really matter,” she said. “What I’d like to know is . . . what exactly did you want from your birthmother? It’s more than just finding her and having her acknowledge you and Elizabeth, right?”

  It took him a moment to answer. Clearly, he was stunned by the turn of events, as were Lisa and Allison.

  “He’s our cousin?” Allison said.

  “Maybe,” Grace said. “Josh?”

  Elizabeth was fretting and he pulled a teething ring out of his shirt pocket and gave it to her. She immediately dropped it on the floor. Lisa took off one of her plastic bracelets and handed it to her across the table. The bracelet was far more interesting.

  “My wife isn’t in the picture anymore,” he said with a firmness Grace now recognized. He was being a Marine sergeant, but at the same time, he was trying to believe what he was saying.

  “I’m in the middle of a deployment. What I need is a working Family Care Plan—a new one without Angie. The plan has to have somebody willing to take care of Elizabeth while I’m gone. Definite arrangements, including power of attorney if I die or I can’t take care of things. I was looking to see if Elizabeth’s real grandmother might be willing to do that.”

  He stopped and took a quiet breath.

  “I knew it would be a long shot. People aren’t standing in line to take on that kind of responsibility, but I thought it could work—with supervision. Regular visits from a social worker while I was gone so I’d know everything was all right and she was in good hands. I’ve been in foster care, and I had this . . . idea that a real family would be better for her. I don’t want to put her in foster care.”

  “Anything else?” Grace asked.

  “I didn’t want to just dump her on you,” he said. “I would have wanted to be in the loop as much as possible. Get pictures of her, email about what’s going on and how she is. Stuff like that. I was going to chance trying to work something out for her because I have to finish my deployment. My guys are depending on me to get them through it.”

  “And you thought the woman in the photograph might do all that for you,” Grace said.

  “I thought you might do all that,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because of everything I know about you—from reading the things in the newspaper and from . . . people.”

  “What people?”

  He looked her in the eyes. “People I made a point of asking. Your neighbor with the greyhounds, for one. People who go to the same church you do. And Allison. I didn’t ask the right questions, though. Nobody told me your husband had died.”

  “What did you find out about me?”

  “I found out what I already knew. You’re a ‘June Cleaver.’ I thought maybe you’d be willing to help me out because that’s the kind of thing ‘June Cleavers’ do.”

  June Cleaver, Grace thought. Is that who Goody Two-Shoes had turned into when she grew up?

  Josh abruptly stood up. “Look, I’m sorry I bothered you. I’m going. Thanks for the dinner.”

  “Wait,” Grace said, following after him.

  “No. It’s one thing thinking you were Elizabeth’s grandmother. You’re not and you’ve got your own troubles. I’m done here.”

  Chapter Six

  ALLISON STOOD, wondering if this qualified as a miracle. After all she’d gone through to coerce her sister into helping her look for Joshua Caven in all the wrong places and the subsequent trouble it had caused both of them, it definitely had to be in the ballpark. It was hard to believe that she would run into him on her first outing since she and Lisa had been grounded, but there he was, standing not far from the bookstore, holding Lizzie while he talked to what she supposed was a co-ed group of fellow Marines.

  She looked around the immediate vicinity, trying to locate Lisa, who had already informed her that they would not be experiencing their first post-grounding excursion in tandem. Lisa had gone looking for new clothes at the popular but stupid boy-bait store, clothes she’d keep hidden because she wouldn’t be allowed to wear them out of the house if their mom saw them. It would be better if Lisa didn’t know what Allison was about to do. Lisa’s resistance to the Joshua Caven situation had relaxed somewhat since he and Lizzie had come to dinner, but she was still on the fence about having him as a relative. Allison thought her sister could go either way.

  Allison, on the other hand, had no reservations about considering him family whatsoever. The problem was that she had no idea what her mother was going to do about him—if anything. It could be that she would just let the matter die a natural death since Josh had apparently decided to forget the whole thing. As far as Allison could tell, there was only one way to find out what was what, and that “way” was almost right in front of her.

  She walked toward him, taking the time to assess the group he was talking to. It was interesting to her that some of the probable Marines were girls. She stayed where he wouldn’t see her approach, and when she was a few feet away, she stopped and waited. A couple members of the group noticed her, and Josh glanced over his shoulder.

  “Hi,” she said first, because he didn’t look all that happy to see her. Lizzie was another matter. She bounced in his arms and gave Allison a very encouraging grin.

  “Josh, could I talk to you?” Allison asked.

  “Not now,” he said, turning back around.

  “That’s okay. I’ll wait,” she said from where she stood, raising her voice a little, as if she were in a school play and she wanted to make sure the people in the audience heard her.

  She tried to look at ease and unworried while she waited, as if she had every right to be there. One of the young men laughed and said something she couldn’t hear. Lizzie’s nose was running, and Josh wiped it with a tissue he took out of his shirt pocket.

  Ordinarily, Allison didn’t mind waiting. She had never liked shopping, unless it was for books, and as far as she was concerned, this was as good a way as any to pass the time. But she didn’t know how much time she had before Lisa saw her and threw a fit.

  But the group suddenly dispersed, leaving Josh and Lizzie alone.

  “Your turn, kid,” one of the girl Marines said as she passed by, and the “kid” was ready. Allison didn’t say anything, however. She just waited some more, sensing that Josh Caven was only going to tolerate so much pushiness on her part.

  He finally looked at her. “What?”

  “I have questions,” she said, keeping it bottom-line simple.

  “Well, I don’t have any answers.”

  “You don’t even know what the questions are,” Allison said, stepping closer. Lizzie immediately reached for her, but Allison made no move to take her, at least not without asking.

  “Can I?” she said as Lizzie strained to get to her.

  “She’s got a cold.”

&nb
sp; “I don’t care.”

  He gave a quiet sigh and handed his daughter over.

  “Hey, cutie. How’s it going? Really?” Allison said in response to Lizzie’s babbling. “That’s the way colds are . . .”

  “What questions?” Josh interrupted.

  Allison looked at him. She could be a very determined person and he might as well know it. “The first one is . . . what happened to your wife?” she asked bluntly, starting at the top of her list. “You said she wasn’t in the picture. Did she die or what?”

  She thought he wasn’t going to answer.

  “Or what,” he said finally.

  Allison waited for him to say something more, but clearly that was all the information he was willing to give her.

  “If you were adopted, why don’t you ask those people for help with Lizzie? I need to know so I can vote,” she added, noticing the look on his face.

  “Vote for what?”

  “Vote for . . . whatever we’re going to do. About you. The family meeting didn’t end just because you left, you know. If you really are family, then Mom and Lisa and I—we have to think about what needs to be done.”

  “Nothing needs to be done,” he said. “A cousin once removed isn’t much of a relative.”

  “Have you got somebody for your care plan?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Then I need to know some stuff.”

  “Well, I’m not going to talk about my wife.”

  “She’s really pretty.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “I saw her picture—before you hid it. That day I came to see you.”

  He frowned. Allison thought it was because he remembered and because he hadn’t realized what kind of first cousin, twice removed, he was dealing with.

  “Look. Allison. She left. She’s not coming back. The divorce is pretty much a done deal. I’ve got custody of Elizabeth.”

  “So why can’t you ask your adopted family for help?”

  “My adoption—such as it was—didn’t last very long.”

  “Why not?”

  “The man and woman who adopted me—they wanted a kid because they thought it would save their marriage. It didn’t. They got divorced and neither one of them wanted to be saddled with yours truly.”

  “Then who raised you?”

  “A lot of people. Four or five sets of foster parents. And then the Marine corps—you’d be surprised what thirteen weeks of training can do for you. You’re one of the lucky ones—you had one set of real parents.”

  “Yeah, I am lucky. But some of my friends have real parents, too, and they’re not lucky at all. So . . . when did you join the Marines.”

  “As soon as they’d take me.”

  “How much schooling have you got?”

  “I’m working on a college degree—between deployments. Or I was.”

  “Political affiliation?” she asked next, and he laughed.

  “What do you want to know that for?”

  “I like politics. I was just wondering how much we’d argue.”

  “A lot, probably,” he said. “Regardless of what it is. As long as we’ve got this Q and A going on, you do know this is a two way street, right?”

  “Go ahead. Shoot.”

  “You got a boyfriend?”

  “No.”

  “Are you a good student?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Too good.”

  He smiled slightly. “Too good. I never had that problem.”

  “Well it’s a pain,” she said. “I could not study, I guess. People might like me better . . .”

  “But?”

  “Well, it seems kind of a stupid thing to do—play dumb just so somebody who’s not as smart as I am will like me.”

  “What about Lisa?”

  “Everybody likes Lisa.”

  “She’s not a scholar, I guess.”

  “She could be a scholar, but she worries about what people think and . . .”

  Allison stopped because Lizzie’s nose was running again. Josh gave her a new tissue, and when she moved to put it into the nearest trashcan, she spotted Lisa standing not far away. Lisa was talking to Jason the Jock or, more accurately, she was listening to him. She looked so . . . docile and un-Lisa-like, as if what Jason was saying was absolutely fascinating.

  “Who’s that?” Josh asked, nodding in their direction.

  “Lisa’s big crush, Jason. She’s hoping he’ll ask her to the prom.”

  “Doesn’t look like an invitation to me,” Josh said.

  “He’s a jock—he doesn’t have to be smooth. I’ve got one more question,” Allison said.

  “What is it?”

  “Are you sure you and your wife can’t get back together?”

  “Didn’t you hear what I just said? Angie is gone.”

  “Well sometimes marriages can be fixed after they’re broken—if nothing happens to one of them.”

  “Depends on the size of the pieces.”

  “So why—?”

  “That’s it with the questions.”

  “No, I just thought of one more. Why don’t you ask what you really want to know.”

  “Because I don’t really want to know anything.”

  “You want to know about Sandra Kay, don’t you? You don’t have to be afraid to ask me about her because I don’t know a lot. I talked to her on the phone once when my dad died, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her. Mom didn’t come right out and say so, but I think maybe she wasn’t very nice.”

  “Why? Because of me?”

  “No. Nobody knew about you. Because of all the places in the—our Aunt Barbara’s—family album where the pictures have been taken out. I think they must be her pictures.”

  “You know where she is now?”

  “Nope. And I don’t think Mom does, either. Why did you . . . ?”

  “No more questions,” he said, taking Elizabeth back. “Do yourself a favor and forget about voting. Nobody you know is ready to hang a blue star in the window.”

  I am, Allison thought, watching him walk away.

  GRACE SAT IN the car, staring at the raindrops hitting the windshield. She had her keys in one hand and her apparently non-working garage door remote in the other. She had no expectations that the rain would stop anytime soon or that the remote was suddenly going to come to life and open the garage door.

  She dropped the remote and her keys into the cup holder in the console so she could fish her cell phone out of her jacket pocket. She punched in the number from memory because she had almost called Kinlaw several times now. This time, she wouldn’t hang up before he answered. She wanted to talk to Josh again, and she’d been waiting four days to hear from him. It was all too evident that it was going to be up to her to initiate another meeting.

  She watched the rain again while she waited for the call to go through. She had never really minded rainy days, even if they were the bane of the coastal economy.

  The call didn’t go through. She tried again, and when the third attempt still didn’t work, she put the phone back into her pocket, grabbed up her keys and got out of the car, running the distance to the front porch in a futile attempt to stay dry.

  She didn’t bother to ring the doorbell. She had let the girls go wander in whatever teen clothing store was the most favored this week, and they still had nearly an hour of freedom left—assuming they were as mindful of their trial curfews as they had been previously. The house was quiet when she stepped inside—except for her own heavy breathing. Clearly, she needed to start exercising again.

  In spite of being out of breath, she went immediately to check the answering machine in case the girls had somehow lost the car keys again. There was no light blinki
ng, but there was a sheet of notebook paper lying in the middle of the kitchen table. She picked it up. Allison had left her a note:

  Mom, Sergeant Kinlaw called. He wants you to call him ASAP.

  “Asap,” Grace said out loud. “Easier said than done.”

  She tried to call Kinlaw, again without success, then made several more attempts as she threw together some homemade vegetable soup for when the girls got home. Soup and cheese toast—the Grace Justin James cure for a chilly rainy day.

  When the soup was simmering, she tried Kinlaw’s number again. This time the call went through.

  “Allison left me a note—”

  “Elizabeth is in the hospital—Lejeune,” he interrupted. “Possible pneumonia. I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Yes. Thank you.” She heard his faint emphasis on the word ‘I’. Kinlaw must have taken it upon himself to notify her. She couldn’t assume that Joshua had asked him to. “How is she? Is it serious?”

  “Josh was pretty worried when I talked to him.”

  “I can go see her, right?”

  “With enough ID,” he said. “Do you know your way around Lejeune?”

  “No.”

  “I’m heading there. If you want to go now, I can swing by and you can follow me.”

  Grace hesitated.

  “Might save you some time in the long run,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said, but only because she hated trying to find places in the rain.

  “Watch for me then. You got something to write with? I’ll give you the room number.”

  “I think I’ll remember it.”

  “Maybe so, but pick up a pencil. It’s a Marine thing,” he added. “Humor me.”

  Grace did as he asked, then waited. Rain or no rain, it didn’t take long for him to “swing by.” He arrived shortly after the girls returned, hopefully from a place that sold books or cute teenage girl outfits rather than draft beer, before they had a chance to eat the soup she’d made.

  “Mom, he’s on a motorcycle,” Allison called from the window, her voice incredulous. “Can I come along, too? Please? I don’t have much homework—just stuff to read. I can take it with me. Lizzie likes me, Mom,” she added before Grace could answer.