Mercer Street (American Journey Book 2)

by John A. Heldt

  "What are we doing, Mom?" Amanda asked.

  Susan turned around.

  "We're stopping."

  Amanda raised a brow.

  "I can see that."

  "I want you to get out of the car and walk the rest of the way with me," Susan said.

  "Why?" Amanda asked.

  "Just do it. The exercise will do us good."

  Amanda gave her mother an exasperated look she had honed as a teenager and then turned to the man in the middle seat. She kissed Kurt on the cheek.

  "I won't be long," Amanda said.

  Kurt laughed.

  "Take your time."

  Susan smiled at Kurt and then looked one more time at Elizabeth. She saw what she had expected to see: a patient woman who was predictably composed, a quiet person who didn't say a word, and a confidante who returned a knowing smile.

  Susan watched Amanda exit the right rear door of the vehicle and then turned to face the driver. She retrieved her purse and opened her own door.

  "Give us a few minutes to walk the rest of the way and then drive to the house," Susan said. "I will pay you double for your time."

  "I'm in no hurry, lady," the cabbie said.

  Susan nodded and exited the vehicle. She shut the door, took a deep breath, and then turned to face a daughter who appeared to be both irritated and amused.

  "Did you plan a surprise birthday party?" Amanda asked.

  Susan laughed softly.

  "No."

  "Did you buy me a car? Is it waiting in the driveway?"

  "I'm afraid not," Susan said.

  Amanda tilted her head.

  "Then what's this about?"

  "Come walk with me," Susan said. "I'll tell you."

  Amanda sighed.

  "All right."

  Susan stepped forward, grabbed her daughter's hand, and gently pulled her forward. She waved to the driver as they passed the front of the vehicle and continued northward on a sidewalk that separated the narrow street from spacious front lawns.

  "Thanks for walking with me," Susan said.

  Amanda laughed.

  "Did I have a choice?"

  "You always have a choice."

  "That's not true," Amanda said.

  Susan smiled.

  "OK. It's not."

  Amanda took a breath.

  "Are you going to give me some bad news?"

  "No," Susan said.

  "Then why did you pull me away from Grandma and Kurt?"

  "I wanted to talk to you."

  "Can't we talk when we get home?" Amanda asked.

  "No," Susan said. "I need to say a few things first."

  Amanda looked at her mother with puzzled eyes.

  "OK. Then say them."

  Susan released Amanda's hand. She brought her own hands together under her chin.

  "Do you remember the day Grandma gave us a tour of Princeton?"

  "I do," Amanda said.

  "Do you remember her pointing out a law firm on Prospect Avenue?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you remember what she said about that firm?"

  Amanda gave Susan another curious glance.

  "I do. She said it was the oldest in the country."

  "You're close," Susan said. "She said it was one of the oldest continuously operating firms in the country. More important, she said it was still operating in 2016."

  "Is that what you want to talk about? A law firm?"

  Susan reclaimed Amanda's hand.

  "No. I want to talk about what I did at that law firm."

  Amanda sighed again.

  "OK."

  "I visited the firm the day I said goodbye to Jack," Susan said. "In fact, I walked there right after I said goodbye. I did so to keep an appointment I had made with an attorney named Clarence Pendleton."

  "You hired a lawyer?" Amanda asked.

  "I did."

  "Did you sue someone?"

  "No," Susan said. She laughed. "I didn't sue anyone. I simply asked Mr. Pendleton to do a favor for me."

  Amanda slowed her step.

  "What was that?"

  Susan took a breath.

  "I asked him to hold onto some letters."

  "You mean letters you wrote?" Amanda asked.

  Susan nodded.

  "I mean ten anonymous notes I wrote and typed in August."

  Amanda's hand went limp.

  "Mom? What did you do?"

  Susan gathered her strength.

  "I asked Mr. Pendleton and his firm to hold the letters for seventy-seven years and then mail them to a specific person in a specific order."

  Amanda stopped. She withdrew her hand and turned to face her mother.

  "Who did you write to?"

  Susan tried to hold it together as tears flooded her eyes and her legs grew wobbly. She willed herself the strength to finish what she had started.

  "I wrote to a man who lives on this street," Susan said.

  "What … did you say?" Amanda asked in a shaky voice.

  "I said a lot of things, honey. I told the man that he had a wife and a family who loved him and appreciated him. I told him that many problems in a marriage could be fixed but others, like adultery, could not. I reminded him that commitments were forever and that vows made on a wedding day should be honored, strengthened, and cherished. I told him all the things he needed to know at a time he needed to know them."

  Amanda's face turned white and her eyes grew wide.

  "You didn't."

  "I did," Susan said. "When I learned about the firm, I knew I had an opening. I knew I had an opportunity to rewrite the future. I had a chance to change my life."

  Amanda started to tremble and falter. She reached out to Susan with both hands, held onto her arms, and tried to steady herself. She stared at her mother with moist eyes that revealed fear, wonder, and shock.

  "You didn't," Amanda said in a barely audible voice.

  "I did. I did it for you. I did it for us."

  "You mean … he's alive?"

  Susan nodded.

  "I called him from Los Angeles. He's waiting inside. He's waiting for you," Susan said. She put a hand to Amanda's face. "Happy birthday, sweetheart."

  Amanda wobbled and fell to her knees like a boxer going down for the count. She grabbed Susan's legs for support, took a breath, and stared blankly at her teary-eyed mother.

  When Amanda finally returned to her feet, she smiled, hugged Susan fiercely, and then turned toward a house that was still a home. She cast her purse aside, sprinted toward the door, and screamed a name that echoed through the street.

  "Daddy!"

  CHAPTER 90: SUSAN

  North Chicago, Illinois – Monday, October 3, 2016

  Susan walked out of the naval museum and joined Elizabeth on a sunny lawn. She held a sheet of paper in one hand and a souvenir pen in the other.

  "Did you miss me?" Susan asked.

  "I missed the air conditioning," Elizabeth said. "It's warm out here."

  "Do you want to go home?"

  "No. Let's enjoy the sun a bit. I just want to rest a while."

  "OK," Susan said. "Let's find a place to sit."

  Susan scanned the premises until she spotted a suitable location. She put a hand on her mother's shoulder and guided her toward the north side of the lawn. She helped her sit down when they reached a small wooden bench.

  "That's much better," Elizabeth said.

  "Are you sure? We can go back inside."

  "I'm fine."

  "All right."

  Susan joined Elizabeth on the bench. She didn't know whether she was really all right or simply putting on a brave face, but she gave her the benefit of the doubt. She figured that anyone who had walked the earth for nearly eighty years deserved the benefit of the doubt.

  "Did the clerk find what you wanted?" Elizabeth asked.

  "He found more," Susan said. She handed the sheet, a photocopy of a newspaper article, to her mother. "He dug up a story on a speech Jack gave here sixty years
ago. It contains a lot of biographical information."

  Elizabeth took several minutes to read the article. When she finished, she returned the sheet to Susan, sat up straight in her seat, and gazed at a flagpole in the distance.

  "He married again," Elizabeth said.

  "I saw that. He also had a son. He became a father at fifty-eight."

  "How do you feel about that?"

  "I feel good," Susan said. "I feel good knowing that a man who had endured so much finally found the happiness he deserved."

  Admiral John J. Hicks had found more than personal happiness. He had found a place in history. After serving fourteen months as a member of President Roosevelt's task force, Jack had returned to active duty and eventually commanded a carrier group that helped roll back Japan's advances in the South Pacific. He had retired, officially, as a vice admiral in 1948.

  "Do you have any regrets?" Elizabeth asked.

  "No," Susan said. "Not now. What I have is a measure of peace."

  Susan meant it too. For nearly a month she had agonized over her decision to leave a perfect relationship in the past and resume an imperfect marriage in the future. She felt good about what she had done and about what she could still do in the years that remained to her.

  "How are things between you and Bruce," Elizabeth said. "You haven't said much to your old mother since we returned to Chicago."

  "I know," Susan said. "I haven't because I wanted to see how things developed. The simple truth of the matter is that we're in uncharted territory."

  "Does Bruce think you sent him those letters?"

  "I don't know. He hasn't even acknowledged receiving them. All I know for sure is that he's more attentive and involved than he was the first time around. He looks at me differently. He looks at me like he did when we were first married."

  Elizabeth laughed.

  "I don't need the details, dear. I just want to know whether you think this marriage of yours, this second marriage, will last."

  "I think it will," Susan said. "I really do."

  "Do you know whatever became of that receptionist?"

  "It's funny you ask. I called another receptionist at Bruce's firm about a week ago and asked if Brianne was still employed there. She said she wasn't. She said Brianne left the company on March 31. She moved to New York just before the affair began."

  "So it appears that your letters had the desired effect," Elizabeth said.

  "It appears so."

  Susan couldn't complain about the results. She had a live husband and a happy marriage. The only downside to her decision to send the letters had been the loss of six months. By gently steering Bruce Peterson away from a comely receptionist, she had rewritten half of 2016.

  Bruce had frequently mentioned spring and summer events that Susan did not remember. He had even shown her photos of their twenty-fifth anniversary, a day spent in Hawaii and not in Chicago. Susan didn't have the answers. She knew only that a stream of time had separated in March and somehow come back together in September.

  Elizabeth too had come home to a few surprises. When she pulled out a box of old photos on September 25, she discovered several new additions to the collection.

  In two snapshots, one-year-old Lizzie Wagner, sitting in a high chair, posed with an elderly woman identified only as "her neighbor nana." Faded and dog-eared, the pictures matched two new ones that Elizabeth had carried back to the future.

  Elizabeth hadn't needed to dig to learn the identity of the neighbor. She had been able to see with her own eyes that Lizzie's birthday party guest on April 23, 1939, had been a kindly Illinois widow, a time traveler who had, for several months, put her stamp on a precious young life.

  Elizabeth had also found three photographs of a girl she recognized but didn't remember. In each of the black-and-white high school photos, a perky blonde stood with a group. She held a golf club in the first picture, a tennis racket in the second, and a tuba in the third.

  Susan couldn't explain those pictures any more than she could explain time tunnels and glowing crystals, but she was more than happy to file them in a new family record. She pondered the pleasant discoveries until her mother broke a long silence with a not-so-surprising question.

  "Have you heard from Amanda today?" Elizabeth asked.

  "I did. I heard from her this morning," Susan said. "She called as she left her apartment. She was headed to the think tank for her first day of work."

  "Did she take Kurt along?"

  Susan smiled.

  "Of course."

  Susan had laughed when Amanda had told her she was taking Kurt to work. Amanda had taken him nearly everywhere since introducing him to her father as a "blond boy" she had "met on the beach and decided to keep."

  Kurt had passed himself off, successfully, as a recent college graduate who had taken time off before returning to Washington, his hometown, to look for work. When Bruce had asked about his family, Kurt had replied, truthfully, that he was an orphan with no living siblings.

  "Was Amanda excited when you talked to her?" Elizabeth asked.

  "She was ecstatic," Susan said. "I think taking that job and moving back east was the best thing she could have done. She's in her element now."

  "Do you think she'll be happy?"

  "I know so. She loves research."

  "That's not what I meant," Elizabeth said. "Do you think they'll be happy?"

  Susan smiled.

  "I'm even more confident of that."

  "Why?" Elizabeth asked.

  "I'm confident because of something Amanda asked me to do."

  "What was that?"

  Susan put a hand on her mother's knee.

  "She asked me to call the church and reserve a date."

  Elizabeth turned her head.

  "You don't mean?"

  "We're going to have a June wedding, Mom."

  Elizabeth put her hand on Susan's.

  "Are you sure?"

  Susan nodded.

  "I'm positive," Susan said. "Amanda specifically asked for Saturday, June 17."

  Elizabeth's lips trembled as her eyes began to water.

  "She did that?"

  "She wants to be married on your anniversary," Susan said. "She wants to wear your ring. Amanda said that ring will get a good church wedding if it's the last thing she does."

  Elizabeth nodded her agreement but said no more. Overcome with emotion, she was able to do no more than rest her head against her daughter's shoulder and no doubt think about a wedding she had once said she would never live to see.

  Susan pulled her mother close and smiled as she thought about a magic moment, an unforgettable year, and a story that kept playing out in different ways. Life, she had concluded, was not a singular journey down a straight and narrow path. It was a series of adventures with interesting loops, detours, and diversions.

  Like her mother, her daughter, and Kurt Schmidt, Susan Campbell Peterson had an opportunity to follow a new course and remake her life. She had a reset button, an opening, a second chance. In the fiftieth week of her fiftieth year, she vowed to make the most of it.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing may be a solitary venture, but producing a novel is not. Most authors require the assistance of others to produce works fit for the reading public, and I am no exception. I am deeply indebted to several people who offered their time, talents, and insights.

  They include Leslie Teske Mills, Becky Skelton, Christine Stinson, and Kristin Wogahn, who read the early drafts; Cheryl Heldt, Mary Heldt, Cathy Hundley, and Esther Johnson, who read the later drafts; and John Fellows, Jon Johnson, Craig Stoess, and Brent Wogahn, who provided input on topics ranging from military affairs and history to language and medicine.

  A big thank you goes to Laura Wright LaRoche for producing the captivating cover. The Indiana illustrator has created or modified the covers of six of my seven novels.

  I am also grateful to Aaron Yost for editing the final draft and to several others for providing research assistanc
e. They include staff from the Chicago Public Library, Council on Foreign Relations, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Grand Canyon (Arizona) Community Library, Historical Society of Princeton, Library of Congress, Miami (Oklahoma) Public Library, Mudd Manuscript Library (Princeton University), Naval Historical Foundation, Navy Department Library, Princeton Public Library, and U.S. Army Center of Military History.

  While writing this novel, I consulted several published works, including Einstein A to Z by Karen C. Fox, Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson, Fashions of a Decade: The 1930s by Maria Costantino, five editions of the Princeton University Bric-a-Brac, and The 1930s, edited Louise I. Gerdes. I also learned about persons, places, and things in the Amarillo Globe (Texas), Daily Princetonian, Hopewell Herald (New Jersey), Miami News-Record (Oklahoma), Newark Star-Ledger, Santa Ana Register (California), and Washington Post.