The Mystery Trip

by Helen Naismith

  “My mother is a fighter,” Rosemary continued. ”She is the most devout Christian I know. She absolutely was not going to give up. She said she knew God was not going to take both me and my dad from her. She knew she could do nothing but pray for my dad, but she could fight for me through prayer and through action.

  “Mother immediately got her family and my physicians moving on a campaign to get those sulfa drugs for me. I was in contact with those physicians for decades afterwards and they always maintained that she fought for me more fiercely than anyone they had ever seen. My grandfather was a Baptist minister, and one of the members of his congregation and my doctor were friendly with each of our two senators. Others were acquainted with our members of the House of Representatives. Evidently these wonderful people were so moved by my mother’s pleas that they literally hammered the Department of the Navy with requests for sulfa drugs for the child of the missing Navy pilot, and it finally happened.

  “The release of the drugs that would have been my father’s “share” was actually signed by the Secretary of the Navy himself. I had been in a coma for eleven days when the drugs arrived and the doctors felt it was too late, but the sulfa was earmarked for me and only me, so they would try. They gave Mother literally no hope that I could possibly live in anything more than a vegetative state, but she just didn’t believe it.”

  Claire gasped, “Oh, Rosemary, how awful.”

  “Five days after the sulfa arrived, I woke up. Both Mother and Aunt Whistle were with me. I was a “talker” even then, and had been speaking in complete sentences before the illness. When I woke up I immediately said ‘Where’s Granny?’ my name for my great-grandmother. Then one by one I asked for every member of our household. I was told there was quite a celebration on that wing at Children’s Hospital that day. My nurses kept in touch with Mother for many years, and Mother and Grandmother both volunteered in that wing at Children’s for many years, as well.

  “I remained in the hospital for another two weeks, for a total of thirty days. When I went home I was partially paralyzed from the waist down. Physical therapy wasn’t what it is now, and my main physician gave Mother a set of exercises to do with me and told her to work with me in warm water. At that point I had lost considerable weight and was down to eighteen pounds, so it was easy for Mother to accomplish this in a bathtub. She did these exercises with me tirelessly, researched exercises for victims of paralyzing diseases and tried everything she could find. This went on for years. When I couldn’t exercise in the bathtub any longer, Mother took me to my doctor’s home to exercise in their pool. When my dad returned from the Japanese war camp, we moved across town and that wasn’t convenient any more. So he and my uncles built a pool in a greenhouse in our backyard so I could exercise.

  “I did manage to walk again, with braces to my hips and crutches from age two to six. When I started school, I had progressed to braces just to the knees. By the end of the second grade my braces were just above the ankles and the crutches were gone. I can remember Mother taking me on much-dreaded “walks” and me begging and crying and wanting her to pick me up and carry me because my legs hurt. I still see the tears on her cheeks as she told me no, I had to walk. I know now that it hurt her more than it hurt me, but when you are five or six you don’t realize that.

  “Mother felt she and I had a responsibility to “give back,” and she was right. We attended medical conferences and I was an object of medical studies for years because so few children survived this strain of meningitis in the early 1940s. I was poked and prodded and Mother was interviewed, and the physical therapy regimen she devised for me was studied. When I complained, she reminded me this was to help keep some other little girl from going through all I had endured. She reminded me to smile every day because I had the opportunity to walk this earth and not complain because my legs hurt.”

  While her friends sat mesmerized, clinging to every word, Rosemary continued her narration uninterrupted.

  “By God’s grace I have lived a very normal, active life. I was a high school cheerleader, Valedictorian of my high school class, graduated from college with honors, played tennis competitively for about 20 years, raised two boys, and had a wonderful marriage. A lovely life!

  “As I age some of the issues are catching up with me a bit. I have bone scans every six months because my femur isn’t behaving too nicely, and my knees aren’t formed properly and cause problems at times. My spine was deteriorating differently than it would with osteoporosis, but with treatment it has responded nicely and is improving. I woke up one morning in 1984 and was totally deaf in one ear, which they attribute to bone malformation that started way back then.”

  As she brought her story to an end, she smiled a warm, winning smile and said, “All in all I can’t complain. At sixty-six a lot of my friends have these problems and others as bad or worse.”

  Claire reached over and covered Rosemary’s hand with her own. “Thanks for sharing, Rosemary. I really mean that. It’s such an interesting story and you told it so well. Your present good health is a wonderful tribute to your mother. Is she still living?”

  “Yes, she’s ninety now and is in a nursing home in Warwick, Rhode Island. I go to see her at least once a month, sometimes more, and always on holidays. I owe so much to her.”

  For the next few minutes the women were silent, each in her own way reflecting on the details of Rosemary’s incredible story.

  Chapter 12

  After a long respectful silence, Claire turned to Anne and asked, “How about you, Anne? Any new books we should know about?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. My latest will be released next month.”

  “How exciting. Tell us about it.”

  “It’s a memoir which I ghost wrote for an old-timer who lives in Hampton Falls. He asked me to write it two years ago, but I didn’t have the time or interest, and I said no. He called me again last year and again I said no. But he was persistent and called me for the third time in March of this year, the day I returned from speaking to your book club, Rosemary. He said if I couldn’t do it, could I refer him to someone who would. That got my attention. I felt sorry for him. He’s eighty years old and in ill health and wanted so much to have his life story written for his family, so I gave in and agreed to do it.

  “For the next four and a half months, I interviewed him daily at his kitchen table from one to three o’clock, then went home and wrote it up in the evening. I’m really very glad I took the time to help him. He’s lived a remarkable life, and I fully understand why he wanted his children and grandchildren to know about it in his own words.”

  “Why?” asked Claire. “What was his so remarkable about it?” Standing up, she cautioned, “But don’t begin until I make more tea.”

  Claire hurried to the kitchen and put another kettle of water on the burner. When she returned, Anne outlined the man’s life story.

  “His name is Carl Gottlieb. He was born in Paterson, New Jersey, the eldest child of German parents who migrated to America in 1925,” she began and then proceeded to give a brief book report as the women listened quietly.

  “When he was five years old, his mother took him and his sister to Germany to visit her parents. She returned to America after a few weeks, but the children wanted to spend the summer with their grandparents on their farm. Finances became a problem in the family home in Paterson. There was no money to bring the children back to America, and their summer visit turned into five years, and the start of WWII.

  “Rather than have the boy forced into Hitler’s youth army, the grandparents sent him to live with an uncle on a remote farm bordering a beautiful national forest. The sister went to live with nuns in a nearby city.

  “When the war ended, Russian shock troops came out of the forest and the uncle’s farmhouse was the first to be raided. The boy, now fifteen, spoke only German; he looked German and had a German name. To the Russian patrol, he was German, so they marched him to the railroad station and into a boxcar, just
like the ones the Nazis used during the Holocaust, and shipped him to a Gulag labor camp in Siberia.

  “The camp was a massive industrial complex consisting of a coal mine, a huge lumber mill, and vegetable gardens that went on as far as the eye could see. The prisoners were half-starved when they arrived, because all they had to eat during the long train ride was watered down cabbage soup. Many of the older men and women died along the way and were placed in the last boxcar. When the train arrived in Siberia, 400 bodies were removed from the overloaded, rickety tomb.

  “As the captives were being marched into the fields to work in the vegetable gardens, the American youth spotted an onion on the ground and stooped to pick it up. A guard saw him and beat him almost to death. He never fully recovered from the brutal assault, but still had to work. He was finally released four years later through the efforts of the German Red Cross and the U.S. State Department.”

  Like Rosemary’s story, Anne’s, too, held her listeners’ rapt attention. But at this point the shrill, whistling tea kettle interrupted her narration.

  “Wait!” exclaimed Claire, rushing to the kitchen. “Give me just a minute. I don’t want to miss a word.”

  A moment later she returned to the table, covered the teapot with the pretty cozy, and let the tea steep while Anne continued her story.

  “He was nineteen years old when he returned to America, arriving in New York harbor aboard a transport ship. An ambulance was waiting at the dock to take him to the hospital where he spent three months undergoing several operations and physical therapy. While in the hospital, he taught himself English by studying a dictionary. After he regained his health, he found a job and a girlfriend, got married and had eight children.

  “You’d think he’d want nothing to do with gardens after his experience in the labor camp, but just the opposite was true. He became a gardener, turning two acres of his property into a beautiful Japanese garden. Members of garden clubs came by the busloads to tour and study his garden, which won many awards and was a noted landmark in his city.”

  As she finished, Anne laughed and said, “And that’s all I’m going to tell you. For the rest of the story, you’ll have to read the book, which comes out next month. Local book stores plan to promote it for Christmas sales.”

  “Wow!” exclaimed Claire. “No wonder the old man wanted his story told. Not only will his family find it fascinating, but so will the general public.”

  “Will you be doing book signings when it comes out?” asked Rosemary.

  “No. That was part of my agreement with him. I’d write the book, get a photographer to take pictures of his beautiful garden, with its teahouse, man-made lakes, bridges and waterfalls, and I’d find a publisher. Since it was a memoir for his family, he paid to have it published. But it will sell well locally because he is well known in the community. I took almost five months out of my schedule to write it, now I have to get on with my other writing.”

  “Which is?” asked Claire.

  “A mystery novel, the first I’m writing solo. I co-authored one with a biblical scholar, which is presently with a literary agent in San Francisco, but all my other books are non-fiction.

  “I always admired novelists because they are so creative, so imaginative. They craft personalities, dialogue, and thrilling episodes — all out of their heads. With me, it’s just been a matter of doing research, finding facts and correlating them into what critics call ‘a good read.’ But writing a novel is very different. I’ve always said ‘I can’t do that,’ and I never really wanted to. But one day this great idea for a mystery novel just popped into my head, and I’m finding that I can. It’s challenging, but really lots of fun. We’ll see if it does as well as my non-fiction work.”

  “You’re a good writer, Anne. I’m sure it will do very well,” Claire assured her.

  “She’s absolutely right,” Rosemary agreed. “It might even do better. Many people who read novels wouldn’t think of picking up a non-fiction book. Trust me, I know because I’m one of them. But I’ve read your last two because I know you, and I enjoyed them both. Our book club enjoyed them, too, and loved meeting you when you came last March.”

  “Which just proves that young reporter’s point,” chuckled Claire as she rose to clear the table, followed by the others. “Many, in fact most, senior citizens have lived exciting lives, and for some, including Anne,” she laughed, “it ain’t over yet!”

  Chapter 13

  A little before two o’clock, Meg’s new black Lincoln Navigator pulled up to the portico and all three women went to greet her. As usual, the ultra-chic real estate entrepreneur was smartly dressed in tan flannel, wide-leg pants, a cream-colored turtleneck, and a brown plaid flannel jacket, ample evidence that home-grown Talbots kept trendy North Shore women in style for all occasions.

  Claire was pleased that Meg arrived earlier than expected since she had planned to take her buyers to lunch after the closing that morning.

  “They had to leave for New York immediately,” Meg explained, “which allowed me to finish up my paperwork and get away early.”

  As Anne took her overnight bag from the back seat, Rosemary admired the luxurious SUV.

  “Very nice,” she commented. “You’ve even got a personal license plate. How did you manage that?”

  “It was quite a coincidence, really. I decided to use the initials for my name, Megyn Evans Gordon, MEG, which just happens to be the same as my nickname, Meg. For numbers I chose my birthday, August 28, which is how I ended up with MEG828. At least I’ll never forget it if I’m ever asked for it.”

  “Or if it gets stolen,” remarked Anne, whose cousin’s sporty BMW was hijacked while the family was on vacation.

  “You’re something else, Lady,” Claire teased Meg affectionately, remembering the meaningful things her long-time friend did for her and others. “Everything you do has special meaning.”

  A fact which Meg could not deny. Like Claire and others with a generous heart, she went the extra mile to give special meaning to things she did for people. Many of her gifts were embossed with friends’ initials; she gave Red Sox playoff tickets to a friend’s teenage son who loved the team but couldn’t afford the games. And for her history buff husband’s fiftieth birthday, she found a book autographed by King Edward VIII, who gave up the throne for his lady love. Also like Claire, Meg had been a “people person” all her life, which no doubt contributed to her success in the real estate business. It seemed that karma or providence rewarded them in return, because life was good to them both.

  Later, as the women relaxed in the living room, Claire brought Meg up to date on the discussions the three had had at lunch regarding a mystery trip.

  “We were thinking about taking a trip to the outlets in Maine to do some Christmas shopping, but we’d have to charter one or two buses because the trains don’t go to Kittery or Freeport,” explained Claire.

  “Does it have to be something in the winter?” asked Meg. “Being a lover of beautiful homes, I’d like to take the gals on a tour of those fabulous showplaces at Newington, Rhode Island, in the spring.”

  “Meg, that’s a wonderful idea, even better than shopping the Outlets,” exclaimed Claire. “The weather will be warm and an outing will be more enjoyable in the spring. I’ve been through Roselawn and Compton Oaks and a few of the others and I’d love to see them again. The gardens are beautiful, especially that large topiary garden. Has anyone seen that?”

  “I haven’t,” answered Anne, “but I’ve walked along that lovely cliff walk in front of those magnificent estates at Mariners Point and had lunch at the seaside restaurant nearby. The food was excellent and it has a beautiful view of Lobster Bay. A tour of those homes and gardens, a walk along the cliff walk, and lunch at that restaurant certainly gets my vote for our mystery trip.”

  “It’s a marvelous idea,” agreed Rosemary. “It’s been years since Harold and I toured the mansions that are decorated for Christmas. The White House is beautiful at Christmas, b
ut these mansions are unbelievable.”

  “Well, that raises the question, do we want to see them during the Christmas season, or go in the spring when all those beautiful gardens are in bloom?” asked Claire.

  “Both,” laughed Meg. “But we have to consider the weather. If it’s too chancy to take buses to Maine in the winter, it’d be just as chancy to take them to Rhode Island. I’ve had too many events canceled in December because of bad weather. If we really want to see the ones decorated for Christmas, maybe just the four of us could drive down when they’re open. It takes a lot of planning to get a hundred ladies together for a mystery trip, so let’s do it in the spring, when road conditions won’t be a problem. A rain storm we can handle, but winter blizzards close highways and everything gets canceled.”

  All agreed their mystery trip would be to Newington, Rhode Island, and would include luncheon and a tour of the fabulous seaside estates on Mariners Point. It would be scheduled for the following May and they’d charter as many buses as needed for their four chapters. They discussed the necessary details, assigning themselves responsibilities. Meg would work up the day’s agenda and reserve tickets for the home and garden tour. Anne would handle promotion and get the count, order the buses and determine the pickup points. Rosemary would call the restaurant for reservations and select one or two menu items to expedite service. Claire would collect all monies and pay all expenses.

  As discussions came to a close, the four women were excited because they knew it was the kind of outing all the ladies would enjoy.

  “And before we leave Newington, don’t forget I want to get some clam cakes at one of those open air restaurants in town,” laughed Anne. “For me a trip to the seashore wouldn’t be complete without a bag of tasty clam cakes. I’ve loved them since I was a kid.”

  The others joined in the laughter and agreed that their mystery trip would be to the seashore and the famous summer estates in Newington.