by Tolsma, Liz;
Cecile worked to contain her sobs so she could speak. She pinched the bridge of her nose and stemmed the tide of tears. “Please, I need to know for sure if it was my child. Do you have a picture? Anything?”
Mr. Friedman touched his wife’s shoulder. “We have to give this woman the answers she wants.”
“Who is she to come into our home at this hour of night and disturb us? To falsely accuse someone of such a hideous crime.”
Percy pulled Cecile close. His touch radiated strength, which flowed into her. “She’s a mother just like you. And the charges aren’t false. I know. I was there when it happened.”
Mr. Friedman stood. “I’ll get the only photograph we have of her.”
His wife followed him out of the room but not so far that their voices didn’t carry to Percy and Cecile. “I want them gone from this house. Do you hear me, Adolph? They shouldn’t be here.” Her voice faded away.
The wait for Mr. Friedman to return with the photo might have been two lifetimes. Percy held Cecile. At least she wasn’t alone. Without him, this wouldn’t be bearable. What would she have done these weeks without him beside her? Her insides tumbled and tied themselves into a knot. How would she go on if this was Millie? Losing her would be equivalent to ripping off one of her limbs. She wouldn’t be able to function without her. Her head pounded, and her shoulders ached.
At long last, footsteps heralded Mr. Friedman’s return. His wife wasn’t with him. “I apologize for my wife. You have to understand how upset she is to have lost Kate. She wasn’t our daughter for very long, but she was our daughter.”
All Cecile could do was nod.
Percy, her rock, answered for her. “We do. And we’re so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.” He held out the picture with a deckle edge.
Cecile couldn’t make herself move. Percy took the photo and showed it to her.
Though the black-and-white image was grainy, it showed a pencil-thin young child, her face long, her braided hair reaching to the middle of her back.
She recognized her.
Cecile dropped the photo and covered her face. “That’s not Millie.” From head to toe, she trembled like grass in the breeze. It wasn’t Millie, but it was one of the girls whose photograph they found in the file.
When she uncovered her eyes, Percy was handing the picture to Mr. Friedman. “Thank you for sharing that. We are sorry for having troubled you.”
“Miriam doesn’t want to believe that the woman who gave us the girls would harm them. But Sarah too came covered with scabies. She has awful nightmares. If you can do anything to help the children remaining in her care, please do so.”
“You won’t contact the home about our visit, will you?” Percy’s voice trembled.
“No, we’ll keep it quiet. Just help these children.”
“We’ll do our best.”
“Good luck to both of you.”
Percy and Cecile shook Mr. Friedman’s hand. As they headed out the door, Cecile turned to face him. “I hope your wife recovers from this grief. Nothing is more terrible than losing a child.”
Mr. Friedman gave a small smile then shut the door behind them.
Standing there on the front porch, Cecile went to Percy and pulled him close. He embraced her as she quivered, his coat smelling of pipe tobacco. How good to be nestled in his arms. Her heart beat in time to his. “That could have been Millie. Might still be. She could have met the same fate. What if my little girl is gone?”
“Don’t torture yourself. The only answer we have is that the child who came to live here isn’t Millie.”
“So we’ve eliminated one home out of the millions in the United States. We’re no closer to discovering where she is. What if we never do? How am I supposed to move forward with my life when I’m stuck in the past?” She couldn’t live without knowing. The possibilities would drive her insane. Her soul would not be still until she found Millie.
“Don’t worry.” Percy’s tender words washed over her. “We won’t stop until we know. I promise. I’m not going to let this matter rest until you have all the answers you need. Until you have peace.”
She leaned back and gazed at him. He bent to her and kissed her, his lips gentle against hers.
And she didn’t stop him.
Chapter Sixteen
Percy sank into the supple dark brown leather chair in the paneled library of his club. Cigar and pipe smoke swirled about him, intoxicating him with their rich odors. He closed his eyes and allowed the music of men’s low voices to lull him.
After driving home from Chattanooga all night, he and Cecile had informed the mother about her child’s fate. The worst thing he’d ever had to do in his life. Even if he lived to be one hundred, he’d never erase the echo of her soul-crushing sobs.
After a few hours of sleep, he’d gone into the office, but he hadn’t managed to get much work done. Every time Miss Connors came in to give him papers or ask him a question, she caught him staring into nothingness. Because what was left after you lost a child?
At last, Miss Connors convinced him to leave and commanded him to unwind.
Across the room he caught sight of Griggs standing near the full-length window, chatting with an older man, a cigar in one hand and a brandy in the other. Griggs eyed Percy but made no move in his direction.
All the better.
A dapper, white-haired man wearing a light tan suit and a string tie approached Percy, bringing a smile to his face.
“Is this seat taken?” The old man motioned to the matching chair beside Percy.
“It’s good to see you, Mr. DeJong. Please, have a seat.”
Percy’s boss back when he first passed the bar lowered himself into the chair. “These old bones creak and groan worse than a door that needs to be oiled. So, what have you been up to? I’m surprised to see you here when it’s still afternoon. You always worked such long hours. Or is the practice going so well it runs itself?”
“Ha.” Percy spit out the word. “I’m on the wrong side of Memphis politics, and there are hardly enough cases to keep me afloat.”
Mr. DeJong raised both of his gray eyebrows.
“Don’t ask.”
“I’ve heard rumors about you and Georgia Tann.”
“I can only imagine.”
“Don’t lose heart, my boy. You have this knack for falling into a dung heap and coming out smelling like a rose.”
The chances of that happening this time were tiny. Teeny tiny.
A disturbance broke out behind him. “I demand to be admitted. I have business with one of your members.”
Percy clutched the chair’s armrests. That voice. There was no mistaking it.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you in there.” The poor young man at the desk had his hands full.
“And I don’t care what you say.” A moment later, Georgia Tann herself strode into the room wearing pants and a loose blouse, the young man trailing her, shrugging as if to say he had done his best.
He probably had.
“There you are.” Like an arrow aimed at his heart, Tann pointed at Percy.
He rose. “Please, don’t cause a commotion here. This is a private club.”
“One you enjoy because of my generosity and tolerance. But no more. I’ve reached the end of my patience.”
At her words, the hairs on Percy’s arms stood straight. The stares of a dozen men weighed on his shoulders.
“How dare you interfere with a legal adoption? Of all the nerve. I have half a mind to speak to the district attorney about charging you.”
How had she discovered this information? Someone at the courthouse must have tipped her off. Griggs himself, maybe. “Can we talk about this in private?”
“Absolutely not. I want all the world to know what you’ve done. You believe yourself to be above the law. You are arrogant and headstrong.”
He swallowed hard. “Please.”
“You go to track down an adoptive family. How dare you?�
��
He stood mute before her.
“I asked you a question. How dare you?” Her face bloomed red.
He shoved his trembling hands in his pockets.
She stepped closer and whispered, “Did you read in the paper about Mr. Kearny?”
The chair behind him prevented him from moving away. He nodded.
“Good. Then you know what happens to people who cross me. I have influence in this town, and I’m not afraid to wield it.”
“Are you threatening my life?” He did not keep his voice low.
She pulled him by the arm into the lobby. He would have a bruise there in the morning. “I’m warning you. I’m not an enemy you want to make. And I will not have you dipping your sticky little fingers into my pie. You have brought your own ruin upon yourself. Do you like this club? Your house? Your automobile?”
When he was a child, he would sit on his family’s cabin’s tilted front step and dream of life away from the Mississippi farm. No more early-morning chores. No more backbreaking work for a pittance of subsistence. No more having the money the crops earned poured down his father’s gullet. He hadn’t known hunger or pain or fear for years. His gut twisted with the idea of begging for food and a place to sleep. He forced the words through his lips. “Yes, I enjoy all of them.”
Tann turned to the kid at the podium. “Get me Mr. Simonson on the phone.” The head of the state bar.
The telephone was brought to her.
“No. Wait.” He lunged to snatch the receiver from her hand. He’d been foolish. Rash.
But she pressed on his chest and kept him at bay.
“This time you’ve gone too far, Mr. Vance.” She put the receiver to her ear. “Charlie. Georgia Tann. I have a problem I need taken care of immediately.”
Indistinguishable chatter came from the other end.
“Percy Vance. Disbarred. Today. You will be rewarded.”
More tinny words.
“Thank you.” She hung up the phone. “You will be getting notification in the mail, Mr. Vance, but from this point forward, you are no longer allowed to practice law in the state of Tennessee.” With that, she marched from the building.
He peered over his shoulder at the group of men gathered behind him. Griggs gave a crooked smile. He could never forgive Percy for being born on the wrong side of the tracks.
Mr. DeJong shook his head.
Percy fled the building. The life he’d worked so hard to build crumbled around him.
Cecile rolled over in bed and stared at the face of her alarm clock—5 a.m. She rubbed her gritty eyes and threw back the blanket.
Once she had pulled her robe around her middle, she padded from the bedroom to the apartment’s small main room and sat in the rocker without turning on the light switch. She didn’t need illumination to know what the place contained. On the corner of the battered kitchen table stood a white and pink frosted cake. And beside it was a gift for Millie, wrapped in pink paper with white polka dots. Millie should be here to open it. To play with the stuffed teddy bear inside the box. To hold it close when she went to bed.
God, what am I going to do if we never find her? Like happened much too often these days, the heavens remained silent. Didn’t He even care about her plight? About the precious daughter He had given her and Nathaniel?
Millie would have been four.
No. She couldn’t allow herself to think of Millie in the past tense. Today, her daughter did turn four. The longing in her chest became a physical ache. She twisted the tattered ribbon around and around her wrist. The action didn’t ease the pain. Nothing did.
In the semidarkness of the late summer morning, she dressed in a lightweight blue skirt, a black blouse, and her stockings. She slipped her feet into her black Oxford shoes. After consuming a dry piece of toast, she exited the apartment. As she left the building and wandered down the street, the humidity wrapped itself around her, a blanket she couldn’t throw off.
Thoughts and memories of Millie flitted through her mind, a new one coming with each footstep. Millie’s first cry. Her shiny brown hair. Her face the day she’d left her with Mrs. Ward.
Oh, if she could only go back and relive that day.
She glanced up and found herself marching through the entrance to Overton Park. How had she gotten here?
Since it was Saturday, she didn’t have to be at work. She meandered through the park and to the bench where she’d first met Percy. Because of the early hour, no children yet swung on the swings or slid down the slide.
The leaves overhead formed a canopy, a shelter for her to hide away from the world. A covering and protection from all the hurt and evil around her. A place of peace and good. A place where God still saw and heard her.
Someone, a man with tan pants, stepped in front of her, blocking her view. “I had a feeling I’d find you here.”
She gazed upward into Percy’s eyes, startling in their blueness. “Why are you out and about so early on the weekend?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Neither could I.”
“I remembered what today is.”
Her eyes watered. “You did?” What man remembered the birthday of another man’s child?
“Millie’s fourth birthday. If you came anywhere, it would be here.” He sat beside her and swiped away the tear that trickled down her face.
All the gesture accomplished was to make more tears fall. “That is so sweet. Nathaniel always had to ask me when Millie’s birthday was, and he was there the day she was born. I can’t believe you remembered, especially since I only told you the date once or twice.” Part of her heart, deep inside, a piece that had been dead for as long as Nathaniel, sprang to life.
“I thought you might want some company. But if you’d prefer to be alone, I can go.”
She took him by the hand, a spark passing between them. “No, please stay. If I’m by myself, I’ll get too melancholy.”
“We can be melancholy together.” He rubbed the top of her thumb, an odd stirring in her chest, in her limbs.
“But you must have plans for today.”
“Just to clean out my office.”
She slid to face him, her knee bumping his. “What? Why?”
He chortled. “You must be the only person in Memphis who doesn’t know. Miss Tann fired me yesterday in dramatic fashion at my club, in front of my peers.”
“Oh dear. How awful. And yet you came here to wallow with me in my problems. After I did this to you. It’s because of me you ended up on her wrong side.”
He shook his head, the pomade keeping his dark waves in place. “No, the trouble began before I met you. I already had qualms about her dealings.”
“So, you were always a crusader for justice?”
“I would fight the bullies who stole the pretty girls’ lunches.”
She couldn’t help the laugh that burst from her. “I can just see you, Mr. Vance, coming to the aid of the damsels in distress.”
He winked, and warmth flooded her. “Only the pretty ones, like I said.”
Her temperature rose. Was he flirting with her? And was she enjoying it? “I believe you exaggerate. But I do feel guilty. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”
“You can help me pack boxes.”
Though she had come here to seek solace, she’d found it in Percy instead of in the place. Perhaps being busy, working hard with her hands, would ease the pain in her heart. Help her to forget for a little while the emptiness of her apartment.
He offered her his elbow, and she slipped her hand around his arm. Together, they strolled by the fountain, the water gurgling, out of the park, and down the block toward the trolley stop.
As they stepped into the street to catch the tram, a midnight-blue car careened around the corner. Its tires screeched. The stench of burning rubber filled the air. “Percy!”
He pushed her out of the way.
She fell to the ground.
A sickening thud.
“That
should teach you.” The car squealed away.
Nauseated, she came to her hands and knees. Percy lay on the road. A gash on his forehead gushed blood.
“No! No! Someone help us!”
Chapter Seventeen
A jostling on the bed awakened R.D. long before he was ready for the day to start.
With her small hands, Pearl patted his cheeks. “Get up, Daddy. Today is zoo day.”
Then again, how could he be grumpy when he opened his eyes to the sight of his daughter leaning over him, her brown hair brushing her shoulders, her green eyes sparkling. “Yes, Miss Muffet, it’s zoo day.”
“And we see lions and giraffes and monkeys.”
“I see one monkey already.”
He tickled her until her peals of laughter rang off the walls. “Stop it, stop it.”
So he did.
“More, Daddy.”
He joined his chuckles with her giggles.
“What a commotion we have in here.” Darcy stood in the doorway, already dressed in a mustard-yellow dress, a pink apron tied around her waist. “You’d think the zoo was right here.”
Pearl hopped from the bed. “No, Mommy. We go now to the zoo?”
“First, we have to have breakfast.” Hand in hand, the two women R.D. loved most in the world left the room. He would protect them with his life.
For hours on end last night, he’d lain awake, replaying yesterday’s incident in his mind. Tann barging into the club, screaming at Vance, ruining him in front of everyone. The woman had nothing but nerve. And she was not to be messed with.
At least R.D.’s affiliation with Vance had ended. And now that Vance had lost his job, he likely wouldn’t be a club member much longer. Perhaps they would never see each other again. That suited R.D. just fine. Always had.
As soon as Darcy finished the dishes, the trio left the house. His wife had Pearl togged to the bricks in a frilly pink dress, lacy socks, and a pink bonnet. He tugged on the hat. “You look like you’re about to cross the prairie.”