Breaking Josephine (23 page)

Dex looked at me,
narrowing his eyes. He took a deep breath and said, “How about you tell me what
you know, and I’ll go from there.”

I glowered at him
and took another sip of brandy, not liking the conversation’s turn back to me. But
I needed information more than I needed a fight. Resigning myself to having to
offer up my hard-earned information, I started talking. “I found a black and
white picture of my mother in the Astorian here at the local library, from the
Memorial Day social the year I was born. I confronted Diane Daugherty and she
told me my mom’s real name was Becca Kincaid and that she was a local waitress
here in town at the Cannon Diner, a restaurant her parents, Jacob and
Josephine, owned.

I went to Portland
and looked up the records, and I found an official record changing her name
from Rebecca Anne Kincaid to Rebecca Anne Sinclair, a few months before I was
born. And I found no record of my father, Jacob Cunningham, anywhere. I concluded
at that point that my mother had lied to me about everything. That she named me
after a grandmother I never knew, and that the story of my father was most
likely a lie.” I swallowed another sip of brandy and continued.

“Then I looked up
the Astorian at Central Library in Portland and found articles and photos of my
grandparents and my mom and the diner. Then I found a color copy of the same
photo I’d seen before, of my mom at the social. That’s when I noticed the
pearls around her neck looked just like the ones you had given me. And I
thought about what you had said when you gave them to me, the questions you
had, and I realized you had lied to me, had been lying to me all this time.” I
paused, letting my words sink in. “So tell me Dex, what is it that I don’t
know. Why would you keep my mother’s real identity a secret from me, and why
did my mother run away from and bury her past?”

Dex sat up
straight and took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and I could tell what he
was about to say was incredibly difficult and painful, and it filled me with
apprehension. He opened his eyes and looked at me, the pain in his eyes so
vibrant I held my breath and sat still, waiting for his confession. “When you
all came out here for vacation that week before your mom died, it wasn’t chance
that brought you here. Your mom came here on purpose. Your mother came out here
to meet my father, Jo,” he said, wringing his hands in his lap and looking away
from me.

“What?” I sat
there, completely shocked. I couldn’t fathom what my mother and Declan Hartley
possibly had in common.

“I overheard them
talking on the phone,” Dex replied. “They were making plans to meet and go to
the local courthouse. I remember my father saying that ‘he would make it right
after all these years’ and that ‘she shouldn’t worry because once they both
confronted him, he would have to admit the truth.’ I didn’t know what he was
talking about at the time, and my seventeen-year-old mind jumped to
conclusions.

“When my father
hung up the phone, I confronted him. I demanded to know who he was talking to,
what was going on. Honestly, I thought maybe my father was having a secret
relationship, and since my mom had died two years before, I was hurt and angry
that he might be moving on. But he said she was an old friend who had moved
away. And that he was trying to make up for past mistakes. I demanded to know
the details, why this third person would ‘make it right and admit the truth.’ He
told me he was talking to Becca, the waitress from the Cannon Diner, asked if I
remembered her.

“I didn’t remember
her, I was just a kid back then, so he showed me a picture of her, but it only
made me more suspicious. She was beautiful, and at least ten years younger than
my dad, and as far as I knew, not a friend back then. I tried to get more
information out of him, but all he would say was that he had done wrong by her
years ago, putting business first, and that he had an opportunity to fix his
mistake. I scoffed at that since my father never admitted to making a mistake. I
stormed out of the kitchen in a huff. It was the last time I saw my father
alive.” Dex rubbed his cheek with his hand and looked at me. He looked tired
and worn by his confession but my mind felt alive and focused. I had so many
questions, I didn’t know where to begin.

“So what happened?”
I asked. “That can’t be all there is. What else do you know, and why did you
lie to me?”

Dex looked at me,
his eyes pleading. He wrung his hands in his lap and grimaced as he continued, “Please
Jo. What I have to tell you next is why I kept it all from you. I thought if
you knew, you’d leave me, not be able to be with me. And I can’t lose you Jo, I
can’t.”

I looked at him,
my expression blank. I needed to know regardless of how it changed us and
whether it ended whatever we had. “Tell me,” I demanded.

He sighed and
looked at his feet. “After I stormed out of the kitchen that day, my father
left and went to Portland. He was due back the next day but never made it. There
was a terrible storm and they found his car wrapped around a tree. According to
the police, a semi-truck lost control on a curve on the road between Cannon
Beach and Portland and swerved, hitting my father’s car and sending it into a
tree.” Dex paused, still wringing his hands in front of him. He looked up at
me, apprehension in his eyes.

“What no one ever
knew, and what my lawyers kept out of the papers, was that his car wasn’t the
only one involved in the accident. Your mother’s car was too. She was following
behind my father that night and the semi crashed into them both. She died on
the scene. At first the police thought it was random, two unrelated cars. But
then they found paperwork in my father’s car with Rebecca’s name on it, and
realized they must have been traveling together in a caravan of sorts. My
lawyers kept those details out of the papers to prevent a scandal. I didn’t
know at the time she had a child, Jo. I was only seventeen, but if I had known,
it never would have been hushed up. I knew once you found out, if you really
were her daughter, you would be angry. My father caused your mother’s death….” He
choked back a sob and continued, trying to explain.

“It had to be my
father’s decision to drive that night. It was always his way or no way and he
would have insisted on driving back home even in the storm. He thought he could
do everything, that even the weather would bend to his will. If he hadn’t made
her drive, neither of them would have died. I’m so sorry Jo, I should have told
you, I … I … I just couldn’t risk losing you.”

I sat there,
staring at Dex, staring at the son of the man who ripped my childhood and my
mother away from me. The empty glass of brandy slipped from my fingers and hit
the floor, breaking into tiny shards at my feet.

“How did you end
up with my mother’s pearls?” I asked coldly, turning and staring into the fire.

“They were in a
box in my father’s office. Along with your mother’s birth certificate, her name
change, and a photograph—actually the same photo you have there, from the
social,” he replied.

“Did you ever
figure out what your father was talking about when you heard him on the phone?”
I asked, still looking away from him.

“No,” he said
quietly. “There was nothing other than the one file and box of pearls when I
searched the study. But the company boxed all his files at his office in
Portland, and I haven’t gone through all the records there or the ones stored
here in the cellar. There must be a thousand boxes, and at the time, all those
years ago, I didn’t see the need.”

“I see.” I stirred
the broken shards of glass with my foot, their edges reflecting the flames of
the fire like the twinkling lights of the Memorial Day social. “Is that all?”

“Yes,” Dex said,
edging closer to me. “I swear, Jo, I’ve told you everything…. Please, Jo …. Please
look at me. Please say something.”

I looked up at
Dex, a single tear escaping from my eye. “There’s really nothing to say.” I
stood, dropping the throw onto the couch. I stepped over the glass, not caring
whether I cut myself or not. I slipped my flip-flops on and walked to the front
door.

Dex got up and
rushed after me. “Jo wait, please, don’t leave, please don’t leave me. Jo,
stop.”

I kept walking.

“Jo, I love you,”
Dex called out to me.

I turned to face
him. “I thought I loved you too, Dex. But it’s not enough. You lied to me. You
lied to me about everything, from the minute I met you.”

Dex reached me, grabbing
my arm and pulling me toward him. His voice took on an urgent tone and he
practically begged, “You promised. You promised me standing right out there on
the deck that I would never lose you, that you would never leave me.”

I looked up at his
face, looked into his eyes and said calmly, “Well, I break promises, remember? The
first time I saw you, upstairs in your study, I broke a promise. I never said I
wouldn’t do it again.” I wrenched my arm free and opened the front door. “Goodbye
Dex,” I said, turning to look at him one more time. As my eyes met his, I
recognized his stare: the same damaged, and lost gaze I’d seen looking at me
from the tabloid photo all those days ago. The tears overflowed my eyes as I
turned and walked down the driveway, disappearing once again into the night
without ever looking back.

Saturday morning’s
sunlight sliced across my face from the opening in the kitchen’s window
curtain. I sat up on my couch, realizing I must have passed out the night
before. I didn’t really remember walking home, but I must have, since there I
was sitting in my living room. I looked down and saw I was still wearing the
clothes I had on yesterday, rumpled and wrinkled. Then I looked at my feet. They
were filthy, covered in dried mud and dirt. I looked around and found my flip-flops
tossed onto the kitchen floor. One was broken and the other seriously worn. I
thought back to leaving Dex’s and how I felt nothing, nothing but overwhelming
shock. I supposed I could have walked home in a daze, not really processing
where I was or what I was doing, just operating on auto-pilot.

I lifted my left
foot and winced, evaluating the cuts and scrapes. I stood up gingerly and
walked the few painful steps into the bathroom. I started the water in the tub,
and poured in some soap, thinking that soaking my feet would be a good first
step. I turned off the water, rolled up my jeans, and carefully set my feet in
the water. The water stung, but the mild pain helped me focus on the task at
hand and not think about Dex. After letting my feet soak for a few minutes
while I closed my eyes and rested my head on the wall, I scrubbed my feet
clean, using a washcloth and tons of soap. When I was done, I carefully dried
them and treated all the cuts with medicine and Band-Aids. My feet still hurt,
but the cuts were only superficial and would heal soon.

After draining the
water, I stood up and took stock of myself in the mirror. My face looked puffy
and swollen, my eyes bloodshot from the tears I’d shed last night. My hair
stuck to my face like thorny brambles, matted in clumps from dried tears and
ocean water.

I pulled a section
of it away from my face and looked at myself again in the mirror. All I could
see was my hair. My damn hair that looked just like my mother’s. I felt tears
welling up in my eyes as I thought about my mother and all that I lost because
of Dex’s father. How I never got a chance to learn about my past, my mother’s
past, why she left Cannon Beach, or even my father’s real identity—all
because Dex’s father insisted they drive in a storm and because the police
hushed up my mother’s connection to him. I thought about how I spent my teenage
years in an orphanage with no mother to care for me, love me, or help me
transition to being an adult.

Then I thought
about Dex’s confession last night and how it seemed like everyone in town knew
my mother, everyone except for me. I felt anger and rage at Dex for lying to me
and keeping such a huge secret. For all the times he’d told me I was in
control, for all the times that he’d said everything was my decision, none of
that was true. He’d chosen to hide my real identity from me. He’d chosen what
story I knew about him, about our connection, about my entire life. If he had
come forward and not hushed up his father’s connection to my mother, I might
have discovered a family out there I never knew I had, a father who would have
taken me in and kept me out of Overton. I might never have grown up an orphan,
breaking into people’s homes as a teenager just to feel in control of my life
and actually alive.

I thought back
over what I could remember about my mother and that vacation to Cannon Beach
before she died. No matter how hard I thought about it, and how many memories I
poured over, my mother seemed truly happy that week. We talked about the
future, and she seemed so hopeful about this new job opportunity she had been
talking about. We spent an entire day on the beach during that trip when it was
particularly warm and sunny, making sand castles and playing in the waves.

My mom turned to
me while we were building a sandcastle and said, “You know, Josephine, if this
new opportunity works out, we could come here all the time, and we’d never need
to worry about money again.”

I remembered
laughing as I patted the sand into shape. “But mom, I don’t worry about money
now. I love this place though, so let’s come back soon,” I said, smiling at
her.