Finding Me (4 page)

She opened the safe and pulled out the final envelopes. The first, the one marked
Miscellaneous,
was misshapen, the bottom much thicker than the top. She opened the flap and peeked down inside to see what looked like mostly photographs. She dumped the contents into her lap and picked up the photo on top.

A younger version of her father sat on the bank of a creek, fishing next to a small red-haired boy. Kelli had no idea who the boy might be—was it possible that it was Preston? No, it couldn’t be. Not a single picture had survived the fire. Knowing her father always labeled pictures, she flipped it over.
Max, age 3, May
1987.

Who was Max? And how had Daddy come by a photograph from 1987? The only explanation that made sense was that this Max person had given her father this picture after the fire. As a thank-you for taking him fishing? But why would her father keep it in his safe?

All of her life, Kelli had known that her mother, brother
Preston, and sister Kaitlin had been killed in a house fire in rural Louisiana when she was barely one. She knew no other details because her father could never bring himself to speak of it. Even Mimi, her stepmother, seemed to know little about it, and she always insisted they never speak of it because it upset Kelli’s father so.

Kelli turned her attention back to the pile of pictures. The next was Daddy holding a chubby baby with short, curly hair. She had her arms locked around his neck, offering a huge smile to the camera. Kelli flipped over the picture.
Beth, age 1,
May 1987.

Kelli began to flip rapidly through the pictures now. There were more of Max and Beth individually and together. Dad was in some of the pictures, but not all of them. Toward the end, Kelli came to a picture of a woman she didn’t recognize. She was pretty and elegant looking in a non-pretentious, Laura Bush sort of way. She held her hand up over her eyes, shading the sun as she smiled at the camera. Kelli flipped the picture over.
Alison, 1988.
The very last picture showed all four of them—Daddy, Alison, Beth, and Max—standing together in front of a couple of huge sequoia trees. Kelli turned it over, afraid of what she would see.
Family vacation, Kings Canyon National Park, 1988.
The photo dropped from Kelli’s hand and fluttered to the carpet.

There was still another envelope yet to be opened. Kelli simply stared at it, minute after minute ticking by.

Odds and Ends.

Finally, she dumped the contents on the floor beside her and found a mishmash of newspaper clippings, notebook paper, and some official-looking paperwork. She picked up the top article from the group, prepared to read about the horrific house fire that had trapped a woman and her two small children, that had left not one single thing in the home uncharred. Her eye fell immediately to the two large photos on the page. The first was a
tiny girl, little more than a baby, dressed in a frilly dress, wearing lacy socks and a floppy hat. The other was a middle-aged man, wearing a coat and tie and a broad smile.

The headline read, “Local Man and 1-Year-Old Daughter Missing After Boating Mishap.” Beneath the photos was a sentence in bold type: “An overnight search was launched off the South Carolina coast for David Waters and his young daughter Darcy, when the skiff the two were last seen in washed ashore in foul weather. The Coast Guard captain says he is ‘cautiously optimistic.’”

Kelli studied the pictures. The little girl looked like . . . But she could be anyone, there was no way to know for sure. The man, however, she did know. Her hands started shaking so hard the paper fell from her grasp and fluttered to the ground. The implications of what she was seeing began to take shape, and she ran to the bathroom and puked in the toilet. As she stood at the sink, rinsing her mouth, she looked up at the mirror and spoke her question aloud. “David Waters? Darcy Waters? Who are they, and what is going on here?”

She walked from the room, knowing that the complete and truthful answers to those questions were something she had to find out. And she knew more than enough at this point to know the answers were going to be devastating.

5

K
en Moore, known to everyone in the sleepy town of Shoal Creek, Tennessee, as simply Kenmore, looked over the ledgers yet again, seeing month after month of negative numbers. It was times like this he was thankful that he hadn’t bowed to Shane’s insistence that he computerize all his accounting. At least he wasn’t stuck looking at his impending demise decreed in bright red numbers. He slid the ledger book into the desk drawer, which he proceeded to lock.

He leaned back in the wooden swivel desk chair. It creaked and tottered backward at an alarming angle—signaling that it, too, had just about reached the end of its usefulness here. How many times had Kenmore seen his father sitting in this same chair, working on essentially the same ledgers, his face deep in concentration? This office still carried the faintest hint of his smell—wood shavings and Old Spice—even though he’d been gone for over fifteen years. It was the clearest memory Kenmore had of his childhood—a memory he’d hoped to pass down to Shane. And he supposed he had to some extent. Shane’s memories would just be clouded by the closing of the place. At least he
wouldn’t be losing his job in the process. That was something to be thankful about.

Kenmore shook his head and pushed to his feet. Now was not the time to get sentimental. He pocketed the key to the desk and walked down the two steps into the store itself. Time to sweep up and go home.

His back and hips ached something fierce as he pushed the broom across the cement floor. He was halfway down the first aisle when he heard the back door squeak open. He looked toward the storeroom and made a point of standing up straighter and pushing the broom with a bit more gusto than before, trying not to grit his teeth in the process. Sure enough, his son Shane emerged, took one look at him, and shook his head. “Pop, you should have been home an hour ago. What are you still doing here?”

“It makes for a better morning if you arrive at a clean store.” He focused his attention on the pile of dust, paper, and debris as he shoved it up the aisle. “You know I’ve always done it this way.”

“Let Frieda sweep in the morning. You pay her way more than you should, I don’t think asking her to sweep is a problem. Know what I mean?”

Kenmore shrugged. “Since she’s leaving in a couple of days, now’s not the time to start new habits. Know what I mean?” He parked the debris pile near the front door and walked to the end of the aisle with mostly grocery items and began the process again.

“No, I don’t. In fact, I think it’s the best possible time to start something new. When you find Frieda’s replacement, he or she won’t think a thing about it.”

“Like I told you, I’m not replacing Frieda.” By having one less salary to pay, and if everything went relatively well, it should be financially feasible to keep the store a little longer. October 27 would be the fiftieth anniversary of the grand opening. Kenmore owed it to his parents’ memories to take it that far.

“Pop, get serious. Dr. Craviotto told you months ago that you need to have your hip replaced. You can’t work twelve-hour days and have surgery, too. I don’t know why you’re still working so many hours anyway. At your age, it’s time to hire more help and start relaxing a little.”

There would be plenty of time to relax come November—more time than Kenmore wanted—but he wasn’t going to say any of that to Shane right now. “It takes more work and effort to break in a new employee than it does to just do everything myself.”

“What about Ashley, then? Have her come in extra.”

“She works weekends only, you know that. She spends her weekdays watching her grandkids while her daughter works.”

“I knew you were going to say that.”

“Then why do you keep bringing it up?”

“Because this time, I brought the solution to the problem.” Shane lifted his hand to reveal a
Help Wanted
sign. Without saying another word, he went behind the counter and got some tape, then hung the sign in the window right beside the door.

Kenmore walked over and pulled it down. “I’ve told you, I don’t want to hire more help. It took me nearly two years to get Frieda broken in to where she was any use to me. That was seven or eight years ago, when I was younger and more patient. I don’t have the time or energy to do that again.”

“It did not take two years. Frieda’s a good worker, and she caught on fast.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not so much the doing-the-work part, it’s the staying-out-of-my-way part that people seem to have a hard time figuring out. Like my own son, for instance, who is standing here inside my own store telling me what I should and shouldn’t be doing.”

“We both know the thing you should be doing is taking better care of yourself. So, since you’ve chosen not to do that, I’m
choosing to help you along.” Shane took the sign from Kenmore’s hand and put it back in the window.

“I don’t want anyone else in my store. Period.” Kenmore reached right over and pulled it down again. “I’ve got Keith afternoons and weekends for all the heavy lifting, and Ashley lets me have weekends mostly off. That’s more help than I need. Truth be told, I’d prefer to do it all myself.”

“Pop, you’re overdoing it. Summer’s almost here, and you know it’s your busiest season. Now is the time to start planning ahead. You need more help.”

“Not my fault Frieda decided to get married and move off to Kansas.”

“But you won’t even try to replace her. Why?”

“Told you. I like doing things my own way.” He planned to keep silent about the financial situation until after the summer season, then slowly leak out word that the place would be closing because he’d decided to retire. Best case scenario, he would walk away from this place with no one ever realizing that shuttering it was something he’d done from necessity rather than choice.

Shane growled, then grabbed the broom handle and began working the area around the counter. “You have got to be the most stubborn man alive.”

“Give me my broom back.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Who did you say is stubborn? I’m not an invalid. I can sweep my own store. Looks like there won’t be any choice about it from here on out.”

“Oh, I think there will be.” Shane picked up the
Help Wanted
sign and returned it to the window without relinquishing control of the broom.

“You can hang that sign there if you want to, but I’m telling you now, I’m not going to talk to anybody about it. I’m not taking
any applications, I’m not checking any references, and I’m not offering a job. Me and Keith can handle it just fine.”

Shane studied Kenmore for a few seconds, then nodded. “Well, all right, then.” Much to Kenmore’s relief, he pulled the sign out of the window. That had been easier than he’d expected.

Shane carried the sign behind the counter and pulled out a Sharpie. After writing something at the bottom, he tore off a few pieces of fresh tape and put the sign back in the window.

“What’d you write on there?”

“My cell number. You said you weren’t going to take any applications, and if that’s how you want to play it, that’s fine. But me, I’m willing to consider anyone. Whoever might be looking for a job is welcome to talk to me.”

“Well, they can go to work for you then, ’cause they’re not coming here.”

“We’ll just see about that.”

6

K
elli pulled her knees up to her chest and rocked back and forth on the old beige carpet. There were several more articles to read, but she wasn’t ready yet. Her mind raced, trying to make sense of what she knew already.

First of all, her father had a whole set of pictures with another family—a family he was apparently a part of, yet none of their names matched the names Kelli knew as her deceased mother and siblings. And apparently her father had gone missing in South Carolina, but he had always said they came from Louisiana. Third, if there was a harmless explanation for what she was seeing, why would her father have kept this all so secret? Locked in a safe in a room where no one else was allowed?