Finding Me (6 page)

Actually, maybe it was only me.

The printer whirred and zipped as it printed out page after page. By the time Kelli left her laptop to check on the progress, there were well over thirty pages in the tray. She pulled them out and began to sort it all by subject. So far, everything fit into one of four categories: Mother. Sister. Brother. And her father’s friend named Ken Moore, who was a little easier to find information about.

Knock. Knock.

Kelli turned the stacks upside down before she went to answer the door of her apartment. Probably her landlady. Since Kelli lived in the mother-in-law unit above Mrs. Rohling’s garage, she dropped by for one reason or other several times a week. Although she wasn’t the nosy sort, she did tend to tidy up as she talked, a habit she acknowledged as being annoying but unbreakable.

It was a relief to find Denice at the door instead. “How’s the research coming?” She hurried inside and kept her voice low. “I’ve been doing some of my own, and then it occurred to me that we could accomplish more by working together. You know, pooling our collective wisdom.” She reached into her purse and pulled out her iPad.

“Sounds like a good idea, although I seem to have more or less hit the dead end of having found most everything there is on the Internet.”

“I’ve got the same problem, that’s why I came over.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

“I called in sick.”

“Why?”

“So I can help you figure this out. I’m not leaving you out here all alone to suffer like this. We are best friends, and this is what friends do for each other.”

“I doubt seriously your boss would agree.”

Denice grinned. “He won’t be my boss for much longer. Three more months and then I am free of that man forever. I’ll be in charge of my own destiny.”

“
You’ll
be in charge, huh? What about your partners?” Kelli smiled.

“Eh, they’re pushovers. I’ll rule the place as a kind, humble, yet firm queen.”

That made Kelli actually laugh out loud. “I don’t know that I’ve ever heard Jones’s name and pushover in the same sentence before.” Jones had a heart of gold, there was no denying that, but he also had a mile-wide stubborn streak.

“Well, that’s because Jones isn’t crazy about everyone else the way he is about me. Basically, he’ll do whatever I tell him.” It was a joke, yet at least half true at the same time.

“Well, I, for one, have not fallen into your evil little spell. I’m not a pushover. I’m a stickler, even if you are a queen.”

“But, just like my husband, you love me to your own detriment. Yep, I’m planning to kick back and relax and enjoy the fruits of your labor soon enough. But first”—she opened her iPad case—“I’ve got to help my best friend figure out what exactly is going on here. What’s your story, so far as you’ve found?”

“Best I can figure, we lived in a small town in Tennessee. We were supposed to take a family trip to a coastal cabin in South Carolina. Dad and I went a couple of days earlier than the rest of the family—something about looking over a cabin he was thinking about buying. The day before everyone else was due to arrive, Dad rented a little boat, the two of us went for a ride, and the boat washed ashore twelve hours later in a storm. He must have planned it all pretty carefully. The timing, the boat. His car was left at the dock. All our things were still in the hotel room. He must have hidden another car somewhere up the coast, I don’t know, then somehow set the boat adrift, knowing a storm was coming.”

“It seems pretty farfetched.”

“Yes, it does, but everything about this seems farfetched.”

“Okay, so what have you found about your family in recent years? I haven’t seen much other than a notice in the local newspaper that your sister got married about four years ago.”

“You did? Where’d you find that?”

“The
Shoal Creek Tribune
. Here, I copied it.” She shuffled through her papers until she found the right one, then slid it across the table. “The two of you favor each other a fair amount.”

Kelli looked at the wedding picture of the sister she’d believed dead for the past twenty-four years. Her smile was huge as she stood beside her groom, a lake in the background. What had her wedding day been like?

Kelli handed the picture back to Denice. “I don’t see a resemblance at all.”

“That’s because she’s got a fancy wedding updo and makeup. Take all that away, and I’m saying there are several similarities.” Denice didn’t bother to look as she put the article back into her file. “Your brother has been a little harder to track down.”

“For me, too. You know what? I think I’m going to need to take a trip back there and see a few things for myself.”

“Go back there? Absolutely not. Nothing good would come of that.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. You’re the one who keeps telling me I have to work forward and get some closure. Maybe my father had some reason to do what he did. Maybe my mother is an addict, or an abuser, or mentally unstable. Even Jones said she must be a piece of work for this to have been necessary.”

Denice looked doubtful, but she nodded her head slowly. “Perhaps if you went back there and saw the truth, you could move forward with your life with a sense of peace, and quite frankly, that’s what is at stake here. I still think it is very risky. You would
need to set some boundaries and hold firm to them, and I do mean hold firm.”

“Of course.”

“You know I’d come with you if I could.”

“I know you would, but this is something I’ve got to do myself.” Kelli turned back to her stacks of paperwork. “I wonder if there are other members of the family, too—aunts, cousins, grandparents . . . Grandparents! Why didn’t I think of this before?”

“Think of what?”

“Opal. I wonder if she knows anything.”

“Mimi’s mother?”

“Yes.”

“Your father and Mimi married after the two of you moved here, right? Surely even if Mimi knew the whole truth, or even if she was involved, they wouldn’t have told Opal.”

“I’m not so sure. Mimi tells Opal pretty much everything. Who could say what she might know?” She nodded her head, liking the thought more and more. She picked up her cell and scrolled to Opal’s number in her contacts. “Opal? I was thinking I might come visit tomorrow afternoon. Can I take you out for dinner?”

8

K
elli drove past mile after mile of central California vineyards on her way to Opal’s house. The house itself was on an acre of land completely surrounded by hillside wineries. The owners on each side had, on several occasions, offered her twice what her house was worth if she would sell, but she had refused. “She likes the appearance of being a major landowner,” her father had said. “Somehow she just knows that people who drive by here believe she owns every bit of those grapes up on the hill. Your grandmother has always been more concerned about appearances than common sense.”

The fact that she did not allow any kind of grandmotherly nickname, but preferred for Kelli to call her by her first name—because “Mam-maw is a name for old people”—leant some credibility to what Daddy had said. Fact was, Opal wasn’t much like a grandmother at all. She was more like Mimi’s slightly older best friend—something that had driven Daddy crazy.

Opal flung open the door as soon as Kelli pulled up in front of the house. Today’s outfit included a white turban, a white vest made of some sort of shaggy material, white shirt, and white jeans.
Opal never did anything halfway. She rushed forward and met Kelli at the side of her car. “Oh, my darling, how are you doing? I’m just so glad to see you. We’ve got to stick together at a time like this, yes we do.” She wrapped her thin arms around Kelli and hugged tight.

“How are you, Opal?”

“I honestly don’t know how much longer I will be able to go on. No woman should have to bury her own daughter. It’s just too much for me to bear.”

What about Daddy’s parents? Had he left them behind to believe he was dead? Had they spent their lives grieving their son? Or did they know what he’d done and never come to visit because it would be too risky? What do you know, Opal?

“How about you, dear? Are you holding up okay?” She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue she had produced from a pocket in her vest.

“I’m doing all—”

“You’ve always been strong. You can surely thank your lucky stars that you were raised by such a wonderful woman, because I guarantee that’s where you learned it. What a blessing it has been for you to have such a terrific role model to guide you through your growing-up years. I know all your friends wish they’d had such a good mother, and I was so fortunate to have her for a daughter. We were both lucky, that’s what we were.”

Kelli wondered how lucky Opal would feel if she knew what apparently was the truth about her daughter. Or did she know already? Kelli had no intention of being the one to tell her, but if Opal did know something . . . “Yes, we were both lucky.”

Mimi, whose real name was Suze, had been the light of Opal’s existence. She had loved and adored her with every fiber of her being. Somehow, though, this love had often manifested itself in tiny little digs against Kelli’s dad, and sometimes all-out criticism.
Because of this, Kelli had never been that close to her grandmother.

“Oh, darling, there are some days I just don’t think I’ll be able to make it through.”

“I miss them both so much.”

“Of course you do.” Opal took her by the elbow and led her toward the front door. “Come inside and let’s have a drink and chat for a while before we head down to the restaurant. Now, you come right on in the kitchen and I’ll pour us both a glass of something. What would you like, dear?”

“Diet Coke would be great.”

“Little rum for good measure?” She quirked a penciled-on eyebrow.

“No thanks. I’m driving, you know.”

“I don’t think one shot of rum would hurt anything, but whatever you say, I won’t argue.” Opal pulled out two highball glasses and put ice in each. In one, she poured Diet Coke, in the other, a generous helping of scotch. While Opal busied herself pouring the drinks, Kelli took a seat at the table and once again thought through the best way to present her questions in order to get the most honest answers.

“Opal, how did you meet my dad?”

She brought the glass over and set it in front of Kelli, took a sip of her own drink, then wiped her palm across her forehead. “I’m sure you’ve heard this all before, but let’s see. It wasn’t long after he moved here. Suze herself had just returned to the area after living for a few years in Tennessee.” She shook her head. “I was proud of her for making it through like she did.”

“Making it through?”

“Broken heart.” She rubbed her forehead as if she had a headache. “Not long after Suze graduated from high school, she went down to visit some friends at Cal Poly, and she met Jonas. He was
playing at a club there and supposedly moving up the country-music food chain pretty rapidly. He was something else, I’ll tell you that. He drove a big fancy truck, always had his shirts pressed just so, his jeans, too. And good-looking—woo-wee.” She fanned herself and took another drink. “They were a beautiful couple, just stunning. Next thing I knew, they were packing up and moving to Nashville.”

“Funny, I’ve never heard of him.”

“I guess I’m not surprised.” Opal looked out the window and sighed. “Suze was such a pretty girl. All the men were just gaga over her, and she always had a long trail of admirers. If it hadn’t been for Jonas, she’d . . .”

“So what happened?”

“Apparently, once they got to Nashville, some girl set her sights on him and would not give up—her father was a big shot in the music industry, that’s the only way she could have taken him away from Suze, we all knew that—and she connived and contrived and finally convinced Jonas to leave Suze and move in with her.” Opal wiped a tear at this point. “Somehow, he managed to take every bit of Suze’s money before he broke things off, though. Left her alone and broke, he did. The only satisfaction I got out of the matter is that he never did amount to anything. We heard a few years ago he was working in a bar on the seedy side of Nashville. That’s better than he deserves, if you ask me.”