Collective identity, p.19
Collective Identity, page 19
part #4 of Commitment Series
Alex was breathless, eyes closed and her breathing ragged. "Oh, my!" she managed to squeak out as Jo reached the door. She opened her eyes and noticed that she was alone. "So much for taking a nap," she said to herself as she fanned her neck with the magazine on the bedside table.
* * *
Jo drove slowly through the streets of Lancaster, trying to follow the directions given to her by the gentleman behind the counter at the hotel reception desk. She wasn't having much luck finding Forrest Avenue.
"Should've known better than to ask a man for directions," Jo mumbled under her breath as she found herself going in circles again. Finally, thoroughly lost, she pulled into a gas station convenience store and asked the clerk for help. "Ah, excuse me, Miss, but can you direct me to Forrest Avenue?" Jo asked. "The directions I have are just not cutting it," she said.
"Let me see that," the woman said.
Jo gave the handwritten sheet of instructions to the woman, who looked at them carefully. Finally, she handed them back and smiled. "Don't tell me, a man gave you those, right?" she asked, chuckling as Jo nodded her head. "Okay, it's really very simple. Turn right out of the station here, take your second right, and then your first left. That's Forrest Avenue."
Jo thanked her and left the station.
Jo soon found herself on Forrest Avenue. She drove slowly down the street, looking at house numbers as she went, until she located the number fourteen.
"Bingo!" she exclaimed as she committed the house to memory. Jo then drove up and down the street two more times to be absolutely sure she could find it later when Alex was with her. Finally, she turned around and headed back to the hotel.
When she entered the hotel, Jo noticed a small flower shop inside the lobby where she picked up a long-stemmed red rose for Alex. Very proud of herself, she headed to their room, humming smugly. She quietly let herself into the room and tiptoed across the floor to the still-sleeping Alex and gently laid the rose down on the pillow beside her love.
Josephine, she told herself, you are such a mush ball!
She placed a gentle kiss on Alex's cheek then went to sit in the chair to patiently wait for her to wake up.
* * *
"Josie, have I thanked you yet for the lovely rose?" Alex asked innocently.
Jo took her eyes off the road for a moment to smile at her wife. "Sweetheart, saying thank you has never been a problem for you, but I gotta admit, you outdid yourself this time!" she replied, grinning.
"Well, it's not every day that a girl receives flowers from her beau," Alex said. "It's only polite to thank her proper-like."
Jo patted Alex's knee. "Well, love, the next time I tease you about your sense of etiquette, just remind me about the rose, okay?" she joked.
"Here we are," Jo pulled the car to a stop in front of fourteen Forrest Avenue. Jo saw the tension on Alex's face. "Look, Al, let me go in and talk to him. I'll ask him if he knows you, and then we'll decide what to do, depending on what his reaction is, okay?"
Alex just nodded; her mouth suddenly dry from nervousness.
Jo climbed out of the car, approached the house, and rang the bell when she reached the door. She held the envelope in front of her, nervously bouncing up and down on her toes as she waited for the door to be answered. She turned to look toward the car, smiling her assurances to Alex. After a minute or so, she was convinced that no one was home, and turned her back to the door to return to the car. She had taken no more than two steps when the door opened.
"Yes, how may I help you?" a male voice asked.
Jo spun around to face a man in his seventies with medium height and build, and thinning hair. When she realized that she was staring, she cleared her throat and introduced herself. "Ah, I'm sorry. My name is Josephine Wycliffe, and I am looking for a Jonathan J. Simpson," she said.
"I am Jon Simpson," the man said. "I'm sorry, but do I know you?" he asked.
"No. No you don't," Jo said. "I, ah...I have this letter here that belongs to you. Apparently, you had a collision at the clerk's office earlier this week with my granddaughter. You ran off before she could return it to you," Jo explained, handing him the envelope, but not quite letting go of it. "I also have a question for you," Jo said. "Would you happen to remember a woman named..."
"Alexandra!" the man said.
"Alexandra. Yeah, Alexandra," Jo said. She turned to see what the man was staring at and saw Alex making her way up the walk.
"JJ?" asked Alex. "JJ, is that you?"
The man stepped past Jo. "Alexandra," he said, opening his arms to take the Southerner into them, hugging her tight. "Alexandra, it's been so long," he said. "Where have you been? How have you been?" he asked.
"I have been fine, JJ, and you?" Alex asked. She pulled back to look at the man's face.
"Oh, I'm fine for the most part. Darned arthritis acts up now and then, but pretty good otherwise," he said.
"Ahem!" came a sound from behind JJ.
Alex looked over JJ's shoulder.
"Ah, JJ, there's someone I'd like you to meet." Alex turned him around to face Jo. "JJ, this is Josephine Wycliffe, Josie, this is JJ." Jo reached out to shake hands with the man as Alex added, "JJ, Josie is my…well, in my heart she's my wife."
JJ suddenly stopped shaking Jo's hand, but did not release it. "Wife?" he asked.
Alex looked uneasily at JJ and then at Jo. "Yes," she answered, expecting a disgusted retort from the older man.
JJ surprised them both by throwing his head back and laughing out loud. Releasing Jo's hand, he threw his arm across her back and extended his other hand to Alex.
"Come inside. I'll put on a pot of coffee. We have a lot of catching up to do!" Soon, they were all sitting around JJ's kitchen table, sipping coffee and talking like old friends.
* * *
Three hours later, Jo had a new understanding of what Alex was like as a young woman. As it turned out, Alex and JJ had been friends throughout their childhood. JJ lived on the farm adjacent to Aunt Edna's house, and had spent a lot of time with Alex when she would come to visit every summer. They'd spent many afternoons walking along the lake, skipping stones and talking about their hopes and dreams. JJ was the only friendly face she saw when she showed up one day nearly fifty-six years earlier, a girl in trouble. He was the one to fetch the doctor when Alex went into labor. He was there when she awoke after a very difficult delivery to hold her hand and comfort her while the doctor told her that her daughter had been stillborn.
Alex reached across the table for JJ's hand as the memories caused her eyes to mist and her heart to break. After composing herself, she took a deep breath and said, "JJ, my daughter did not die that night."
JJ held Alex’s eyes for a long time before finally looking down at the table. "I know," he said.
Jo was on her feet in an instant. "Say that again," she said, narrowing her eyes at the elderly gentleman.
JJ looked up at the anger in Jo's eyes. "I said, I know," he replied before standing up and walking around while running his hand nervously through his hair.
Jo was still standing, leaning over the table, her arms supporting her weight while her eyes never left the man as he paced. Alex remained seated, hands clasped in front of her, her eyes locked on Jo.
“You had better have a good reason for ruining Al’s life, Jonathan,” Jo said in a low angry voice.
“Josephine Wycliffe, he did not ruin my life,” Alex interjected in defense of her old friend.
“No, Alexandra. She has a right to be angry,” JJ said. “I don’t blame her. I look back on that horrible time and cringe in shame at my cowardice,” he added.
“JJ, you are not to blame,” Alex insisted.
JJ walked over to Alex and took her hand in his while Jo looked on; clearly upset, but curious about what the man had to say.
“Alexandra, my dear. I was not the cause of your trouble, but at the same time, I did nothing to stop it. I will regret that until the day I die,” he said.
“JJ—” Alex began again.
“Let me explain,” JJ pleaded.
“Yeah, Al, let him explain,” Jo added, impatient with Alex for making excuses for this man.
Alex relented as she sat back in her chair and patiently waited for Jonathan to continue.
“It was so many years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday,” Jonathan said. "I was curled up in the corner of the living room by the fireplace when they brought the child out of the birthing room. They didn't know I was there.”
Jonathan paused for a moment before continuing. “I saw the doc give the baby to the midwife,” he said before Jo interrupted him.
“Where did she take the baby?” Jo asked.
“The doc told her to meet Mrs…Mrs...Damn! What was her name?” he asked himself out loud before it suddenly came to him, drawing a sigh of relief from Alex. “Tanner. That’s it! Tanner. He told her to meet Mrs. Tanner at the railroad depot later that evening. He said that she would get her cut when the Society paid him for the child."
“The Society?” Jo asked. “What the hell is that?”
“I wish I could tell you more, but I don’t have a clue,” Jonathan said. “All I know, is I felt terrible for Alexandra when I realized what they were doing.”
By this time, Alex was crying openly as Jo approached her and opened her arms. Still seated, Alex wrapped her arms around Jo's waist and buried her face in the front of her sweater.
Jo looked over at JJ. "Why didn't you do something to stop him?" she asked, her anger coming through loud and clear.
"I couldn't. When the doc realized I had witnessed the transfer, he beat me senseless then threatened me. He threatened to expose my secret to my parents unless I swore to keep silent," he explained.
"Secret?" Jo said. "It had better be a good one to have forced Alex to sacrifice so much!"
"In my mind at the time, it was. Had it happened today, things would be different," he said. Seeing the confusion in Jo's eyes, he added, "You see, I was seeing this…person. Doc caught us in the horse barn one day in a compromising situation. I was so humiliated I wanted to die. Anyway, Doc was pretty discreet about it, turning his back and walking away like he hadn’t seen anything. I thought we were safe," Jonathan said, his voice trailing off as he recalled the painful memory.
Jo released Alex and walked over to Jonathan. She stopped in front of him with hands on her hips. “You stayed quiet about Al’s child because you didn’t want an affair exposed?” she asked incredulously.
"Josie, please," Alex pleaded, hoping to diffuse Jo’s temper.
Jo kept her eyes trained on Jonathan. "No, Al. We need to get to the bottom of this. So, JJ," she said directly to the man. "Answer the question."
"Doc threatened to expose my relationship if I didn’t keep silent. I couldn’t let that happen," he explained. "It would have destroyed the lives of several people, including both of our families."
Jo was seething with anger as she started to pace back and forth.
"So let me get this straight,” she said angrily. "You sacrificed Al’s happiness, and quite possibly that of her child’s to cover up an indiscretion?"
She stopped in front of him once more and looked him straight in the face. "How could you do it? How could you live with yourself?" She asked.
Jonathan looked down. "It wasn’t just an affair," he said adamantly. "We loved each other very much."
"If you loved each other, why didn’t you do something about it? Why didn’t you stand up to that doctor and tell him to go to hell instead of making Al pay the price for your silence?" Jo demanded angrily.
"I couldn’t stand up to him! I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t!" Jonathan replied, his voice shaky with emotion and regret.
"Well, why the hell not!" Jo roared back.
Long moments passed as Jo and Jonathan stood nose to nose, neither able to break the gaze as Alex wept nearby.
Tears rolled down Jonathan’s face as he closed his eyes and lowered his chin to his chest. Defeated, he finally replied, "Because my lover was a man."
Total silence permeated the room for several long moments as Jo and Alex absorbed what this elderly gentleman had said. In that one moment, both women knew…both understood exactly why Jonathan acted as he did more than fifty-five years earlier.
Finally, unable to bear the silence any longer, Jonathan raised his head and looked at Alex. "Alexandra, I don't know what to say to you, except I'm sorry. I was a coward. I'm sorry," he said.
Alex rose from her seat and walked over to Jonathan. She forced a smile onto her face, and said, "I understand, JJ. Really, I do."
"If I could find a way to make it up to you, I would. You know that, don't you?" he said.
Jo walked over to the pair and placed her arm around Alex’s waist.
"We can't change the past, Jon, but maybe we can shape the future. Come. Sit and tell us everything you know about that night. We need to know everything you saw and heard, and anything you may have learned later. We're trying to find her, JJ. With your help, maybe we can," Jo said.
Chapter 20
Billie was in a hurry to get home that night. Her mind was a jumble of thoughts as she drove through the busy streets. She had been thinking all day long about the beautiful rose and poem that Cat had slipped into her briefcase that morning. Then there was the search that Jimmy promised would be ready by the time she came to work the next morning. He had worked all afternoon writing a program that would narrow the four hundred names he found down to a manageable number. What worried her though, was that in order for her mother to be in the database, she would have to be registered as an adoptee on the Internet, or at least with some agency that could be accessed through the Internet. Such were Billie's thoughts as she pulled into the driveway of her home.
Before getting out of her car, Billie opened her briefcase and withdrew the rose, then grabbed the case and went into the house. As she walked into an empty kitchen, she could hear the sounds of Sponge Bob coming from the family room television in the basement. She opened the closet door in the corner of the kitchen and placed her briefcase inside. When she closed the door and turned around, she saw Cat standing there, a big smile on her face when she saw the rose in Billie's hand.
A wicked gleam entered Billie's eyes as she placed the rose between her teeth and scooped Cat up into her arms. She carried her through the living room and up the stairs to their room, kicking the door shut behind them. Billie gently laid Cat on the bed and lay down completely on top of her. She placed the rose on the pillow beside Cat's head, and kissed her passionately, leaving them both breathless.
"Thank you, Cat. That was the most wonderful thing anyone has ever done for me. The poem and the rose are beautiful, and you're right, the only thing more beautiful is our love for one another."
Billie once again, lowered her mouth for a deep probing kiss–just as the phone rang.
"Damn!" Billie exclaimed as she reached for the phone on the bedside table. "Hello," she said into the receiver, kissing Cat again as she waited for the caller to speak.
"Billie?" the caller said. "Billie, this is Alex."
Billie's head shot up. "Grams?" she said. "Grams, is everything all right?"
Billie rolled off Cat and threw her legs over the side of the bed to sit up. Cat crawled over and sat back on her heels next to Billie, a concerned look on her face.
"Everything is fine, dear," Alex said. "Billie, we're calling to tell you that we had a major discovery today, but it seems that we've hit another dead end," she explained.
Billie motioned to Cat that everything was all right. "So what did you find out"?" Billie asked.
"Hold on a minute dear, Josie has gone to fetch the portable from the front desk at the hotel we're staying in. She'll be back in a minute," Alex said.
"That's a good idea. Cat, sweetheart, run downstairs and get the portable. We'll make this a four-way call," Billie suggested.
Moments later, all four women were on the phone, talking at once.
"All right, all right. Time out here! One at a time!" Jo interrupted, calling order to the chaos.
Once order was established, it didn't take long for Alex and Jo to relay their meeting with JJ to Billie and Cat. Billie's first reaction was anger at JJ for not having the nerve to stand up for Alex all those years ago. Jo was inclined to agree. Between Alex and Cat, however, they made the women see that the world was not as accepting of their kind fifty-five years ago, and that they needed to cut JJ some slack. The only direction any of them could go in from that point on was forward.
By the end of the call, Billie had plenty of information for Jimmy to search on the net in the morning. She had a name, Mrs. Tanner; a year, nineteen fifty-nine; and at least a partial name for an adoption agency, the 'Society'. Billie hoped that it was enough.
After the phone call, Billie flopped down on the bed and looked at the ceiling. Cat climbed in beside her and laid her head on her shoulder.
"Cat, I really want to rip JJ's head off for being so weak. His cowardice cheated Alex out of her daughter," Billie said.
"I'm not angry," Cat said, receiving a nasty look from Billie.
"How can you feel that way?" she asked incredulously.
Cat rolled onto her stomach and propped herself up on her forearms. "Billie, if things had worked out differently...if JJ had stood up for Grams, if she had never lost her daughter, then things would be very different today. There would be no Alex and Jo, no Ida and Doc, and no Billie and Cat. As painful as it was for Grams to lose her child, I couldn't bear to have lived my life without meeting and falling in love with you. I'm sorry if that sounds selfish, but it's the way I feel."
Billie's eyes were wide and overflowing with tears. How could she refute that argument? She took Cat into her arms and whispered in her ear, "Damn it, Cat. Why do you always have to be right?"
Cat raised her head and kissed Billie lightly. "That's what you pay me for."
