A Secret Identity (27 page)

“Lehman?” Liz stared at her mother. “I have another brother? And his name is Lehman? But that’s our last name.” She began working dates in her mind, but try as she would, she couldn’t see when another child had been born to her parents. “Was he stillborn? Or impaired somehow? Is he in an institution somewhere? Why do you never talk about him?” she finally asked.

“One doesn’t talk about illegitimacy, Lizzie, especially not to one’s daughter.”

Liz felt the world tilt. Her mother, a paragon of Christian virtue, a gracious example of a woman worth far more than rubies, was saying she was involved in an illegitimate pregnancy? Madeleine Biemsderfer Lehman? The pope might as well announce he had become a Baptist. Her husband might as well say he’d welcome liver for dinner.

Madeleine smiled sadly. “You should see your face, Lizzie. Then you’d understand why you don’t know about Lehman. But it’s my last November, and someone has to know. Someone has to keep his memory alive!” The last was a whisper.

As her mom lay back on her pillows, her eyes closed, her breathing labored, Liz studied her. She tried to comprehend a brother besides Josh…and all the ramifications.

The thought of her mom with another man besides her father was too awkward, too terrible for Liz to consider. Her parents had loved each other with such commitment and passion. Yet there was an out-of-wedlock child.

“It was World War I,” Madeleine said, her eyes still shut. “Enos was to go to Europe. A doughboy who would save the world from the Kaiser. We were already very much in love, and the thought of the separation was a knife in our hearts.”

“How old were you?” Liz asked.

“I was sixteen and Enos was nineteen. And we ignored God and took what we wanted, which was each other.”

It was hard for Liz, even at fifty-five, to imagine her parents in bed together within the bonds of holy matrimony. Trying to imagine them as hormonally driven teenage kids desperate over an impending separation and the possibility of Enos’s death on a foreign battlefield was beyond her. But at least there was no other man. For that Liz was intensely grateful.

Madeleine’s lips curved in a sad smile. “I finally understood that I was pregnant three months after Enos had shipped out. My parents were understandably upset—a massive understatement if ever there was one.”

Madeleine’s face filled with regret. “I’ve always felt so terrible for what I put them through. Mother cried and Father grew more taciturn than ever. They took me out of school and kept me home for the remaining months of my pregnancy. They refused to let me write Enos, and they wouldn’t give me any of the letters he wrote.”

Madeleine’s voice shook as she remembered the anguish of those days.

“I was so distraught with worry for Enos, for his safety, and for what he must think of me for not writing. And I was eaten up by guilt that we had done things out of God’s order. We knew and had willfully disobeyed. How could God forgive us? It’s a wonder I didn’t miscarry from the emotional stresses. I delivered a healthy baby boy on November first. But I never held him. They wouldn’t let me. For my own good, they said.” Madeleine’s face contorted with pain.

Liz took her mother’s cold hand. “It’s all right, Mom. It was long, long ago.” Of course it wasn’t all right. And in spite of the years—what? Sixty-two years? The wrenching separation was still a heart wound that hemorrhaged, especially in November.

“My parents were adamant. Adoption was the only possible way to deal with the situation. I was too weary and frightened to offer much protest. My one independent action was selecting the name for the birth certificate: Lehman Biemsderfer for Enos and me.”

Liz stared out the hospital room window. “So I have a brother out there somewhere? A full blood brother.” What was he like? Was he happy? Did nice people raise him? Did he survive the Depression? World War II? Was he married? Did he have children, grandchildren? Would I ever know?

Madeleine saw the questions in her daughter and nodded her understanding. She was all too familiar with them because she’d asked them daily for more than 60 years. “Open my Bible to Proverbs 3, will you?”

Liz did so and found a picture of a chubby baby boy propped up on a blanket embroidered with baskets of flowers.

“Lehman,” Madeleine said. “It’s the only proof I have that he exists beyond my imagination.”

Liz looked at the sepia print and her heart turned over. This adorable child was her brother! No wonder November was awful for her mother.

“When he was almost six months old,” Madeleine continued, “I went to the agency that had placed him. I was desperate. Enos was still somewhere in Europe, and I hadn’t heard from him for so long that I doubted he could still love me. I knew he was probably still alive only because I hadn’t read of his death in the paper, but that was all I knew. Mother and Father were still reeling from what I had done to them, and my baby was gone. I had nothing! Please, I pleaded with the people at the agency. Please get me a picture of my baby or I will surely go insane. They took one look at me and believed. A month later this photo arrived for me.”

Madeleine reached out and ran a gentle hand over the cracked and faded print. “As long as I had the picture, I knew I would survive. I knew I wouldn’t forget. I knew God would care for him. That’s why it’s in Proverbs 3. ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart.’ I did that every day for Lehman. I did it for you and Josh too, but I saw what was happening in your lives. I talked with you and prayed with you. Lehman I could only trust to God.”

Liz, herself the mother of a son who was ignoring God, knew all about trusting to God those who, for whatever reason, couldn’t be influenced.

The women sat quietly for a while, thinking, praying, wondering.

When she felt strong enough, Madeleine took up her story once again.

“When Enos finally came home from the war, my parents forbade me to see him. I was barely eighteen, sheltered, living with the consequences of the one great rebellion of my life. But I knew I loved Enos. I sent him messages through my brother, Harold. Enos sent love letters back, so I knew he loved me and felt anguish over Lehman too, especially over the fact that he hadn’t known and hadn’t been here for me. When I turned twenty-one, we ran off and married. My parents were furious, especially Father.”

Liz thought of her grandfather, a German in the old tradition, fierce, strict, unemotional. How had her mom ever had the courage to defy him?

“The first Christmas we were married, my parents refused even to accept a gift from us. By the second Christmas you were born, and you were the one who broke the barrier. They loved you, Liz. And then Josh came. And one day when you were five, Mother broke down and told me she prayed every single day for Lehman. We cried together that day, she and I, a mother and a grandmother weeping over a boy we would never know but would always love.”

“How many years older than me is Lehman?” Liz asked.

“Six years. He was born November 1, 1918. And I still pray every single day for him, just like I do for you and Josh. And I pray for his family, just like I do for yours and Josh’s.”

Madeleine grasped Liz’s hand, her expression desperate. “Lizzie, you must keep praying for them.” It was an order and a plea. “Someone has to keep praying for them because we don’t know who raised Lehman. We don’t know if anyone taught him to love God and to follow Jesus. Promise me, Lizzie. Promise me that you will pray for your brother and his family every single day of your life. Promise me that he won’t be forgotten. Promise me, Lizzie. Promise me!”

“Oh, Mom!” Tears poured down Liz’s face. “It will be an honor to take on that responsibility.” Liz leaned over and kissed her mother. No wonder there was such depth to her mom’s walk with God. Great pain and great grace had forged great intimacy. “Now you must calm down. You’re making yourself sick.”

“I am sick. And it’s November. And Enos isn’t here to help me. My one hope is that I am forgiven in Christ. I have at least learned that over the years. When I sorrow now, it’s only loss, not guilt and regret. Christ has borne my guilt, and He helps me with my pain.” A slight smile touched her pale face momentarily.

Liz’s tears fell onto her mother’s pillow, her face, her nightgown. “Every day for the rest of my life I will pray for Lehman and his family. For my brother.”

Exhausted, Madeleine fell back on her pillow and went to sleep.

“She never woke up.” Aunt Lizzie smiled sadly at Todd and me.

The three of us sat silently in the gathering dusk. My heart broke for Madeleine and her years of sorrow, and I found myself swallowing, trying to control my tears. What she had missed by not knowing Pop!

Finally Lizzie spoke. “I kept my promise. I have prayed for Lehman and his family every day for more than twenty-five years.”

“That means you’ve been praying for me.” I leaned forward and laid my hand on hers. “Thank you, Aunt Lizzie. Thank you. And from now on, I shall pray daily for you and your family.”

Aunt Lizzie smiled sweetly. “It will be nice to have someone praying for me.” She leaned forward and tried to rise from her chair, but her legs seemed to have trouble bearing her weight.

“Is there something I can get for you?” I asked, rising.

“Over there on the end table by the window. My Bible.”

I handed her the requested book and sat down. Aunt Lizzie riffled through the pages.

“Proverbs 3,” she said and took out an old photograph. She passed it to me.

I stared at the chubby baby on the embroidered blanket, holding it so Todd could see too. Once again I had to blink back tears. Todd’s arm slid around my shoulders and pressed comfortingly.

“Aunt Lizzie,” I said through a throat tight with emotion. “I know this picture. Mom had a copy of it on her bureau for as long as I can remember. ‘For when John gets too big for his britches,’ she always said. ‘Then I can remind him that he’s nothing but a grownup baby, just like the rest of us.’”

I traced the baskets of flowers with my index finger. “And we still have the blanket. It’s a family treasure. Great-Grandmother Bentley did the needlework on it, and she and Great-Grandfather Bentley brought Pop home from the adoption agency wrapped in it. Since then, each generation of Bentleys has brought their children home in that blanket. Mom and Pop brought Trey home in it, and Trey and Caroline brought Ward and me. Ward and Marnie wrapped Johnny in it to bring him home even though it was July and eighty-seven degrees. I’ve always known that someday I’ll use it for that same purpose.”

“You’ve actually seen the same picture and have the blanket?” Aunt Lizzie’s face was alight with amazement. “As if we needed more proof.”

I nodded. “I’ll bring the blanket next time I visit so that you can see it. The background is cream, the baskets are a soft aqua, and the flowers are worked in pinks and roses with light green leaves. I’m sure the colors have faded over ninety-plus years, but it’s still very beautiful. And the moths have never gotten it.”

“You’re coming to see me again?” My Aunt Lizzie looked at me with eyes bright with hope. It broke my heart that there was such surprise in her voice.

“Of course. And I’ll bring Ward and Marnie and Johnny too.”

“My cup runneth over,” she said, and I thought that Amos deserved a good kick in his posterior. And I immediately remembered I’d promised to pray for him and Jessica.

Ouch.

My first prayer for them would be that they’d realize how wonderful his mother was and come visit her as she deserved.