Evvie at Sixteen (15 page)

Evvie found out the answer to that the moment she entered the room. There were books all right, the library was lined with them, but they were all clearly valuable sets and first editions. There wasn't a paperback to be seen. The only lively touch was a matched set of paintings of Irish setters. Evvie smiled at them until she noticed that in one of the paintings the setter was tearing apart a dead rabbit. At least, she hoped it was dead. She could imagine what Sam would say about the painting, and laughed. The laughter sounded funny in the empty room in the empty house. Evvie resolved not to laugh there again.

The desk was mahogany and beautifully cared for. Evvie wondered if any of Grace's furnishings would be left to Megs. There would at least be a symbol of affection, she thought. Even she could see the desk was an antique, undoubtedly a part of Winslow family history.

The files Grace had asked her to bring back were lying on the desk. Evvie picked them up, to make sure they matched the list Grace had given her. Sure enough, everything she wanted was there. Some combination of lawyers and servants had seen to that.

But there was another file as well. Evvie picked it up, and saw it was labeled “Sebastian.”

She knew what it was instantly. The detectives' report. She dropped it on the desk, and then put the other files down. “Sebastian.” It wasn't a thick file, just a dangerous one.

Evvie realized Grace had had it left there for her to find. Grace was not a subtle woman. This was as close to guile as she would come. Evvie was under no obligation to read the file. She could leave it on the desk, take the other papers downstairs, and follow her original plan of escaping from the house until four. No one was forcing her to read that ancient detectives' report. Sam would tell her not to read it. He would laugh at the family games the Winslows played. He would warn her not to stare truth in the face unless she was completely protected.

But Sam wasn't there, and the report was. And maybe Grace was right in wanting Evvie to read it. Besides, what could be so bad? Megs had read the report when she was sixteen, and in spite of it, she'd waited and married Nicky. This was a test. If Evvie could read the report and not have it make a difference, then Aunt Grace would lose the game.

And, finally, Evvie admitted, she was too curious not to read the report. Who wouldn't want to see what detectives had found out about your father so many years before. Sam had admitted reading every newspaper article he could find about his parents. It was only natural. There was no point in fighting it.

Evvie took the file and curled up on a well-worn leather easy chair. The first page listed the name of the detective agency, the date of submission, and the subject of the investigation. Nicholas George Sebastian. Evvie smiled. She had never known Nicky had a middle name. She only hoped the rest of the revelations were as amusing as that one.

Nicholas George Sebastian was born George Nicholas Keefer on April 12, 1938. His mother was Mary Maud Keefer, aged twenty and two months at the time of his birth. His father was listed on the birth certificate as “unknown.” However, his father was Sebastian Taylor Prescott, a well-to-do North Carolina businessman, whose secretary Miss Keefer had been. Miss Keefer accepted a payment of one thousand dollars, in exchange for which she did not list a father on her son's birth certificate.

Miss Keefer boarded her son out with various relatives while she moved from city to city. In 1946, she met and married former Pfc Harold Clay, of Wilmington, Delaware. She brought George home to live with her. In 1947, Mrs. Clay gave birth to a son, Harold, Jr. In 1949 she had a daughter, Diane.

Mr. Clay worked at various factories in the Wilmington area. He drank heavily and was reputed to have a violent temper. George's school reports show he was a boy of unusual intelligence (his IQ was 148) but erratic temperament, occasionally doing brilliantly, frequently getting into trouble. It was believed family problems were at the root of George's behavior, and in 1950, after a social services investigation, George was put in foster care for six months until his mother sued to regain custody.

Evvie put the report down and stared at the painting of the Irish setter. Did she really want to read more? She'd already lost her heroic D-day grandfather, the one she remembered having written a school report on when they'd done a section on family histories. Nicky had helped her with all the details, she recalled. He'd even supplied a photograph. She wondered now if he'd bought it, or stolen it from someone's family album.

I should feel sorry for him, Evvie thought. How he must have hated having these awful facts written out for Grace to see. And worse still, he had to live this life of foster care and abuse. Father unknown. It was all so tawdry. No, what was the word Aunt Grace had used? Vulgar. Nicky's past was vulgar, and Nicky never was. No wonder he lied.

Besides, she said to herself, how much lying did he actually do? Just the part about who his father was, and he might not have known the truth himself when he was a boy. It was possible his mother told him his father was a soldier and then made up the D-day story herself. Nicky might not have known who his father really was until he read the detectives' report. It would be a rotten way to find out, but it would help explain why he'd lied to his daughters all those years. Maybe he didn't even believe the report. Maybe it was all made up. Evvie hadn't seen any proof. Maybe there wasn't any. For all she knew, the detectives had created a past for Nicky they knew Grace would find appropriate.

Evvie fingered the file and reluctantly leafed through it. The first few pages were the single-spaced report. The rest were documents and transcripts. Sure enough, there was a copy of the birth certificate. They hadn't made that part up, or the IQ. There was even a copy of the social services report. It was all true. And if she kept on reading, all she'd find were more truths.

Of course, it was possible that she already knew the rest. Nicky might have improved his parentage, but he'd never lied about his stepfather. The only way she'd know was if she kept on reading. Evvie felt like Pandora—it was an all-or-nothing deal, and she decided to continue to find out about her father.

In January of 1954, Mary Keefer Clay died of cancer. While George Keefer's legal residence remained with his stepfather, in actuality he spent little time there, and on his sixteenth birthday, all connections were officially severed. Keefer lived in foster care until the end of that summer, and then moved on to be on his own. He lived in flophouses, stayed with friends, and when he had the funds, lived at the local YMCA. During this time, Keefer worked at a variety of part-time jobs, while continuing to attend high school. He maintained the fiction that he was still residing at Clay's address, and forged his stepfather's signature to report cards.

A complete list of Keefer's places of employment can be found at the end of this report (Document D). Among other jobs, he washed dishes, worked as a busboy, caddied at the local country club, and delivered groceries. Keefer's work was regarded as satisfactory, and he left each job of his own volition. The general impression he gave was that he was “too good” for that kind of labor and that his ambitions were great. He had few friends, although it was agreed that he could be quite charming when he so chose.

Well, that hasn't changed, Evvie thought. She felt a wave of pity for Nicky. George, she thought. Did his mother call him Georgy? Whatever his name, Nicky was a man who hated working with his hands, was obsessive about cleanliness, and demanded his privacy from everyone except Megs. No matter how bad things had been, they must have seemed like paradise to him compared to flophouses and washing dishes. Evvie allowed herself a moment of admiring her father for not quitting, and waited for Mr. Wilson, his twelfth-grade English teacher, to make his appearance, rescue Nicky, and pay for his college education.

Keefer graduated seventh in his class (his ranking at the end of junior year had been second). He had been admitted to Princeton, but had not requested scholarship aid.

Mr. Wilson had better show up fast, Evvie thought. He should have been there already. It occurred to her that Nicky had always claimed to have graduated fourth in his class, that even on the smallest matters he lied. She knew she wasn't going to like what she read next, that the odds were Mr. Wilson was as lovely a legend as the D-day daddy. She hated Aunt Grace, and she hated herself for giving in to temptation, and of course, most of all, she hated Nicky.

After graduating from high school, Keefer disappeared from sight for a month or so. He was next reported visiting the office of Sebastian Prescott. According to Audrey Williams, Mr. Prescott's secretary, on August 3, 1955, George Keefer came to Mr. Prescott's office, demanding an interview with him. Miss Williams said the resemblance between the two men was startling, and assuming that they must be related, she sent Keefer in. She was able to overhear much of their conversation. Keefer threatened to reveal his identity to Prescott's wife, son, and daughter, unless Prescott paid for his education at Princeton.

Miss Williams informed us that Mr. Prescott was at that time suffering from marital problems. Apparently he felt that Keefer's arrival in his family life was inopportune. However, he refused to give Keefer the full four-years' tuition, instead making out a check for three thousand dollars, telling Keefer that that was all he'd ever see from him, and that if he knew what was good for him, he'd take the money, change his name, leave town, and never bother decent people again. Miss Williams informed us that she had never heard Mr. Prescott so angry. Disillusioned by the way he had treated his own, albeit illegitimate son, Miss Williams left Prescott's employ shortly thereafter.

We have been unable to find any records of George Keefer or Nicholas Sebastian for the next twelve months. In September of 1956, however, he registered at Princeton University as a freshman, under the name of Nicholas George Sebastian. He listed himself as an orphan, and paid the full year's tuition himself, claiming he had received the funds from a trust fund set up for him by his former English teacher, Mr. John Wilson. There were no John Wilsons in the Wilmington school district that Keefer attended, so presumably he invented the entire story. Mr. Sebastian has not worked any part-time jobs since he began at Princeton, and his tuition is completely paid for the upcoming academic year, so he must have been able to increase the amount of his savings from that initial three thousand dollars. We are trying to determine if illegal activities were involved, but thus far have been unable to uncover any.

Mr. Sebastian is popular with his classmates at Princeton, and academically is doing quite well, with a 3.6 average. His friends there are of the impression that he comes from an impoverished but socially prominent family in the midwest, that his father died on D-day, and his mother, his junior year in high school. His lack of family does not seem to be held against him, and the feeling is he'll do well in whatever field he chooses to make his own.

Evvie turned over the page and found the next thing was the birth certificate. Father unknown. Nicky wasn't the only one with a father like that, she thought. As of the moment, her father was unknown to her as well. George Nicholas Keefer. Nicholas Sebastian, self-made man. My parents create their own universe, she thought, and when she laughed out loud the sound was harsh. Nicky created a fairy-tale past and he presented it to Megs, who fell in love with it and him. The truth didn't stand a chance, not the way Aunt Grace must have presented it. Nicky the orphan, without home or family. Hell, the way Evvie figured it, Nicky had two brothers and two sisters he'd never bothered to tell her about. That was a lot of family for a homeless orphan.

Almost without thinking about it, she picked up the phone, and dialed home. If she could just talk to Nicky, he would straighten it all out. He must have a reason for all his lies. Nicky had a reason for everything.

The phone rang twice and Nicky answered it. “Nick Sebastian here,” he said, the way he always did, the way Evvie had grown up hearing him say it.

She hung up and pushed the phone away from her. There was no Nick Sebastian
here
. There was just a man who lived on lies, a man nourished on deceit. The man she thought was her father—but he didn't exist.

Suddenly Evvie knew that Grace had won; she hated the truth about her father
and
couldn't bear the thought of seeing Sam. He was like Nicky, she realized. Sam was someone who lived in a fairy-tale world, lying when it suited his purpose, lying with the casual indifference that most people used for the truth. Sam was different in a thousand ways from Nicky, but the core of both their beings was falsehood, just as Aunt Grace had said. And Evvie couldn't deal with that, not then, maybe not ever.

She called information, and got the number of the Hotel Carlyle. She concentrated, remembered the right name, and asked for Dr. Myron Greene's room. Nicky had taught her it was important to remember names, and now she could see why. He'd had so many of his own to keep track of.

“Hello?”

“Is Sam there?” Evvie asked.

“Sammy, it's for you. It's a girl.”

“Hi, Evvie?”

“Sam, I can't see you this afternoon.”

“Why not?” he asked, his voice sounding easy and familiar.

“Something's come up,” Evvie said. “I'm going to take the train back to Eastgate. I'll break the damned hundred.”

“Evvie, what's the matter?”

“Nothing,” Evvie lied. “I'll talk to you soon.” She hung up the phone before he had a chance to ask her anything else. Then she ran to the room that had been her mother's, threw herself on the bed, and wept as her mother must frequently have done.

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

“It's thoughtful of Clark to have his own private beach,” Evvie declared. She toweled herself off after a pleasant swim in the ocean.