Mine to Tell (21 page)

I puzzled over this stranger in front of me that I’d lived near all my life. Who was he and what in the world did he mean? It was like standing on a precipice with gravity pulling one direction and gusts of wind blowing the other. I wavered, looking below and looking up, the only two options I had. Before I could decide, Kyle’s arms were around me and my senses were buried in a warm rush of the aromas of wood oil and herbal tea. He smelled as comfortable as he felt. I let all of the air out of my lungs and just melted into him, enveloped in his hug.

“Your great-grandmother meant more around here than people let on,” he said while resting his chin on top of my head. The vibrations of his throat buzzed against my forehead when he spoke. It reminded me of Trevor, of my head against him. On my sofa, on his. I pulled away.

“I’m going to Chicago,” I said. I’d been thinking about it but hadn’t decided until just this second.

He looked startled, not deeply, as if I’d just told him I was dying or something, just that drawing back where a person has to ponder what they’ve just heard. “You mean to look for more of Julianne?” he asked.

“Sort of. I’m going to look for John and his family. I know Julianne has her story all spelled out, but something tells me there’s more. And maybe that more is with him.”

“I could go with you,” Kyle offered tentatively. He wanted to go, I knew that without hearing it or seeing it on his face. But he was being careful. Whether for his sake or mine, I didn’t know, but he was letting me decide.

“No, I’m going alone,” I said, still surprising myself. I was talking as if everything was arranged, while I was still surprised I was going, let alone that I’d turned down the offer of his company. “Would you keep an eye on Julianne’s house while I’m gone?” I heard myself ask. I was still holding on, creating a tie between us so he wouldn’t slip away.

“Sure. I could do it legitimately and legally this time,” he said with a sly grin.

“And if you want, you could continue to transcribe her story.” I wasn’t sure if he’d take this as flattery or as slavery. I hoped flattery.

He lit up. “I’d be happy to.”

“Good. I’m leaving tomorrow.” Another shock to myself. While I held my face expressionless, my mind was trying to think what I needed to pack, whether I’d fly or drive, how much money I might need, who the heck I knew in Chicago that I might be able to stay with.

“That’s soon.” He sounded as surprised as I was. “You already packed?”

“Yes,” I lied. Well, I was mentally in the process. When I left his house I’d go to my parents’ and break the news to them. I’d use their telephone to check airline fares and decide how I was going to get there. “Do you need a key to the house?” I asked.

“What do you think?” And he grinned.

“Okay, I guess not then.” I frowned at him. “I’ll call you while I’m there. Keep you posted as to what I find.”

“You’re probably going to be surprised,” he said lightly.

I nodded slowly, my head moving up and down as if I was trying to draw more from him. “You know that already?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Julianne’s story can’t be as simple as a woman wrong or wronged and then shoved aside. Don’t you agree?”

I found myself nodding again, even though I wasn’t so sure. All we knew of her so far was that she was a wounded heart, in a bad marriage, in love with the wrong person, betrayed in the sense her family had sold her out, and the love of her life had married another. This didn’t add up to a woman who was heading anywhere except for a much-needed affair.

“I hope you’re right,” I conceded. “Well...” I began looking around as if I needed an escape. I wasn’t sure what I needed. I just had to keep moving.

“Have a good trip,” he said, and it was the most ordinary thing I think he’d ever said. “Find Julianne in the Windy City.” That was better.

I nodded and went out the door. The Windy City, John, Henrietta, John’s wife and kids, maybe his great-grandkids, like me. It was too much. I looked back at Kyle’s house, wanting ever so much to run back inside and beg him to come with me. My breathing came hard for a few moments and then slowed. I turned around and went to my car. No, I was going to do this alone.

Chapter 35

“So that a search may be made

in the record books of your fathers.”

The Windy City blew right through me as I floundered through its streets, its archives, its historical societies, and its libraries. I’d never done so much research before, not even as a journalist. I came to Chicago knowing John’s name and the address on his envelopes. That was all. Chicago was old and well preserved, and I believed that some thread to John still existed somewhere.

The dust from old books and old newspapers matted my skin and clogged my nose. The print from aging periodicals darkened my fingertips.

When I slept in the hotel where I’d rented a room that could be had by the week, I dreamed of John, visions of a man I longed to meet yet still in some way didn’t want to forgive. He looked sincere in my nocturnal subconscious images, not like the cad I wanted to believe he was for marrying another. He always stood far off, a long coat over trousers, his hands stuffed deep into its pockets, his eyes begging me to come his direction. I tried. I walked toward him through the fog of my dreams, but I never came close. I never could reach him. I called his name, but his expression never changed and he didn’t answer. He was ever far away and elusive, silent, yet still he beckoned me nearer.

I brought books back to my room in the evenings, pored through them, looking for names that connected the dots to John’s family. During the day I stayed with the reserve materials and archives that never left their homes. It was during the day, in the dungeon of a newspaper office, that I finally found him. A small obscure article about his wedding, of all things, and I looked at the date. June 13, 1908. He’d married shortly after he told Julianne he would. I wanted to scream. At him, for him, for both of them. After I stared at the few small lines, I noticed the name of the church and the street it was on. Madly I grabbed for my bag and yanked out a pen and some paper. 800 Troost. I prayed it would still be there.

I raced upstairs and clawed my way through milling persons and found someone who worked at the paper and asked how I could find a church, a street, an address. Eyeing me as if I were insane, they tossed me a telephone book, and I flipped to the back to churches and ran my finger down the list until I found it. First Christian Church on 800 Troost.

“Thank you,” I shouted, sliding the phone book back toward the sour clerk. I raced out the door and hailed a taxi just like a true Chicagoan and clung to the back of the seat as I urged him faster to the place where John wed his second choice for a wife.

I didn’t know what I expected to find at the church. No one there would remember him, but it was a start. I paid the driver and stood on the sidewalk in front of a tall gray stone building whose peaks and spires reached for the equally gray Chicago sky. I stood at the end of the sidewalk that led to its front steps and tried to imagine John here years ago, without the sidewalk, standing at this juncture, a choice between what he wanted and what he felt he had to do.

Did he consider running? Was he placid? Was his bride pretty enough and special enough that his reluctance was tolerable? I had a knot in my stomach for him. I couldn’t have done it if I were in his place. I couldn’t have walked up those steps and down that aisle to marry someone I didn’t love. I couldn’t, and I wished Julianne hadn’t, either.

I put one foot in front of the other until I came to the bottom step. Then I mounted them one by one until I stood in front of the ornately carved doors. I touched them. They were ancient. They were doors my great-grandmother had possibly touched at one time, touched as a young girl in love, never guessing she wouldn’t touch them as a young bride.

I pulled the door open and stepped into a cavernous foyer, and beyond that into an even more vast sanctuary. My footsteps echoed, sounding hollow and frightened as their clatter bounced off the walls.

“May I help you?”

I jumped. I couldn’t see a body, but there was a voice. A male voice echoing from nowhere as if it were God’s.

“Where are you?” I called, much weaker than I sounded in the empty sanctuary.

A dark figure stepped from the right, a tall figure, and it stood at the front, looking at me. “Is there something I can do for you?” he asked again.

“I was looking for someone,” I said foolishly. He wouldn’t be happy to learn that that someone had died over forty years ago.

“We have excellent roll logs of our members. If you want to come to my office, maybe I can help you.”

I eased to the front where he stood, even though his voice sounded as if it were coming from behind me, beside me, all around me. When I came close enough to decipher his features, I found him to be relatively young, probably in his forties, and nice looking in a Kyle sort of way. He nodded.

“I’m Pastor Richardson,” he said. “Who is it you’re looking for?”

“John,” I said, “John Baxter.”

“Doesn’t sound familiar.” He thought for a moment. “But it’s a large congregation, and he may be easy to find. Please follow me.”

I followed him to his office and watched him pull a new directory from his shelf.

“No, he won’t be in that,” I said, and Pastor Richardson turned toward me, giving me an eye that said he was wondering whether I had ill motives, just another person coming off the street looking for a handout. “I mean, he’s deceased, I’m sure.”

Pastor Richardson raised his eyebrows and slid the book back onto his shelf. “Let’s begin again,” he said, and he sat down at his desk.

****

By the time I left the church I felt as if angels had given me wings. Pastor Richardson had served me well and had even enjoyed the search, in the end supplying me with John’s wife’s name, their address, and the names of his children who had been baptized in the church. I clutched in my hand the treasured paper where he’d written the information. I never wanted to let it go.

I rode a taxi to the address and paid the driver hurriedly and shooed him away. I wanted to be alone with this house. I wanted it to be 1908 again, not 1989. He drove away, the exhaust lingering behind, reminding me it really wasn’t 1908. When it had dissipated, I stood there, staring at a tall, ancient home, two stories high, painted white and trimmed in green. The trees guarding the house were monstrosities, and I was certain they’d been there when John lived here. Maybe they were even planted by him. I walked forward slowly, taking in the whole of the view, letting it purge me and cleanse me of the anger I’d amassed for him, certain his cloaked figure waited somewhere there for me. Finally, I’d be close.

I wove through bushes, flowers, and trees as I made my way to the front door. No one interrupted my stroll, so I knocked, not knowing what I would say. My knuckles made hardly a sound against the heavy wood. I wondered if I should try again, louder. I also considered leaving, maybe coming back tomorrow when I was better prepared. Just as I was thinking to turn away, the door opened and an elderly woman stood squinting at me as if she needed glasses, which she already had.

“Excuse me,” I said, “I’m Annabelle Crouse.”

She continued to stare as if she hadn’t even heard me.

“I was looking at your house because…well, because a man used to live here that was almost in my family.” I felt foolish. She continued to peer at me, tipping her head to the side like a puppy who had no clue what you’re talking about. “Could I ask you a question or two?”

“What was his name?” she called, her voice thin and strained.

“John,” I said quickly, surprised at her outburst. “John Baxter.”

Her eyes drifted away from me as if she could spot him somewhere nearby, in the trees or in the air behind me.

“Baxter,” she said to no one. “Maybe you’d like to come in.”

Chapter 36

“Wanting to have their ears tickled,

they will accumulate for themselves teachers

in accordance to their own desires.”

I grabbed the phone as soon as I reached my room that evening, to dial Kyle’s number, anxious to tell him everything I’d learned. As I started to dial I noticed the phone’s red button flashing at me, interrupting my gaiety. I wanted to talk to Kyle without interruption, so I called the front desk to see why they’d left me a message.

“Who are you?” a gruff voice asked. He must have assumed I was some passing floozy, the other women who I’d seen taking rooms here probably doing so for another reason.

“Room 36,” I said, “Annabelle Crouse.”

He fumbled around for a moment, papers shuffling, breaths that sounded like gasps accentuating his frustration.

“Here it is,” he said finally. “Call home.”

“Call home?”

“That’s all I know.” And he hung up.

Perturbed, I hit the receiver and dialed my parents.

“Hello?” my mother’s frantic voice answered.

“Mama? Are you all right?” I could hear the strain in her voice, the ragged tears cutting through her hello.

“No,” she shouted, “I’m not!”

I’d never heard her voice so taut before, so near breaking.

“Mama?” I whispered, my mind reeling with the worst.

“It’s out!” she nearly screeched. “The whole thing’s out, and we’re so ashamed, so disgraced. Your grandfather won’t survive this.”

I swallowed, knowing without her saying any more what was out. My mother was collapsing at our family’s ruin, and I was collapsing at Julianne’s.
How dare they!
I felt like a lioness robbed of her young. How dare someone betray my wishes, and how dare everyone still judge her. I was from a community of Paul Juniors, quick to paint her with that historical scarlet letter so they didn’t have to be responsible for any of their own sins. And my mother would let them. She didn’t know any other way.

“Mama,” I said.

“Get back here,” she wailed. “No, don’t come back. They’ll blame you and you’ll be ruined. Your grandfather already does.” She broke into sobs as my blood ran cold. Grandpa Samuel. As my head and heart pounded, my shock morphed into anger. How could a community level judgment so much more oppressive than God’s? How could my family let them?