Revelation of Hearts (Stacey and Shane Mcleod, #3) (7 page)

On one occasion, they joined in a snowball fight with some children that were playing in the park. Afterwards they walked back to Jonathan’s apartment, hand in hand.  They both knew this would be their last time together. At the airport as Lora was leaving, she told him, “Get a life McKay. You deserve more than I can give you.”

New years of nineteen-seventy-nine came and the castle folk had a New Year’s party, mostly for the young people of the family. The twins brought dates, Jessie brought Sam, Suzanne and Tracy both had dates.  Douglas came with his family and so did Farley Macgregor and his family.  Farley and Jackie’s older sister, Bernice came with her family, all the way from California.  Both sets of grandparents were there. Mary Beth Flemming as well as David and Eleanor Macgregor. It was a new year to remember.  It would be the last time they would all be together, until Jessie and Sam’s wedding.

Jessica waited until January fifth, to tell her mom and dad she was moving to Austin, that she and Mary Faye had already found an apartment to be near Sam. They would be working at the same hospital. Jessie knew her parents were not going to approve nevertheless her plans were made. “I need to be near Sam so I can help with plans on the house,” Jessie told her parents. 

Jessie had been studying ancient herbal and medicinal remedies. There was a great teaching facility near Austin. The closer April and the wedding came, the greater the excitement. The Scott and Flemming families had become well acquainted and liked one another and approved of their children’s choice of spouse. 

On the fifteenth of April, nineteen-seventy-nine, Jessica Leighanne Flemming and Samuel Adam Scott were married. Lora was her maid of honor. Her friend Mary Faye, her sisters and cousins were her bridesmaids.  Sam’s brother Russell was his best man. 

The Macgregor, O’Neil and Scott grandparents and families were there as well as Mary Beth Flemming.  The Scott and Flemming families were now united. The wedding ceremony was preformed at St. Marks Presbyterian Church. They spent the night, in a Houston hotel, the next day they flew to Los Angeles, where they waited two hours at LAX airport, before they boarded a flight to Hong Kong, China.  Once there, they planned on a combination honeymoon and much anticipated interview with professor Wang of Beijing University on ancient remedies.  These plans had been waiting to activate for over a year.

President Nixon’s trip to china had helped to open up trade with the west, but it was still difficult to obtain a visa to enter mainland China.  Jessie and Sam had a seventy-two hour visa and a driver to escort them to the university and back to the hotel. All should go well:  What is the old adage about, ‘The best laid plans of mice and men?’

Since Lora’s humanitarian trip to Boston in December, she had heard from Jonathan a few times.  She knew he had met a girl that worked at the television station for his brother. Today she received a wedding invitation.  Doctor Jonathan McKay to wed Darleen Rodgers on the first of August nineteen-seventy-nine, at St. John’s Methodist Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma.  Lora knew she would not attend, but she would send a gift.

The twentieth of June, rolled around again just like an old penny.  The castle folk gave her a surprise birthday party.  The one thing in the world she least wanted, but it made her mother happy.  The whole family knew Mary Beth was not well, so everyone tried to make her happy.  Having this party for Lora seemed terribly important to her.

Jessie and Sam came to the party, but they both acted a little mysterious. “We want you to come to the ranch next weekend.  It’s terribly important,” Jessie told Lora.

“What’s this all about?”

“We’ll tell you when you get there.”

Whatever the mystery was it would have to wait until the next weekend. Lora now knew, to take the old river road into Rawhide. She was greatly surprised to find the road to the ranch was much improved.  It was now a gravel road, quite navigable. When she saw the house, she thought she must have taken the wrong road. Here was this big two-story house sitting in the middle of a pasture.  It was obvious it wasn’t finished, but it was livable.

Jessie and Sam came out to meet her as she drove up and stopped out front.

“Well, what do you think?” Jessie asked.

Lora could tell by the look in their eyes, that what she and they were seeing was two different houses, so she would not burst their elusion. “It’s magnificent,” Lora said. “When did you do all this?”

“Over the past year and a half,” Sam said. “My uncle and grandad have been helping us.”

“We don’t have the porch on yet,” Jessie said, “But it’ll get there. It will be a verandah porch that will go all the way around the house. Come, Aunt Lora, we wanna’ show you the inside.”

To get to the front door, it was necessary to maneuver three very large flat rocks they were using for steps. Two were stacked on each other. Inside were large bare rooms. Excitedly, Jessie said, “Just visualize Aunt Lora, this is the living room.”

It was a big bare room with a fireplace. To the right was another room, also bare, except for a rock fireplace. “That’s gonna’ be our den,” Jessie said.  Lora glanced at the staircase. Jessie noticed and said, “We’ll show you upstairs later, but first you have to see Sam’s office.”

The office was toward the back of the house on the right.  It was another bare room with a large rock fireplace. “This is going to be your medical office?” Lora asked.

Sam, looked at her as if she were slow-witted and said, “No, Aunt Lora, this is my ranch office.”

Across the hall was a large room with nothing in it.  Not even a fireplace.  Jessie said with her arms out, “This is our dining room.” The kitchen was worse, it was big too, and it had a sink and part of a cabinet as well as an old stove and a refrigerator.

“How do you manage out here, you have no gas or electricity?”

“No, problem,” Sam said. “We have propane.”  Jessie stood beaming beside him. 

Lora laughed and said, “You two must have pioneering blood in you. What about a bathroom?”

Sam smiled and said, “Septic tank.”

Jessie took her aunt’s hand and said, “Come upstairs, you’re not gonna’ believe it.” She was right. There were no walls, just bare frames showing. “We’re gonna’ have four or five bedrooms up here as well as two, maybe three bathrooms. Isn’t it wonderful?”

Lora put her arms around her niece and said, “Yes, my darling, it’s absolutely wonderful.”

“Do you remember the big hole in the ground when we first came out here?” 

“Yes, of course. How could I forget that?” 

“Well come look, we have a surprise for you.”

Lora wasn’t sure she could handle more surprises. The basement turned out to be the best-furnished part of the house. There were two main rooms. “Do you live down here?” she asked.

“Yes, of course we do, when we’re here.”

Sam knocked on the separating door, and a young Chinese man walked through. “Aunt Lora, we would like for you to meet our new friend, Chen Le,” Sam said.

The young man bowed and said, “I am greatly honored, Aunt Lora.”

Lora was quite taken aback, but put her hand out and said, “How do you do, mister Le.  It’s very nice to meet you.” 

“No, Aunt Lora, his name is Le Chen,” Jessie said.  “In China, last names are first. Come, we’ll go upstairs and tell you all about everything.”

“It’s cooler down here. Can’t you tell me here?” 

Sam chortled and said, “Sure we can.  I’ll bring some iced tea down here.”

Lora wasn’t sure how much English Le Chen understood, but he seemed to follow along. Jessie told of the seventy-two hour visa that they obtained to visit professor Wang at Beijing University. They were assigned a driver to take them to the University and back to the hotel.  When they arrived at the university all of a sudden, trouble erupted.  Some of the students were revolting.  Our car was caught kind of in the middle.  The students were chanting. The police were there, and then the army came with tanks rolling. Some students stood in front of the tanks, but the tanks rolled right over them.  Then there was shooting and screaming. 

Sam saw a young man break away from the police line. He told me to keep the driver busy, that we have to help this young man.  Sam managed to get him in the back floorboard and put my coat over him.  There was a lull in the shooting, so in the chaos we drove away. At the hotel, Sam did a fantastic job of being indigent while Le and I walked into the hotel as if he was a porter.  In the room, Le told us how and where to get a fake passport. He knew if he didn’t get out of China fast they would find him and execute him.  They had already executed his uncle and cousin for being intellectuals.

“Therefore, I went shopping,” Jessie, said. 

“You did what?” Lora asked.

Jessie laughed and the men smiled. “Yes, we needed money, so I went to the bank to exchange money and cash travelers’ checks. I bought a wig, glasses and large women shoes. I told the driver there was a shop by the market I wanted to stop at for a while. I knew from Le the fake shop was in the market place, so off I went to find it.  It was amazingly easy. I repeated what Le told me to say. In no time, at all I had a fake passport with a picture of me with a wig and glasses all in your name, Aunt Lora.” 

“My name!” Lora exclaimed.

“Yes,” Jessie said. “We had to get him out of mainland China and into Hong Kong. So if anyone should ask, you were there.”

“Okay,” Lora said. “Tell me what happened in Hong Kong?”

“Nothing and everything,” Jessie said. Then asked, “Do you remember Mary Faye? Of course, you do. Well, her brother works in the embassy there. I went to see him and told him our story.  He didn’t wanna’ get involved, therefore I had to blackmail him.  He gave me a legal passport with Le’s picture on it and here we are.

Lora sat quietly for a bit, then said, “I’m not even gonna’ ask what you have on Chip Walters.  So where do we go from here?” 

“Nowhere,” Sam said. “Le’s gonna’ live here at the ranch. He’s gonna’ study English, learn American ways, and then do whatever he wants to with his life. He’s a free man.”

Lora turned to Le and asked, “How old are you Le?” 

“Nineteen,” he said.  His English wasn’t great, but understandable.

“Do you need my help in anyway?” Lora asked.

“Not yet,” Jessie said. “We think the best place right now is here on the ranch.  We live most of the time in Austin. If anyone asks, he’s working here on the ranch.”

“You three know what you did was very dangerous, don’t you?”

“Yes, we know,” Sam said, “But sometimes you have to stand-up and be counted.”

Lora had supper with them and kissed them bye. She shook Mr. Chen’s hand and then drove back to Houston.

Chapter-12

Death of Grandparents

Director of nursing kept Lora busy.  She spent as much time with her mother as possible.  She seemed to be doing well on the heart medication.  Jessie and Sam came for Thanksgiving and brought Le Chen with them to introduce to the family.  Lora couldn’t get over how much his English had improved over the past five months. She smiled, every time he called her, ‘Aunt Lora.’

Jessie said, “I hope you don’t mind Le calling you Aunt Lora, it’s a sign of respect.”

“Of course not, darling. Le is a very nice young man.”

Lora didn’t see Jessie, Sam or Le Chen again until February of nineteen-eighty at her mother’s funeral. They had all three been to the castle for Christmas, but Lora had driven her mother to Lake Charles to have Christmas with Douglas and his family. Mary Beth had seemed stronger than she had for some time.  Lora had been spending every weekend with her mother. Once again, their company seemed to bolster one another.

On Monday, morning after Valentines Day Mary Beth Flemming didn’t wake up as usual.  Jackie sent Tracy up to check on her and found her grandmother still asleep, she thought.  She was lying on her side with her knees drawn up and both hands under her cheek.  Tracy started to tiptoe out, but something told her to go closer.  When she did, she screamed for her mom.  Jackie came upstairs, and then called Bradley.  He called Lora and Douglas. The funeral was on Saturday. Afterwards, the family and close friends came back to the house for a while.

Two weeks later, Lora drove to the ranch to visit with Jessie. Just before she reached the ranch house, she noticed a doublewide mobile home sitting a few hundred yards from the main house and the foundation of a house was in progress.

The ranch house, had improved considerably since she had been here last summer. It now had a verandah porch with steps. The inside was still bare of furniture, but the kitchen was coming along.  There were now cabinets and a working bathroom on the downstairs floor, as well as the basement.  The upstairs, was still lacking for walls, but the air-ducts for heating and air conditioning was installed.

Lora asked, “Who lives in the double wide up the road?”

“Oh, that’s Jake and Sonia’s place. He’s my ranch foreman. We’re gonna’ build his house next.  We couldn’t run this place without him.  He and I grew up together, he went to agricultural school and I went to medical school.  Now we’re putting the two together.  We’re gonna’ make this part of Texas sit up and take notice, someday.”

Lora looked around and asked, “Where’s Mr. Chen?”

Sam, just as proudly said, “He’s gone into Waco to pick up supplies for the ranch and the spring round up.  He’s gonna’ handle the chuck wagon for the round up.”

Lora had lunch with these two idealists. She decided to ask no more questions. She knew she was out of her element.  Sam was so confident and Jessie beamed when she looked at him, as if there was nothing he couldn’t do. Lora smiled to herself all the way back to Houston, thinking, that’s the way love should be.

Speaking of love, three more wedding were rapidly approaching.  Suzanne and Paul were to be married the, tenth of June.  Suzanne had asked her to be her maid of honor.  She had been Jessica’s; therefore, she couldn’t very well refuse.  Besides, she loved Suzanne and would never do anything to hurt her.

The twins, Daniel and David’s double wedding was scheduled for August of the same year. Thank goodness, Lynn and Melissa’s families would be taking care of all the planning and arrangements.  Lora’s nieces and nephews knew nothing about her life or the pain weddings and the month of June had caused her through the years.  She hadn’t discussed her hurtful memories with anyone except her mother, Jonathan and a little with Jessie.