The Coach House (47 page)
“There will be plenty of time for us to talk. I promise you that.”
“There are a few things that would be nice to know now. Would that be okay?”
“Yes, of course.”
“My mother left behind a hat box with a bunch of mementoes in it. In there were envelopes addressed to this P.O. box. And in each envelope was my school picture.”
“That was Sophia’s way of letting me know how you were doing. We each had access to that post office box. I’d leave money in there, and she’d leave pictures.” He arched one eyebrow. “What else was in the box?”
“Her passport.”
He had a faraway look on his face. “With two stamps. One to Mexico and the other one France.”
“You took her there?”
“Yes.”
“There was a dried pressed yellow rose.”
“Probably from me.” He showed a curl of a smile. “I did that back then.”
“Do you know anything about a book called
My Shameful Past?”
He nodded. “I gave it to her.” He closed his eyes for several seconds. “Marie, I promise you one day we’ll talk as much about your mother and our relationship as you want to, but only after I confess to my wife. She deserves that. That manuscript was given to me by my mother, who thought I would have a better understanding of what it’s like to be different. I gave it to your mother so she might have a better understanding of that, too. Have you read it?”
“I did. It was interesting to say the least. Thank you.”
He glanced at Marie’s ears. “Sophia’s?”
“Yes, you bought them for her?”
“I did. And a gold watch and a strand of pearls if I remember correctly.”
“I have those, too. I also have a picture of you.”
His eyes widened. “You do?”
“Of course, I didn’t know it was you until I saw you on your porch that day.”
“Just me in the picture?”
“No. There were five or six other men, all lined up against a bar. You were on one end, and my mother was on the other.”
“I don’t remember the picture, but it may have been taken at the Central Union Club. That’s where we met.”
“I didn’t know that.” She remembered something Richard had told her when they were still together. “Wasn’t that a men’s only club?”
“Still is. Your mother was the hostess who greeted members at the door.”
“She was? I didn’t know that, either. One more question. Mr. Feinstein said earlier on the phone that Richard had been a guest in your home. May I ask how that came about?”
“He came as someone’s guest who I actually did invite into my home. As soon as we were introduced, I knew who he was. Very charming man, I must say.”
“Yes, that he is.”
“I want to talk more at a later time. But right now I need to go home and have what will likely be a very prickly conversation with my wife.” He paused. “But you know what?” Marie shook her head. “It will much easier now that I’ve met you.” He flashed a sincere smile, mostly with his eyes, and then his face went serious. “But I have one more question for you first. Something I think Greg alluded to earlier. Is there anything in particular Richard could use against you? And the only reason I ask is because maybe we could help with some sort of protection if you need it.”
Marie shook her head. “No. Like I said before, I think he just wants to let me know he wants me back and knows how to find me.”
He held her gaze for a moment. “Okay.”
Jonathan got up from his chair and waited for Marie to do the same. Then he held out his arms and waited for her to come in for a hug. A gentle but firm lasting hug. “My child,” he whispered. Marie felt his chest heave several times. Then he turned away from her, and within seconds, he was gone. She touched the back of the chair he was sitting in and sighed.
She walked back to her studio with Jonathan’s face clearly imbedded in her mind’s eye. She relived his holding her hand, his hug, and the breathy way he said, “My child.”
Karen was waiting for her. “Well?”
Marie shut the door to her office. “Good God, I don’t know where to start.” She slumped down in her desk chair and leaned her head back.
Karen sat on the edge of the guest chair, her eyes wide. “Start at the beginning. Please.” She reached over for a pad of paper and handed it to Marie. “Here. Take notes while you talk, and that way you’ll remember everything later.”
“Good idea.” She told Karen everything, and Karen didn’t say a word while Marie rehashed her encounter. When she got to the end, Marie sighed a huge sigh. “I’m worn out just talking about what just happened.” Grateful for Karen’s suggestion, she now had the entire meeting memorialized, with many notes written in the margins of the paper as she remembered little details.
“So how do you feel?”
Marie shook her head imperceptibly. “I don’t know. I guess I feel everything. Happy. Scared. Relieved. My stomach has churned so many times, I don’t think it knows which way is up.”
“I can’t even imagine what you must be going through. What was it like sitting across from a colored man?”
Marie was speechless for several seconds. “The thought never crossed my mind.”
Karen shot her a puzzled look.
“I didn’t look at him as colored…or white…or anything. I just looked at him as a man. I was with him for well over an hour and…” Her voice trailed off.
“And what?”
“And I never gave his skin color any thought.”
“Wow.”
Marie suspected Karen didn’t comprehend what she had just said, and she wasn’t sure she completely did either.
“So when do you think you’ll hear from him again?”
“I don’t know, but something tells me it won’t be long. You know what?”
“What?”
“I have Richard to thank for this.”
Karen gave her a look. “Marie, if you send Richard a thank you note, I’m going to kill you.”
Weeks went by without any word from Jonathan, and Marie had a difficult time accepting it. Given the positive meeting she had had with him, she thought she would have heard something from him by now. She wondered if he had had second thoughts about telling his wife about her or worse yet, about having a relationship with her.
“Marie, think about it,” Karen told her. “He tells his wife he had an affair with a white woman twenty some years ago, and he has a daughter as a result of it. Then he tells her your estranged husband is threatening to expose him and possibly ruin his career. I would think that might take some time to get through, don’t you?”
“I suppose, but the waiting is killing me. What if he doesn’t call me at all—ever?” She gulped in an effort to keep from tearing up.
“Maybe you need something to take your mind off of it.”
“Like what?”
“You know what I’ve always wanted to do?”
Marie shook her head.
“See a play in New York.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I hear you talk about having gone with Richard all the time, and I know it would be expensive, but business has been good lately, and I’ve got a little extra in savings, and I’d really like to go.”
“Then let’s go!”
“Just like that?”
“Let’s make it our early Christmas present to ourselves. I’ll check out what’s playing and get back to you.”
In the weeks that preceded their trip to New York to see
South Pacific,
Marie poured herself into her business. She had decided on Genesis Design Group for the name of her company. Genesis—a new beginning.
In an effort to build her client base, Marie and her assistant drove to Kansas City and dropped flyers off at various retailers and restaurants. They gave them to just about anyone who was willing to keep a short stack of them for their customers to see. They posted them on public bulletin boards and left business cards wherever they could.
A well-advertised Open House, something never before orchestrated by Atchison business owners, attracted close to a hundred people, all of whom left with a Genesis Design Group brochure and a wooden yard stick with the company name, address, and phone number on it. She placed advertisements in the
Kansas City Kansan,
the
Atchison Daily Globe,
and a dozen other newspapers in neighboring towns. She promoted all three aspects of her business: home interior design, retail store design, and window display design.
Marie joined a group of local business owners. They met monthly for dinner followed by an informal business meeting. They accepted Marie quickly, and it wasn’t long before she made new friends and many business contacts. She had always admired the way Richard networked with people and was surprised to learn she had the same ability, although not nearly as good as Richard. No one else was
that
good.
Marie was introduced to the man who headed up the local theater group, and she offered her time and expertise to assist with staging. It was during preparation for a production of
Annie Get Your Gun
that Marie met one of the stagehands, Mark Henry. A diminutive man, somewhere in his twenties, Marie was impressed with his handiwork. They had stopped to take a coffee break together.
“So what do you do when you’re not doing this, Mark?” Marie asked.
“I own a small dress shop in Leavenworth.”
“Oh, really? My best friend owns one here in Atchison.”
“Yes, I know. Kay’s.”
“You know Karen Franklin?”
“I knew Ed.” He looked down at his coffee cup.
“How well did you know him?”
“I knew him pretty well.”
Marie wasn’t sure how much further to probe, if at all. Maybe it wasn’t her place. Then she put herself in Karen’s shoes. “Did you know he left a note?”
Mark looked up at her, his eyes wide, but didn’t say anything.
She lowered her voice. “Mark…Karen has struggled with the reason Ed took his own life for all these years. It’s torn her up inside. She has a suspicion, but no real proof. I think if she knew for sure, she would accept it and be able to move on.”
Mark looked too scared to speak.
“Did you and Ed use to go out together?”
Mark nodded. “But that’s all we did. He was a confused man, and he loved Karen. I knew that for sure.”
“I think Karen would appreciate hearing that…from you.”
His eyebrows arched up. “Oh, I couldn’t.”
She took the last sip of her coffee. “Will you think about it?”
Mark nodded.
The next day Marie and Karen sat on Marie’s porch discussing what they were going to do over the weekend. “Do you want to go see
The Secret Garden?
It opens on Friday,” Karen asked her.
“Sure. I read the book in college. The movie should be interesting. Karen?”
“What, doll?”
Marie told her about her conversation with Mark Henry.
Karen looked past Marie for several seconds. “Do you think he’ll call me?”
“No, I don’t. That’s why I told you.”
“Marie?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for telling me, but ever since
Rope,
I knew in my heart it was true.”
* * *
That Saturday, they went to Marie’s apartment after seeing
The Secret Garden
and talked about it over wine.
“Well, what did you think?” Karen asked Marie.
“I think I liked it even better than the book. The characters, especially the way Margaret O’Brien played Mary, seemed so much more real to me.”
“I was confused some of the time. Was the main point of the story that it was because of other children that the crippled boy walked?”
“That, and that the boy’s father held him back because he was miserable, I think.”
“Over the death of his wife?”
“I think so.”
“It bothered me that he only took to his son when he saw he was well.”
“Me, too. The most interesting part for me was what the garden meant for the different characters. For Mary, it symbolized something beautiful, which was important to her because she was considered to be an ugly child by her mother and even the servants who raised her. But for the crippled boy, it symbolized growth.”
