A Simple Case of Infidelity Pt. 05

I'm in Baltimore; outside some fucking sanatorium or nut house or something."

"What's the place called?"

"Villa Clara or something; it's just outside Baltimore."

She said, "That's an old peoples' home; mostly for nuns and older women who were big givers."

"Yeah that's the place."

"All right," she said, "I'll get Richard. Let's meet up at the Red Lobster in Frederick tonight say 8:00. How's that sound?"

"Good," I said, "I'll be there." We both turned off our phones at the same time. I was scared. I didn't know where Leslie was. She's somewhat prone to bouts of depression. Had she done something stupid? God I hoped the kids could help.

~~V~~

I was outside the Red Lobster when Richard and Victoria pulled up. We went in and ordered. I didn't think I was hungry, but managed to get down a little baked salmon. I thought it was dry; it needed some Hollandaise sauce or something. Richard and Victoria both ordered the crab legs. They didn't seem to be worried like I was.

Once we finished eating I told them what I knew, then Victoria reminded us there was an aunt, an Aunt Annie who lived someplace, Seattle she thought.

I looked at my kids, "I'm worried. Can I count on you two?"

Victoria took my hand, "We're doing this together."

I said, "Yeah, but what?"

Richard chuckled, "I guess we're all going to Seattle."

I thought, 'OK, that made sense.' What a relief. I didn't want to have to do this alone. Then I asked, "What about that lawyer in Philadelphia?"

Richard replied, "We already checked him out. The money Leslie got had only been put in an account a few months ago. They'd been told they'd get a death notice, and that was when they should send mom the money. That's all they knew."

I thought this was all very confusing. We went back to Oakland.

~~V~~

We ransacked Leslie's room. Victoria found Aunt Annie's name and address. It wasn't much; just an old letter from when Leslie had visited her years before. We got a phone number and called. This Aunt Annie was glad to hear from us. We flew out. When we got there she had a lot to say; stuff I never knew, and stuff that was very disturbing.

~~v~~

Jesus, I thought my life was back on track. Leslie and I had divorced, we were becoming friends. I had a new job, a new career. The kids were moving forward. Then kapow, we were in a house in Seattle. I was eating Tums like they were candy. I hadn't slept in days. My head was throbbing, and this old woman was tearing everything and everybody's world apart. The stuff I never knew!

Aunt Annie's married name was Denise McCormley. Brother did she open my eyes.

First she made it clear no one in her family had any connection with the 'old families' of Maryland. They were descended from Irish refugees, derelicts who fled Ireland in the 1830's. The whole big family name thing had been a lie her parents and grandparents had fabricated. I thought, 'So much for tight controls of family backgrounds.'

She explained they'd made their money mostly during the Civil War by secretly buying up arms and ammunition and transporting them to Virginia to be sold at outrageous prices to the Confederacy. Later she said they'd gotten into bootlegging and other unsavory things until there was enough capital to move into more legitimate enterprises. In short, I realized I was fully confirmed in my belief my wife's family was made up of nothing but a bunch of phony snobs.

Just the same none of that helped explain Leslie's situation, but Aunt Annie was right on the ball. She went into some real detail after that.

I remember how Aunt Annie started, "You see Francis by the time you showed up our family was pretty entrenched in the social thing. It was all so flagrantly phony. My, my when I met and fell in with my man, Reuben Fitzgerald, a lowly auto mechanic they were thoroughly scandalized. I was forbidden to have anything to do with him. You saw how that worked," she pointed to a mantle covered in family pictures.

I asked, "So what about Leslie and her parents?"

She frowned, "That was another matter. You see Leslie's mother had other ambitions. She wanted to devote herself to God."

I said, "But."

Aunt Annie put her hand on my knee. She smiled at my children, "Leslie's mother was very naïve. She met the man who became her husband at some social gathering. He was a 'nobody', no money, no connections, no nothing. He was a tool salesman. He seduced her. She got pregnant. Of course her being a good Catholic there could never be an abortion. Our parents were furious. They found the culprit, Leslie's soon to be dad, and worked something out. I never knew what it was till just a few months ago."

I was somewhere between stunned and intrigued, "What was that?"

She went on, "You see about a year ago Leslie's father found out he had stomach cancer. His time was almost up. I guess he got religion. He came to see me. Why me I'll never know. Anyway, this is what he told me."

I sat back. This was going somewhere.

She saw my interest and pushed on, "Our parents made him an offer. You see when he was here he told me he already had a family, he had a wife and another daughter in Omaha, Nebraska, but there was a problem. His other, older daughter had OI."

"OI," I asked?

"Osteogenesis imperfect, Brittle Bone Disease. She was older than Leslie, and they'd just recently diagnosed her ailment, but he explained it was a tricky kind of thing. There are several categories; some bad, others horrific. One of the things was the treatments cost a fortune. He figured he could marry Leslie's mother, get a job doing something with our family, and secretly squirrel money away for his 'other' child. And that's what he did. He managed to do it for more than forty years. No one knew."

I couldn't believe it. I asked, "The other daughter. Did she die?"

Aunt Annie replied, "No, she's still alive. She's married, has kids, and even has grandkids. They all live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He told me all this because he knew he was dying. I guess he needed to confess to someone."

"Did Leslie find out," I asked?

She responded, "That's the rub. I knew, but no one else did. Then when her father died and all Leslie got was a check she started to investigate. She'd called that Philadelphia lawyer. She called me. Then like you she came out. She told me her mother hadn't told her anything. I told her what I knew. I'm sorry Francis. I had to."

I asked, "Then what?"

"We went to New Mexico. We made up some cock and bull story about doing research on her case and OI. We didn't know it, but her case was well documented. Anybody, I mean if they'd had the least suspicion could have exposed everything. But nobody ever did."

"So you went to New Mexico."

"That's what I said, and it was devastating. This woman was a few years older than Leslie. She had pictures of her 'daddy'. They were pictures of Leslie's father with this other person. Francis it was awful. I don't know how she did it, but Leslie held it in. There was this other woman, this other sister and all those pictures. There were pictures of her on a pony with Leslie's dad standing proudly beside her. There were pictures of them at Disneyworld, at Dollywood, Gatlinburg, the beach, outside a theater, her in her Girl Scout uniform, her as a child at one of her birthday parties; all the things Leslie dreamed of but never got to do, not with her father anyway. Francis it destroyed her, it just destroyed her."

I looked at my kids, then back at Aunt Annie. My kids were crying. I wanted to, "What did Leslie say?

"Funny thing about that. This other sister, this half-sister had been living a lie all her life, but Leslie didn't burst her bubble. She kept it in. She pretended to be what we said we were. When we left the other sister never knew Leslie was her sister. In fact Leslie stepped away and came back with a check for $200,000.00. She handed it to her saying it was part of a settlement her father had reached. I don't know where Leslie got that kind of money. Do you?"

I knew where the $200,000.00 had come from, but I didn't tell Aunt Annie. I mean why would I? I shook my head no. Annie just looked at me. I think she knew.

I asked, "What happened after. What did Leslie say?"

Annie took my hands and said, "She told me about the two of you. She didn't think she'd ever see you again. She believed she'd ruined it for you. I'm surprised you're here. I guess it's because of them," she nodded toward my kids.

I replied, "Yes, them mostly, but tell me what else did she say?"

"She got funny, funny in a weird sort of way. She started in on Hawthorne, this character Beatrice, something about poison. I didn't know who or what she meant. I even went to the library and got out a book. I still don't know. It scared me though."

I asked, "Did she say anything else. Did she say where she was going?"

"Francis I think she's dead. I think when she left me she was suicidal. It was as though she was already dead. She said something about finding the one place where she'd been truly comfortable, happy, and safe. She never said where."

I thanked her and told her we'd do our best to find her niece, but I wasn't so sure.

~~V~~

Victoria, Richard and I went back to Oakland. I had packing to do. Richard was off for the army. And Victoria wanted to get ready for Auburn. We talked about my ex-wife, their mom. They had no idea where their mother might have gone, but I thought I did.

Back when the kids were little we did a lot of traveling. I was a forester so that basically set the pattern. We never hit the cities, or the big glitzy places. We went to Niagara, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier National Park, the Grand Canyon, Palo Duro, and Acadia.

It had been in Acadia where we'd spent the most time. A good friend of mine had relatives in a small town south of Acadia, and they had a house. It was a quiet little place, a lot like Oakland. But this place was more out of the way, and it was very near Acadia, Bar Harbor, and a scruffy little beach the natives called 'Sand Beach'. The water there was always frigid, much like the rivers in our area in the spring. Leslie fell in love with the place and that stupid little strip of sand.

A lot of her love affair with Acadia had to with Hawthorne. Leslie and I watched this old movie called 'The House of Seven Gables'. I thought it was a crummy movie about some not especially nice people, but Leslie loved it. I know she hated Vincent Price. Leslie got on a Hawthorne kick. She read most of the garbage he wrote. I told her she should have been reading Mark Twain; he was 'the man'. I remember reading once where Twain admonished a bunch of politicians. He'd said, 'Truth is a precious thing; it's good you use it so sparingly.'

Leslie loved that Sand Beach. She enjoyed the whale watching. The water up there was so cold. In my mind's eye I could see her slowly walking out so sea; just walking out deeper and deeper and then diving in. She'd be gone, she'd just disappear. That would've been like her.

The Epilogue:

I had to do it. I had to go back to Bar Harbor. I had to visit the places. I had to walk the places where she might have spent her last moments. Stand on the same rocks. Feel the same breeze. I was filled with regret. I would have given anything to get her back.

I drove down to Sand Beach. It was already September. The weather was still pleasant during the day, but the nights were getting cold.

I walked down the steps that took me to the beach. Out on the far end of the sand, near the edge of the water was chair, and in the chair was a woman. I knew it was her. There were a couple older men nearby. Fairly typical. I'd seen it before.

I walked the length of the beach and got up behind her. She had a book in her hands; 'The Scarlett Letter', what else? I took my hands and gently rested them on her shoulders.

She turned around saying, "I thought I said..."

She saw it was me. She just sat there...looking at me.

I took the fucking book out of her hands and threw it across the beach. I helped her up. I folded the chair and dropped it.

Then I said, "Come on. You're going to love it in Virginia." I put my arm around her shoulders and walked her back across the beach.

The end.