A Love for All Seasons (22 page)

In My Life

Hartford, Connecticut

Mid 1970s

S
he
opened her eyes at the sound of the raised voices, rubbing her eyes as she clumsily sat up. Mommy and Daddy were yelling at each other again. They woke her up.

No, that wasn't Mommy and Daddy, she realized; it was Daddy and somebody else, somebody she didn't know.

She sat up, rubbed her eyes some more and climbed down from the bed. She wanted to let them know they'd woken her up. Maybe then they'd stop. She hated all that yelling.

Before she got to the doorway she heard the rumbling sound. Her mommy screamed, “Stop it!” over and over.

Her breath caught in her throat. Daddy and another man, the man she knew as her mommy's friend, rolled on the floor hitting each other. They both looked real mad. Maybe she should just go back to bed, or Daddy would really be mad. He never yelled at her, only Mommy.

But she couldn't move, and nobody saw her standing there, anyway. She wished Mommy's friend would go away. She didn't think he'd ever been here when Daddy was home. And she'd never seen Daddy so mad before. It looked like he was really hurting Mommy's friend. He held him down, and his hands were around his neck. Daddy was yelling at him, but Mommy's friend just made funny noises. Now Mommy was yelling at Daddy—only she never called him “Daddy,” but “Ben”—to stop it, but he didn't even look at her.

Mommy's friend—that was what she always called him, her friend—had one hand on top of Daddy's hands and the other in his pocket. She saw something shiny, and then all of a sudden Daddy made a funny noise and fell forward onto Mommy's friend.

Mommy ran to him, but instead of sounding mad she sounded like she was crying. “Cliff, what have you done?”

She decided that Mommy's friend's name must be Cliff, just like her name was ' Licia.

She watched as Mommy held Daddy, but Daddy didn't say anything. It was like he'd gone to sleep, and Mommy couldn't wake him up.

“Daddy!” she cried out.

Alicia's eyes flew open, and she sat up with a start. When she realized she was shivering laid back down and pulled the covers over her head, leaving only her face exposed. She'd just seen it, the tiny apartment with its beat-up furniture, the fight her father had with Clifton Matthews before Clifton stabbed him to death. She could actually hear the rumbling noise as they rolled on the floor. While being choked, Clifton managed to pull a knife out of his pocket and stab her father in the abdomen. She'd read somewhere—probably while doing her scoping, or fine tuning, of one of the court stenographers' transcripts during a murder trial—that those types of wounds bled very little, although they were deadly. But that was cold comfort to her now.

Even with all the covers, she still shivered. Why couldn't she get warm? And would she ever be able to get back to sleep, or would fear of what she might see in her dreams keep her awake until dawn?

 

“There you are,” Shannon said brightly as she stood in the doorway to Alicia's office. “I'm glad you're here. I've got a nine o'clock with Doretha McCann. I had a call from the secretary of a judge. Doretha transcribed a deposition in his office the other day, and he didn't like the way she was dressed. I think the girl's been watching too many TV dramas, wearing all those low-cut blouses to work. I'm going to tell her she dresses inappropriately for court, and if she doesn't comply we won't use her services anymore. Did you want to sit in?”

“No, not this morning. I've got a headache. Didn't sleep too well last night.”

Alicia felt Shannon's eyes studying her. “Are you all right? You had a headache when you came in yesterday.”

From the wine, Alicia knew. Yesterday she'd come in late and left early. “It went away, but now it's back.”

“I've got to tell you, Alicia, you don't exactly look like you just spent five days on a Caribbean cruise. Truth be told, you look like hell. What's wrong? I'm really starting to worry about you.”

“There's a lot going on in my life right now, Shannon. I don't mean to be evasive, but I don't want to say any more than that.”

“Why don't you go home and try to sleep?”

“No. I've been out of the office way too much. I'll work through it.”

But even as Alicia said the words, she acknowledged that after last night's flashback dream it had just become a heck of a lot more difficult.

 

Alicia fell asleep as soon as she got home. Her slumber was deep and dreamless. When she awoke before dawn the next morning she felt grateful, seeing it as a sign that the disturbing dream of the previous night had been no more than a reaction to the breakup with Jack.

She would make it after all.

Three days later she had another dream, this time seeing images of herself as a toddler being carried way up high on her father's shoulders. It was springtime, and she wore a pink windbreaker and white socks under brown sandals. They took a walk in the park, and he bought her a vanilla cone of soft serve custard.

The scene faded, soon replaced by another. This time he was taking her out of the tub and drying her off, making a game out of it. As he helped her dress he told her, “You're Daddy's girl, Alicia, and Daddy loves you very much.”

Once again she woke up shaken and shivering in the middle of the night, and she knew she had to get help.

Help!

D
r.
Allison Tucker took a few moments to go over the paperwork Alicia filled out. “No history of depression, no history of mental disorders. Tell me why you're here, Ms. Timberlake.”

The question irked Alicia. “Didn't they tell you that I was seen here over thirty years ago, as a child? My attorney suggested I come here because my old records are here.”

“Yes, and I've studied the records.” Dr. Tucker, an attractive if too thin woman with ash blond hair in her fifties, appeared unruffled by Alicia's agitation. “But I'd like to hear it directly from you. What motivated you to pick up the phone and make this appointment?”

“I didn't want to,” she admitted. “But my mother passed away Christmas night, and shortly afterward I found out I was adopted, and that my birth parents were both murdered. The last week-and-a-half I've been having these dreams every couple of nights, bits and pieces mostly, from when I was little and living with my birth parents. I even dreamed about the night my father was killed.” She explained the circumstances under which her parents died. “I haven't been able to sleep on the nights it happens, and I don't know how to stop them.”

Over the next hour she told Dr. Tucker more about herself than she'd ever shared with anyone; her loving relationship with Caroline Timberlake, her lifelong bickering with Daphne, and the partiality Fletcher Timberlake demonstrated for Daphne. “My mother told me they were on the verge of despair when I came along, fearing they would never have children,” she recalled. “Obviously my father forgot all about that when my sister was born.” She gasped when she recognized the anger Caroline always said she should have. At last it had flared up. Her mother had been right to say it wasn't normal to have no feelings at all about her father's treatment of her. He'd been good to her, of course, left her an equal share of his estate with Daphne, but he'd clearly loved Daphne more.

She concluded with Daphne's efforts to prevent her from spending any time alone with Caroline in the last weeks of her life, and Daphne's revelation to her that she'd been adopted.

Dr. Tucker studied her carefully, typing notes into a laptop computer. She looked at Alicia expectantly, as if she waited for her to say more.

When Alicia shrugged the doctor said, “Alicia…may I call you that?” At her nod she continued. “I get the feeling there's something else you're not telling me. I can't help you unless you're completely honest with me.”

“Wow, you're good,” she said with a laugh. “All right. I did leave something out. There's this man—” She told the doctor all about Jack Devlin, how she'd gotten a sense of déjà vu the first time she laid eyes on him that lasted for months, especially when she was close to him, and how she discovered his resemblance to her birth father. Feeling more comfortable in Dr. Tucker's almost homey office, in which she sat upright on a loveseat rather than stretched out on a couch, she left out nothing. She included her out-of-character drinking to help quell her uneasiness at being around him…and most recently, to try to chase away her haunting dreams in which bits and pieces of her past came to life; and she provided the doctor with an accurate account of their breakup. Before she knew it she had spoken for nearly an hour.

“Alicia, do you have any idea why your adoptive parents didn't tell you the truth about your background? It's rather unusual for adoptees in the last sixty years or so to not be told they were chosen by rather than born to their parents.”

“I always thought it was because they didn't want to have to tell me about what happened to my real parents. It wasn't really a big news story, but it did receive media attention locally. But I'm sure you already knew that.”

“Yes, I've read the newspaper articles. You're very perceptive, Alicia. Of course, I wasn't on the staff when your parents brought you here thirty-two years ago, and after a thorough series of interviews, it was determined that you had no recollection of your father's murder, and that you seemed well adjusted in your new life. According to the chart notes, they were advised to tell you that you'd been adopted around the time you entered kindergarten, with a gradual revealing of the details much later, when you were old enough to understand. Obviously, they never did.”

“I wish I knew why.”

“I'm afraid we'll never know the reason. But I know it was difficult for you to come here today. I'm going to advise a return visit, but since I'm not sure you'll comply, I'm going to give you my impressions and recommendations now.”

Alicia leaned forward. “And what are they?”

“I think you're suffering from a posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. In my opinion you should stop running away from your past. You've repressed your earliest memories since the night your father was killed, and now they're fighting to come to the surface. There's no way for me to know how much of that night you really remember and how much might have been your imagination at work. We've had some success with hypnosis—”

“Forget it,” she said flatly. “I refuse to give anyone that much control over me. I'm sure your ethics are in the right place, Dr. Tucker, but I still won't consider it.”

The doctor smiled. “Many people feel that way. I'll just tell you this, then. Don't fight your memories, Alicia. Stop trying to drown your pain in alcohol. Nothing good can ever come out of that. Embrace them. By all means pursue people who knew your parents. It sounds like you were quite happy with your father and perhaps resented your mother for bringing her boyfriend into your lives, an action that in the end destroyed your family.

“My feeling is that after your father's death you felt lost and alone. All the love you reserved for him you transferred to Caroline Timberlake, the new mother figure in your life. From virtually everyone else in your life you remained detached, even from your closest friends. You're a caring person, Alicia, always thoughtful and considerate of others, but there's no real bond with anyone other than your mother.

“You might have sailed through your entire life with no emotional attachments, but then Jack Devlin showed up on your doorstep and began to stir memories that had been dormant for years, because he reminded you of your birth father. You felt flustered just being around him, and you had conflicting emotions about physical intimacy with him because subconsciously he reminded you of your father. But you weren't ready to accept his love. You rebelled when he spoke of loving you and needing you, and of your needing him.

“My advice to you on that front is not to let him go. From what you've told me he cares for you deeply. It would be a terrible mistake to end such a promising relationship just because you want to be stubborn.” Dr. Tucker paused. “Let Jack Devlin into your heart, Alicia.”

Yesterday

A
licia
rubbed the top of Lucky's head. The dog had climbed onto the center console and whimpered. “We're almost there,” she said affectionately.

Alicia drove down the street at a speed of about fifteen miles an hour, which allowed her to take in every detail. The block on the outskirts of downtown Hartford looked much like any other urban neighborhood. The streets were quiet at the noon hour, with a few elderly pedestrians carrying grocery bags, young mothers pushing baby strollers, and a few young people, probably unemployed, entering the pizzeria around the corner. A few hours from now the block would probably come alive as children arrived home from school. She could picture them stopping in at the corner store for potato chips and soda, or at the pizzeria for a slice. She'd driven past a liquor store with a walk-up window, and there was a bus stop at the corner. A few older model vehicles were parked on either side of the street, with plenty of spaces still available while most people were still at work.

Alicia pulled into a vacant space across the street from the four-story walk-up apartment house, its dark brick in need of a good steam cleaning. No doubt about it, she was looking at a poor neighborhood. She doubted the block looked any more prosperous even thirty-five years ago. The people who lived here kept a roof over their heads and kept their children fed and well-dressed, but probably could afford few extras. Instead of flying down to Disney World in Florida, children here probably got treated to the Six Flags Amusement Park in nearby Agawam, Massachusetts.

She leaned on the steering wheel and gazed at the structure, waiting for memories to stir, but none did. She might as well be looking at her own apartment house on West Eighty-Fifth Street. The best she could do was wonder if any of these front windows belonged to her birth parents' former apartment.

The apartment building stirred no memories, but the park down the street did. Alicia kept staring at it from her seat behind the steering wheel. Finally she got out of the car and walked half a block down the street for a better look, holding on to Lucky's leash and keeping him close so he wouldn't step on any of the broken glass that littered the sidewalk.

She stood on the sidewalk looking in at a sadly neglected play area. The fence separating it from the sidewalk had been bent in spots. The swings looked rusted and decrepit, and neither of the two basketball hoops had nets. An unknown whitish substance streaked the slide, and it looked like the monkey bars had been removed entirely. A wire trash bin was only half full, but the ground around it was littered with crushed plastic pop bottles, empty potato chip bags, and candy and gum wrappers. Surely no one played in such a dismal park anymore; it was probably used for drug transactions.

 

The detective she hired managed to track down a woman who lived downstairs from her parents nearly forty years before, a Mrs. Geneva Kelly. He contacted her on Alicia's behalf, and Mrs. Kelly agreed to speak with her. She now made her home with her married daughter and was in failing health. Alicia hoped her memory proved to be as sharp as she told the detective it was.

Alicia consulted the directions when she exited the highway. Her detective provided her with excellent directions, and she soon drove up to the blue shingled Cape Cod house on a quiet street. Carefully tended shrubs lined the front of the house, and black shutters and dormer windows on the upper level gave it a homey look. She felt grateful that Mrs. Kelly agreed to talk to her.

“Lucky, I'll have to leave you here,” she said. She'd stopped at Martha's and picked up the dog, a wise move on her part. She felt much more at ease with Lucky in the car with her. “I'll be back in a little while. Wish me luck.”

She rang the doorbell, which was promptly answered by a woman in her late forties, a man about the same age hovering behind her. “Miss Timberlake?” the woman said.

“Yes. You must be Mrs. Clark.”

“This is my husband, Larry.”

Alicia nodded. “Mr. Clark. Thank you so much for allowing me to come to your home. Mrs. Kelly was the only neighbor my detective was able to track down after all this time, and it's very important to me that I get to talk with her.” She doubted that a typical Thursday afternoon would find a couple in their forties around the house, but she understood their concern about a stranger coming to question Mrs. Kelly.

“I understand completely,” Mrs. Clark said. “Please come in.”

Alicia wiped her feet and entered the house. An elderly woman of seventy-odd sat in the living room, her Reddi-Whip white hair, styled in a bun at the top of her head, a striking contrast to her brown face. Fingers slightly bent from mild arthritis worked a crochet needle, expanding a blue-and-white square.

“I'd know you anywhere,” she said in a deep, rich voice that reflected her many years of living. “You look just like Norma Jean.”

Alicia smiled. “I do?”

“Absolutely. Come right here and sit down.” Mrs. Kelly patted the empty space on the sofa.

“Thank you.” She did as she was told. “Mrs. Kelly, I wanted to thank you for agreeing to see me today.”

“No need for that.” She removed her glasses and beamed at Alicia. “I've often wondered what became of you. My husband and I offered to take you in ourselves, but the police were worried that we might be putting ourselves in danger if Norma Jean and Cliff came back for you, so they put you in a foster home.”

“I appreciate that, Mrs. Kelly.”

“After…after everything was over we did speak to Social Services about raising you as one of our own. I used to take care of you a lot while your mother slipped out for a few minutes.”

“To be with Cliff?”

The old woman nodded. “My husband, Joe, told me to stop. He'd already heard rumors about Norma Jean being seen with Cliff, and he said it would only be a matter of time before Ben found out. He worked hard, your father.”

“At the dairy plant?”

“Yes, but he also had a second job, as a short-order cook at a bowling alley. He wanted to provide well for you and your mother, but he was out working so much of the time, and Norma Jean felt neglected.” Mrs. Kelly sighed. “Your mother was really a sweet girl, but she'd taken on marriage and motherhood too young. She was just twenty-two years old, and your father two years older.”

Alicia nodded. She'd read all about it in the newspaper. “I know.”

“Norma Jean married Ben right out of high school. She grew up in the foster care system and was probably anxious to have a family of her own, even though it turned out not to be nearly as exciting as she thought it would be. As for Ben, he practically raised himself. His mother died when he was about eight, and his father barely kept a roof over their heads.” She shook her head. “That boy had it tough. And because of that he wanted all the best for you, Alicia.”

“You knew my grandparents?” she asked, surprised.

“I knew Ben's father. I don't think I ever saw his mother around much, probably because she was ill a lot of the time and stayed inside. We all lived in the same neighborhood, and everybody knew at least a little bit about everybody else. I didn't know Ben other than by sight until he and Norma Jean moved in upstairs from us. But everybody knew old Mr. Clements. We'd see him Sunday mornings, coming in from his latest drunk. He'd been a heavy drinker even before his wife died. After she passed he just lost it. They only kept him on in the shipping department of that manufacturing plant because he'd been there for years, and because he had a son to support. Poor Ben did what he could to take care of his father.” Mrs. Kelly's eyes took on a faraway look. “A fine young man, he was. If things had worked out…if Norma Jean had never taken up with that no-good Clifton Matthews….”

“What kind of relationship did I have with my parents, Mrs. Kelly?”

“You were a daddy's girl. No doubt about it. He used to take you out in the neighborhood all the time, bring you to the store for little treats, or to the playground. He just adored you.

“You loved your mother, of course,” she added hastily. “But she could be impatient with you, a little sharp. I witnessed it many times. She didn't mean it, Alicia. She just felt frustrated with the repetitiveness of her life. She wanted more. Clifton Matthews represented excitement. He was a minor drug dealer and had been to jail numerous times. It was rumored he had a cut in a huge supermarket robbery. He was a flashy dresser, drove a nice car and always had money in his pockets. Norma Jean was a pretty girl, and still young.

“Like I said, I used to keep you when she went out to meet him until my Joe told me to stay out of it, that Ben would be angry at us for accommodating Norma Jean when he found out. Norma Jean didn't like it much when I told her. She got real bold then, inviting Cliff to the apartment when Ben was at work.

“Were you the one who called the police that night?” Alicia knew Mrs. Kelly would know what night she referred to.

“Yes. Joe and I were watching
McMillan and Wife
on TV, so it must have been a Sunday night. Our daughters were getting ready for school the next day. We heard shouting coming from your apartment. That in itself wasn't unusual. Ben and Norma Jean were always arguing about this or that. But it wasn't Ben and Norma Jean. Ben was arguing with another man. I remember Joe saying to me, ‘That must be Cliff.' I knew then there would be trouble.

“Ben screamed at him to stay away from his wife. I hoped Cliff would just leave, but in hindsight I know he went over there looking for trouble. When we heard the two of them rolling around on the floor I told Joe to call the police. We went upstairs behind them.” Mrs. Kelly's eyes filled with tears. “Your father lay face up on the floor, and you were sitting beside him, trying to wake him up. You thought he was sleeping.” Mrs. Kelly bent her head to wipe her eyes.

“Your parents were nice people, Alicia. They made a good-looking couple, your mother so short and your father easily a foot taller. A lot of neighbors painted her as the bad girl in what happened and your father as an innocent victim. I don't agree. It's true that Ben only wanted the best for his family, but Norma Jean wasn't a bad girl. She just made a bad decision, one that eventually had a high price.” Mrs. Kelly looked up as her daughter entered the room. “What's this, Jackie?”

“I thought you two might like a little snack.” Jackie Clark set a tray down on the coffee table, within easy reach for the women. It contained two glasses, a small pitcher and two small plates, one holding a cheese ball and crackers and the other assorted cookies. “Enjoy.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Clark,” Alicia said, reaching for a glass. She'd been so mesmerized by what she'd learned from Geneva Kelly that she hadn't realized she was thirsty.

“You're welcome. And call me Jackie.” She disappeared into another room.

“You'd better get some sleep,” Mrs. Kelly called after her. To Alicia she said, “Jackie is a nurse on the night shift. She works ten-hour shifts three nights a week, thirty hours total. They consider that to be full time, so she gets all the benefits. Plus she gives me my dialysis treatments here at home.”

“It's convenient to have a nurse in the family, isn't it?” she said politely.

“I'll say. The best I could do was working in the hospital laundry. But Joe and I saw to it that both our girls got good educations. My other daughter lives in Springfield. She's got a good job at an insurance company.” The pride in Mrs. Kelly's voice was undeniable.

 

During the rest of their time together, Mrs. Kelly provided Alicia with anecdotes about her and her parents. In turn, Alicia brought Mrs. Kelly up to date about her life, covering her adoption by the Timberlakes, her privileged upbringing, first in Stamford and later in Green's Farms, the death of her adoptive parents, even about the court stenography business she owned a piece of.

“What about your personal life, dear?” Mrs. Kelly asked. “You're such a pretty girl. Do you have a fella? Or maybe you're already married with children of your own.”

Alicia shook her head. “I broke up with someone a couple of weeks ago, so I'm back on the market.”

“I hope you find someone, dear. My girls have both been fortunate in that respect. They got good husbands. My son-in-law is an angel. He takes as good care of me as Jackie.” She patted Alicia's hand. “But you'll find someone.”

Alicia merely smiled, but inside she thought of Jack and suddenly felt like crying.

 

When she bid Mrs. Kelly and her daughter and sonin-law goodbye nearly two hours later, Alicia felt cleansed and comforted. Mrs. Kelly had done something all the newspaper articles and court transcripts couldn't do—she brought her parents to life. Alicia could sense her young mother's boredom, her despair that life was passing her by, her viewing the man who would eventually end her life as exciting rather than a no-good small time criminal. Her memories of her father were clearer, but thanks to Mrs. Kelly she understood him better as well. She could feel how much he loved her just like she could feel her shoulder bag bouncing off her hip.