Child of Mine (38 page)

T
oo bad you're not into cars, brother dear,” San chirped, elbowing him in the arm. They stood in the doorway to the garage, admiring the sleek curves of her Corvette, distinguishable beneath the canvas. “Or I'd leave the keys, too.”

Nattie frowned. “We don't get to drive it?”

Jack leaned over. “Don't worry. I've got a spare set.”

Nattie giggled, and San scowled good-naturedly.

After his final visit with Laura, Jack had called San, apologizing for his part in their rift and offering an unexpected invitation. Their summer spat forgotten, San sounded thrilled. “I thought you'd abandoned me, brother dearest.”

Until she left for New York, San would inhabit Laura's room, sleeping where Laura had slept when Jack was flying his clients. During the day, in preparation for her new job, San would Skype her training program.

Nattie helped him redd up the guest room, making the bed with another of Laura's quilts, and both of them got a little nostalgic. Nattie sniffed, and Jack hugged her close. It never really
was
a guest room. It was Laura's room. And now it felt as if someone
had died, and they couldn't bear to change anything, determined to keep the memories of Laura alive.

Surprisingly, Nattie took the news of Laura's return to Lancaster with undiluted joy and hope, excited for Laura, saying,
“True love is worth going back
for.”
It was like the ending to one of her movies.

The arrival of Nattie's favorite aunt helped soothe whatever sorrow she felt, and San's time with them turned out to be one long pajama party for his daughter, the perfect conclusion to a turbulent summer. During the day, San worked from home, clicking away at the dining room table, and every night, they sampled a new flavor of ice cream, and not the generic stuff, either.

When they weren't eating ice cream, San and Nattie worked through her school-supply list, making sure she was ready for the start of fourth grade, new outfits and backpack included. And sometimes, late at night, after letting Nattie stay up longer, the three of them would reminisce, often about Laura.

The time Laura had shown up at the market wearing a dress and high heels was already a legendary moment; or when she'd thrown herself into the task of cleaning the fish Jack and Nattie had caught at the lake, a task she knew nothing about; or when she'd tried to tell a joke about the farmer who crossed the road but couldn't remember the punch line, and how her exasperated expression turned out to be funnier than the joke itself.

There were dozens of memories like these. Even San joined in, her attitude softened now that Laura was gone. It rankled Jack a little, but he let it go.
Water under the bridge
.

“I
never lied to you,”
Laura had told him.
“It
just wasn't my truth to tell.”

Now, late at night, the house quiet and Jack unable to sleep, he thought back to Danny and Darla, lovebirds, married for three blissful years, but with no imminent patter of tiny feet.

Jack was in Kansas when Danny had called with the news.
“We're thinking of adopting.”

At the time, he was sitting in his dingy apartment, living his
dingy life, feeling sorry for himself. But he loved Danny. After all, Danny was the optimist in the family, always encouraging Jack, always prodding him to think higher.

“Come see us
sometime,”
Danny had said.

He'd only met Darla once, and she'd seemed like a nice young woman, full of cheer, the daughter of a prominent family.

“With
Mom not doing so well,”
Danny began,
“San is
staying with us this summer. You should call her sometime
, Jack.”

Jack had grunted. He didn't care where his seventeen-year-old sister was living. San was the proverbial bull, and he was the china shop. San said what came to mind with little filter, just like their mother, and he'd long since reached his limit with the Livingston women.

When the adoption was final, Danny had called him again.
“Come meet our little girl!”

“I can'
t afford the time off,”
Jack lied.

“San's
still here, too,”
Danny argued.
“She'd like to
see you before she heads off to college.”

Jack had mumbled something about commitments, promising to work it out, but he never did.

It was during San's extended visit with Danny and Darla that Laura must have shown up to answer their ad.

Another four years passed. Jack stayed in Kansas, sleep-walking through his life, flying by day, drinking by night, observing the FAA eight-hour rule of “bottle to throttle,” but just barely, sometimes by minutes.

Teaching others to fly, sharing his passion, was the sole bright light in his life, providing others with his own patented means of getting away from it all.

More calls from Danny followed, then one day:
“Hey, Jack, I miss you. I hardly remember
what you look like.”

Look at my picture,
Jack thought.
“Gotta go,”
he'd said and hung up.

That was their last phone call before Laura phoned with the
tragic news, leaving a message while he was airborne, flying between the clouds, still trying to leave it all behind. And with his brother's death,
“Gotta go”
became his last words to the only person who'd loved him unconditionally.

Jack could have descended into a pit of remorse and regret for how he'd treated his brother. And he could have refused the guardianship—
should
have refused it, in fact. But he'd decided to raise his brother's daughter, determined to keep Danny's memory alive in her heart, determined to raise her like Danny would have.

Three days after the funeral, he'd moved back to his hometown, into Danny's house, where there was a little girl to get to know, to raise as his own. Soon after that, San returned to Wooster, following through on her promise to help him out for one year.

The rest, as they say, was history. Slowly, Jack and San had forged a workable bond, albeit shaky at times. San stuck around and became the favorite aunt, the go-to person when Nattie needed cheering up or some full-on spoiling. Laura became Jack's comrade-in-arms. And Nattie became the reason he got up in the morning, and the reason he prayed before dropping off to sleep at night.

With each passing year, the past was becoming more distant and fuzzy, and although Jack loved San—loved her dearly, in fact—he still held a grudge against her, if only for reminding him of their mother.

Even though the Bible didn't mince words on this topic, he still couldn't look at his mother's picture without remorseful anger.

“Forgiveness isn't for her,”
Kelly had said.
“It's for you.”

This coming from a woman who'd learned to forgive the man who'd taken her child. If Kelly could do it, so could he.

Jack slid back the comforter and reached for his robe. Turning on the bedside lamp, he retrieved his mother's photo, hidden in the bottom drawer, seeing for the first time what he couldn't before.

Jack no longer saw heartache. Instead, he saw Nattie's eyes.

The next day, Jack proposed a radical new idea. Nattie was excited. And when San came out of her room,
Laura
's room,
Jack made the same proposal. San was surprised but amenable.

“It's about time,” Nattie chirped.

So they piled into Billy Bob and drove to Wooster Cemetery, just south of town. Parking at the side of the road, off the beaten path, Jack stood there and stared at the hundreds of markers. He hadn't been there since Danny's death and had only a vague idea where the family grave site was located.

“Follow me,” San said simply, leading the way to the northern edge, down the last row of markers, pausing to place a hand on Danny and Darla's shared gravestone, then her father's, until she stopped, finally, and stared down at the simple gray granite marking their mother's burial place. They stood there for a few minutes, lost in thought. Jack put his arm around her, and she leaned in toward him, slightly at first, almost reluctantly, and then fully. Although she'd often kissed his cheek, he couldn't remember the last time he'd hugged his sister.

He fixed his gaze on his father's stone first.
Walter
Livingston.
Feeling his heart clench, he looked again at his mother's grave.
Helen Livingston
, the stone read, and it gave the dates for her birth and demise. No Scripture verse. No platitude. Just:
Wife and Mother
. A week earlier, Jack would have said,
“Barely either.”

He glanced over at Nattie, who was crouched down, tracing the names of Danny and Darla, in awe of the truth again, that his little girl was his mother's granddaughter. His niece. In fact, the Nattie he adored had his mother's eyes, his mother's nose, and in many ways, his mother's temperament. All these years, he'd been raising his mother's flesh and blood.

After a few minutes, they held hands and prayed; then Jack knelt at her grave and felt San's hand on his shoulder and Nattie nudging against him.
I forgive you, Mom,
he thought, and then he said it out loud.

Nattie hugged his neck and said to the grave, “Hi, Grandma.
I miss you.” Leave it to Nattie to miss someone she'd never met, and when Jack stood up again, San had tears in her eyes, even though San wasn't a big one for emotion.

Afterward they headed to Nattie's favorite dive for greasy burgers and fries.

Their moods lightened a bit, despite the imminence of San's departure. Nattie sat on San's side of the booth, squished in so close San had to eat with her left hand. Normally San would have said,
“Give me some space, kid.”
But not today.

Jack smiled as he watched them interact: Nattie's appreciation for San's clever retorts, Nattie's admiration of San's fashion sense, Nattie's own slick and often unfiltered tongue.
All this time
, he thought.
I should
have known.

On Friday, Jack called Laura's cell and got a disconnected message.

“She's gone home,” he whispered to himself. And although he admired her courage, it didn't set his mind at ease. If anything, he worried more, if that was possible. He called her cousin's number next, who confirmed his suspicions.

“Would you tell her I called?” Jack asked. “When you hear from her?”

Laura's cousin agreed. “She's taking a big risk, you know. Her family is a little extreme.”

No kidding,
Jack thought. He said good-bye and hung up.

That evening, after supper, San came into his office and sat down in Laura's chair, the one she'd sat in for years as they'd planned the day and the week, discussing Nattie's struggles and triumphs.