Flawed Beauty (24 page)

“I don’t know what to say. I’m not
sure what’s happened. Is it because of Brit? You must know what she and I had
was
over long ago. She chose her life and it wasn’t with me.
I’ve moved on. Please talk to me, Tate.”

Tate blanked her mind to his words
and to the emotions threatening to overwhelm her. “I don’t want to talk to you,
Jace
. I’m done. Please don’t call me or come by. It’s
better this way. One day you will thank me. I promise. Goodbye,
Jace
.”

She rose and walked away even when
she heard him call her name.

She’d gotten halfway home when the
tears began. She let them fall unbidden. Blank slate, that’s what Dr. Randall
called it. That’s what she was… a blank slate.

She lay staring up at the ceiling
for a long time before she eventually drifted to sleep. For the bulk of her
life, she had felt such shame coming from such deranged people such as
Tilda
and Travis Moon, but yet now, knowing her tie to them
had been severed, she felt lost… unwanted, even. How was she supposed to repair
her foundation when she didn’t even have one? Was this how her life would
always be? Filled with pain and isolation?

Images of
Jace
flitted across her mind:
Jace
, the first time she’d
seen him as she picked up those ‘damned water bottles’;
Jace
,
with his sexy, little smile;
Jace
, lunging over her,
making sweet, sweet love to her;
Jace’s
face as she’d
said goodbye. She’d read in her literature class a poem written by Tennyson,
which said:
Tis
better to have loved and
lost than to never have loved at all
. He was wrong, this was much, much
worse. It was like being on top of the mountain, only to be plunged down –
free- falling, to the hard, cold ground below. Instead, Tate sided with
Socrates who’d written:
The hottest love has the coldest end
. Pain as
none other filled her body and she cried for the loss of him. She almost rose to
get her phone and call him, beg him for whatever he’d be willing to give her –
for however long. But she didn’t want this life for him. He deserved a life
unblemished by filth and degradation. He deserved a good life, filled with love
and children.

His intoxicating scent reached her
first. She thought she was dreaming and smiled. She needed him tonight like no
other. She felt the warm press of his body as he spooned her from behind. She
felt the brush of his arm as he folded it over her, enveloping her,
encompassing her, pulling her back against him. She felt the brush of his lips
against her neck. She heard the softly spoken words:
I love you, my little
swan
. She felt the sound of his voice as he hummed a tune she should have
recognized but couldn’t think of right away.

Slowly and unwillingly, she opened
her eyes, liking the dream world she’d created for herself. But as she inhaled,
she still smelled him; still felt the comfort of his arm wrapped tightly around
her. Her breathing became rapid at the reality of having him with her, but
knowing she’d once again have to tell him goodbye.

“Why did you come?” she whispered,
not wanting to disturb the silence.

“Because you need me.”

“You’re making this hard,” she said
through the tightness in her throat.

“No, you’re making this hard by not
trusting me.”

“I… I can’t. It doesn’t matter
anyway. I need you to… “

He interrupted her abruptly. “I
spoke to Alan.”

She stilled at his words. “What do
you… how did you… I don’t understand.”

“Thor called me back to check on
you. He found the card Alan left with Ramona. So, since you wouldn’t tell me, I
decided to find out for myself. While I admit he wasn’t too willing at first to
betray your confidence, I think he felt you needed someone.”

With her voice wobbling, she said,
“I don’t know who I am.”

He pulled her tighter against his
body, seemingly to protect her with his size and strength. “You are who you
have always been.”

“I don’t know what’s real anymore,”
she whispered.

He pulled back enough to pull her
onto her back. He leaned over her and lifted her hand and placed it over his
heart as it thudded in his chest. “This is what’s real. I love you, Tate. I
don’t care what your name is. I don’t care who your parents are. I. Love. You,”
he said, punctuating each word with a soft jab to her chest.

“You can do so much better,” she
whimpered up at him.

He chuckled, “I know, because you
tell me that often enough. But, Tate, you’re all I want. I wish you would
believe that.”

With the softest of kisses, he touched
his lips to hers. When he drew back, she stared deep into his eyes, searching
for surety, certainty, or just something real to hold on to. She lifted a
trembling hand up to his face and ran her fingertips across his angular
features and into the fringes of his hair that he’d still not taken time to
cut. Tears began to trek slowly down and dampened the pillow beneath. Dropping
her hand, she rolled back on her side as sobs once more were rent from her
body.

Jace
immediately enveloped her again
within his embrace and whispered words of comfort in her ear.

“Everything will be okay. Just give
it time. We’ll work through this together. You’re not alone. You are my swan –
my beautiful, golden-haired swan. And one day, I hope to build a life with you…
buy a house… and even have a kid or two.”

The joy at his initial words turned
hollow and her chest burned. She placed her hands on the arm surrounding her.

He planted a kiss against her hair.
“I have to be at work in a little while.”

“Okay.”

“Try to go back to sleep. I’ll stay
as long as I can,” he murmured against her ear.

She closed her eyes and didn’t
really expect to sleep, but behind her he sang a soft, lilting song against her
hair and rubbed a hand soothingly against her belly, until the tendrils of sleep
pulled her sweetly into its peaceful abyss.

This time the angel was a man. She
didn’t know angels could be men, how strange. She sat up high as he spun her
around and around. She couldn’t contain the joy within and laughed in delight.

“Dandelion, dandelion, dandelion
wine; this little girl is mine, all mine,” the big, burly man sang as he spun
around and around with the little girl on his shoulders, making sure to hold
her hands tight within his own.

“Sing it again, daddy,” the little
girl with big, bouncy blonde curls, squealed.

Heaving her off his shoulders to hug
her tight to his chest, he said, “Aren’t you tired of that song?”

The little girl giggled in delight
and threw her arms around his neck, “No, daddy.”

“And why not?”
He grinned as he tweaked her nose.

“Because it’s about me,” she
enthused.

“And why do you think it’s about
you, little girl?”

“Because I’m Dandelion,” she
laughed.

“And how do you know that?” he asked
with a grin.

“Because you told me and you
wouldn’t lie,” she said in such a serious tone, the man couldn’t help but
laugh.

“I love you, Dandelion. Are you
going to stay with daddy forever and ever?”

“Yes! Forever and ever and ever,”
she squealed as she threw her small arms around his neck once more and planted
a sloppy, wet kiss on his smooth cheek.

Tate jerked upright with tears
streaming down her face.
Jace’s
warm presence behind
was gone and she shivered against the loss. Her heart pounded in her chest.
What had her dream meant? Was she torturing herself about never having children
with
Jace
? As her breathing slowed, she wiped a hand
against the useless tears and thought about the dream. Forcing her mind away
from thoughts of
Jace
, her mind moved in a different
direction. Were her continued dreams of angels, memories? Could anyone remember
that far back?

She felt as if she were sitting on a
fence: on one side was the life she knew; and on the other, the life she
didn’t. She was tired of the struggle of trying to balance on her perch. She
decided to go to the areas around Bulls Gap and look up the families. She’d go
to the bus station and get a ticket and just go. This way, she could kill two
birds with one stone; resolve her family situation and remove herself from
Jace
. She knew he wouldn’t want to accept their ending
right away, tonight had proved that. He’d continue to call her or come by. She
swallowed. This was for
his own
good.

Chapter 9

She
decided to waste no more time, and even though it was still the middle of the
night, she rose and put clothes in her backpack, called and left a message for
Zek
telling him she’d been called away on a ‘family
emergency.’ At least that wasn’t a lie. Ensuring to pack her phone charger, she
grabbed the cash she had hidden in the floorboard in her closet, locked the
apartment, and hopped on her bike.

As she sat on the bus making her
way, dried-eyed, to Bulls Gap, Tennessee, her thoughts returned repeatedly to
Jace
. She wished she’d taken hundreds of photos of him, but
she’d not taken even one. When it ended, as she’d known it would, she hadn’t
wanted any reminders. Now, she realized how shortsighted that was.

To take her mind off hurtful,
needful things, Tate pulled out her phone and looked up the addresses of the
three families and jotted them down in her notebook. She’d need to buy a map
when she got there. She looked down at her notes and wondered which, or even
if, any of these three families were hers:
Janice and Lance Thomas:
daughter, Jessica, missing at age three – never recovered. Marla and Tyson
Williams: daughter Sophie, missing at age four – never recovered.
LaVerne
and Sal Monroe: daughter,
Libbey
,
missing at age four – never recovered.

The bus took ten hours to reach the
bus stop closest to Bulls Gap. It was late when the bus finally rolled into the
gas station, which hosted the bus facilities. The attendant directed Tate to a
nearby cheap hotel within walking distance. She registered at the hotel and
blanched at the cost of the room, cheap though it was. She’d have to eat sparingly.
She unlocked the door to her room and cringed. The room was dingy and done in
the orange and green motif popular in the seventies. It smelled musty and
moldy. Looking around, she knew she should be used to this; it was what she’d
been raised in throughout her squalid existence. But the room had a bed, a
shower, and a lock on the door. She hoped to only be here for one night anyway.

She didn’t sleep at all that night.
Besides there being too many things rolling around in her head, the unfamiliar lights
and sounds scared her. So she lay in the bed, fully clothed – just in case she
needed to make a quick getaway – hugged a pillow close to her, and stared
unseeingly at the television. She played and replayed the many desperate
messages
Jace
had left on her phone – just to hear
his voice until the sun began to peek through the sparse, threadbare curtains
of her room.

Rising, feeling cramped and sticky,
she showered and grabbed her backpack and headed to a nearby diner to wait for
a more respectable hour. She ordered the dollar ninety-nine
breakfast
special and a cup of unlimited coffee. As she sat stirring sugar and creamer
into her cup, she began to make a plan on how best to approach the families. It
wasn’t like she could just walk up and say,
Am
I your daughter
? She rubbed a hand over her face. How would she ever know
for sure? Blood tests, she guessed.

Tate heard the vibration of her
phone on the table –
Jace
. Taking a deep
breath, she considered ignoring it once more, but remembered the desperation of
his previous messages.

“Hey,” she answered softly.

“Oh, thank God! I’ve been so
worried. Where are you and why haven’t you returned my calls? Damn it, Tate.
You don’t just leave and not tell me.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry
you. I… I just think it’s best if we have some separation right now. You… you
need to move on with your life… without me,” she said brokenly.

“Damn it, Tate! I don’t want a life
without you. Tell me where you are,” he demanded.

“
Jace
, you
were an unexpected gift – a rare treasure. But we were never destined to be
together. Can’t you see that?” she implored.

“Tell.
Me. Where.
You.
Are,” he demanded once more.

“Goodbye,
Jace
,”
she said, clicking off her phone even as she heard him yelling her name across
the line.

The phone began to vibrate
immediately. She thought about turning it off, but in a perverse way, it made
her feel still connected to at least one person in this wide, wide world.

She picked up the list Alan had
given her, and thought about his words; there were thirteen children stolen
from their families from this area alone. Thirteen families destroyed.
Thirteen families continuously seeking for their missing child.
She wondered if her parents continued to look for
her?
If they missed her anymore?
If when the holidays came
around, or her birthday, did they think about her? Did they wish she could be
there with them? Or had they simply moved on? Was she now just a vague memory
to them? Would she be an unwanted intrusion into their lives?

Anxiety rose up within her. What if
they didn’t want anything to do with her? What if, once she found them, they
rejected her – turned her away? She shook her head, she had to know. She
couldn’t go throughout her whole life and not know who she was or where she
came from. Another dark thought crossed her mind… what if they’d never wanted
her and were happy she’d been taken?

She studied the three families
listed on her paper and the notes she’d made. One family lived here in Bulls
Gap, another in Morristown, which was about fifteen miles from Bulls Gap. And
the third family lived in Greeneville, a little over fifteen miles from here.
She thought about her limited funds and wondered how she would ever get to
these places. It wasn’t as if Bulls Gap had a taxi service. If she’d had her
bike it wouldn’t have been a problem.

As the waitress came by to top off
her coffee, she asked, “Is there anywhere I can purchase a used bike?”

The older woman with twinkling blue
eyes and shocking white hair smiled. “Well now, let’s see. If you wander down
in the downtown district, there’s a thrift store. They might have one.”

“The downtown district?”
Tate asked, confused.

The waitress, whose name tag
declared her
Tippy
, laughed. “Sorry, it’s a little joke. This
is
the downtown district. The thrift shop is just around the corner. Tell old Jack
that Tippy sent you, and he’ll give you a fifteen percent discount.”

“Thanks, I will,” Tate murmured.

She looked at her list once more.
 
Marla and Tyson Williams: daughter, Sophie, missing at age three –
never recovered.
They lived here in Bulls Gap; that was her obvious first
choice.

By eight a.m. the diner began to
fill up. Tate felt bad for taking up a space, so she gathered her belongings
and decided to go ahead and reserve her room for another night, as she didn’t
think she’d be able to get to all three places today. Unless of course she was
lucky enough to find her parents on the very first try. Again the nagging
thought returned,
how would she know they were her parents, even if she did
find them
?

The hotel clerk took her money and
provided her with a well-worn map of Tennessee. “Be sure to return that,” he
warned.

As old as the map looked, Tate
assumed she’d find notations from the Civil War written on it. But she just
smiled and assured him she definitely would return it.

Going back to her dreary room, she
pulled out her notes and the map. Tyson and Marla Williams lived on 2457 Tank’s
Holler Road. Tate carefully reviewed the map until she found the small road. It
didn’t appear to be that far from her, so she thought she could walk it. She
pulled out her phone and did a map search on the distance – it was within five
miles. She could definitely walk it.

Slinging her backpack over her
shoulder, she took a deep breath, and headed out. Distractedly, Tate could hear
the hum of the small town in the throes of the early morning.
The swish of cars as they drove past her.
The
chirp of birds as they went about doing their early morning chores of building
nests or feeding their chicks.
The indistinct chatter
of people as they opened their shops, or dropped their children off at the bus
stop.
Leaving the main part of town of Bulls Gap, it took her nearly an
hour to reach Tank’s Holler Road. The road wasn’t paved and was lined with
trees and fences. Inside the fences lived several different breeds of cattle.
Tate tried to remember if she’d ever seen a cow close up before, but she didn’t
think so.

She followed the road, checking each
mailbox as she went. When she reached 2457, she paused and looked down the
lane. The old, rambling farmhouse stood about a quarter of a mile down the
lane. From where she stood, she could see chickens pecking in the yard and
clothes flapping on a clothesline. She struggled to find anything which would
spark a memory. She felt a twinge in her chest as she looked down the lane. Did
she remember this place? She didn’t think so. Taking another deep breath, she
turned onto the lane and slowly made her way towards the house. As she neared,
a dog lying under the steps of the house rose, stretched, and cocked his head
at her. She hesitated, not knowing if the dog would charge her as she drew
close. Shaking off her apprehension, she continued forward. When she got with
five yards, the dog began to howl, and at once, she hesitated. The front door
drew her attention as a woman dressed in jeans came out and yelled at the dog.

“Homer, shut your
yappin
’!”

The light-haired woman glanced up
and noticed Tate standing there. Tate stared at her and again felt a twinge in
her chest. What did it mean? Could this woman be her mother? Tate just didn’t
know.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

Nervously, Tate cleared her throat.
“Hi. My name is Tate Morgan. I’m looking for Marla Williams.”

“I’m Marla Williams.”

Moving forward to shake her hand,
Tate said, “I’m from the University of Florida and I’m doing some research on
the effects missing children have on families. Your family was one of the names
given to me. If it wouldn’t be too awkward or painful, I wondered if I could
talk with you for a few minutes.”

The woman stood still for so long,
Tate almost decided to leave. Maybe this was a really bad idea.

“Well, come on, then. Don’t worry
about Homer. He’s a lover not a biter,” she said with a small smile.

Tate rubbed a nervous hand over her
jean-clad thigh. She moved forward while putting a wide berth between herself
and Homer. She gave the woman a small smile as she passed her as she entered
the house. From up close, Tate could see the lines of age clearly etched into
the woman’s face.

Tate sat where the woman indicated.

The woman raised a hand, roughened
by years on a farm, to push her hair from her face. “You say you’re from the
University?”

Tate cringed at the little white lie
while staring intently at the woman, struggling to find her own features in the
woman’s face.
“Yes, ma’am.
Would it be all right if I
asked you a few questions?” Tate asked, following the script she’d made up for
herself.

Marla Williams stared at her with
such dead
eyes,
Tate was forced to look away.

“Will the paper be published? Will
it help maybe bring my baby home?”

Tate just shrugged her shoulders,
her chest tightening at the woman’s pain.
Was this woman her mother?
She
stared intently into the woman’s watery brown eyes.

Clearing her throat, Marla asked,
“What do you want to know?”

Tate reached into her backpack and
pulled out the list of questions she’d written for the fake interview.

Staring down at her notes, she said,
“Your daughter’s name was Sophie, right?”

“Is,” Marla responded abruptly.

Tate raised confused eyes to her.

“Her name
is
Sophie,” Janice
responded.

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry,” Tate
replied softly.

Marla shifted her gaze from Tate’s
and stared unseeingly out the window. “She was such a beautiful little thing,
so tiny when she was born, she could fit in one of Ty’s hands. She loved to run
and skip through the fields. And she wasn’t scared of
nothin
’.
I loved that little girl,” she finished quietly.

Tate sat very still, listening to
this woman, and had no doubt that she had indeed loved her child. When Marla
lifted bright eyes to Tate’s
,
she cleared her throat
and asked softly, “Can you tell me how she was taken?”

“Well, we’d gone into town for the
local fair. For us, it was always a treat to go to town because we’d always
stop and buy something – nothing big or major. Sometimes all we got was an ice
cream…”

Tate’s thoughts moved away from the
woman speaking as she struggled to pull something from the fringes of her
memory:

”Well hi, little princess. Your
dress is so sweet. Are you here all alone?”