Before We Were Yours(120)

My father listens from behind the usual stoic mask. My mother eventually sinks against the rocker with a wrist braced against her forehead.

When I’m done, the air hangs silent. No one knows what to say. It’s obvious that even my father had not an inkling of this, although there’s also something in his expression that tells me a few details about his mother’s behavior have begun to make sense now.

“How…how do you know all of this is true? Maybe…maybe this woman…” My mother trails off, looks toward the cottage window. She’s thinking of what she heard in there, of the photos on the walls. “I just don’t see how it’s possible.”

My father breathes over his joined fingertips, graying eyebrows gathering together. He knows it’s possible; he just doesn’t want it to be. But I’ve told him what Trent and I have learned about the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, and I can see that most of it wasn’t new information to him or my mother. No doubt, they’ve heard of the scandal, perhaps seen the TV shows that have reenacted events at Georgia’s notorious children’s home.

“I can’t…My mother?” Dad mutters. “Did my father know?”

“I don’t think anyone knew. Grandma Judy and her sisters were grown women by the time they were reunited. May told me they didn’t want to interfere with each other’s lives. Considering that the paper trail was set up to keep birth families from finding one another, it’s a miracle that even four of the siblings were brought back together.”

“My God.” He shakes his head as if he’s trying to rearrange the thoughts there, to put them in some workable order. “My mother has a twin?”

“She was born a twin. She did search over the years, but she was never able to find out what happened after that—whether her twin died or survived and was adopted.”

My father rests his chin on his hands. He looks upward through the trees. “My dear God in heaven.”

I know what he’s thinking. I’ve been turning the same things over in my mind since the day I learned the truth. All week long, I’ve gone back and forth between taking the secret to the grave with me…and setting the truth free, come what may. In the end, it boils down to this: My father deserves to know who he is. My grandmother deserves whatever time she has left to spend with her sister.

The five little river gypsies who suffered at the hands of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society deserve to have their stories carried forward into the future. But for a strange twist of fate, my father’s mother would have grown up on a riverboat, among common folk, surrounded by the poverty of the Great Depression.

She wouldn’t have been of the class to have met my grandfather, much less married him.

We wouldn’t be Staffords.

My mother regains herself a bit, lifts her chin, and reaches across to unfasten my father’s hands and hold one of them. “It’s ancient history. There’s no sense in agonizing over it now, Wells. There’s no reason to be bringing it up at all.” A glance slides my way—a warning.

I resist the urge to wilt. For me, there’s no turning back. “Dad, what you decide to do from here is your choice. All I ask is that Grandma Judy be able to have time with her sister…for however long they have left. They’ve spent their whole lives hiding away from the world, for our benefit. They deserve to be at peace now.”

My father kisses my mother’s fingers, folds them between his, and nods. Silently, he’s telling both of us he’ll mull this over and make his own decisions.

Honeybee leans closer to me. “What about this…the man in there? Can he be trusted not to…well…to use this information? With the Senate run coming up next year, there’s nothing Cal Fortner would like more than a personal scandal to distract from the issues.”

I’m relieved when she automatically looks to my father, not me, in regard to the next Senate race. I feel life shifting toward its old balance, and I’m glad. It’ll be easier to tell them there won’t be a politically advantageous wedding in our garden during azalea season. I’m not ready to broach the subject yet, but I will.

Being here, seeing May and my grandmother together, makes me all the more certain of it. All the more certain of myself. “You don’t have to worry about Trent. He wouldn’t do that. He’s a friend. If it weren’t for his grandfather, Grandma Judy’s sisters never would have found her. She wouldn’t have learned the truth about her past.”

My mother’s expression indicates that she’s unconvinced it wouldn’t have been better that way.

My father’s face says otherwise. “I’d like to talk to Mrs. Crandall a bit.”

Honeybee’s mouth falls open a little. Then she pops it shut, straightens herself, and nods in acquiescence. Whatever path my father chooses, she will walk it right beside him. This is how my parents have always been.

“I think May would welcome that. We can leave the four of you alone so she can tell you her story.” Hearing it from May, in her own words, will bring it home to my father, I hope. This is our family history.

“You can stay,” my mother says uncertainly.

“I’d rather just let you have a bit of time.” Really, I want to be alone with Trent. I know he’s dying to ask how my parents took the news about Grandma Judy. He keeps looking at me through the cottage window.