Before We Were Yours(95)

“You’re right, I guess. But I’d like to. It’s so incredibly…frustrating. I understand that my father is in public office, but we’re still human, you know? You’d think some topics would be off the table…like cancer for one. And watching your grandmother struggle to remember anything about who she is, for another. It feels like people will poke a spear in anyplace they can draw blood these days. It wasn’t that way when I was growing up. Even in politics, people had some…” I search for the word, and the best thing I can come up with is “decency.”

“We live in an entertainment-driven world,” Trent says soberly. “Everything’s fair game.”

I open my mouth to further vent about the attacks on my family and then think better of it. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to unload on you. Maybe I need another trip to the beach.” It’s not until the words are out that I realize how flirty they sound.

“How about lunch instead?”

“What?”

“I just thought I’d see if you were free, since I’m in Aiken. I’ve been doing a little digging around in my granddad’s papers and talking to people who helped him with his searches. One of them is a man who was a courthouse worker in Shelby County, Tennessee, back when all the adoption records were still sealed. From what I can tell, he funneled quite a bit of information to Granddad.”

Instantly, I’m back in the thick of it. The scents of that tiny Edisto cabin tease my senses. I smell pipe tobacco, old newspaper clippings, dried-out bulletin boards, peeling paint, faded photos. “You mean so that your grandfather could help adoptees find their relatives, right? So…you’re taking up where he left off then?”

“Not really. I was nosing around for May Crandall. Thinking maybe I’d uncover something about the little brother she never found, Gabion.”

I’m momentarily stunned. This guy is genuine to the core. He’s also a better person than I am. I’ve been so obsessed with family problems, I’ve been delaying calling the seniors’ rights PAC about May’s situation. Now I realize that I’ve been brushing this task aside on purpose. I’m afraid to have anything to do with her, given all the controversy after the “Aging Unevenly” article. If word got out that I was helping her, our political enemies would accuse me of using her to prop up our bruised public image.

I can’t be seen having lunch with Trent either. I can’t possibly go, but I can’t quite make myself say no, so I continue the sidetrack. “That’s really nice of you. What did you find?”

“Nothing significant so far. There was an address in California in the court paperwork. I wrote to it just to see if they might know anything about a two-year-old boy adopted from the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in 1939…or possibly even just who lived at that address in the late thirties. It’s a long shot, though.”

“So you drove here to tell May that?”

“Nah…I don’t want to get her hopes up unless something comes of it. I actually came here for jelly. When I left you last time, I went by to visit my aunt outside Aiken. She was putting up blackberry preserves. They’re ready now.”

A little laugh puffs out of me. “Two and a half hours is a long way to drive for jelly.”

“You’ve never tasted my aunt’s blackberry preserves. Besides, Jonah loves to go there. Uncle Bobby still has a mule.”

“So Jonah’s with you?” Lunch suddenly seems a possibility if it’ll be the three of us. Even if we were seen, no one would think twice about it with Jonah there. I rush through my mental queue of the afternoon’s plans, trying to calculate whether I can rearrange a few things and sneak away long enough. “You know what? I’d love to have lunch with you two.”

“I think I can tear Jonah away from Uncle Bobby and the mule. Tell me when and where. Any particular place you’d like to go? We’re pretty flexible…as long as it’s not during naptime. That can get ugly.”

Again, his comment makes me chuckle. “When’s naptime?”

“Around two.”

“All right, then. How does an early lunch sound? Maybe about eleven? Is that too soon?” I don’t have any idea how far out of town his aunt’s house is, but if there’s a mule involved, it isn’t close to where I am right now. No one has farmed around Magnolia Manor for years. The estates here are pristine. “You pick the place, and I’ll meet you there. Nothing too upscale, though, all right? Something kind of out of the way would be good.”

Trent laughs. “We don’t do upscale. We’re actually into eateries with playscapes. Know one of those, by chance?”

My mind skips back in time and lands on a nice memory. “Actually, I do. There’s an old drive-in with a little playground not far from my grandmother’s house. She used to take us there when we were kids.” I give him directions, and we’re set. Best of all, if we meet at eleven, no one will even miss me at home.

I am an adult, I rationalize, navigating a U-turn and starting toward Grandma Judy’s neighborhood. I shouldn’t have to feel like a teenager sneaking out just because I make lunch plans with a…a friend.

I do have a right to some sort of life of my own, don’t I?

I lose myself in my mental debate for a while, my thoughts turning corners along with the car. Maybe I’ve gotten spoiled up in Maryland, living in my own little anonymous world, working a job that was mine and only mine, not tied to a support staff, to offices in D.C. and the home state, to constituents, contributors, and an entire political network.