Finders Keepers (33 page)
“There’s just one problem, Mr. Chalmers,” he said. As the room quieted, he held up a copy of Grace’s final testament. “You see, I’ve got a few documents of my own to show off. This will leaves the property at 100 Walnut Street to Zachary Chalmers, Grace’s nephew. But I’ve done a little research. And what I’ve learned is that you aren’t Grace’s nephew at all, are you, Zachary? You’re her son.”
In the hush of the crowded meeting room, Elizabeth suddenly knew victory was in sight. If this revelation about his past crushed Zachary, maybe he would step away from his claim on the mansion. He wouldn’t want to live in a town where he was looked upon with disparagement and disgrace. No one would.
With Zachary gone, only Phil and his ridiculous parking-lot idea would block the salvation of the old house. And Elizabeth realized she held the key to its preservation. With her new lucrative contract and her flourishing antiques business to support her bid, she could buy the mansion herself.
She truly could own the place. Had God laid this marvelous opportunity in her lap? Was it his gift? Should she really push through with her own plan?
As she surveyed the roomful of gawking townsfolk, she could see Zachary Chalmers standing alone, his face taut. Phil Fox, eyes blazing, was only just beginning to realize that his action had humiliated and abased Zachary far more effectively than it had done anything to disprove Zachary’s claim to the property.
Ruby McCann began to fan herself with the meeting agenda. Cleo Mueller sat with his mouth open. Boompah clutched the back of the nearest seat with whitened fingers.
And just as clearly as Elizabeth knew she might use this moment to save the mansion, she knew she would not.
“May I speak, Mayor Mueller?” Elizabeth heard herself say as she came to her feet.
Every eye in the room turned on her. Cleo nodded. “Go ahead, Miss Hayes.”
She swallowed.
Oh, Lord, what do you want me to say? Why am I standing? What am I supposed to do?
“I’d like to, uh, to say something on behalf of Zachary Chalmers, who is … who has become … my friend.” She tried to breathe. “Since he moved here, Zachary has stirred up some waves in the calm waters of Ambleside. But as a lot of you have discovered in the past few months, he is an honorable and kind gentleman. And he has taught me a few things since I’ve known him. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is to realize when to stop looking at the past and when to start moving forward.”
Elizabeth paused to calm herself. As she scanned the room, she noted that Zachary was gazing at her, his green gray eyes bemused. Giving him a half smile, she lifted her chin and continued.
“I’d like to remind you of another little wave in Ambleside’s calm waters—my son, Nick.” Her words were followed by a chorus of indulgent chuckles. “Everyone knows I adopted Nick from another country, and that the circumstances of his birth are a little cloudy. One of the main reasons I chose to live in Ambleside with Nick is because I believed you folks could help my son move beyond his past … and move forward. I’m trusting you to help me give Nick a good future.”
Elizabeth clasped her hands together. “Most of you are aware,” she went on, “that I oppose Zachary’s desire to raze the mansion. But I want him and everyone else in this room to know I stand behind Zachary’s right to take possession of the property that was given to him by Grace Chalmers. Not only should he own it, but he ought to be able to do whatever he wants with it. Nothing in his past should make a difference.”
She stopped speaking for a moment. “Show Zachary Chalmers the same measure of kindness that he’s shown you,” she said firmly. “Give him the same grace that you give to little Nick. Let him move forward.”
With a nod to Cleo to show she was finished speaking, Elizabeth headed for the door. She had done what she came to do. She had spoken up for Zachary.
Unwilling to watch the fallout from Phil’s heartless statement and her own feeble attempt to mend the hurt, she hurried across the street. The mansion loomed huge and dreary in the last vestiges of the late-summer sunset. Once long ago, the house had been a home. A place of comfort and pleasure and gentility. Now it had become the focus of dissension, quarreling, and cruelty.
Running her fingertips along the brick wall of the parlor Phil had proposed turning into a parking-attendant’s office, Elizabeth made her way to the back porch where Grace had always sat to fan herself. As she climbed the wooden steps, she could feel the gentle breath of the Missouri River drift over her, ruffling her skirt and tickling through her hair.
It was time for her to move forward, too, Elizabeth thought as she sat down on the top step and leaned against the porch post. She had to let this mansion go. Had to give to Christ her ambitions and dreams for expanding her business. Had to take Nick by the hand and march him through the future—a future where some would treat him with kindness and others would ridicule and taunt him.
Most of all, she had to relinquish the half-formed hope that Zachary Chalmers had brought to life inside her. Despite her words to Luke earlier that afternoon, she had to admit to herself that she
did
know the real Zachary Chalmers, the honorable and kind man of whom she had spoken at the council meeting. For a few short months, she had even begun to believe that she might have found a true love. Sure, she and Zachary argued a lot and butted heads against their opposing goals. But in the long run, they’d seemed to have a lot in common.
It was hard to give up the idea of having someone to laugh and cry with. Someone to fight with. Someone to depend on. Someone to tease. Someone to dream and plan and hope with.
Hard, too, to surrender the quiet pleasure of a stolen kiss or a reassuring arm around the shoulders. A part of Elizabeth that she’d tried to suppress had awakened to the desire for passion and fulfillment. She wanted to be a woman who knew the ultimate union—spiritual, emotional, and physical—with a man. She wanted to be a wife.
And not just any man’s wife. She wanted to be Zachary Chalmers’s wife. Through the months, she had grown to love him in a way that went deeper and broader than anything she’d ever hoped to experience.
But it was time to give up that love. Zachary belonged to God, and it was clear that God had other plans for him. Zachary was going to tear down the mansion, build his fancy office, bring in big-city renters, and continue to blaze his trails through the world. Next door, in her quiet little antiques shop, Elizabeth would indulge her clients in the poignant nostalgia of the past. She would continue to be a Christian first, a mother second, an entrepreneur third. Somewhere, far on the back shelf, she would know she was a woman. But that part of herself would remain hidden and mostly forgotten, amid the busyness of her daily life.
And that had to be good enough. With a sigh of acceptance, Elizabeth stood and strolled across the lawn to her own porch. It was time to slip out of her wrinkled skirt and into a pair of shorts before heading along the backyard trails to the Eastons’ house. She and Nick would return home, unpack their suitcases, check on the plants, and read the mail. And maybe they’d finish the day with a big bowl of Nick’s current favorite food—mint chocolate chip ice cream.
As Elizabeth stepped onto the porch, she saw the movement of a shadow on the porch swing. Her heart skipped a beat in spite of her self-determined calm.
“Elizabeth?” The figure rose slowly and doffed his hat. “I come from the meeting. Is me, Jacob Jungemeyer.”
“Oh, Boompah.” Elizabeth couldn’t contain her disappointment. Of course it wouldn’t be Zachary. He was over at city hall defending his rights to the mansion. He wouldn’t be coming here.
“Elizabeth, I must talk with you.” Boompah hobbled forward, hat in his hand. “I have to tell you something. Something very important.”
“Boompah, why don’t you sit down on the swing again for a minute or two? I need to call Luke to check on Nick, and then I’ll see if I can stir us up some lemonade—”
“No, no! Please, Elizabeth!” His gnarled hand gripped hers with surprising strength. “Is about Grace Chalmers.”
“Grace? What about Grace?”
“Maybe you better be the one who is sitting. Is a very shocking thing I must tell … about Grace and … Grace and me. And only this night do I realize the meaning of the deeds of the past.”
“Oh, Boompah.”
He hung his head. “You didn’t guess before now about Grace and me?”
“You always said she was beyond you.”
“She was. But still … somehow … we grow to love each other through the years.” He turned his hat brim around and around in his hand. “I think it is because we both feel very different, very alone, in this town. I am the Gypsy, and she is the rich girl. And that difference makes us somehow the same. Do you understand, Elizabeth?”
“I think so,” she said.
“Grace’s father forbids me to see her. But we don’t listen to him, you know. We are not young, after all. We are adults, and we meet in the grocery when she comes with Eben Huff to shop. Or sometimes I take the groceries to Chalmers House, and I bring flowers for her blue vase. We like to talk, I make her laugh, she enchants me. Somehow, Grace is of the old times. Her ways are gentle and good and elegant. I love her.”
“But, Boompah …”
“I know. It’s wrong, what happened between us.” He shook his head. “One night, I am on my way back from Jefferson City with my truck full of groceries, and there I see Grace’s little car in the ditch. She was never a good driver, you know. I pull out the car, and then … we are alone together … and we make a very wrong choice. After that, I don’t see Grace for a long time even though I try to call her and bring little notes to the mansion for her. I find out she has gone away to New York to stay with relatives. When she comes back to Ambleside, I don’t see her again except from a distance. Now, only Eben comes to my shop for the groceries. Grace goes to the chapel for church, but we never speak. She never leaves her house except to sit on the back porch and fan herself. I know she is very sad, but I cannot reach her.”
“You didn’t realize Grace had given birth to your son?” Elizabeth whispered.
“How can I know this? Nobody tells me. I try to talk to her, but she will not speak. Eben Huff tells me that sometimes she goes away for a few days to visit her family in Jefferson City, her brother. I try to find him out—his name and house—but I cannot. He has no telephone, and nobody speaks of him. And so I go on living my life, and Grace lives her life until … until one day she dies. Never until this night … this night … I did not know, Elizabeth!”
“Oh, Boompah.” Wrapping her arms around the old man, she held him close. “But Zachary will be thrilled to learn you’re his father. He loves you very much.”
“You think?”
“I’m sure.”
“But all the years when he is a little boy, I never help him. I never teach him. I never protect him. I don’t do any of the things a father should do for his son.”
“But, Boompah, you couldn’t do those things. You didn’t know.”
“Maybe he is angry with me anyway.”
“No, he won’t be angry. He’ll be surprised … amazed …”
A footstep on the porch drew Elizabeth’s attention. As she looked up, she saw Zachary Chalmers move into the light.
“Uh, excuse me,” he said, his eyes narrowing at the sight of the two figures on the porch. “Luke, I didn’t mean to interrupt—”
“Zachary,” Boompah said, stepping out of Elizabeth’s embrace. “Is me, Jacob Jungemeyer.”
“Boompah?”
“Elizabeth, maybe I better go now,” the old man said. “Maybe you can talk to Zachary and—”
“No, Boompah. This is your business.” Stepping back, she decided the time was right to go get her son. Zachary had come to her house, but she didn’t trust herself to talk to him. Not now, with her resolve to move forward still so new inside her.
“I’m going on over to Luke’s house,” she told the men.
“Listen here, Elizabeth.” Zachary crossed his arms over his chest, and his voice was hard. “If you and Luke Easton have something going on, I want to know about it right now.”
Confused, she tilted her head. “Luke’s watching Nick.”
“What’s he doing that for?”
“So I could …” She gestured in the direction of city hall. “Zachary, why did you come here?”
“Because I want to talk to you. You just sashayed out of town and disappeared. How do you expect me to take care of business when you up and leave without telling anyone?”
“I told lots of people.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t tell me.”
“Yeah, well, you were busy with your tearing-down business and your moving-forward business, and all that. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“No, I will not excuse you.” He caught her arm and steered her back from the steps. “I want to get to the bottom of a few things around here. I’ve had it with secrets and lies. It’s time for the truth, and I’m going to start with you.”
“No, I must be first!” Boompah cried. “Is all my fault that you don’t know the truth, Zachary. But how can I tell you the truth, because I don’t know it myself until tonight? Now, I will say everything, and may God forgive me for the pain it will cause.” He wadded his hat into a ball. “I, Jacob Wilhelm Jungemeyer, am your father.”
Elizabeth felt Zachary’s grip on her arm go slack. He swallowed hard and dropped his hand. “What?” he mouthed.
“Boompah and Grace,” Elizabeth said softly. “They weren’t married, and he never knew she’d given birth to his child.”
“Me?”
“You are my son,” Boompah said, anguish tightening his voice. “And before you become angry, which is your right, let me say that I cannot be more proud of any son than I am of you, Zachary. Even though you and I find out this news only tonight, already in these past months I think of you as my son. I love you.”
The silence was punctuated only by the distant horn of a river barge. A moth fluttered past Elizabeth’s face and flapped its white wings around the yellow light.
“The last time I stood on this porch,” Zachary said, “I found out Grace Chalmers was my mother. And now I have a father.”
“But you do not need to tell anybody this thing,” Boompah said. “I know is not something to be proud of, the way you came into this world with such sin and deception. And I am not a father for any man to boast about, only an old Gypsy who runs a grocery store and cannot talk good English after all these years. Don’t worry, Zachary. This knowledge among us can stay a secret—”