The Remedy for Regret (15 page)

She holds up another finger and I shut my mouth.

But then her big, fluid eyes widen in surprise and she pulls the phone away from her ear. She presses the disconnect button like she’s sealing off the cage off a monster.

“Oh, God!” she whispers.

“What?”

“You were right, Tess! I don’t know what to say!”

“Was that him!?”

She puts the phone down and her hand is shaking.

“It was an answering machine, Tess. It said I had reached the home of John, Patricia and Tim Penney and would I like leave a message?”

Then she starts to giggle. But she is still shaking. “We found him, Tess! He’s in Memphis!”

I can’t believe the worst part of the search is over. At least I think it is the worst part. “Are you going to call him back?”

“Later. When I think I might find someone home. Tess! Can you believe it?
We found him!

It’s a little after seven when Blair decides to try the John Penney’s number again. We’ve finished eating. Samuel, Corinthia and Marigold are seated in the living room offering a prayer on our behalf. I’m pacing the floor between the kitchen and dining room, unable to sit still. Blair is seated at the dining table, in Samuel Mayhew’s chair. I think she chose it on purpose. It’s the chair of a holy man.

She sets the call in motion and waits.

I pace.

“Hello? Is this John Penney?

A second of silence.

“Mr, Penney, my name is Blair Devere Holbrook and I’m calling because… yes, Blair Devere Holbrook. You… you remember my name?

More silence. I stop pacing and stand at the entrance to the dining room. John Penney knows her name. He knows the name Blair Devere.

“Yes! Yes!” Blair is smiling wide.

“Well, I… we… were hoping to visit with Tim. Would that be possible?”

The silences are driving me crazy.

“Well, we were lucky enough to find some folks who remembered you. I’ve been calling John Penneys all over the South looking for you. We just… we just want to see Tim.”

More silence. This one is longer, much longer.

“Yes, but… Well, okay. Sure. I understand. No, we’re in Blytheville right now. Yes, we can be there by tomorrow afternoon. Of course. No, I won’t call the house again. Thank you, thank you so much, Mr. Penney. Goodbye.”

She clicks off the phone and looks at me.

“He wants to meet us first,” Blair says. “Tomorrow. At the school where he teaches. As soon as classes let out.”

“How did he sound?” I lean back against the doorframe.

Blair shakes her head like she’s not sure. “I think maybe he’s too surprised to know how he feels. But he wants to
meet us. We might have to convince him to let us see Tim.”

It’s not over yet. John Penney may decide his son doesn’t need to see the necklace or the note. He may decide we don’t need to be the ones to give them to him.

I want to talk to Jewel. Now.

I step into the kitchen to call her from Corinthia’s phone. I know she will want to come with us tomorrow. I
want
Jewel to be with us tomorrow when we go. She needs to be there with us when we go. For as far we can go.

Memphis, Tennessee

I
can’t help feeling, as we drive over the mighty Mississippi into Tennessee, that the bridge that carries us is symbolic of what lies just ahead. I feel I’ll soon be crossing over into a new phase of my life, one without so many regrets. If God is indeed pursuing me then He’ll just have to cross over this bridge with me. I’m through with battling ghosts.

I’m glad Corinthia is with us, though Blair is probably not as keen about it. Jewel wants us to stay with her and her family for however long we are in Memphis, but Blair politely told Corinthia last night that she and I would be staying at the Peabody. I’d prefer to stay at Jewel’s with Corinthia but I don’t think it would be right for me to leave Blair alone. It’s only been a little over a week since Brad died. She acts like she is done mourning him, but I think she hasn’t even started. And when she does start, I’m pretty sure she will mourn not just his death but the death of her marriage. She didn’t see either one coming.

I wish I could’ve told Simon personally about how far we’ve come in such a short time but he was out last night when I called to tell him our unbelievable news. I had to leave a message that Blair and I had a last name and an address and would be driving to Memphis in the morning. I also told him to call me back if he got home before eleven, but I guess he didn’t, because he didn’t call back. Another late night with Pastor Jim, probably. I guess I’m not the only one who is being pursued.

We head into downtown Memphis from the riverbank and follow Corinthia’s directions to the Peabody Hotel. It is a beautiful morning in April. The financial district of downtown Memphis is dotted with men in white shirts and ties; talking on cell phones, drinking from Starbucks coffee cups and walking in and out of the Cotton Exchange building. Blair drives to the valet parking area of the Peabody, where we leave her car and head into the elegant hotel. I’ve been to the Peabody only once before, and then just to see the lobby and watch the Peabody ducks arrive from their rooms upstairs to the beautiful fountain on the main floor. Dad and Shelley had been married less than a month and the three of us had come to Memphis for the day. It was our first big outing as a new family of three. It seems like a long time ago, but the hotel lobby looks the same. The floral bouquets look the same. Even the ducks look the same.

Blair has secured a suite that will allow us both to have our own bedrooms and bathrooms and to share a common sitting area. Corinthia and I are both aghast at the opulence of the suite when we step into it. Blair had the courtesy to ask Corinthia if she would like to stay at the Peabody, too, but Corinthia said she’d just stay with Jewel and the family.

“Though I probably won’t get an invitation like this again,” she had said, shaking her head, but not regretting her decision, I think.

We unpack a few things, but I am anxious to see Jewel. Soon we are back in Blair’s car and driving towards Jewel’s home.

Jewel’s house is about twenty minutes away from downtown in an older suburb where brick houses line nearly every street. Hers is a two-story saltbox with white trim on the windows. The tiny lawn is well kept and the crocuses underneath the front windows are vibrant. When we stop the car in her driveway, the front door opens and a little boy charges out of it.

“Gamma!” he yells, and runs to Corinthia as she steps out from the backseat.

“Elijah, my boy, you have grown in just a month, you have!” Corinthia leans down to the little boy and wraps her arms around him.

Then at the door, a tall, slender woman appears with a plump baby in her arms. She is smiling even though her teeth aren’t showing. Jewel.

She steps out into the late morning sunshine.

“Oh, my word! Tess and Blair, just look at y’all!” she says.

“Here, let me take Jonah,” Corinthia says, taking the baby from Jewel.

Jewel comes to me first, enclosing me in her arms.

“It is has been
too
long,” she says and when we part, her eyes are glistening. “You look wonderful.”

“So do you.” My own eyes feel moist.

“Oh, Blair.” Jewel turns to the other third of our long ago trio. She takes Blair gently into another kind of embrace. “I’m so sorry for the loss of your husband. I truly am. I have been praying for you.”

“Yes. Thank you.” Blair breaks away first.

“Please come in,” Jewel says. “I hope y’all can stay for lunch. I have chicken gumbo on the back burner. And Joseph, my husband, will be here for lunch today. Y’all won’t see Matthias until after school, though. He’s in school all day now.”

We follow Jewel into her house as she says this and I wonder what she will think when we tell her we have plans for her for after school.

Jewel’s chicken gumbo is quite good and her husband Joseph is very much like Samuel Mayhew. In fact everything about Jewel reminds me of her mother. Her house, her cooking, her husband, and the gentle way she reached out to Blair.

When lunch is over and Joseph heads back to his church office a few blocks away, Corinthia offers to take Jonah and Elijah into the bedrooms for an afternoon nap so that the three of us can talk.

We decide to sit outside on Jewel’s front steps, something we did countless times when we were young. When we get settled, Jewel turns to Blair.

“Blair, may I see the note and the locket?”

Blair hesitates for a moment and then reaches down into her purse. She pulls the note and the locket out from the inner pocket and hands them to Jewel. Jewel fingers the locket for a moment, opening it to see the tiny blank frame inside. Then she unfolds the note and reads it, probably several times. She fingers its edges and runs her hand over the writing.

“She wasn’t much older than we were,” Jewel says thoughtfully.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you and Tess about these,” Blair says, needing, I think, affirmation from Jewel that she didn’t need from me. She didn’t apologize to me.

“It’s all right, Blair.” Jewel refolds the note and gives it and the locket back to Blair. “I think I know why you did it.”

Blair takes them and smiles cynically. “Were my insecurities that obvious?”

“Well, no,” Jewel answers quickly. “I thought you were the most confident person in the world. It used to amaze me because I saw the way your mother neglected you.”

Blair looks up and a quirky mixture of apprehension and respect quickly replaces the cynicism.

“Guess I had you fooled,” Blair says softly.

“Guess we’re all a little smarter now,” Jewel replies and from the open screen door we can faintly hear Corinthia singing a lullaby to a child who refuses to yield to rest.

Blair, Jewel and I arrive at the high school in Germantown about five minutes before the last bell is supposed to ring. We can’t help but feel a little out of place walking into the administration offices. We know no one there. We know John Penney’s name but not what he looks like.

Blair approaches the reception desk and a woman in a lavender dress looks up from a computer screen.

“May I help you?” she says.

“We’re here to see Mr. John Penney. He may have told you we were coming.”

“Oh, yes,” she says. “He just rang down here not too long ago. You can just go to his classroom. Here, I’ll show you where it is.”

She pulls out a laminated map of the campus and points us in the direction of the science building. We thank her and begin walking toward John Penney’s classroom, dodging students who begin heading toward the exits as the bell rings. None of us say anything. Each of us, is hoping, wishing or praying that this goes well.

When we get to his door, Blair pauses in front of it for a moment and then opens it, walking purposefully inside. Jewel and I follow.

A man with a trim build, a slightly receding hairline and wire rim glasses looks up from a dry-erase board.

“My goodness,” he says and he seems shocked, even though he knew we were coming. He walks toward us.

Blair, standing next to me, speaks up first.

“Mr. Penney,” she says. “I am Blair, this is Tess and this is Jewel.”

We shake hands but his shock at seeing us doesn’t fade.

“Well, I never thought we would ever meet. When we adopted Tim, the social worker in Blytheville gave us the article from the paper with your picture in it. I would know you three anywhere I think. How did you find us?”

Blair looks to me and I just tell him we got lucky. Dumb answer. Jewel says nothing beside me.

“Can… can I ask what made you suddenly decide to try and find Tim?” There is paternal caution in his voice.

“Well,” Blair closes her eyes for just a moment to steady her world, I think. “Mr. Penney—”

“Please call me John.”

“John,” Blair begins and I can tell she is going to confess. “The reason we’ve come is, well, it’s really the reason I’ve come—my friends are just here for moral support—I have a couple things that belong to Tim. Things that were in the peach box when we found him. Things his birth mother meant for him to have.”

John Penney’s face is impossible to read.

“What kinds of things?”

Blair reaches into her purse and pulls out the locket.

He takes it from Blair and fingers the little heart. “Is… is there…?” But he does not finish.

“No, the locket is empty,” Blair tells him. “But there is, this, too.” And she hands him the note that I have memorized down to the exact way Tim’s birth mother made her m’s.

John reads the note and then leans against a lab table. His eyes grow glassy. I can see that he is reading it again. Several times. Like all of us have who have read this note.

“John, it wasn’t right, but I kept these things because I wanted something to remember Tim by and because I… I was quite taken by the love this mother had for her baby,” Blair voice quavers. “I’m not proud of what I have done. And I’m very sorry. You don’t know how sorry I am. But I want to make it right. I want Tim to have these things. Please. Please let me give them to him.”

John is looking at the note again, absorbing it all; the note, Blair’s confession, and the reality that fifteen years of history have jumped forward to the present.

“I… I need time to think,” he says slowly, not looking at us, looking only at the note. “I… are you staying somewhere in Memphis?”

Blair seems ready to crumple beside me.

“Blair and I are staying at the Peabody. Jewel lives here in Memphis,” I say.

“I… I am sorry, but I can’t just… I need to think.”

Blair sighs and then reaches out her hand. She wants the note and the locket back. And I can’t say as I blame her. It is
her
peace offering.

John Penney hesitates for a moment and then places the note and necklace in Blair’s open hand.

“It would mean a great deal to me if I could give these to Tim myself,” she says to him but her voice starts to break. The muscles in her face begin to contort. She cannot control the tears that threaten to stream down her face. “Excuse me,” she says abruptly as they start to come. Blair begins to hastily walk away. Jewel follows her, reaching out to hold by her shoulders. As they burst through the door into the now-quiet hallway, I can hear Blair losing herself to sobs.

“She… she just lost her husband,” I say to John Penney, feeling a need to explain Blair’s obsession with reuniting this boy with his mother’s last treasures. “She wants very much to make this right. She thinks God is punishing her for having kept them.”

I feel I have said too much.

“Thank you for seeing us today.” I start to follow my friends out the door and then I turn back to him. “We’re registered under Blair’s married name, Holbrook.”

John Penney just nods. I can feel him watching us as Jewel and I usher Blair down the hallway.