David Bell - Never Come Back

“Jesus,” I said. “Mom? Mom got knocked up?”

“Don’t be crude,” he said.

“Was it a scandal? Didn’t they used to send girls away for that?”

“They did. Sometimes. But your mom got married to Gordon as soon as they realized what had happened. They cut it close. I’m sure people did the math and figured it out, but they got married so fast it couldn’t really become an issue. Some couples just got married during high school back then, pregnant or not. This was small-town Ohio. Kids got married young. Girls started having babies young.”

“And Mom didn’t want to go to college?” I asked. “Even once she had the baby?”

“This was 1960,” Paul said. “Do you think women from Haxton, Ohio, went off to college, baby or not? Hell, the guys barely did. I was one of the few. When I told my father, your grandfather, I wanted to go to Ohio State and get a college degree, he laughed at me. It was another time.”

“But you said Mom was different.”

“She was. But even she couldn’t fight the combined societal forces of sexism and low expectations for girls. She did what she was supposed to do. More so, really. Do you think my parents ever expected her to get married? They probably looked at her all those years and imagined she’d end up an old maid, living at home with them until they died. Not only did she get married, she married a good guy. In their eyes. And in the town’s. She snagged a prize. Gordon had a respectable job as a salesman. He made a comfortable living. And…”

“And?” I prompted him.

“And they had a baby. Right away, they had a baby.”

I reached for my glass of milk and took a big gulp. “This is Elizabeth.”

“Beth,” Paul said. “We always called her Beth.”

My voice rose for the first time in our conversation. “Why the hell did Mom name me after a dead girl? If she’s really dead. Why did anyone let her do that? Why did Dad?”

“Leslie felt guilty about what happened to Beth,” Paul said. “Any parent would. She felt responsible. You know, she and Beth had a rocky relationship. It was the seventies. Beth was a strong-willed teenager.”

“I heard,” I said.

“Gordon told you all this?”

I nodded. “She had a rough time with her daughter. With my half sister. I still don’t know why she named me after a dead kid.”

“I know it’s strange,” Paul said. “I thought it was strange too. But I tried to understand where she was coming from. That name told me how much she valued you because I understood how deeply she was affected by losing Beth. You were a second chance, especially with Ronnie… you were her best chance. You really were.”

“I thought she had me just so I could take care of Ronnie.”

“Who told you that?”

“She did. She said it right to my face.”

Paul sighed. “That’s not the only reason they had you. And you know it.”

“Do I?”

“Yes. Your mom was practical. She did think that way. She devoted her life to making sure Ronnie was cared for. But she also desperately wanted to have children. She loved being a mom. That was her whole life, you and Ronnie. She wanted you very much, just for you.”

A cafeteria worker pushed a big cart full of empty and dirty trays past us, the wheels squeaking against the tile floor. We couldn’t talk for a moment, and I took the opportunity to gather my thoughts. Had she really wanted me? Or was I a caretaker for Ronnie? A do-over for the first Elizabeth?

Would I ever really know?

I returned to my food for a few minutes. We both did. Maybe Paul hoped the conversation had run its natural course, that all of the questions I had come armed with as a result of my conversation with Gordon Baxter had been answered. Of course, that wasn’t true. Not by a long shot.

“Damn,” I said. “Mom got pregnant and got married in high school.”

“She did.”

“The girl,” I said.

“What?”

“The girl. Elizabeth. Gordon says she was murdered. Is that true?”

“She ran away. That’s the first thing you need to know,” Paul said. He looked down at his food and jabbed at the salad with more intensity than before.

“Out in the waiting room, you said you thought she was dead. Gordon said the same thing.”

“I’m sure she is,” Paul said, still not looking up. “I’m sure she fell in with the wrong crowd. She was doing drugs. Hard drugs. You can’t expect a life like that to turn out well.”

He sounded cold, dismissive. His voice carried no empathy or understanding for Elizabeth. It didn’t seem like the Paul I knew, and I called him on it.

“Running away,” he said, “is the worst thing you can do to a parent. She put Leslie through hell when she was here, but once she ran away, that was the worst thing of all. To not let your mother know where you are? I can’t imagine.”

“Do you know about the will?” I asked.

He stopped jabbing at his food and looked into my eyes. “You said you had something to tell me. I’m afraid I know what it is.”

“What?” I asked.

He put his fork down and picked up his napkin. First he wiped his mouth, slowly and methodically. Then he balled the napkin up and tossed it onto his tray.

“It’s that crazy woman, that Elizabeth Yarbrough. Are you telling me your mom left her something in the will?”

“A third of the estate,” I said.

Paul closed his eyes. He looked as if he had just been struck by a heavy blow that knocked the wind out of him. “Jesus,” he whispered. “Jesus.”

“You agree with Gordon?” I asked. “You think this woman is a con artist?”

His eyes remained closed. “The alternative is to believe that woman is my niece who’s been missing for thirty-seven years.”

“Why is that hard to believe?” I asked.

He started shaking his head. “I didn’t want to say this to you.”

I waited. I didn’t know whether I wanted to hear anything else from him. But I couldn’t not hear it. That was the problem. After being kept in the dark for so long, I needed to hear everything.

“Say what?” I asked.

He rubbed at his eyes with his knuckles, then opened them, blinking several times. “For several months before… before your mom died,” he said, “I worried about her. About her mental state. I thought she might have been… slipping a little bit.”

“Dementia?”

“Not severe. Not yet. But she might have been heading that way. Did you notice anything?”

“I didn’t—”

But I stopped myself. Who was I to say? I wasn’t speaking to my mother in the weeks before she died.

“I’ve seen this happen to elderly friends of mine,” Paul said. “And their parents. They become susceptible to believing just about anything that they may intensely want to believe. That’s why con artists prey on the elderly. They can’t make the same judgments they once made. They can’t judge character as well.” He tapped his index finger against his temple. “I don’t know when this woman, this Elizabeth Yarbrough, showed up. I’m guessing it was close to a year ago. You know your mom. She wasn’t always eager to reveal anything to anyone until she had to.”

“I know.”

“It was just a few months ago she told me about it. She called me over and told me that she had been reunited with Beth. Her Beth. She was thrilled, of course. Overjoyed. She said they were getting to know each other, and that Beth had apologized for running away. Your mom seemed… happy about it. Relieved, almost. I guess she always thought she was going to die without ever seeing Beth again, without ever knowing what really happened to her.”

“Is that when you saw Beth yourself?” I asked.