Jubilee's Journey (The Wyattsville Series) (40 page)

“Now what?” Anita grumbled and slid back into the person she’d been before memory took hold of her.

Although Olivia hadn’t heard the words, she heard the change in tone. Quickly rummaging through her handbag, she pulled out a flowered hankie. When the door pulled open she flounced the hankie in the air and walked in saying, “Ethan Allen! You went off without a hankie in your pocket, and I just know—”

“I got a hankie,” Ethan replied.

“Oh. Well, then, I supposed I needn’t have bothered.” Olivia tucked the hankie back into her purse and introduced herself to Anita. “Sorry to barge in like this, but you know how kids are. You’ve got to watch them every minute.”

“Every minute?” Anita replied.

“Yes, indeed. Turn your back for a few minutes, and they’re off and into trouble.”

“Sounds like a lot of work.” A washboard of ridges appeared on Anita’s forehead. Mahoney cringed.

“You can’t begin to imagine!” Olivia continued. “Once Ethan Allen came to live with me, my life truly did change.” Although she could reason that saying such a thing wasn’t a lie, Olivia deliberately held back from saying it had changed for the better.

She had barely finished speaking when Mahoney suggested it was time to leave. “We’ve interrupted Anita’s day enough,” he said and began hustling Olivia out the door.

“It’s no bother,” Anita mumbled weakly, but by then both Ethan Allen and Jubilee were scrambling down the stairs.

“I’ll be back in touch,” Mahoney said and followed them out.

“Yeah,” Anita said, “I hope so.”

After the door was closed, Anita was once again alone with the life she had created for herself. The memory of years spent with Ruth by her side settled in like an illness she’d been fighting, and the ache spread throughout her body. She felt the loneliness in her fingertips and down to her smallest toes. Jubilee looked so much like Ruth that the sight of her was like tiny little knives tearing away bits of hardened skin, exposing the soft underside, the side that felt pain, heartache, and a forever sense of loss.

Anita sat at the table and cried. She allowed her head to drop into her arms and sobbed a tearful prayer that Ruth could somehow forgive her. “I should never have written those things,” she said. “Now it’s too late.”

The suitcase Anita had packed remained at the foot of her bed for the entire weekend. And after she ran out of cigarettes, she didn’t bother going out for more. On Friday evening when she was supposed to meet Henry Miller in Ocean City, she was instead stretched across her bed sobbing so loudly the upstairs neighbor began banging on the radiator pipe.

“Hush up that noise!” he’d yelled, but Anita continued to sob.

Henry Miller waited at the Ocean Breeze bar all evening. For the first two hours he sipped on a tall Tom Collins, but once he figured Anita wasn’t coming he switched over to martinis. It was nearly eleven when he walked out of the bar with a giggly blonde hanging on his arm and gave up any thoughts of calling Anita.

Olivia

I
should never have gotten out of the car. If I’d have left well enough alone, I wouldn’t be remembering the way Anita looked at Jubilee. Nobody has to tell me how she feels about the child; I saw it in her eyes. If she said once she said twenty-three times how much Jubilee looks exactly like Ruth did at that age. I don’t think there’s any question about the woman wanting Jubilee to come live with her, but looking at the messiness of that apartment and the melancholy in Anita’s eyes I can’t help but wonder if that’s what’s best for Jubilee.

It isn’t good for a child to carry the weight of someone else’s regret. Only God knows what happened between those sisters but it must have been pretty ugly, because Anita has sorrow written all over her face. Jubilee doesn’t need that poking her in the eye; she’ll have plenty of her own sadness when she learns the truth about Paul being in jail.

I don’t see any alternative other than to call Anita and explain the situation. I’ll say how Ethan Allen has become like a brother to Jubilee and how he’s the one who can ease the pain of her not having Paul to count on. I’ll suggest she claim Jubilee but let her stay here with us. It isn’t like I’m asking Anita to give up the child. She’d be welcome to come for a visit anytime she had a mind to.

Okay, I’m a bit cramped for space, but with two kids the Rules Committee is going to ask me to leave anyway. When that happens, I’ll look for a larger place. Yes, I hate the thought of losing my apartment, but it’s nowhere near as tragic as poor little Jubilee losing her entire family.

There are times when God gives you a load to carry, and it’s a lot heavier than what you had in mind. When that happens the only thing you can do is pick up the load and get moving. You’ve got to trust He knows just how much you’re capable of carrying.

Jubilee’s Discovery

O
livia had first imagined Anita as an uncaring woman, someone with hard edges and unyielding opinions. She’d then switched over to thinking she might be a loving aunt, someone Jubilee could turn to in time of need. But after spending a short time looking into the woman’s face, Olivia had come to understand Anita was neither of those people. She was simply a woman weighed down with regret. The weariness was visible in her face, in the way her eyes were colored with sadness and her voice hollow with echoes of loneliness.

It had been a sleepless night for Olivia. She’d tossed and turned, thinking through every scenario the conversation with Anita might take. She’d wondered if the woman might welcome such a simple solution or fly off the handle and demand that Jubilee be returned to her immediately. It was a chance Olivia had to take.

With every bit of thought focused on what she would say to Anita, Olivia failed to notice the way Ethan Allen and Jubilee whispered back and forth. At the breakfast table she’d casually asked, “What are you kids going to do today?”

“Maybe ride our bikes over to the playground,” Ethan answered. He made a point of including the word
maybe
and didn’t look up as he sawed a bite-sized square of waffle into three tiny pieces.

Jubilee said nothing but began picking at a loose thread on the placemat. After a few seconds she glanced sideways at Ethan and, seeing his head tucked down, returned to picking at the thread.

When Olivia disappeared into the bedroom to call Anita, the two kids scooted out the door, climbed on their bikes, and headed toward Monroe Street. It wasn’t often that Ethan so flagrantly defied Olivia’s rules, but in this case he had no alternative. Jubilee had pleaded with an urgency that made it impossible to say no.

“We can’t stay long,” he’d warned. “If we’re not back by lunchtime, Grandma’s gonna know something’s up and she’s likely to come looking for us.”

“A few minutes,” Jubilee promised. “I just wanna tell Paul about Aunt Anita.”

At Monroe Street they paused for the light, and as soon as it turned green they continued to the hospital.

Loretta was on duty that day, and she was none too happy to see Ethan Allen and his sidekick sneaking toward the hallway elevators. “Hold up there!” she called out and scurried across the lobby. Seconds before the elevator door opened, she nabbed Ethan Allen by the back of his shirt and didn’t let go.

“You let go of him!” Jubilee screamed and gave her a kick in the shin.

The sharp edge of Jubilee’s Mary Jane shoe caused a bump to rise up, and Loretta momentarily loosened her grip. With a strong tug Ethan Allen pulled free, but before he got two steps away Loretta screeched, “Security!”

It seemed the officer came from out of nowhere, a burly policeman who towered over the two kids. “These monsters,” Loretta stammered, “were trying to sneak in again.”

“Again?”

“Yes,
again
. They’ve done it before. The boy’s been in trouble any number of times, and the girl’s related to that shooter who was in ICU.”

“Is that true, son?” the officer asked.

Ethan shrugged. “It ain’t how she says.”

“Oh?” The officer raised an eyebrow. “So what’s your side of the story?”

“We wasn’t sneaking nowhere. We come to visit Jubilee’s brother.”

“Liar!” Loretta huffed.

“Enough.” The officer shot Loretta a warning glare, then turned back to Ethan. “So, who is this brother you’re here to visit?”

Jubilee spoke up. “Paul Jones.”

“See?” Loretta snapped. “Crime obviously runs in that family!”

“Let them tell the story,” the officer warned. He turned back to the kids. “Are you aware Paul Jones is no longer here at the hospital?”

“Not here?”

A tear was already overflowing Jubilee’s left eye. “Where is he?”

Before the officer had time to answer Loretta said, “Hauled off to jail where he belongs!”

“Missus Clemens!” the officer growled. “Go back to your desk, and leave this to me!”

By then Jubilee was bawling so loudly the folks back in Campbell’s Creek most likely heard her.

When the telephone rang at eleven-fifteen, Olivia thought it might be Anita calling back with a decision. Their conversation had gone reasonably well, and while Anita hadn’t agreed to anything she did concede that having full responsibility for a child might be a bit overwhelming for a woman in her position.

“I’m divorced,” she’d said sadly. “Husbandless. Freddie was a good man but I constantly picked at him, blamed him for my own shortcomings. I suppose it’s because after I lost Ruth…” The remainder of what Anita wanted to say never came. Olivia waited for nearly a minute thinking she might go on, but the only thing she added was a long heavy sigh. The weight of that sigh ricocheted through the telephone wire and spun Olivia back to the days when she too had been alone. The days after Charlie’s death, the days when no friends knocked at the door or delivered casseroles. Those days were long and lonely. They were something she would not wish on anyone, let alone this poor unfortunate woman who was Jubilee’s blood relative.