Wynn in Doubt (3 page)

My great-grandmother. It has to be. I sit heavily on the bed, the prospect of champagne forgotten. This makes no sense whatsoever. My great-grandmother died when Grams was just a little girl in the 1920s. I know that. I’ve been told the story a thousand times. Her mother died and Grams stepped up, cooking meals and attending to her father’s shirts and pants with an eight-pound iron on Saturday mornings. Grams almost always told the story directly before a scolding when she thought we, her granddaughters, were taking things for granted. Which we always were, which means we heard the story a thousand times.

But the name in the article . . .

I switch off the light and turn onto my side, taking the blankets with me. How is it that my great-grandmother was running whiskey in Kentucky when she was supposed to be six feet under in Illinois? Try as I might, I can’t remember Grams ever saying more than a few words about her mother. But did I ever ask? I don’t think so. I’m not sure I ever gave much consideration to her having a mother at all. It was like she sprung, fully formed and opinionated from the garden behind her house. She was never young to me. She was never passionate about life. She was never anything more than Grams.

Thoughts of my grandmother, Oliver, and the article keep me from sleep.

It’s funny, Grams never approved of my crush on the boy with the big dreams. She wanted me to marry a nice young man, have lots of babies, and live a quiet life, as she did. But if the woman in the article was, in fact, her mother, what kind of life did
she
live? And why was Grams not a part of it?

I open my eyes and feel around behind me for the book. The paper is rough with age. I pull out the article and lay it on the pillow beside me, the same place that Oliver’s face stared back at me last night. I used to fantasize about a secret family that would rescue me from my boring one and take me on noble quests and dangerous expeditions. It seems I may not have given my real family enough credit.

three

“Hello? Mom? Dad?” I close my parents’ front door behind me and walk to the kitchen. Every square inch of white countertop has been taken over by lumps of brown clay in various shapes and sizes. I pick one up and turn it over. It looks like something a kindergartner would make. If they were really bad at crafts. And didn’t have hands.

I call out again, more urgently this time. “Mom, where are you? What’s with all the pottery?”

“Just a minute,” she yells from down the hall, her voice stifled by a closed door.

I return the clay whatever-it’s-supposed-to-be to the counter and gingerly take the article from my purse. I reread it for the twentieth time today, focusing again on the name. Lola. My mother inherited Grams’s zeal for a normal life. I’ve debated for days whether or not to ask her about the woman in the article, but I’ve decided I need answers. Was she my great-grandmother? If so, why were we told she died years before then? And the question bothering me most of all: What was she doing in Kentucky? Why did she leave? What could have driven her away from her daughter?

“Hey, honey, why didn’t you tell us you were stopping by?” My mother breezes in, running a hand through disheveled hair. Her shirt is buttoned crookedly and inside out.

Something’s off. Something’s very, very off . . . “Mom, your shirt,” I say, pointing.

She looks down, her fingers skid across the mismatched closures. “Oops! I guess I was in a hurry this morning.” The corners of her mouth are turned up innocently, but I’m not buying it. I shared a room with Tabby. I know the booty-call smile when I see it.

“Mom, where’s Dad?”

“Right here, sweet pea.” Dad’s big hands squeeze my shoulders, making me jump. He’s showing too many teeth.

“Eww.” I step away from my father. A war between knowledge and ignorance has begun in my brain. I close my eyes and shake my head, trying to erase all thoughts of my parents’ afternoon delight from my mind like an Etch A Sketch.

“What? What, eww?” My mom fans herself with her crooked shirt.

“Nothing, just—let’s not talk about it.” I give them both a warning glance. “What’s the deal with all the pottery?”

Dad tosses a smallish piece in the air, then catches it easily behind his back. His manner is giddy and spry, and I don’t want to think about what’s caused it. “This”—he says, handing me the . . . what? Vase? Pot? Ashtray? I take it with my free hand—“is your mother’s and my new hobby.”

“You’re making clay pot things?”

“Don’t be too hard on us. We just started yesterday,” Mom says, admiring a wonky piece.

“And what brought this on?”

“Oh, you know.” She shrugs her shoulders at me. “We were watching
Ghost
on TV the other night and, well, you know that scene with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore? When she’s at the potter’s wheel and he comes and sits behind her and one thing leads to another—”

“No. No, no, no, no, no. No.” I set the pot my father handed me back on the ledge, then do the same with hers. “No.” I’ve had enough surprises for one week. My father becoming Patrick Swayze is going too far.

“What?” Her level voice reveals nothing, but the upward tilt of her lips is unmistakably playful. I’m torn. She’s been so sad, it’s nice to see her mood lighten—but I don’t want to know any more about what’s brought it on.

“I’m sorry. I can’t listen to a story about you and Dad making . . . pottery together.”

“Oh, we made pottery.” Dad plucks the largest piece from the table and raises his eyebrows at me. “We made pottery all night long.”

I’m going to need a lobotomy.

“Oh my God, you guys,” I whine, slumping forward.

Mom wraps an arm around my shoulder and leads me down the hallway and into the living room. “Cut it out. You can’t blame your dad and me for being in love.”

“Mom,” I warn.

She holds her hands up in surrender. “Fine. Just remember this when you have kids of your own.”

“No, just, I came—whatever. Can we talk for a minute? I’ve got something I want to show you.”

She crosses her arms and waits for me to continue. I hold out the article and she takes it from me.

“What’s this?”

“Just read it,” I say.

She inclines her head toward the paper and narrows her eyes. “I can’t.” She hands it back to me. “I don’t have my glasses.”

“Fine. I’ll read, you listen.” I’ve read the words so many times in last three days, I practically have it memorized. When I get to Lola’s name, I pause and look at my mother. I’ve known the woman for twenty-eight years. I know when she’s mad. I know when she’s annoyed. And I know when she doesn’t want
me
to know something. She’s still and silent, too silent, and there’s something wild in her look.

I finish reading and return my eyes to hers. She asks no questions, forcing me to prompt her. “Well?”

She releases a noisy breath through her nose and lowers her gaze to the ground. “Where’d you find that?”

Until she spoke I wasn’t sure, but now I’m positive I’m right about Lola being my great-grandmother. The hand holding the article falls limply to my side. “In one of Grams’s books. Did you know about this? About her not dying when Grams was a little girl?”

Mom faces the dining room table. It’s cluttered with boxes from my grandmother’s house. “Yes, I knew.”

“But why lie about her mother being dead? And why didn’t you tell us it wasn’t true?” I lean to the side and try to read her face.

“Wynn, this is all in the past.” She faces me, the good humor from earlier forgotten. “Let’s not dredge it up.”

I don’t understand why she’s being so secretive. Grams is dead. It’s not like she’ll care if her secret gets out now. “Mom—”

She holds up her hand, stopping me. “No. I’m not discussing it, and you shouldn’t be either. It’s none of our business.”

“None of our business? It’s our family history,
your
grandmother’s history. Why won’t you tell me what happened to her?”

“Because I don’t really know.” The words come out in a bark. She shrugs and sighs loudly. Her eyes roll up toward the ceiling. Lines mar the soft skin around her mouth as she presses her lips together. She’s trying to keep the words inside. Holding onto whatever secrets she knows for as long as possible. When her eyes find mine again, they’re full of pain and pity. “Your grandmother was just a little girl. She was seven years old when her mother abandoned her.”

“Abandoned her?” I glance down at the article in my hand.

“Yes. Abandoned. Look, all I know is what I heard from my great-aunt Goldie, one of your great-grandfather’s sisters. Goldie said Lola had run off to be a showgirl. Apparently that woman was . . . young and wild and a terrible mother for leaving her child like that.”

That woman.
Knowing how difficult it’s been for her since Grams died, I was expecting my mother to be surprised, maybe even sad, but she sounds angry. I wasn’t expecting that. Before last weekend, I’d never given my great-grandmother a moment’s thought, but listening to my mom tear her down fills me with unease. “Maybe there was a reason for . . .” I let the sentence fall away. The proof of Lola’s corrupt life is held gently between my fingers.

Wetness makes my mom’s brown eyes sparkle in the sunny room. She steps toward me, cupping my cheek with her hand. “People are the way they are. Your grandmother lived under the cloud of her mother’s desertion her entire life. I didn’t know about the article,” she says, looking down briefly, “but it was very painful to know that her mother preferred living as an outlaw to being with her only child.”

“But haven’t you ever wanted to know why she left?”

“She left because she didn’t care about her family.” Her eyes are eager, willing me to understand. “When your Grams told me the truth, years ago, she said the day her father told her her mother had vanished, she vowed to put the responsibility of family above all else. She was a child, but she made that promise to herself, and she kept it for more than eighty years.”

“Mom, this isn’t about Grams. It’s about finding out what happened to Lo—”

“Don’t.” She raises her hand abruptly. “Don’t say her name again.” The force of her anger quiets me. She looks away and takes several deep breaths before shaking her head. “I just lost my mother, Wynn. I won’t fantasize about what became of the woman who left her behind. She never spoke of her, and there must’ve been a good reason for that. Your grandmother wanted what happened kept from you girls, from everyone. I didn’t even want her name in the obituary, but your dad thought it would look strange if we left it out.”

There’s no goodwill in the smile she gives me. “You’re looking for a story with a happy ending, but you won’t find one. When you think only of yourself, as my grandmother did, you hurt the people who love you. She walked out on her husband and left him to raise a child all on his own. They never got divorced, you know. It crushed him.” My mother stares at me, her eyes weary. “She isn’t the person you want her to be.”

“I don’t
want
her to be anything. I just want to know what happened to her.”

“I know you too well to believe that.” She steps forward and hugs me tightly. Her embrace feels pleading and urgent. When she pulls back, her arms still half around me, she finds my eyes again. “You loved your grandmother, didn’t you?”

The question breaks my heart. “Yes.”

“Then let this go. Please, for her.” Tears cling to her lower lashes.

She wants me to trust her and drop this. I don’t know that I can, but I nod slowly and watch some of the tension leave her mouth. She’ll have to accept my silence as compliance. That’s all I can offer her right now.

“Good. Now, why don’t you follow me out back? I’ll show you my new potter’s wheel?”

Hearing more about my parents’ rediscovered sensuality is the only thing I want to do less than give up on finding out what happened to Lola. “Actually, I’ve got to head over to the school. My union rep called this morning. I’ve got an interview at North for a position as their new social studies teacher.”

The chance of me putting fifty thousand dollars in college tuition to good use lifts her spirits considerably. “Well, that’s great news!” She reaches out to fluff my hair. I watch the worry drain from her shoulders, but there’s still a trace of it behind her eyes. She does her best to disguise it as affection. “I’m sure you’ll get it. They’d be crazy not to take you.” She pinches my cheek, a familiar gesture.

I yell a good-bye to my dad, who may well be humming the chorus to “You Sexy Thing,” and step into the sunshine.

I replay Mom’s words in my mind.
“When you think only of yourself, as my grandmother did, you hurt the people who love you.”
Was Lola the reason Grams reacted the way she did when I told her of my plans to leave? Was she worried I’d abandon my family as her mother had?

Lola’s article is still in my hand. I look at it briefly, studying the elegant curve of what I now know to be her hat.
Where did you run to, Lola, and why?

It’s weird sitting in the hall outside the principal’s office. I feel like I’ve been caught pulling the fire alarm. My hands are sweaty. I wipe my palms on the felt chair next to me, looking around to make sure no one’s watching. No one is, which makes it feel even more like high school.

I tap the purse at my feet with the toe of a borrowed black pump. The frayed end of a red ribbon is just visible inside the bag. It was pinned to a board crowded with medals outside the school office. The words “Lifetime Achievement” are printed in black ink across a bronze button affixed to the material.

I shouldn’t have taken it, but staring at the words . . . made me angry. Where is my lifetime achievement award? I’ve done everything I was supposed to do. I got good grades, came home at curfew, saved my virginity for college, stayed home to help Mom take care of Grams when I could have been out there somewhere, achieving a life. So I took the medal. I deserve it. The irony that I would never have done something so impulsive when I was actually a student here isn’t lost on me.

The door to my right opens, and a handsome man with a touch of gray at his temples smiles down at me. “Miss Jeffries?”

I stand and take the hand he offers. “Yes, hello.”

“Hi. Carl Sharland. It’s great to meet you. I’ve heard lots of good things.” He stands aside and ushers me into his office. The walls are gray and mostly covered with those inspirational posters that feature images of eagles and glaciers with words of enlightenment written in small type beneath. His desk is orderly, with only a computer, a pencil cup, and a few neat stacks of papers and folders sitting on the mahogany top. I settle into one of the blue leather chairs across from the desk and wait for him to sit. He leans back in his chair so confidently I wouldn’t be surprised if the bachelor’s degree framed on the wall is in self-assuredness.

“So, Wynn. May I call you Wynn?”

“Please do.” My hands are sweating again.

“First, thank you for coming in on such short notice. We usually have more time to prepare for these things. And I just want to say how delighted I am to have a North graduate here to interview for the social studies position.”