2000
Ginny felt oddly elated as she sat idling at a red light on her way to Carter’s house. She’d watched Tommy the next morning as he’d ceremoniously tossed Moe’s journal into the kitchen garbage and, after tying it up, walked it to the curb. She thought about the church ceremony and honeymoon that followed. She thought about the counseling sessions they’d been going to regularly. They were helping, and she was glad that Tommy had suggested it. She even thought about the tiny black kitten that had shown up when they’d arrived home from their honeymoon. The black kitten that had been creating havoc in her home ever since. She smiled.
She was still enjoying her seventies music and had reached blindly into her purse to dig for a pack of gum she knew she had in there somewhere. She felt something at the bottom of her purse and was trying to figure out what it was when it appeared in her hand. She stared for a minute and just smiled. She brought it to her lips and gently kissed it.
“Goodbye, my love,” she whispered. “I guess I must’ve still had it in my hand the night Casey found me in the garage.”
She didn’t remember shoving it in her purse, but she probably had. She lifted her right hip and slid Grizz’s blue bandana into the back pocket of her jeans. She would return it to the motorcycle in Carter’s garage. Where it belonged.
The morning traffic was worse than she expected, and forty-five minutes later she pulled into her old driveway. Carter was off to the side doing something with the animals. She waved as she approached. Carter let herself out of the gate and told Ginny, “You got a delivery today.”
“A delivery?” Ginny gave her a quick hug. “Here? Are you sure it’s for me?”
“Yeah, it says Kit on it. I’m assuming it’s for you.”
Ginny stopped in her tracks. Carter knew her old gang name, but she hadn’t gone by Kit in fifteen years.
“C’mon,” Carter urged. “I can stay with you while you open it, if you want.”
“Who delivered it?” Ginny asked as she followed Carter inside.
“Couldn’t tell you. I found it this morning on the porch.” Carter closed the door behind them. She snagged the package from the coffee table and gently placed it in Ginny’s hands. It was wrapped in brown paper with “Kit” written in black marker on the top. Ginny didn’t recognize the handwriting and couldn’t imagine who’d delivered it.
Slowly she removed the brown paper, then fell onto Carter’s couch with a plop, her mouth open.
“It’s my Bible!” Ginny said incredulously. “It’s my Bible from when I was just a little girl.”
She smiled then and opened it, noticing her name where she had written it in bold block letters: Guinevere Love Lemon.
“I wonder who’s had this. I wonder why whoever had it never gave it to me before.”
Carter sat next to her. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s actually kind of a nice surprise. I’m shocked, but glad to see it. It’s like—like running into an old friend.” She’d thought about Grizz’s chess set and jacket showing up. The kitten with the missing king. Even Moe’s journal. What else might show up?
She shook the thought off. She didn’t do dark and she wouldn’t start now. Not when she was so close to starting over.
“Do you want something to drink?” Carter was asking. “I’m dying of thirst.”
“No, I’m not thirsty, but I may be later. I want to make a serious dent cleaning out the garage by the end of the day.”
Carter broke into a wide grin. “Good for you.” She stood then. “I’m getting my drink and heading out back. Call me if you need me?”
“I will,” Ginny told her friend.
She leaned back on the sofa and gently fanned through the pages when she realized something was stuck between them. She took out some papers. An old school picture was paper-clipped to them. She stared at it. The picture didn’t invoke any good memories. She would throw it away.
Then she noticed the rest of the papers and spotted Delia’s handwriting immediately. It wasn’t hard to recognize. She’d learned how to emulate it perfectly when she handled the family’s finances. It used to be slightly shaky, but this handwriting was neat and precise. It was definitely Delia’s, though.
Ginny had a hard time calming her own shaking hands so she could read what was carefully written on the old notebook paper, now slightly yellow with age:
My Dear Ginny,
Where do I begin? Where do I even begin to tell you what you have deserved to know from the very beginning?
I should probably start with your father. I wasn’t living in a commune when I got pregnant with you. I know you always believed that. That was only one of many lies I fabricated. I was actually married to a man I was deeply in love with. You were conceived in love, Ginny, but it went horribly wrong and I blame myself.
Your father’s name was David Dunn and my name was Alice Crespin. We married right out of high school and were working our way through college. It wasn’t easy, but we were young and motivated and excited about our future. We wanted to wait until after we graduated to have a baby, but we were both elated when we found out I was pregnant.
I don’t remember exactly how it started, but your father was invited to a student rally at the college. It was a time when nuclear weapons were being protested. I remember him telling me he didn’t want to raise a child in a world that wasn’t safe. He started getting more and more involved in politics and the rallies and protests. I adored your father and I went along with him to some of them, but I was so wrapped up in work and studying and my pregnancy that I didn’t realize how truly involved he’d become. I didn’t see it in time to save him. To save us.
It was a total surprise when you and your sister were born almost two months early. We didn’t know we were having two babies. We were afraid we were going to lose both of you, but in spite of your size, you were a fighter. You had to stay in the hospital for almost two months before we were finally able to bring you home. Your sister was much smaller and had to stay longer.
You were only home for a few days when your father came home from work one night and told me he was going back out. He picked you up out of your bassinet and told you he was going to do something important. He was going to do something that would make the world a better place to raise his beautiful daughters, Josie and Jodi.
You were named after my parents. My father was Joseph and my mother was Diana. That’s your real name, Josephine Diana. We called you Josie.
I’m smiling as I write this. Your sister’s name was a little more challenging. Your father’s father was Jedediah. We spent days trying to shorten the name Jedediah. We couldn’t so we named her Jodi Marie. Marie was your father’s mother’s name.
As God is my witness, I didn’t know what your father was really going to do that night. When I asked him if it was another protest, he just handed you to me and smiled. I never saw him or your sister again.
I was woken up that night around midnight by banging on our door. I was shocked to find two men I knew from the protests. They told me something had gone horribly wrong. The group had been planning to make a big statement. They had planted a bomb in the college library. They didn’t want anyone to get hurt, so they made sure to do it at night when nobody would be around. They hadn’t known some students were given permission to use the library after hours to hold a study session. Your father realized it too late and ran back in to warn them. Your father, along with seven students, were killed in the blast.
The two men that came to the house told me I needed to leave. I needed to pack up and move before they identified your father. They said they were going home to get their things and get out of town, and if I didn’t want to go to prison and have my babies taken away, I should, too. I was too stunned to even answer them. What could your father have been thinking? Didn’t he realize that even if nobody had been killed, bombing a school was serious and the authorities knew about the protests? It would’ve only been a matter of time before they made the connection. I was angry at him, not fully taking in the fact that he was dead.
But then I started to get scared. I did pack you up. I took a small file that contained our personal information. Our marriage and birth certificates, social security and school identifications. I took what little cash we had and walked to the closest bus stop. I carried you, a diaper bag and a small suitcase. I left everything else behind, including your sister. I would’ve gone straight to the hospital to get her, but she was still too little. It would’ve been the same as signing her death warrant. She was too small to live outside the incubator.
I had a horrible choice to make that night. To risk losing both of my children or just one. I chose the latter.
I don’t remember how many days I spent switching buses. I ended up in Miami and slowly started to rebuild our lives. Your father and I didn’t have any family to turn to. I was afraid and I was alone, except for you. It didn’t take me too long to establish a new identity as Delia Lemon. I found a low paying job and an elderly lady to care for you while I worked.
I thought I was doing okay for a while, Ginny. Then something changed. I was miserable, exhausted and lonely. I remember holding you one day and you messed in your last clean diaper. I was sitting in a hot, cramped, one-room dump without a clean diaper in sight, and something in me snapped. I looked into your eyes and I remembered what your father said the last night he was alive. He said that he was doing it for his daughters. He was doing it for you and Jodi, and she was gone from my life.
So I blamed you. I convinced myself I had been forced into the life I now had, a life on the run, because of what your father supposedly did for you. Looking back, I was naïve. I’m certain I could’ve gone to the authorities and told them I hadn’t been involved. The men who came to the door that night were probably there to scare me away so I wouldn’t implicate them. Still, I convinced myself I was guilty by association and didn’t want to go to prison.
Something happened that day. Something I have regretted every single day since my sobriety, but not something I knew I should’ve been regretting then. I left you alone in your dirty diaper, walked to the closest liquor store, and bought something to drink. Something to numb the pain. The pain of losing your father, your sister, and the life we knew. And even worse, I allowed myself to blame it on an innocent baby girl. You.
That was the beginning of the end, and I don’t need to tell you how the rest of your life played out. You were living in a nightmare and probably didn’t even know it. You were always a happy, positive child, and it only made me hate and resent you more. What kind of woman can hate her own child? I treated you as badly as I could and you persevered. You never stooped to my level.
You’re probably wondering why I never abandoned you. Just got rid of you. I’ve had time to reflect on that and I’m ashamed to say that looking back, it was because I saw you as my excuse to wallow in my addictions. You were the reminder that told me it was okay to continue drinking and doing drugs. You were the cause of my pain and I deserved to get stoned and drunk.
I remember thinking that if the authorities were looking for me, they would’ve been looking for a woman with a daughter your age named Josephine. It was then that I started calling you Guinevere. I can’t even remember how I came up with that name. I’m certain it was during a time I was experimenting with the heavier drugs. I was using LSD by the time I’d met Vince. He was the only reason I stopped. And even then I hadn’t stopped completely. I was still doing some heavier drugs even after we were married.
When I finally made the move to Fort Lauderdale, two years had passed that you should’ve been in school. I had a fake birth certificate made for you with the name Guinevere and a false birth date. You were always small and had grown only a little by the time I enrolled you in kindergarten. Even though you were seven, you easily passed as a five-year-old, and nobody questioned it.
You pretty much raised yourself from that point on. I was relieved when food showed up on our doorstep. A normal parent would’ve been grateful. Maybe even a little embarrassed. Not me.
Even though I was horrible, and I can admit it, I still never sent Johnny Tillman to rape you. He was supposed to scare you. He was supposed to tell you to back off the Steve Marcus thing. After you figured out what Marcus was doing to his kid, he came to me and threatened me. He knew I was growing and selling pot, but worse, he had someone break into our house. I had gotten rid of our real birth certificates and other identification years earlier, but I kept my marriage license, and they stole it and did some digging. Marcus told me he would expose me. I would go to prison as an accessory to murder or worse because it was a bombing, I would be tried in a federal court and the sentence would be that much more severe.
And just so you know, Vince was never part of that. He didn’t know I sent Johnny Tillman to our house that night. Ginny, I’m sorry for not even being nice to you after it happened. A real mother would’ve comforted her daughter. A real mother wouldn’t have asked her how she could’ve done something so dumb. A real mother wouldn’t have sent a monster to scare you.
Looking back, a real mother wouldn’t have bullied her daughter into going on the birth control pill. By then you had found such comfort in your church, and I even tried to take that away from you. I knew birth control was against the Catholic faith, but I made you take it, anyway. I think I was jealous of your happiness and faith, and I tried to ruin that, too, by forcing something on you I knew you would feel guilty about. I couldn’t stand to see you happy. I can see now that Johnny Tillman wasn’t the monster. I was.
More than a year later some big tattooed man showed up at my work. He told me he was taking you and he threatened me and Vince. Then he showed me what was left of Johnny Tillman. Worse yet, he told me that he knew about my past. He was responsible for scaring Steve Marcus away and he knew about the bombing. Marcus must have told him. I was afraid for myself and Vince. I wasn’t afraid for you, Ginny. I am so sorry. So very sorry.
I’ve been trying to find you. Vince and I have finally sobered up and I told him about my past. I told him everything. He’s sorry about you too. We’ve gone to the police, but they just take notes and tell us they’ll get back to us. I asked Guido just yesterday if he remembered a man like that coming around our house. It never occurred to me the man must have seen you somewhere. Maybe he even lived in our neighborhood back then and I’d never noticed him. Of course, I was too wasted to notice much back then.
I’m writing this letter as part of my therapy. I don’t know if you’ll ever get to read it because I don’t know if I’ll ever find you. But if I do find you, I will look you in the eyes and tell you I’m truly, truly sorry. I will let you read this and I will ask for your forgiveness. God has taught me about forgiveness. And if you don’t forgive me, I will have to accept that. I’m not even sure I forgive myself at this point, but I’m trying and God knows that.
I tried looking for your sister, too. I’d had high hopes that she would’ve been adopted by a nice family. Instead, I found a death certificate. She died a week after I left her there. I have nothing to remember her by. Not a picture, a piece of clothing she would’ve worn. Nothing. All I have is a memory of a lovely nurse who cared for her as if she was her own. I don’t even remember the nurse’s name, just that she had a pretty accent. She used to call your sister Cricket because when Jodi would take a deep breath, her exhale came out sounding like little chirps.
I don’t have much to remember you by either, Ginny. After that man took you, I started cleaning out the house. Told myself that by removing any memory of you, I could remove the guilt that had slowly sunk into my soul. Maybe it was there all along and seeing your things called attention to it. Your Bible was something I could hide in the bottom of a never-used drawer, and that’s where it’s been for all of these years. I hate the picture of you I found tucked inside. It was taken during a time I know you were being horribly neglected. But it’s now all I have along with yours and Jodi’s original birth certificates, which I recently was able to track down.
Vince is taking me on a trip back to the city where I went to college. I’m going to face my past and admit my part in the bombing. Although my part was never anything more than going to a few protests, I was married to the man who helped plan and plant that bomb.
When I get back, I will continue my search for you. And I will continue writing this letter. Maybe you’ll want to know more about your father. I can do that. I can tell you more about him.
She hadn’t signed it. Through blurry vision, Ginny stared at the three-page note as tears streamed down her cheeks. Delia never signed it because she’d never made it home to finish it. Ginny looked at the date on the letter; Delia and Vince had died in a car accident less than a week later.
Attached to the back of the note were four pieces of paper: The fake birth certificate that Delia had made for Guinevere Love Lemon all those years ago and the two real ones showing hers and Jodi’s real birthdays. They were born in 1958. Jodi’s death certificate was also attached.
Just then, Carter walked in and said, “I just came back for my—oh, Gin, what’s wrong?” She ran to her friend. “Why are you crying, honey? What’s wrong? Bad memories? Do you want me to call Tommy?”
Ginny tried to smile. “No, I finally got some answers. That’s all. I finally got some answers.”
It was bittersweet to find out she wasn’t an only child. At least not for the first few months of her life. What would her life have been like if her father hadn’t helped plant that bomb? What would it have been like to have been raised by a sober Alice Crespin and a father? Her heart felt heavy. Was it possible to mourn a life you didn’t have? If she’d had that life, she most certainly wouldn’t have been raised in Florida. She would never have known Grizz. She would never have known Tommy. She wouldn’t have her children.
It had been difficult to read Delia’s note, and yet there was something freeing in it as well. She got a little angry when she realized someone had held on to this Bible for years. Delia had died in 1980. Why was it only being given to her now? And in an envelope addressed only to her gang name. Was there any significance?
No. There wasn’t. She was certain of that. Maybe it had just been forgotten about. It didn’t matter now, anyway. None of it did actually. None of it.
She took a deep breath and remembered her reason for being at Carter’s. She would handle cleaning out the garage now. She passed the note to Carter and told her to read it for herself. She wiped her tears with the back of her hands and smiled. “I’m going to go tackle the garage. I am so ready to start over, Carter.”
Carter looked up from the note and smiled at her. “I can come help you.”
“No. I’ll do it myself.”
She walked with long sure strides to the side of the garage and tried to ignore the pain in her chest. The pain of a life she hadn’t known, wouldn’t know, but yet somehow still grieved. You’ve made progress, Ginny. Don’t fall apart now. You should be happy to know the truth. To know Delia had regrets about you. She couldn’t deny, though, that even with Delia’s confession, it stung to not read somewhere in the note that Delia had loved her.
She opened the door with the key that had been put back under the ceramic frog. She went in and flipped on the light, then pressed the button to open all three automatic garage doors. She was looking down as she walked toward the motorcycles. She smiled as she caught a whiff of fresh air from the newly raised doors. She reached into her back pocket for the blue bandana and stopped dead in her tracks.
Grizz’s favorite bike was gone.
She held the bandana in her hand and stared at the spot where she’d laid on the ground and cried over a month ago. Then she looked up and walked out of the garage, gazing across the expanse of the property. She looked at the bandana in her hand. And she remembered all those years ago when Grizz was first incarcerated in the county jail.
“If you ever need anything,” he’d said then, “I mean fucking anything, and Grunt can’t be there for you, you put your hair up in one of those high ponytails you like to wear and you wrap my bandana around it. You hear me? You wear my bandana, and it might take a day or two, but you’ll get whatever help you need. You understand me?”
Now she knew. She knew what he meant. But how? Who? Who would’ve gotten a message to Grizz in jail or prison that she needed him? Who was watching out for her if it wasn’t Tommy?
Movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention and she quickly glanced at the front porch. Carter was sitting there in a rocking chair. She had her right leg perched on the edge of the chair and had one arm resting on it casually as she rocked. The note from Delia was dangling from her hand. Their eyes met. Carter gave her a small smile.
Carter? Her dear, sweet friend Carter had been keeping an eye on her for Grizz? Grizz, the man she’d accused of not caring about other people. All those years ago, when she’d told Grizz about her new friend that she met at college, Carter, and the stalker causing her so much fear. The stalker that left her alone after she went to the police and took out a restraining order. Ginny realized now there had been no police report or restraining order. Grizz had taken care of it and gained an ally for life.
Tears filled her eyes again. Did she want to know? Did she dare to ask? Could it be? She looked at the blue bandana in her hand and at the empty spot where Grizz’s bike used to be. Then she looked back at her friend. They locked eyes, and she knew Carter would tell her the truth. Carter nodded slightly.
Hope was replaced with an immediate and intense anger. An anger she hadn’t expected. How dare he! How dare he do this to her! If she was reading Carter’s nod correctly, then it meant he was alive. Grizz was out there, and he was alive.
Did Tommy know?
She thought about her husband’s behavior since Grizz’s execution. No. Tommy didn’t know. She was certain of that. She could tell by his actions. If he even suspected Grizz was still alive, he would be acting even more protective of her. Tommy wasn’t behaving like a man whose life was still on hold while he waited for the other shoe to drop. No. He was behaving like a man who had just started to live. He really believed the kitten was a signal from the grave that all had been forgiven. She had naively believed it, too.
She dropped to the paved driveway and sat cross-legged as she digested what she was learning. Still clutching the bandana, she started to cry again. But it wasn’t a melancholy, soft cry. It was an angry, loud one. She felt Carter’s arms try to hug her from behind and she shook her off.
“Don’t! Don’t, Carter. Leave me alone,” she wailed as she rejected her friend’s attempt at solace.
Carter stood and walked around to face her. Looking up, Ginny cried, “Carter, leave me alone. Just go away and leave me alone.”
Carter squatted and grabbed Ginny’s face with both hands. Using her thumbs to wipe away Ginny’s tears, she quietly asked, “What did you expect him to do, Gin? Did you expect him to show up on your doorstop and announce it? Did you expect that he should’ve given you a choice? Put you in the position of having to decide whether to leave your family and disappear with him? To live under new identities? Or leave Tommy and take your kids with you to be with him and start over somewhere? Can you imagine the two of you trying to raise children who would question why they’d been taken from the only father they’d ever known? Think about the choices you would’ve had to make if he’d shown up.”
“Stop making excuses for him.” Ginny swiped at her tears. “I never asked anything of him but the truth, Carter. That’s all I ever asked of him from the very beginning. He wouldn’t even tell me his real name. And don’t think for a second I don’t know I probably named my son after an alias. He never trusted me enough to really let me in. I got pieces here and there, but he never told me a thing.”
Her voice got very low then and came out in almost a growl. “I’m not stupid. I know he had Blue set Jan and Matthew up. I’m sure Tommy thinks it, too, but we would never talk about it. That’s what we’ve done in our home for years. Deny our past and try to pretend we weren’t part of something so horrible. And if Grizz thought for a second that Tommy was the one that helped Jan, he’d be paying for it.”
“Ginny, don’t—”
“I hate him! I hate him, Carter!”
The sobs began anew, became loud and uncontrollable. Carter reached for her again, and this time, Ginny let herself be held and comforted.
“How could he do this to me? How could he make me love him so much only to leave me? Then to make me mourn him, and now, to know that he’s alive and purposely chose not to be with me all those years ago? I hate him for that, Carter.”
Carter spoke softly. “I don’t believe you hate him, Ginny.” She looked at her friend. “I don’t know any of the details and I don’t want to know. But I do know one thing. I know the choice to be with you must have been taken away from him. Because I have never seen a man, any man, maybe not even Tommy, love a woman like Grizz loves you. I’ve never seen a man go out of his way to protect someone he couldn’t be with. You may be having a lot of doubts about him now, and I don’t blame you. But one thing you should never doubt is his love for you.”
Carter pulled back from Ginny and could see by her expression that Ginny had heard her. She was starting to take in big gulps of air, and the tears were subsiding.
They sat like that for a few minutes. Ginny used the bandana to wipe at her tears as she tried to calm her breathing.
“I’m fine now,” she said in a small raw voice. “He made the choice for me, so I’m done talking about it.”
Carter gave her a questioning look. This was so like Ginny. Brave, resolved, determined.
“Seriously, Carter. I’m fine. It’s been a rough day. My Bible and now this, but I’m okay. Well, I’m not okay, but I will be.”
Carter nodded at her. She knew Ginny needed a little space, some time to process all this. “I’ll be out back with the horses if you need me. I love you, Gin.”
Ginny watched her friend head for the horse stalls while she took another deep breath. She tried to collect her thoughts. Twenty-five years of memories washed over her in a single moment. She knew without a doubt there was truth in what Carter had said. She never once doubted Grizz’s real and genuine love for her. And if she was remembering the Grizz she’d married and fallen in love with all of those years ago, then this situation wasn’t of his choosing. He wasn’t with her because he couldn’t be, not because he didn’t want to be. She didn’t know why, and she didn’t know if it was something she should try to find out. And if she did find out, then what would she do?
No, Carter’s explanation made sense. How could she have chosen?
Her head was spinning and she realized Grizz had done her a favor. He had loved her enough to spare her from having to make that choice. Still, he needed her to know he was there. He would always be her protector. But did she really need to know that? Was this his way of ruining her life with Tommy? She knew subconsciously she’d let Grizz cast a shadow over her marriage. It wasn’t until his death last month and her return home to Tommy that she really let herself put her past where it belonged. In the past. That didn’t last long.
She couldn’t exactly say what she was feeling. Anger, relief, remorse, grief. She was so conflicted. It was just too much. Delia’s letter, and now this.
Don’t lose it, Gin. Don’t lose it now. You’ve come too far.
She looked at the bandana clutched so tightly in her fist that her knuckles were turning white. She wouldn’t make a decision today. She would do what she came here to do: Clean out the garage and her past with it. She wiped the last of her tears with the already-soaked bandana and, lifting her right hip off the pavement, she tucked it away in her back pocket. Maybe Grizz was right.
After all, she had no way of knowing if she might need the bandana one day. She had no way of knowing if she might need him one day. Him. Jason William Talbot.