Tin Men (The Clay Lion Series Book 2) Read online

  I turned back to the road, disquieted by our conversation. It was as if she was hiding something from me, and I didn’t like it.

  “Anyway,” I said, attempting to shake it off, “she’s suffering more than I initially thought. She’s angry. Probably depressed. What do you think about her talking to your Dr. Richmond? I told her I’d go with her if she wanted me to.”

  When she didn’t respond, I turned again to gauge her expression. The color drained from her face and she appeared frozen in her seat.

  “Or, we could choose another therapist to talk to…” I continued.

  “No. No. It’s fine,” she said quietly. “It’s actually a wonderful idea. I think she’d really benefit from his help. You would too for that matter.”

  I knew her well enough to realize something was wrong. The tension between us was growing, and I couldn’t put my finger on when I felt the first pang. She and I saw eye to eye on most things. She was always making comments about ‘the universe’ wanting us to be together, and strangely, I felt the same way. She accepted me, from the minute I met her, just the way I was. No expectations that I would achieve social and financial greatness like the girls I knew in high school. No fear about how the world would view our relationship, or pretenses that it was anything but pure and honest and true.

  I reached for her hand across the center console and wove her fingers between my own. “I’m glad you’re here,” I said.

  She smiled and squeezed my hand tightly. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

  The map application on her tablet began to beep, alerting us to our exit and destroying the intimacy of the moment. “You need to get off at the next road and make a left. We’re almost there.”

  Within five minutes we were pulling up the Jacksons’ gravel driveway. The house at the end was a modest double wide trailer with a border of hydrangeas surrounding the front deck.

  “You sure this is it?” I asked as I turned off the engine.

  “Positive.” She grabbed her bag from the back seat and turned to face me. “Whatever we find here, it’s all going to be okay.”

  “I know. I’ve got you. Let’s do this.”

  We crossed in front of the house and were joined by a large mutt who was clearly more greeter than watchdog, as he almost knocked Brooke over, paws on her shoulders, covering her face with slobbery kisses.

  “Rusty! Rusty, get down boy!” called a woman from around the side of the house. Both Brooke and I turned to see who was approaching, and the dog joyfully bounded off in her direction.

  A lanky, beanpole of a woman wearing cutoff overalls and a welcoming smile joined us in the front of the house.

  “My apologies for the dog. Got kicked out of obedience school for being a bad influence on the others. Twice. I hope he didn’t hurt you,” she said to Brooke with an accent so thick, I felt sure she was raised in Alabama.

  “No, not at all,” she replied.

  “What can I do for you two this fine day?”

  “Well, I’m Charlie and this is Brooke. We’re looking for a Sandra Jackson,” I told her.

  “You’re in luck!” she cried. “You found her!”

  Brooke and I shared a knowing glance, filled with all the disappointment and relief that came with the woman’s declaration.

  “Well,” I began, “as it turns out, you aren’t who we’re looking for after all.”

  “But wait. I just told you I was Sandra Jackson. And that’s who you’re looking for. So how can I not be who you were looking for when I just told you that I was?”

  I couldn’t help but smile at the truth of her statement. I tried again to explain the situation.

  “You see, I found out recently that I am adopted and I’m looking for my birth mother. I have a picture of her, and now that I’ve seen you, I know you aren’t the woman in the photo and therefore, cannot be the person that I’m searching for.”

  “Oh,” she said, scratching Rusty behind the ears. “What in the world made you think I could’ve been your momma in the first place?”

  “We found a birth certificate for a son you gave birth to around the time I was born. There’s no other record of him, and we thought maybe it was because you gave him up for adoption.”

  Sandra stopped petting the dog and looked at me seriously, as if she was in a trance.

  “How old are you?” she asked. “Just turned 21?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” I replied.

  “My Duane would have been 21 this past April.”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Me too.”

  She shook her head and began walking to the door on the side of the house. “There’s a reason why you didn’t find anything on my Duane,” she called over her shoulder. “Come inside for some tea and I’ll tell you about him.”

  I was beginning to wonder why I didn’t listen to my own instincts and make phone calls instead of house calls. Clearly, butting into people’s lives had consequences. But having a glass of iced tea with Duane Jackson’s mother seemed like the least I could do, given the strangeness of the situation. I followed Brooke and Rusty into the house and the screen door slammed behind me.

  “Woo, it’s been a warm one out there today,” Sandra said, pulling the pitcher of tea from the refrigerator. You two want lemon?”

  “Sure. Thanks,” I replied.

  She poured three tall glasses of tea in mismatched tumblers and placed them on the counter.

  “Come have a seat on the sofa and bring your tea. Got a couple minutes until Billy gets home from work before I gotta get ready to take off myself. I work third shift over at the factory.”

  Brooke smiled at me as we followed Sandra out of the kitchen. I knew what she was thinking; that Sandra Jackson was a lonely woman and the least we could do was spare a few minutes of our day. I rolled my eyes and she stuck her tongue out at me. The tension between us dissolved.

  “So, you’re looking for your birth momma, huh? Funny times we live in. Can’t you just go to the adoption agency and have them look it up for you?”

  “No, Ma’am. My situation is a bit more complicated than that. I’m having to do my own investigation, and to be honest, it’s not going too well.”

  “I see. I’m mighty sorry to hear that. And I’m sorry you drove out here only to find another dead end. But I can promise you I never gave my boy Duane up for adoption. Might have threatened to at times, mind you, but that kid was the light of my life. I guess you didn’t find anything on him because he died when he was 14 in an ATV accident. Happened right around the corner, on the farm down the road.” She took a long swig of her tea and set her glass aside. “Not a day goes by I don’t think of that boy. He was a good kid. Didn’t get in much trouble. Did okay in school. Wanted to be a mechanic like his daddy.” She scratched Rusty under his collar and he shook his tail approvingly. “But that’s enough about me. Tell me about your momma. Why’s it so important that you find her?”

  With no compunction, Sandra cut right to the chase. Although I knew she was asking out of sheer curiosity, I was briefly taken aback by her intrusive question. The truth was I hadn’t actually stopped to analyze why I felt compelled to find her. There was no logical explanation. I had a mom who loved and supported me, and by her account, my birth mother had been deemed unfit to raise me. It stood to reason, if I found her, that she might not be the type of woman who would add anything meaningful to my life. And yet, I still needed to know who she was.

  “Do you know when you’re watching a really good TV show and it’s 9:58 and you know the storyline is never gonna get wrapped up by the credits so you’re gonna have to wait until the next week to find out what happens? And you don’t know if the story is gonna take a good turn or a bad turn, but it doesn’t matter… you just have to find out how it ends?”

  “Yup. Happens all the time.”

  “That’s what I feel like right now. It’s as if I know there’s another episode of the show and it might not be a happy ending, but it doesn’t matter because it’s my story that’s wai
ting to be continued. And on the slim chance that my mother might be glad to see me if I find her, I owe it to both of us to look, because maybe she still thinks of me and wants to hear my story too.”

  Sandra nodded thoughtfully. “I think you may be right about that. You know anything about her?”

  I shook my head. “Only that she was forced to give me up because she couldn’t take care of me.”

  “That must have been hard for her.”

  I considered how she may have felt, and my heart ached, reflecting upon what it must have been like for her when I was taken away. “I guess so,” I replied.

  Our conversation was interrupted by the sound of car tires crunching across the gravel drive, and Sandra lifted her head to peer out the window.

  “That’d be Billy,” she said. “Time for me to get ready for work.”

  “We should probably head out then,” I said, standing up from the sofa with my empty glass.

  Before I realized what she was doing, Brooke crossed the room and gathered Sandra into her arms. Not surprisingly, Sandra returned her embrace. I couldn’t help but smile at how quickly Brooke connected with other people. She never met a stranger.

  “It was nice to meet you, and we’re both very sorry for the loss of your son,” she said. “We hope you have a nice evening.”

  “You too,” she replied, opening the screen door so we could pass through. As I reached the first step, she grabbed my arm. “You know, if I gave a baby up for adoption, I think I’d be happy he wanted to find me. Keep looking. I’m sure she’s out there somewhere.”

  I looked into her eyes. They were warm. And sincere. “Thanks,” I said, and I meant it.

  C HAPTER TEN

  Back on the interstate, Brooke’s nose was buried in the GPS once again.

  “Just stay on this road until we get closer to Petersburg. It’s gonna be a while. Thirty miles or so.” She laid her head back on the headrest and sighed deeply.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” I asked.

  “Not worth that much. I was just thinking I’m an idiot. I should have looked for death certificates for the kids we couldn’t find. That would have saved us from bothering those poor women.”

  “They didn’t seem too bothered. In fact, it seemed like they both kind of welcomed the fact someone was interested in their kids.”

  “I guess.” She hesitated. “Do you want me to see if there’s a death certificate for the next one? Might save us the drive all the way to Petersburg.”

  I almost told her yes. But as I considered how I truly felt, I was overcome by a wave of disappointment. Not because of the failure our trip had become, but because I didn’t like the thought of ending my adventure with her so soon. I looked away from the road and reached out to turn her face in my direction. “You could. But I was looking forward to the drive. Just me and you. And I promised you a nice dinner for your trouble, remember?”

  “I do remember,” she said smiling. “Where are you thinking?”

  “I was thinking the café with that great barbeque, where we stopped on the way home from the beach last year.”

  “That was good,” she replied. She set down her tablet. “Okay, you’ve convinced me. We’re already on the way. Let’s just stay the course.”

  “Alright,” I declared, pounding the steering wheel with both hands. “Brooke and Charlie, staying the course. That’s what I like to hear!”

  “You’re a nut, you know that?” she laughed.

  “I’m nuts about you,” I replied.

  She was suddenly serious, once again. Her face fell, her smile fading. She turned from me to look out the window, but I knew she wasn’t concentrating on the miles of farmland passing by.

  It never bothered me that she was a serious person. In fact, I thought she was a refreshing change from many of the shallow, frivolous women I met throughout my life. Brooke was an old soul, in many ways. She was quiet and reflective, and it took a bit of instigation to encourage her outgoing side into the light. Her brother’s death affected her in ways I would never understand. I imagined when he died, he took a bit of her spirit with him. I would have relished the opportunity to have spent just one day with her before that tragedy, if only to see what she was like while her spirit was still whole.

  I learned over the years when it was best to leave her alone, and also, the times when she could be persuaded to bare her soul. Since my father’s death, she’d become more reserved than usual, and I saw the car’s confinement as an opportunity to lure her out of her proverbial shell.

  “Two down, two to go,” I said cheerfully.

  She scoffed, shaking her head. “It amazes me that you can be so…”

  “So what?”

  “So completely glib about this whole thing. Your father dies. That’s bad enough. But then on top of that, because I’m a big ‘Snooper McSnooperson,’ you find out he’s not really your father. And oh, by the way, your mom’s not really your mom and your sister’s not really your sister. And so now, here we are, barging into people’s lives, searching for a mother who was deemed unfit to parent, for whatever reason, like we’re on spring break.”

  “Brooke, I don’t…”

  “Wait. I’m not done. The worst part is that you have yet to deal with the emotional ramifications of losing your father. What you’re doing instead is redirecting the energy you should be spending on that going on this wild goose chase search for your birth mother. It’s just a way for you to bury the pain so you don’t have to deal with it.”

  “Do you really…”

  “I was not finished! And if all of that wasn’t concerning enough, I just know down deep, whoever we find or don’t find out there is not going to be who you want her to be, and then you’re going to have yet another disappointment to bury and ignore. And I, for one, can’t watch you do it.”

  I remained silent, fearful of interrupting her again. I had no idea I was sitting beside a dormant volcano on the verge of eruption. And now I felt as though I was covered in molten lava. I waited patiently for her to cool down. Finally she spoke.

  “I’m finished now,” she said placidly.

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. She never stayed angry for long.

  “You sure?” I asked.

  She gave me a sideways glance and tried desperately not to smile. I knew she was attempting to hold her ground. “I’m serious, Charlie. You have some major issues to deal with.”

  “Duly noted.”

  “You need to go talk to Dr. Richmond. Or someone.”

  “Fine.”

  “You need to figure things out.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do.”

  She groaned. “You’re exasperating, you know that?”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  She went back to staring out the window for several minutes before turning to face me, placing her hand on my knee, just beneath the hem of my shorts. The sensation of her touch gave me goose bumps.

  “I thought that I could, but now I don’t know if I can do this,” she said.

  “Do what?”

  “Be an accomplice on a mission that has such a high probability of ending in sadness.”

  “Why’s it gonna end in sadness?”

  “Because, Charlie, there’s a lot more sadness in life than happy endings. I know that better than anyone.”

  For a split second, my heart stopped beating in my chest. I suddenly realized what triggered her outburst. As much as she was concerned for my happiness, she was concerned for herself as well. In her short life, she’d already dealt with the horrific pain of losing her brother, and until that moment, I hadn’t considered the affect my father’s death was having on her. Now, in the search for my mother, we’d encountered two more deaths and two more grieving mothers in the course of an afternoon. Perhaps being around so much sadness was causing the painful memories of losing Branson to resurface.

  Dealing with her brother’s death was something she rarely discussed. It was the one part of her life she k
ept shut deep inside. I respected her privacy but now wondered what else happened during that period to cause so much inner turmoil.

  “You’re so strong, Brooke. Stronger than you give yourself credit for. And we have each other. We always have each other. We can get through anything.” I paused, remembering her own words. “Aren’t you always saying the universe wants us to be together? Maybe this is the reason why. Maybe you’re the one who’s supposed to see me through this, because you’re the only one strong enough to do it.”

  She peered up at me. Her eyes were full of apprehension, but within them, I could also see the tiniest glimmer of hope. “You think so?”

  “Yes. I know so. In fact, I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.”

  Her GPS started beeping frantically. She directed me to take the next exit off the interstate and then quickly changed the subject.

  “So, Beverly Moore could be your mom.”

  “Sounds like a good name for a mom. Should I change my name to Charlie Moore?”

  “No. I like Charlie Johnson better than Charlie Moore. And besides, I’ve already spent hours practicing signing my name ‘Brooke Johnson.’ You can’t change it on me now.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said.

  “Hey! You’re the one who just confirmed the universe wants us to be together. Might as well get a head start on the monogramming.”

  “You really are mental,” I teased, although I wasn’t upset by the thought of Brooke sharing my last name.

  The GPS began to beep again. “Turn here,” she instructed, ignoring my jab. I made a quick right hand turn, practically throwing Brooke into my lap. “There it is. Just up ahead.”

  We reached the address listed for Beverly Moore, mother to Kevin Moore, whoever he was. It was a sprawling two story brick home, situated on at least an acre of well-manicured lawn. It was an interesting section of town, a suburban feel inside the city limits. There were no cars in the driveway and no lights on at the house. My heart sank.