Redemption, page 26
They both shook their heads.
“No, never,” Jackie answered. She bit her lip. “Not to sound paranoid, but are you sure they’re not trying to cozy up to the family for personal gain?”
Beth laughed briefly, though she touched her mother’s shoulder. “Believe me, they’re none too pleased to have us aware of their existence. Especially Calista.”
“Aiden’s on his way here,” Jason said. “I don’t know if she’s coming with him or not. But as soon as you see him, you’ll understand why we have no doubts they’re who they say they are.”
Desi was watching everything quietly. Something was nagging at her, something Grace had said over and over again all those years ago when Desi and her grandmother were getting on the plane bound for Arizona. Something about paying restitution to God.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I’ll check on Sampson.” Not waiting for anyone to protest, she headed the direction he’d gone. She found him in the backyard at the corner of the fence around the pool, staring into the distance. He didn’t look at her when she came alongside him.
“I have a granddaughter and great-grandchildren, Desi. My God. Have you met them?”
“No. From what I gather, everything’s happened all of a sudden here in the last day or two aside from a couple of chance encounters. Are you okay?”
He chuckled bitterly. “I’m trying to figure that out.”
“I’ve always wondered about something Grace said to me all those years ago,” Desi said softly. “She said she was finally getting a chance to do the right thing.”
“Helping you and Nadeen gave her peace that she’d never had before,” he admitted, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go in. I think I have some explaining to do.”
“Aiden will be here soon. Maybe Calista, too,” she told him as they made their way back inside.
He nodded. “That’s good. That’s very good, then. I’ll wait until they get here.”
Once inside, the nerves in the room were a palpable, almost-living presence. Desi could see Paulo struggling to take it all in. Jason’s frown as he watched his son was concerned, and he sent her a look over Paulo’s head.
“You know, I noticed you don’t have a lot of groceries,” she told Jason. “Would it be okay if Paulo and I went and got some? You know what you guys usually eat, right?” she asked Paulo. She smoothed that errant curl back, smiling gently.
“That sounds like a great idea,” Jason said, “But I don’t have any cash on me at the moment.”
Desi waved his words away. “We’ll settle up later. I know where you live. What do you say, partner?”
Paulo looked at her, then Jason. “Dad?”
“It’s okay. We’ll talk about all this later. It might be better if you go. Just make sure you get me some ice cream.”
Paulo grinned. “Okay. Pop, need anything?” He hugged Sampson as he waited for an answer.
“Surprise me.” Sampson placed a soft kiss on his head. “You two be careful and have fun.”
“We’ll do our best,” Desi assured him.
Jason stood. “Paulo, go get a fresh shirt on, please. Desi, I’ll walk you out.”
“We’ll swing by the apartment so I can get some clean clothes on. How long do you want me to keep him out?” she asked as they reached her SUV.
“Maybe an hour or two? I’m sorry about this.”
She touched his cheek. “Hush. I’m glad to help however I can, and I enjoy spending time with him. You know that. I’ll call before we head back.”
“That works. Thank you.” Jason hugged her tight.
“Call if you need us.”
He grabbed Paulo in a hug as he came out to the vehicles. “I will. You mind your manners, listen to Desi, and try to have fun. I know how much you love the grocery store.”
Paulo laughed and rolled his eyes. “Yes, sir. Love you, Dad.”
“Love you, too, kiddo. You two be careful.”
As they headed to town, Desi kept the conversation light, unforced. She also said a silent prayer that things would go well, that the secrets that came to light would heal and cleanse and not cause more heartache for everyone involved. The family had been through enough already. She hated to see them go through more.
Chapter 44
Aiden knew he was going to be sick. His palms were sweaty as they gripped the steering wheel, he had the AC on full blast and pointed straight at him, and he felt a terrifying certainty in his gut that before long, he was going to need to pull the truck over and empty his stomach alongside the road.
“You don’t look so hot,” Calista said from the passenger seat. “Maybe I should drive.”
He couldn’t answer her, just pulled over at a wide spot along the two-lane country road, then hurriedly got out of the cab and dashed around to the ditch, where he promptly lost his breakfast.
His sister’s sigh reached his ears as he straightened up. He took another minute to compose himself, then started for the cab. Calista had moved over and was impatiently tapping her fingers on the steering wheel.
“Move.” He opened the door and waited for her to scoot back to her seat.
“Really? You can barely stand up and you want me to let you drive?”
“Lis, I’m fine. I just need a minute. And your driving will make me even sicker. Now, scoot.”
Rolling her eyes, she gave in. But she pulled some wet wipes from her purse, as well as a breath mint, and handed him a cold bottle of water. “It’s ridiculous for you to get so upset about this,” she said quietly. “It isn’t like it means anything if it doesn’t go well.”
Aiden closed his eyes and let the cold air dry the sweat on his brow. “It means something to me.”
“You’re still hoping to build a life here, aren’t you?”
“Are you going to lecture me if I say yes?” He opened his eyes and looked at her. She was picking at a loose thread on the strap of her purse. Wearing a soft, old T-shirt and jeans, she looked about twenty. He knew she’d deliberately dressed down in the hopes that they’d underestimate her. He wasn’t sure it would work. He had a sneaking suspicion his sister was the one who’d be doing the underestimating.
“I guess not. I don’t want to see you get hurt, okay?”
“You think I’m eager to get hurt?” he asked as he pulled back out on the road. “Because I’m not. I thought I’d come here, do a little snooping and confirm our biases, do my job, and go home knowing I’d done the best I could. I didn’t expect to find Sampson Olman and the Hudsons to be the people they apparently are. I sure as hell didn’t expect to find Lori.”
Calista glanced at him. “Did you ever get her to call you back?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.” When he slowed down, then turned off the road into a driveway, she straightened up. “Is this it?”
He stopped the truck. “Yeah. This house here on the left is Sampson’s. The big house is Jason’s.”
For a couple of minutes, they didn’t speak as they took in the property.
“It isn’t what I expected,” Calista admitted. “Where’s the gilded mansion? This looks like anyone’s house.”
Aiden gave a half-laugh. “Even the doctor doesn’t live in a gilded mansion, though don’t let the modest houses fool you. The property isn’t cheap. But they don’t lord their wealth over the poor folks in town. I told you, it was stunning to stumble upon.”
As he’d hoped, he could see the wheels turning in her head, and he thought maybe, finally, some of that chip on her shoulder was starting to fall away.
“Let’s get this over with,” she grumbled.
Reaching out, he touched her hand. “It’ll work out. Right?”
“One way or another.”
Jason met them at the edge of the porch. “Hey. Glad you made it.”
“Thanks for having us,” Aiden said. “Who all is here?”
“Pop, my parents Richard and Jackie, Beth, and our baby sister Joely. Chase couldn’t make it. He had court.”
Calista nodded. “Does he know about us?”
“Not yet. It’s been an eventful twenty-four hours,” Jason told her apologetically. “My son and I are having dinner with Chase and his wife Annie tonight. I’ll tell him then. You two ready? They’re pretty anxious to meet you.”
“Ready’s not the right word, but yeah. Let’s do this,” Calista said. “Are you okay? We heard you had a close call.”
Aiden saw Jason relax a smidge. “I’m okay. Thanks for asking. Come on in.” He held the door open for them.
Taking a deep breath, Aiden nudged Calista, and they stepped inside.
Chapter 45
Of all the painful scenes Jason had endured through the years, he thought watching his mother and grandfather meet Aiden and Calista had to be near the top. As overjoyed as they were to meet Joe’s grandkids, they were also utterly devastated, and it showed.
For the first time in a long time, Jason thought Sampson looked his age as he sat at the end of the table beside Aiden. He could tell his grandfather wanted to reach out, to touch Aiden, but he wasn’t sure of the reception he’d get.
And Jackie… His mother couldn’t stop crying. Just when Jason thought she had her tears conquered, they started up again.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, forcing out a soggy laugh. “It’s overwhelming, all of this. The last couple of days have been… challenging.”
Richard kissed her temple and shot the O’Lachlans a look. “I’m sure they understand.”
“We do,” Calista surprised Jason by saying.
“I just can’t get over your curls,” Jackie said. “I’ll warn you now that Izzy, Beth’s little girl, is probably going to tug on them when she meets you.”
“She loves curls. Likes to watch them spring back up when she pulls on them,” Beth explained. “And since she’s only eighteen months old, she hasn’t yet mastered ‘gentle.’”
Calista smiled uncertainly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“When Izzy wants something, she’s a force of nature,” Joely added. “I can’t imagine where she gets that from. Must be her father.”
Richard cleared his throat. “Sure. That’s where it comes from. Ethan. We’re constantly saying Izzy is Ethan all over again.”
Beth laid her head on his shoulder and squeezed his arm. “Hush, Daddy.”
“Ah. So the Princess has a Princess of her own,” Aiden teased gently.
Beth made a face at him, and the laughter that spread around the table helped break some of the tension in the room.
Sampson sighed. “I know you all have a lot of questions, all of you. I’ll do my best to answer what I know, but I’ll have some of my own. Aiden?”
“I guess the first question… I’ve watched you all over the last few weeks. And to be brutally honest, I’ve not seen what I expected to see. It probably hasn’t escaped your notice that Calista and I have darker complexions than the rest of you. Well, our grandmother, Morgana, was black. From what she told us growing up, that was one of the main objections to her relationship with Joe Olman. But I’ve not seen any hint of racism from you all. The opposite, in fact. Taken as a whole, you’re quite the melting pot. So what happened?”
A pained grimace crossed Sampson’s face. “My late wife Grace wasn’t as open-minded as she could have been when it came to matters of race. And I wasn’t aware of your grandmother’s relationship with Joe until long after it was too late, or so I thought.”
Jackie reached her hand out, and he took it. “Daddy, when did you find out?”
His smile was sad as he looked at her, and it took him a moment to be able to answer. “After Joe was gone, a couple of days after the funeral. He had been dating Olivia most of his senior year in high school, you see, and I knew they’d broken up. But he was closemouthed about it, and I didn’t want to push. I wasn’t heartbroken they’d called things off. No offense, Richard, but I never liked her. Not for Joe.”
Jason knew the astonished look on his face matched the one on his father’s.
“Olivia? My brother’s wife?” Richard asked.
“Well, this just became a Southern drama,” Beth said. She apologized when Sampson shot her a chastising look. “But it’s convoluted, you have to admit.”
“It gets worse, I’m afraid.” Sampson rubbed the back of his neck. “And yes, John Hudson’s wife. See, Joe and John were good friends. Almost as close as Joe and Cullen Jarvis were, at least early on. But then Olivia entered the picture and she liked Joe. He and John didn’t fight per se, but there were hard feelings there when she and Joe started going together.
“As I said, I didn’t know anything about Morgana until a little while after Joe’s funeral. Grace… she lost her mind with grief,” he told Aiden and Calista. “That’s not an exaggeration. She literally had to be institutionalized for a while, and she never fully recovered. The first hint I had of her mental break was when I woke up one night to find her going through Joe’s room, searching quite desperately for anything related to Morgana. I got her back to our room and called the doctor, who sedated her, and the next day when she was able to talk, she told me what she’d been looking for.”
“Where was I?” Jackie asked.
“Sound asleep, thank God.” He twirled his coffee mug around on the table. “We sent you to my mother’s house the next day, and I sat Grace down and asked her what the hell was going on. What she told me almost destroyed me, and in a way, it did destroy us. She admitted that Morgana had come to her a few months earlier, three or four, and told her she was pregnant. That the baby was Joe’s. Grace didn’t believe her, and she wasn’t kind about her rejection. But she asked questions about the relationship, which in retrospect Joe had probably hidden because of her disapproval, and she told Morgana to come back the next day.
“As soon as she left, Grace called the sheriff, Ken Burnett, who was a family friend. She had him look into Morgana and her family. In the meantime, she made haste to get to Olivia to find out what she knew.”
Jason saw his grandfather’s jaw tighten, and pure anger like nothing he’d ever seen lit Sampson’s eyes.
He continued. “Olivia lied to her. Told her that Joe hadn’t been seeing Morgana at all. Listed two or three other guys she swore Morgana was involved with. Said she had a reputation as a girl who was easy, who put out for all the football players. I’m sorry,” he said when Aiden and Calista made sounds of protest. “The truth about what happened is ugly. I know it isn’t true. I knew almost as soon as I found out because I did my own digging. But by then….”
“That not easy to hear,” Aiden said quietly. “She was a good person. Not perfect, but she was good.”
“Unlike my sister-in-law who is and always has been, apparently, a first-class bitch.” Richard cursed Olivia more virulently. “It’s a damned good thing she’s out of town right now. We’ll have words when she gets back, though, I promise you that.”
Jackie laid a hand on his chest. “Yes, we will. But for now… what happened with Mom and Morgana, Daddy?”
“We still lived in town,” Sampson said, “in that big white house on Maple Street. Morgana came back the next day like Grace had asked. And when she did, Ken was waiting. Grace had money for her, and she told her to take it, go get an abortion for whoever’s child she carried because she sure as hell wasn’t pregnant with Joe’s baby, and to never look back to Olman County. Then she had Ken escort Morgana out of the county. He took her to Madison and put her on a bus going north.
“Three months later, we got word that Joe had been killed. We were lucky in that they were able to send his remains home. So many families weren’t. At the funeral, Olivia showed up with John. They were engaged. Afterward, Grace confronted her in private, and Olivia confirmed that she’d made all of it up. That she and Joe had broken up at least six months before he was deployed.” He took a sip of the coffee that had to be cold by now, flinching a little at the taste.
“I loved my wife, but when she told me what she’d done, I wanted to kill her. I had to get up and leave to keep from doing the woman I’d been married to for close to twenty years bodily harm. And she knew it. She saw it in my face.
“As soon as the shock had worn off enough for me to breathe, I started trying to find Morgana. Remember, this was back in nineteen-seventy-one, well before the Internet existed. So I started with her friends. Ramona and Neva, namely. That’s when Ramona reluctantly showed me the letter where Morgana told her she’d obtained an abortion, and didn’t want anything to do with anyone in Indiana ever again.”
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house as silence fell in the room, and needing something to do, Jason stood and went to the kitchen to get the coffeepot.
“How is it that you didn’t know anything about this?” Calista asked softly.
When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that her question had been directed to his parents.
Jackie sniffed, then blew her nose, before answering. “Joe was a few years older than me. I was only thirteen when he died. I adored him, and he was a wonderful older brother, but we were far enough apart in age that we didn’t have a lot in common. I was only on the periphery of his social life. Richard?”
“Same here, except John and I only got close as adults.” He shook his head, regret in every line of his face. “I honestly don’t know what to say. If you’d told me all this happened with my family, my parents? I wouldn’t have a problem believing it. My parents have always been ruthless in their ambitions. They damned near disowned me because I decided to go to medical school instead of law school. But Grace? I—I’m having a hard time accepting that she’d be so cruel.”
Beth, Joely, and Jason echoed his shock as Jason refreshed everyone’s coffee.
“Grandma had problems, but I had no idea she was capable of such duplicity. I’m so sorry, Poppy,” Beth said, getting up to hug him tightly. “She had no right to do this to us. To any of us.”
