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“So.” Mitch pushed back from the keyboard, took off his glasses to polish them on his shirt. “Reginald Harper owned several properties, including houses. Here in Shelby County, and outside it. Some were rented, of course, investment properties, income. I did find a few, through the old ledgers, that were listed as tenanted through certain periods, but generated no income.”
“Cooking the books?” Harper suggested.
“Possibly. Or these residences might have been where he installed mistresses.”
“Plural?” Logan took another glass of tea. “Busy boy.”
“Beatrice’s journal speaks of women, not woman, so it follows. It also follows, as we find him a shrewd, goal-oriented type that as he wanted a son, whatever the cost, he maintained more than one candidate until he got what he was after. But the journals also indicate Amelia was local, so I concentrated on the local properties.”
“I doubt he’d list a mistress as a tenant,” Roz said.
“No. Meanwhile, I’ve been scouring the census lists. A lot of names, a lot of years to cover. Then a little lightbulb goes off, and I narrowed it to the years Reginald held those local properties, and before 1892. Still a lot to cull through, but I hit in the 1890 census.”
His gaze scanned the room, landed on the cart. “Are those cookies?”
“Jesus, David, get the man some cookies before I have to kill him. What did you hit in 1890?”
“Amelia Ellen Connor, resident of one of Reginald’s Memphis houses. One that generated no income from the later half of that year, through March of 1893. One, in fact, he’d listed as untenanted during that period.”
“Almost certainly has to be her,” Stella said. “It’s too neat and tidy not to be.”
“She knows her neat and tidy,” Logan commented. “In spades.”
“If it’s not our Amelia, it’s one hell of a coincidence.” Mitch tossed his glasses onto the table. “Reginald’s very careful bookkeeper noted on Reginald’s books a number of expenses incurred during the period the property was supposedly empty, and Amelia Connor listed it as her residence on the census. In February of 1893, considerably more expenses were noted dealing with refurbishing in preparation for new tenants, paying tenants. The house was sold, if you’re interested, in 1899.”
“So we know she lived in Memphis,” Hayley began, “at least until a few months after the baby was born.”
“More than that. Amelia Ellen Connor.” He slipped his glasses back on and read his notes. “Born 1868 to Thomas Edward Connor and Mary Kathleen Connor née Bingham. Though Amelia listed both her parents as deceased, that was only true of her father, who died in 1886. Her mother was alive, and very possibly well, until her death in 1897. She was employed by the Lucerne family as a housemaid at a home on the river, called—”
“The Willows,” Roz finished. “I know that house. It’s older than this one. It’s a bed-and-breakfast now, a very lovely one. It was bought and restored oh, twenty years ago at least.”
“Mary Connor worked there,” Mitch continued, “and though she listed no children for the census, a check of vital records shows she had a daughter—Amelia Ellen.”
“Estranged, I suppose,” Stella said.
“Enough that the daughter considered her mother dead, and the mother didn’t acknowledge the daughter. There’s another interesting bit. There’s no record of Amelia having a child, just as there’s no record of her death.”
“Money can grease wheels or muddy them up,” Hayley added.
“What’s next?” Logan wondered.
“I’m going to go back over old newspapers, again, keep looking for any mention of her death—unidentified female, that sort of thing. And we’ll keep trying to find information through the descendants of servants. I’ll see if the people who own The Willows now will let me have a look at any documents or papers from that time.”
“I’ll smooth the way,” Roz offered. “Old family names grease wheels, too.”
SHE WAS OUT on a date for the first time in . . . it was really too sad to think about how long. And she looked pretty good, if she did say so herself. The little red top showed off her arms and shoulders, which were nicely toned between hauling Lily, yoga, and digging in the dirt.
There was a great-looking guy sitting across from her in a noisy, energetic Beale Street restaurant. And she couldn’t keep her mind on the moment.
“We’ll talk about it,” Harper said, then picked up the glass of wine she’d ignored and handed it to her. “You’ll feel better getting it out than working so hard not to say anything.”
“I can’t stop thinking about it. Her. I mean she had his baby, Harper, and he just took it. It’s not so hard to see why she’d have this hard-on about men.”
“Devil’s advocate? She sold herself.”
“But, Harper—”
“Hold on. She came from a working-class family. Instead of opting to work, she opted to be kept. Her choice, and I got no problem with it. But she traded sex for a house and servants.”
“Which gives him the right to take her child?”
“Not saying that, by a long shot. I’m saying it’s unlikely she was a rosy-cheeked innocent. She lived in that house, as his mistress, for what, more than a year before she got pregnant.”
She wasn’t ready to have it all taken down to its lowest level. “Maybe she loved him.”
“Maybe she loved the life.” He jerked a shoulder.
“I didn’t know you were so cynical.”
He only smiled. “I didn’t know you were so romantic. More than likely, the truth of it hits somewhere in the middle of cynicism and romance, so we’ll split the difference.”
“Seems fair. I don’t always like being fair though.”
“Either way it falls, we know this is one screwed-up individual, Hayley. It’s pretty likely she was screwed up before this happened. That doesn’t mean she deserved it, but I’m betting on a hard edge. It takes one, doesn’t it, to list your own mother as dead when she’s living a few miles away?”
“Yeah. It doesn’t paint a nice picture. I guess part of me wants to see her as a victim, like the heroine, when it’s just not that cut and dried.”
Deliberately she sipped her wine. “Okay, that’s enough. That’s all she gets for tonight.”
“Fine with me.”
“I just have to do one thing.”
Harper reached in his pocket. “Here, use my phone.”
Laughing, she took it. “I know she’s fine with Roz and Mitch. I just want to check.”
SHE ATE CATFISH and hush puppies and drank two glasses of wine. It was amazing how liberating it was to sit as long as she liked, to talk about whatever came to mind.
“I forgot what this was like.” Simply because she could, Hayley lounged back in her chair. “Eating a whole meal without interruptions. I’m glad you finally asked me out.”
“Finally?”
“You’ve had plenty of time,” she pointed out. “Then I wouldn’t have had to make the first move.”
“I liked your first move.” He reached over, took her hand.
“It was one of my better ones. Harper.” Relaxed, she eased forward, her eyes on his. “Were you really thinking about me that way all this time?”
“I put a lot of effort into not thinking about you that way. It worked some of the time.”
“Why did you? Put a lot of effort into it, I mean.”
“It seemed . . . rude,” was the best he could think of, “to imagine seducing a houseguest, especially a pregnant one. I helped you out of the car once—the day of your baby shower.”
“Oh God, I remember.” It made her laugh even as she covered her face with her free hand. “I was so awful to you. I felt so hot and fat and miserable.”
“You looked amazing. Vital. That was my first impression of you. Light and energy, and well, sex, but I tried to tramp that one out. But that day, when I helped you out, the baby moved. I felt it move. It was . . .”
“Scary?”
“Powerful, and yeah, a little scary. I watched you give birth.”
She went still, and flushed to the tips of her ears. “Oh, oh God, I forgot about that.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh no.”
He grabbed her hands, pulled them toward him to kiss. “It was impossible to describe. After I got over the get-me-the-hell-out-of-here stage, it was just staggering. I saw her born. I’ve been in love with her ever since.”
“I know.” Embarrassment faded as her heart swam up into her eyes. “That I know. You never ask about her father.”
“It’s not my business.”
“If we take this any further, it should be. You should at least know. Could we maybe take a walk?”
“Sure.”
THEY TURNED AWAY from the lights and action of Beale Street and wandered toward the river. Tourists flocked there as well, to stroll through the park or stand and watch the water, but the relative quiet made it easier for her to go back in her mind, and take him with her.
“I didn’t love him. I want to say that right off because some people still like to think poor girl, some guy got her in trouble then didn’t stand by her. And they think your heart’s been broken by some asshole. It wasn’t like that.”
“Good. It’d be a shame if Lily’s father was an asshole.”
The laugh bubbled up, made her shake her head. “You’re going to make this easier. You’ve got a way of doing that. He was a nice guy, a grad student I met when I was working at the bookstore back home. We’d flirt with each other, and we hit it off, went out a couple of times. Then my father died.”
They crossed the little bridge over the replica of the river, wandered past the couples sitting at stone tables. “I was so lost, so sad.”
He slid his arm around her shoulder. “I think if anything happened to my mother, it would be like being blinded. I’ve got my brothers to hold on to, but I can’t imagine the world without her.”
“It’s like that, like you just can’t see. What to do next, what to say next. No matter how kind people are—and they were, Harper, a lot of kind people—you’re in the dark. People loved my father, you just had to. So there were neighbors and family and friends, the people I worked with, that he worked with. But still, he was so much the center of my life, I felt alone, just isolated in this void of grief.”
“I was a lot younger when my father died, and I guess in some ways it’s easier. But I know there’s a stage you have to go through, the one where you can’t believe anything’s ever going to be right again, or solid again.”
“Yes, exactly. And when you get through it, start to feel again, it hurts. This guy, he was there for me. He was very sweet, very comforting, and that’s how one thing led to another.”
She tilted her head to meet his eyes. “Still, we were never more than friends. But it wasn’t a fling, it was—”
“Healing.”
Her heart warmed. “Yes. He went back to school, and I got on. I didn’t realize I was pregnant at first. The signs didn’t filter through my head. And when I did . . .”
“You were scared.”
She shook her head. “I was pissed. I was so mad. Why the hell had this happened to me? Didn’t I have enough to deal with? It wasn’t like I’d slept around, it wasn’t like I hadn’t been responsible, so what the hell was this? A joke? God, Harper, I wasn’t all soft and shivery. I was enraged. I got around to panic at some point, but I bounced back pretty quick to mad.”
“It was a tough spot, Hayley. You were alone.”
“Don’t pretty it up. I didn’t want to be pregnant. I didn’t want a baby. I had to work, I had to grieve, and it was about damn time somebody up there gave me a freaking break.”
They moved toward the river, and she kept her voice down as she looked out toward the water. “Now I was going to have to get an abortion, and that meant I’d have to figure out how to get some time off work, and pay for it.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I got the literature, and I found a clinic, and then I started thinking maybe it’d be better if I had it then gave it up for adoption. Signed up with one of those agencies. You read so much about these infertile couples pining for a baby. I thought maybe that would be something positive I could do.”
He brushed a hand down her hair, spoke softly. “But you didn’t do that either.”
“I got literature on that kind of thing, started researching. And all the time I was going back and forth, cursing God and so on, I was wondering why this guy wasn’t coming back in the store, or calling me. Part of my thinking when I was a little calmer was that I had to tell him, he had to know. I didn’t get pregnant by myself, and he’d better take some responsibility, too. Somewhere in all that thinking, it got real. I was going to have a baby. If I had a baby, I wouldn’t be alone. That was selfish thinking, and the first time I realized I was leaning toward keeping it. For me.”
She breathed deep and faced him. “I decided to keep the baby because I was lonely. That, then, was the heaviest weight on the scale.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. “And the grad student?”
“I went to see him, to tell him. Tracked him down at college, all ready to say, oops, look what happened, and here’s what I’ve decided to do so step on up.”
A breeze fluttered her hair, and she let it go. Let the damp warm air breathe over her face. “He was glad to see me, a little embarrassed, I think, that he hadn’t kept in touch. The thing was, he’d fallen in love with somebody. Big sunbursts of love,” she said, throwing her arms out to illustrate. “He was so happy and excited, and when he talked about her he just sent off waves of love.”
“So you didn’t tell him.”
“I didn’t tell him. What was I supposed to do? Say, gee, that’s nice, glad you found someone who makes your world complete. How do you think she’ll feel about the fact that you knocked me up? Too bad you screwed up the rest of your life because you were being a friend to me when I needed one. On top of that, I didn’t want him. I didn’t want to marry him or anything, so what was the point?”
“He doesn’t know about Lily?”
“Another selfish decision, maybe with a little unselfish best-for-him worked in. I wrestled with it later, when the pregnancy got more real, when I started to show and feel the baby kick around inside me. But I stuck with what I’d done.”
She paused a moment. It was harder than she’d known it could be to finish it out, to go on when he was quiet, when the quality of his listening was so complete.
“I know he has a right to know. But that’s what I did, and what I’d do again. I heard he married that girl in April, and they moved up to Virginia where his people are from. I think, whatever the reasons were, I did the right thing for all of us. Maybe he’d love Lily, or maybe she’d just be a mistake to him. I don’t want to know. Because she was a mistake for me for those first few months, and I hate knowing that. I didn’t start to love her, really love her, until I was about five months gone, and then it was like . . . oh, it was like everything in me opened up, and she was filling it. That’s when I knew I had to leave home. Give us both a new start, clean slate.”
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