Detours (21 page)

Next came several pictures of the twins on either side of Ellis. Of course the notes beneath referred to her as Gretchen. No dates or ages were given. Ellis guessed herself to be less than two. She turned the page. Anika held Ellis on her lap, hunched forward so that her face was right next to Ellis’s. Ellis read the caption three times. The words didn’t make any sense. “Baby Gretchen with her Other Mother, 1971.”

Other mother?

The realization hit. Her mother was too ill to care for her when she was first born, or for that matter, for much of her first few years. Someone had to do it. It certainly wouldn’t have been her father. It must have been Anika.

She looked through the rest of the album.

Page by page, she studied the pictures and the words her mother had chosen to describe them. Nothing out of the ordinary. Ellis on her third birthday; the three VanStantvoordt children in front of the Christmas tree in 1973; the children on the beach at Tybee Island off the Savannah coast; Ellis with the twins in their caps and gowns on their graduation day in 1974; Ellis waving good-bye from the front steps to Nicolas as he left for Princeton that fall.

She came across another picture of her and Anika. She and her sister stood side by side, but with a foot of space between them. Anika’s face looked red and swollen, as if she’d been crying. Neither eighteen-year-old Anika nor five-year-old Ellis was looking at the camera. It was captioned:
Anika leaves for Virginia State, Sept. 1974. How hard for Anika to say good-bye. Gretchen will miss her.

She continued flipping pages. Ellis’s first day of school. Ellis at the fifth grade spelling bee. Ellis with her mother on Mother’s Day, 1979. Ellis as a young teen and her father on the front porch, both looking bored and uncomfortable. Ellis holding her first driver’s license as she stood beside her father’s 1982 Oldsmobile, the car she’d taken her road test in. Assorted Christmases, some birthdays, other snapshots that froze some moment deemed worthy at the time. But none of Ellis with both parents. And no more pictures of her brother and sister.

She strained to remember everything she could about the years after Nicolas and Anika left home for college. She was sure they’d both come home occasionally while they were in college, but those instances were painted in the same blurry impressionistic renderings as much of the rest of her childhood and youth. Her only distinct memories was of them being home for their mother’s funeral in early August of 1987 and then for her father’s in 2002.

She recalled her sister’s wedding. Ellis was nine. Anika graduated from Virginia State with her degree in Visual Communication and Art Design in June of ’78, and married in August of the same year. Her mother had been too sick to travel to Richmond for the wedding, so Ellis and her father made the drive without her. Nicolas was one of the groomsmen, and her father walked Anika down the aisle. Ellis remembered wearing a dress that was at least a half size too small and sitting all alone in a pew on the bride’s side of the church. She had no memories at all of a reception or photographs, only the long, silent ride back to Savannah after the ceremony, her father driving all night with her sleeping off and on in the backseat of the car.

Ellis thumbed backwards through the album. “No wonder I’m such a weirdo. We sure look like an emotionally constipated bunch.”

She was all set to plop the album back in the box but decided to take one more look through it, since tonight would probably be the first and last time she turned the pages. It was no more satisfying on the second pass than it had been on the first. The album wasn’t even full; it stopped cold several pages from the back, the clear overlay sheets plastered to the self-stick backing.

She absentmindedly turned the first blank page and then the second one, but when she glanced down, she was surprised to see the page wasn’t blank at all. Affixed beneath the overlay was the first page of a letter in her mother’s tidy, labored cursive dated May 3, 1987. Her heart fluttered wildly in her chest as she read.

My dear Grettie,

In a few weeks, you’ll graduate from high school. We already know you’re going away to college in Athens this fall, so I can only call you my baby a little while longer. I will miss you dearly when you go. I wanted to put this album together for you so that you’ll have something of home to take with you.

I haven’t been a very good mother to you. My sicknesses have kept me from doing so many things I wanted to do with you and for you. I hope you can forgive me for that.

More than just these photographs, though, there are some very important things I need to tell you. Your father and I disagree about this, and he has told me I must not
say
anything to you on this matter. Although it’s not wise to cross him, I have decided that writing it is not the same as saying it, so if he ever finds out I’ve told you, my excuse is that I used pen and paper and not spoken words. He may be angry with me, but it won’t be the first time.

There is no easy way to tell you this, so I will just say it plainly: Nicolas and Anika are your half-brother and half-sister. When I was young and foolish, I fell in love with a man who told me he loved me, too. He only loved me as far as the bedroom, and when he learned I was pregnant, he vanished like a thin fog on a hot summer morning.

I thought my life was ruined forever, but then while the twins were still less than a year old, I took a class at the college and met your father. To my delight, we found love with one another. He agreed not only to be my husband, but also to be a father to Nicolas and Anika. He was nearly forty when we met, so taking on a ready-made family was a big sacrifice for him. He made me promise him one thing, though. He insisted that we not tell the twins that he was not their biological father. Perhaps he thought it was best for them, but I suspect it was more about his wanting to always feel in control. I confess that it also let me bury my shame for my earlier mistake. That’s part of the reason I agreed to honor your father’s rule not to tell them the truth.

Our life as a family went along well for several years, but then an unexpected blessing came along. We learned that you were on the way. From the second I knew your tiny body was growing inside of me, I promised myself that, if God allowed it, I would give birth to you, even if it was the last thing I ever accomplished. Because my health was already failing, the doctors cautioned us about the risks. Your father wanted me to end the pregnancy in hopes of protecting my health. I refused. The doctor wanted to give me a drug that was supposed to prevent miscarriages. Like most drugs, it had some long name that I don’t remember, but its common name was DES. I told the doctor I wouldn’t take the drug. Your father was furious with me, first for refusing to end your barely started life and then for not doing what the doctor said I should do.

As you see, I made the right choice. You came to the world whole and healthy, and I have never once regretted my decision.

But your father could be an unpredictable man.

A few days after Nicolas and Anika graduated from high school, he told them the truth about not being their real father. Your brother felt angry and betrayed. Your sister was confused and overwhelmed. They blamed your father for the deceit, and they blamed me for my silence. To this day, they have never forgiven either of us. I believe it’s why they almost never come home to see us. They feel that your father regarded them as less important than you. That was never true, but all the years of not being honest with them took their toll. My greatest hope is that by telling you the truth now, you might be able to help heal the wounds that have kept this family apart for the past many years.

A real family is made by love and shared experiences, not by bloodlines. Your sister is the best example of that. I had to stay in the hospital for two months after you were born. Even though Anika was only thirteen, she took care of you that summer. She fed you and rocked you to sleep and tended your every need. She was always ready to do whatever she could to keep you well and happy.

I know your father rarely spent any time with you. He won’t admit it, not even to me, but I’m sure he always felt that you were what made me so sick all these years. He’s wrong. You were my reason for being alive and my hope for what was to come. You made me want to live through all those times when it would have been so much easier to give up. I don’t know how much more life I’ll be granted, but living to see you grow into the beautiful young woman you are today has made me the richest woman on earth.

Try not to judge your father too harshly. He did the best he could. Yes, he made mistakes, but we all do. Love can cause people to be blind, but it can also open your eyes in ways you never dreamed of. He did so much for me and for the twins. Always remember that no one is purely all goodness or all evil. We all have a mix of characteristics.

Later this month, you will leave home, and we can never know what tomorrow will bring. Better you have the whole truth than that you spend forever not knowing this.

I pray that you won’t be angry with me and your father like Anika and Nicolas were. Please know that I’m only telling you this because I love you more than anything in creation. I have always believed that if you do something for love, even if it at first brings grief, it will ultimately bring joy.

When you find someone special to share your life with, Grettie, whatever they ask of you, if you choose to do it, do it with love. When you were one of God’s angels, you asked me to be your mother, and with all the love I could give, I have been. Thank you for being my little girl—and for being who you are now that you’re all grown up.

The letter was signed, “Eternal Love, Mother.”

Ellis wasn’t much of a drinker, but the impact of her mother’s letter left her feeling fall-down drunk. If everything she’d ever believed about her family was really a pack of half-truths, how could she believe in anything so intangible as the laws of gravity? She slid off the edge of the bed, where she’d sat for what felt like her entire lifetime as she read her mother’s letter, and crashed onto the floor.

Where to start to try to find her way through the multiple quagmires surrounding her? No wonder Anika had looked so shell-shocked in the photograph taken the day she left for college. Her world had been ripped out from under her.

What had her father’s insistence about hiding the truth accomplished? Devastation and disillusionment, as best Ellis could tell.

She wished she had at least a tentative bridge to her brother or sister. This wasn’t news someone should have to face alone.

Half-brother. Half-sister
,
Ellis reminded herself. She skimmed the letter for the exact words her mother had penned:
My greatest hope is that by telling you the truth now, you might be able to help heal the wounds that have kept this family apart for the past many years.

Was there a statute of limitations on heeding a mother’s advice? She hoped not, but there was only one way to find out.

Ellis got to her feet, went to the living room to the computer, and connected to the Internet. A people search of Richmond might turn up information on her sister, but she opted for a different approach. Clicking through several submenus on the Smithsonian site, she eventually found a list of primary staff members. She linked to Nicolas VanStantvoordt’s email contact page. She got as far as “Dear Nicolas,” before her fingers froze over the keyboard.

What’s the right thing to say to a man you always thought was your full blood brother, but who you’ve just learned isn’t? A man who possibly hates you—or at least resents you—a man with whom you’ve never corresponded and whom you last saw at your father’s funeral four years ago? For nearly ten years after high school, Nicolas had buried himself at Princeton in pursuit of multiple degrees in Museum Studies. He hadn’t married until 1988. Ellis presumed her father had been invited to the wedding, but she hadn’t received an invitation. Had one come to her in Athens at UGA, she wouldn’t have gone anyway. She wasn’t even sure how to spell his wife’s name. Sheryl? Cheryl? Sherrill? Or did she go by Cheri? Shari? Sherry?

“This is hopeless.” Ellis scribbled down Nicolas’s email address from the site and left the computer. “My brains are too scrambled to tackle this right now.”

Sam went to the door and woofed. “Guess you want to go out, huh, girl?” Ellis clipped Sam’s leash in place and slipped on a pair of worn deck shoes. “Let’s make it quick, okay?”

She and Sam headed to the designated doggie area beyond the parking lot. Too late, she realized her newly-pregnant neighbor, Janet, and the Welsh Corgi, Robbie, were already there for the same purpose.

“Hi, Ellis.”

“Hi, there, mama-to-be. I hear congratulations are in order.”

Janet patted her midsection. “My husband certainly thinks so.”

“You don’t sound quite as excited as he did when I saw him earlier tonight.”

“I’m happy. And even if I weren’t, he’s so thrilled by it that I’d go through with this just so I could see the way his face lights up every time he tells somebody else that our baby is on the way. He’s been on the phone all night calling everyone in his family and all his fraternity brothers. He’s like a kid who found an extra-special decoder ring for all the mysteries of the universe at the bottom of his box of cereal.”

“And you?” Ellis asked.

“I was an only child. I’ve only got one cousin, and he’s quite a bit older than me.” Janet scooped Robbie into her arms. “So I don’t have a lot of experience with children. I’m afraid I might turn out to be one of those mothers who duct tapes her kid’s mouth shut if he cries too much or locks him in the closet if he doesn’t behave.”