Searching for Yesterday Read online

  We were at the Nortons’ home, following the funeral for Gina Berkley. I was amazed at how many people had come to the funeral, and I couldn’t help wondering if it was because they really remembered Gina, or because the strange circumstances of her death made them curious.

  Annie had asked me to sit with her and the Norton family at the service. I’d felt terrible for her as the hymns were sung and eulogies were given and the minister talked about Gina and her life. But the worst was at the end, when the pallbearers went to the front of the church and carried the coffin down the aisle beside Annie and out into the waiting hearse. As I watched them go by my heart broke for her, knowing that her mother’s body was in that box and she could no longer hope that the day would come when her mother would show up and be back in her life.

  Greg was there, a few rows behind us, and I thought of how he, too, had lost his mother a few years ago. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if I suddenly no longer had one of my parents.

  There was no graveside service, of course, since it was winter and the ground was frozen. I was kind of relieved about that. The service at the church was emotional enough and I think going to the graveyard and seeing the coffin lowered into a hole would have been unbearable.

  I was glad, after the funeral was over, that there wasn’t the usual gathering downstairs, like there often is after a funeral. Pearl had insisted on having that in her home instead, though the ladies of the church had offered. It was quieter and more dignified, and it was mainly close friends who came by.

  My parents came over, and so did Brandon and his wife, Jayzelle, who was very nice and hugged Annie and said how terribly sorry she was for her loss, even though she’d never met her before. Everyone was so kind. Greg and his dad, Dr. Taylor, came too, and some teachers and friends from school, but no one stayed long. Kayla did, though and when everyone else had left she surprised us by going to her car and bringing in some photo albums.

  “I don’t know if this is the right time or not, but I had copies made of all of the pictures I had of your mom. From when we were younger, mostly, but there are some of her while she was pregnant and a few of her with you, up until you were about four.” She didn’t have to say that was when Lenny had come along — we knew.

  “If you want, we can look through them now — you might have some questions. Or, if you’d rather, you can just put them away and I’ll come by anytime you feel like taking a look.”

  “I’d love to look at them now,” Annie said quickly, and the three of us sat together on the couch — Annie in the middle with the album on her lap. When she first opened it, she started to cry softly, but after a couple of minutes Kayla started talking, pointing to this picture or that, telling her the little stories behind them, and before long Annie was smiling and enjoying getting to know what her mother had been like when she was our age.

  “What’s she doing on the floor?” Annie asked, turning a page to find a shot of Gina on her hands and knees, peering underneath a bed.

  “Oh, the search pictures. There are lots of these,” Kayla said with a laugh. “Your mother smoked back then, only she wasn’t allowed to, so she was always hiding her cigarettes from her mother. But then when she wanted them, she’d forget where they were and she’d have to go on a mad hunt — tearing her room apart trying to find them. And I was hardly ever without my 110 camera back then, so I had lots of chances to catch those moments on film.

  “Oh, look here! See this one where she’s standing on a chair feeling along the top of her wardrobe? Right after I snapped this picture the chair flipped sideways and she came crashing down — I don’t know how she didn’t break a leg or something. She did bang her head, though, and had a goose-egg to prove it. But — and I’ll never forget this — she sat right up, grinned, and said, “found them.’ And sure enough, she had those stupid old smokes in her hand. She never could beat that habit until she got pregnant with you. Then she quit without batting an eye.”

  We enjoyed Kayla’s stories and I thought how nice it must be for Annie to hear them. Her memories of her mother were limited to those of a fairly young child, so this was about the only way she was likely to get to know other things about her mother. Working with her mom’s best friend meant she was going to hear a lot more about her over the months ahead, too, and I knew that was going to be a help and comfort to her.

  Kayla left after giving Annie a long hug and telling her to call anytime she felt like talking. Then Annie and I tried to help Pearl clean up, but she wouldn’t hear of it.

  “You girls just relax,” she said. “This has been a hard time for Annie and I’m just so thankful we can be here for her.”

  As we headed up to hang out in her room, I saw Annie’s eyes fill with tears again, but I knew it was different, and that this whole experience had helped her to trust the Nortons just a little bit more. She might never feel totally secure, not after all she’s been through, but I think she was a lot closer to feeling secure with their family than she ever had before.

  “It was nice — really nice, to hear those stories about my mom,” Annie said, as she cleared a special place on her dresser for the photo album.

  “She sounded like an awesome person,” I said. “And fun.”

  “And forgetful,” Annie said with a smile. “Imagine forgetting where you hid something.”

  “I’ve done that,” I admitted. “It taught me not to hide things because they could end up hidden from me too. Unless, you know, it’s something really important. But in that case I’m not as likely to forget.”

  My heart started to beat a little faster. “What?” Annie’s eyes narrowed. “Shelby ... you’ve got that look on your face again.”

  “What look?”

  “The one you get when you’ve had an idea.”

  “I kind of did,” I said. “But it’s probably nothing.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “I just thought about how your mom used to hide things and it struck me that she might have hid something to do with your father’s identity.”

  Annie stared at me. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Some memento from her time with him, or maybe a document or something.”

  “Well, if she did, it’s probably long gone. Lenny threw most of her stuff down the well, and there’s not much left of any of it.”

  “You’re right. I shouldn’t have even mentioned it. But then ...”

  “What?”

  “I was just thinking about how your mom kept a lot of things that were important to her in her jewellery box. Like your baby teeth and a lock of her father’s hair and stuff.”

  “Yeah, so? I’ve looked at everything in there. I think I’d have noticed if there was something about my father.”

  “True, except ... the jewellery box is lined with that satiny material.”

  “And?”

  “Couldn’t she have hidden something behind there? Like, lifted a piece of material, slipped something in, and then glued it closed again?”

  Annie’s eyes drifted across her room to the jewellery box. Her foster father had bought a special shelf for it after her mother’s body was found, and it was there, sitting on a shimmering piece of red velvet.

  “I guess it won’t hurt to check,” she said. “As long as we don’t have to ruin the lining.”

  She brought the box over and laid it on the bed, then spread the velvet beside it. One by one, she lifted her mom’s jewellery out, laying each piece on the cloth. Earrings, the locket, chains, broaches, a couple of inexpensive rings, and a few non-jewellery mementos like the teeth and hair — Annie handled everything in the same careful, loving way.

  The lining was already loose in places, its glue having dried and become brittle. We pried gently until all of the edges had come away from the wooden box. I think we were both holding our breath when we lifted it out.

  There was nothing underneath. Absolutely nothing. We even peered in carefully to see if there might have been something written there —
even if it had faded over time — but there wasn’t so much as a mark.

  “Well, it was worth a shot,” Annie said, forcing a smile, trying to hide her disappointment. I felt guilty that I’d raised her hopes for nothing.

  “I’ll put some white glue on the lining and put it back in place,” she said, going to her desk to get a bottle of Elmer’s.

  As she carefully made a bead around the lining and another thin one in the box itself to make sure there was enough to hold it, I idly picked up some jewellery pieces. I noticed that all of them were dainty and feminine in style — another clue to her personality and taste. One more little bit of information for Annie.

  And of course, there was the locket. It said a lot about her mother that she kept her daughter’s picture there, when most women would be wearing one of their boyfriend or husband.

  I almost gasped as a thought hit me, but managed to hide it from Annie. I picked up the locket and pressed the little catch release, which made the cover open to reveal Annie’s young, smiling face. It took a minute for me to figure out how the glass covering it came out. Then, with trembling fingers I carefully pried Annie’s picture out.

  My heart leapt into my throat and I could barely speak to tell Annie that underneath her picture was another smiling face — and it was almost certainly the face of her father.

  He was younger, but the man in the frame was most definitely Brandon!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  We talked it over and decided the best thing to do would be to discuss it with Kayla first. Annie called her and told her there was something important she needed to see her about.

  Kayla pulled up to the house a little while later — probably thinking Annie had a question about Gina. We piled into the car and told her we had to talk to her somewhere private.

  “How about the flower shop?”

  “Sure,” Annie said. She looked really, really scared.

  We got there and went into the back room. Annie took a deep breath.

  “I’m pretty sure that your brother is my father,” she blurted.

  Kayla stared at her like she’d spoken a foreign language.

  “His picture was behind mine — in my mom’s locket,” Annie went on. “Shelby found it.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Right here.” Annie passed it to her.

  Kayla looked down, shook her head like she was clearing it, and then looked again. She slid down onto a nearby chair and lifted her head to stare at Annie. No one said anything for a few minutes.

  “You know something,” Kayla said at last, “this makes sense. I always told Gina that she could never date my brother. I saw them kind of flirt a bit a few times and I was worried if they ever went out it would eventually ruin our friendship. And when I think about it now, he would be the one person she’d have felt she had to keep secret from me. Probably the only one — and it never occurred to me that it could be Brandon. But it was, and that’s why she never told me.”

  Annie said nothing. She looked kind of shaky, which made sense, considering all she’d been through in one day: her mother’s funeral and finally learning her father’s identity.

  Kayla’s face clouded over suddenly. “But he must have known — or suspected anyway!” she said angrily. She raved a bit about him shirking his responsibility and never mentioning it through all the years and everything that had happened, and how she couldn’t believe he’d be that way and just didn’t understand it.

  “Well!” she said flipping open her phone and dialling, “We’ll just ask him to his face!”

  I thought Annie was going to pass out when she said that! Her mouth flapped a few times but she didn’t get any words out and, the next thing we knew, Kayla had practically yelled into the phone for Brandon to get down to the flower shop right this minute because he had some serious explaining to do.

  Brandon came through the door about ten minutes later. He looked curious, but not worried or anything.

  “What’s going on?” he asked Kayla after saying quick “hellos” to Annie and me.

  “What’s going on? What’s going on?” Kayla echoed. “First off, you tell me right here and now — and you’d better tell me the truth, buster — did you ever go out with Gina?”

  “What? You’re asking me that after all these years? What’s the big deal about it now? Okay, yes, we went out for a while — and we both knew how you felt about it, so we kept it quiet. We broke it off when I left for university.”

  Kayla was silent.

  “What’s this all about?” Brandon asked. He looked back and forth from his sister to Annie.

  “We believe that you may be Annie’s father,” Kayla said simply.

  “Well, you’re wrong,” he said, shaking his head. “Remember when I got my bachelor degree and came back here for a year to work before I went on for my teaching degree? I saw Gina that year — she was out walking with her little, uh, with Annie and Jayzelle and I ran into her. Jayzelle and I had just gotten engaged back then.

  “Anyway, I asked Gina how old her little girl was — because I could see she was around three or four and naturally, I, uh, wondered. And she said, she’d be four that September, which meant there was no way she was mine, because the timing just wouldn’t have worked.”

  Brandon looked sorrowfully at Annie. “I’m really sorry,” he said. “I know you had your hopes up that you might have found your dad, and I swear, if it was me I’d be proud to call you my daughter. But it’s just not possible.”

  Tears brimmed over Annie’s eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She tried several times to speak, but it took a few attempts before she got the words out.

  “My birthday,” she said, “is the sixth of April.”

  It got pretty emotional after that. I felt like an intruder, being there to witness the whole thing, but I’m glad I was. Brandon realized, of course, that Gina had lied to him — probably because he was engaged to someone else. Maybe she didn’t want to cause them problems, or she might have worried that he’d try to get custody, and that with a good job and a home and wife it would have seemed like a real threat. Whatever her reasons had been, Brandon had accepted her word.

  But when Annie told him when her birthday really was, he just walked straight over to her and put his arms around her and the two of them cried and cried.

  My first thought after that was that Annie would finally be going to live with her real family. I guess it was Brandon’s first thought, too, because he said something about it right away and he seemed sure that Jayzelle would be one hundred percent in favour of the plan, too.

  But Annie had other ideas.

  “For years,” she said, “that’s all I’ve thought about. Having a real home and real parents. But you know what? I’ve just realized that I have that, with Pearl and Lucas. I’ve been there for a few years, and they’ve been great — only I kind of kept myself closed off from them because of other things. But since we found out about my mom being dead, they’ve just been amazing and I finally realized — they really love me. And I love them, too.

  “So, as excited as I am, I really don’t want to leave the home and family I have. At least, not yet.”

  So it was worked out that Annie would start spending weekends at Brandon and Jayzelle’s place, getting to know them and her half-siblings — and she was thrilled about that.

  Kayla was thrilled too. She jumped up all of a sudden and said, “Oh my goodness! I’m your aunt! Your real aunt.”

  “A father and an aunt,” Annie said. And there were more tears! A happy ending, in some ways, I’m sure you’ll agree. But very sad in other ways.

  Gina Berkley was dead all those years that everyone thought she’d abandoned her child. I wonder why no one looked into it harder at the time. It would have been hard on Annie to bury her mother back then, too, but at least she wouldn’t have had to go through eight years of thinking her mother didn’t care about her.

  Gina’s friends gave up on her before she disappeared, and I can’t h
elp but think if they hadn’t, maybe things would have been different.

  We all need to look out for each other — old friends and new.

  Which reminds me: Annie and I are just on our way to go visit Betts.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  In the acknowledgements of my last published work, Three Million Acres of Flame, I overlooked someone who had assisted me early on, with research material and an important contact name. With my apologies for the oversight, my sincere thanks go to Miramichi author Doug Underhill for his very generous support in that project.

  As always, I am grateful for the blessings and inspirations in my life, which include, in part, the following people:

  My husband, partner, and best friend, Brent.

  My parents, Bob and Pauline Russell.

  My son Anthony, his wife Maria, and daughters Emilee, Ericka, and Veronicka. My daughter Pamela and her husband, David Jardine. My brothers and their families: Danny and Gail; Andrew, Shelley, Bryce, and Drew. My “other” family: Ron and Phoebe Sherrard, Ron Sherrard and Dr. Kiran Pure, Bruce and Roxanne Mullin, and Karen Sherrard.

  My sixth grade teacher, the late Alf Lower, whose influence lives on.

  Friends: Janet Aube, Jimmy Allain, Karen Arseneault, Dawn Black, Darlene Cowton, Mekayla Cowton, Eric Fallon, Rosemary Fowlie, Angi Garofolo, Karen Gauvin, John Hambrook, Sandra Henderson, Gail and Paul Jardine, Thelma and Lorne Livingston, Mary Matchett, Johnnye Montgomery, Colleen Power, Mark Rhodes, Nancy Runstedler, Marsha Skrypuch, Linda Stevens, Pam Sturgeon, Bonnie Thompson, and Beatrice Tucker.

  At The Dundurn Group, the whole team in general and my editor, Barry Jowett in particular. (Thanks for lending me Ernie and Pepo for my stories. They asked me to mention that, in light of their celebrity status, a little more subservience would be nice.)

  Some of the characters in this story were named by or for students. Thanks to Chris Inkpen, Kayla Fulton (brother Brandon), Charlene Neilands (Jayzelle), Keenan Norton (brother Lucas) and Madison Nastasiuk for the wonderful character names.