Too excited to do anything constructive, he went to Gran’s home, paced the floor and finally sat by a window that faced the street and waited. When a four-door sedan with two passengers pulled up alongside the curb, he uttered a silent prayer for direction. Getting up from the chair, he called, “They’re here, Gran.”
He breathed rapidly as he opened the front door and hurried down the walk. A white-haired heavyset man, probably in his seventies, stepped out on the sidewalk, rounded the car and opened the passenger door. A tall woman got out of the car. Her straight hair must have been blond at one time, but now it was gray and fell to her shoulders.
When Jacob reached the car, the woman walked close to him and silently scanned his face. Her eyes misted over. She threw her arms around Jacob and sobbed.
Whatever Jacob had expected, he hadn’t thought he would be greeted like this. His startled eyes met those of the man who must be his grandfather.
“I’m Andrew Mallory, and this is my wife, Elizabeth.” He took his wife’s arm and eased her away from Jacob. “It’s all right, dear,” he said kindly.
“Welcome to Benton. Won’t you come in, please,” Jacob added in a shaky voice.
Mr. Mallory took a briefcase from the back seat and locked the car. “This is a fine home,” he said.
“We think so. My grandparents…” He stumbled over the words. It seemed strange that this couple might also be his grandparents. “My maternal grandparents moved into this house when they were married, so it’s been in the family for a long time.”
He opened the door and motioned for the Mallorys to enter. Gran stood in the hallway. “Gran, this is Andrew and Elizabeth Mallory. My grandmother, Stella Milton. I’ve lived with her as long as I can remember.”
Stella shook hands with them. “Welcome to our home,” she said. “Jacob, take their wraps, please.” Mr. Mallory took the coat from his wife’s shoulders and handed it to Jacob. “I’ll keep my jacket.”
Gran walked ahead of them down the hall and motioned to the living room. “This used to be the parlor in the old days,” she said in her gentle voice. “And we still entertain special guests here.”
Mrs. Mallory continued to weep quietly, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. Both she and her husband seemed edgy, and Jacob sensed that they shared his fears about this meeting.
Gran seated the Mallorys on the couch, and she and Jacob sat in wingback chairs facing them. An uneasy silence filled the room, and Jacob didn’t know what to say.
“Did you have a pleasant trip from Florida?” Gran asked.
“Yes,” Mr. Mallory said. He fidgeted in his chair and cleared his throat. “I know this visit is difficult for you, too, and I hardly know where to start. But we might as well get on with our reason for visiting you.”
He opened his briefcase and took out a framed picture and wordlessly handed it to Jacob. He stared at the portrait of a young man in an air force uniform, whose face could have been his own. The same high forehead, firm nose and chin, even a slight dimple at the corner of his mouth, which was evident on Jacob’s own face when he smiled broadly.
“Now that you’ve seen this picture,” Mrs. Mallory said, “I believe you’ll forgive me for my outburst when I first saw you. I could have been looking into the face of our Philip when he was your age.”
Jacob passed the photo to Gran, and she nodded. “This is your father, Jacob. I didn’t see him in uniform, but I’ve always thought you resembled him more than you did our family.”
“Even after all the information seemed to check out that you were our grandson,” Mr. Mallory said, “we still couldn’t keep from doubting. But one look at you convinced me. You understand that we had to be careful.”
“Yes, of course, I guess,” Jacob answered.
Again there was a short pause until Jacob asked quietly, “You indicated that my father is no longer living, but do you know why he abandoned me?”
The pain of his rejection must have been evident in Jacob’s voice, for Mr. Mallory said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know. Our son didn’t confide in us. We didn’t know he had married and had a son until a few months ago.”
The words seemed to be wrung out of Mrs. Mallory’s heart as she whispered, “He’s been dead for over thirty years.” When she started crying again, her husband took her hand and held it tightly.
“We had high hopes that Philip would follow in my footsteps and enter the medical profession,” Mallory explained, “and we were disappointed when he left college in his senior year and joined the air force.” Looking toward Gran, he asked, “Do you know why they separated?”
She shook her head. “I met Philip only once and that was when my daughter was pregnant. They seemed quite happy, but a few months after Jacob was born, she came home to live and her lips were sealed as to why she’d left her husband. As far as I know, she never heard from him again.”
“My mother died when I was six,” Jacob said, and the pain in his heart must have been revealed by his words, for Stella lay her hand on his arm. “Gran raised me. I tried to get Mother to talk about my father, but she wouldn’t.”
“Philip was in the air force for two years, and during that time we saw him a few times,” Mr. Mallory explained. “He was injured in a plane crash during a training mission. Two days later he died and his body was sent home to New York, where he’s buried in a family cemetery. Since we didn’t know about his marriage, naturally, we didn’t search for your mother or you. He had listed “my estate” on the beneficiary line of his military insurance, so that came to us as next of kin.”
Mrs. Mallory lifted her head. “That’s why we didn’t look for you or your mother.”
“But how did you locate me now?” Jacob asked, puzzled. “When I decided to try and find out about my ancestry, I found your names in my mother’s papers. But you had nothing to go on.”
“We did when we started searching. When he was in the hospital, Philip wrote us this letter.” Mallory took an envelope from his briefcase and gave it to Jacob. His hand trembled when he took the envelope.
God help me, Jacob prayed silently as he unfolded the sheet of paper, scanned it and cleared his throat. The writing was blurred and the lines were uneven, as if the writer’s hands were weak.
Looking at his grandfather, Jacob said, “Is it all right if I read it aloud so Gran can hear?”
“Certainly.”
After clearing his throat twice, Jacob read, “‘Dear Mom and Dad, I have a serious injury, and the doctors don’t give much hope for my recovery. I’m sure you’ve been notified by now. But there’s something I must tell you—something I should have told you long ago. Three years ago, I married Marybeth Milton, a student at the university where I was enrolled. Marybeth had promised her parents she wouldn’t marry until she finished college, but we were in love and we got married. Because both of us were away from our families, we thought our secret was safe until after she graduated.’”
Jacob’s voice broke, and he lowered his head. He had always wanted to know about his father, and now that he realized that his father hadn’t forgotten him, his loss seemed unbearable. He cleared his throat, and resumed reading. “‘Even when Marybeth got pregnant right away, we tried to keep our secret, but when her father died, I went home with her for the funeral. When her mother realized that Marybeth was pregnant, we admitted to her that we were married.’”
The writing became increasingly harder for Jacob to read, as if his father’s hands were growing steadily weaker as he wrote. Or was it the mist in his eyes that blurred his vision as he continued reading?
“‘The pressures of a secret marriage, the birth and care of a newborn and trying to keep up our studies made us irritable. Marybeth and I started quarreling, and after one really bad quarrel, she went home to her mother and took our son with her. I was stubborn and decided that she would have to take the first steps at reconciliation. But Marybeth was stubborn, too, and when I didn’t hear from her, I quit school and enlisted.
“‘Somewhere you have a grandson, Jacob Dean Mallory. Will you try to find him and see if he or his mother needs any help? I’m not proud of shirking my duty as a father and then passing my responsibilities on to you, but I thought I would have time to…’”
The letter ended abruptly and Jacob envisioned that scene in the hospital when his father’s hand was no longer able to hold the pen. Had he died then, or…? Tears blurred his eyes and he handed the letter back to his grandfather. Gran knelt by Jacob’s chair, and she took his hand and clasped it tightly.
“So now you know at last,” she said. “It’s a bittersweet moment to gain a father and lose him in the same day, but he did love you and his last thoughts were of you.”
Mr. Mallory cleared his throat and said huskily, “Yes, he wanted us to see if you needed anything. I’m only sorry we are so late in finding you.”
Looking around the room, Mrs. Mallory said, “It’s obvious that you’ve not been in need. This must have been a great home environment for you.”
“Yes, Gran has been wonderful to me, but I’ve always missed not having a father, especially when I wondered why he didn’t want me.”
“But there’s something I don’t understand,” Gran said. “Philip died over thirty years ago, yet you say that you haven’t known about Jacob very long.”
In a strained voice, Mr. Mallory explained. “A few months ago we received a small packet in the mail. It seems that the army hospital in Germany where Philip died was recently renovating its oldest wing. While tearing out some cabinets in the mailroom, they came across a bag of mail that had been covered with boxes of old medical records. Philip’s letter was in that bag, and it was forwarded to us. That’s when we started searching for you.”
Silence wrapped the room like a shroud, until his grandfather asked Jacob, “You’ve never married?”
“No,” Jacob answered.
“We had hoped that we might not find not only a grandson, but also some more grandchildren,” Mrs. Mallory said.
“Then you have other children besides my father?”
“Yes, two daughters and five grandchildren. They live in New York, and we miss them during our visits to Florida,” Mrs. Mallory said. “We’re eager to get home to see them, and that’s the reason for our short visit. And, of course,” she added, “we didn’t know what to expect here.”
“We must be on our way soon,” Mr. Mallory said, “but there are a few business matters that I need to discuss with you.”
He took some papers out of his briefcase. “We have never spent the insurance money Philip left. We invested it, and it’s grown to a tidy sum through the years. It’s yours as soon as we can take care of the legal transfer.”
“That’s generous of you, but it isn’t necessary,” Jacob objected. He explained about his counseling business. “I make a good living, so please keep the money you received from my father. I don’t want it.”
When Mallory started to protest, Jacob added, “You’ve already given me a priceless gift. You’ve given me a father—something I’ve always wanted. After a lifetime of believing that my father didn’t want me, to learn that he acknowledged me on his deathbed is a gift that money can’t buy. And to know that you’re willing to accept me into the family means more to me than money.”
“Nevertheless, the money is yours,” his grandfather insisted, “and I’m going to transfer it to your name as soon as I talk with my accountant. I will need your social security number and other pertinent information. You can leave it in the same investment firm if you like, but the money is yours.”
Jacob was too overwhelmed to answer. He looked at Gran to see her reaction to all they had heard. She shook her head, indicating that she wouldn’t advise him about accepting the insurance money.
“I mentioned that I have a counseling business,” he said, “but I didn’t mention Substitute Siblings, an organization that Gran and I established to help children in need. Perhaps I can use part of the money to support new projects there.”
“The money is yours to do with as you like,” Mallory said. “I’ll have it transferred as soon as possible.”
After he recorded the information he needed, Jacob answered all their questions about his growing-up years and his education. And he was interested to hear about the two aunts he had in New York and also about his father’s childhood.
Three hours later when Gran and Jacob stood on the sidewalk watching the Mallorys drive away, Jacob still wondered if he was awake or if he’d dreamed the afternoon’s events. When his grandparents’ car turned the corner, Gran and Jacob exchanged glances. She grinned delightedly at him.
“I’ve prayed for this day for years,” she said.
“It’s a red-letter day, all right. Not only did I inherit grandparents, two aunts and several cousins, but also Substitute Siblings will have some additional funds to help more kids.”
“I’m glad you agreed to visit them this fall,” Gran said.
“They invited you, too,” Jacob reminded her. “You must go with me.”
“But I won’t. That experience will be for you and your father’s family. I’ve had you all of your life—it’s their turn. I won’t intrude.”
Jacob really didn’t want to go alone, and if Gran wouldn’t go with him, he wished that Aimee would, but there was only one way that was possible. Now that the mystery of his heritage had been cleared up, he was free to deepen his relationship with Aimee, but was he ready to acquire a stepdaughter? He knew if he married Aimee, Samantha was part of the package, too.
He could have called Aimee, but somehow he wanted to be with her, see the expression on her face when he told her about his grandparents’ visit. She had planned an outing with Chloe, and he waited until he was sure she’d be home by the time he drove to her house. She came to the door when he rang the bell.
“Oh, come in,” she said. “I’ve thought about you all day wondering how the visit with your grandparents went.”
“It couldn’t have been better. Do you have time to hear about it?”
“Sure! I can’t wait to find out.”
They sat side by side on the couch in the living room, while Jacob told her the details of the visit, even the amount of the insurance money he would eventually receive.
“My grandparents live in Malone, New York, and I have two aunts and some cousins who live there, too. They had a family picture, and it seems that they’re all God-fearing people who would be a credit to any family tree.”
“So you see, you’ve been worrying needlessly,” she said and pushed back the hair that had fallen over his forehead.
“Yes, but wouldn’t you have worried, too, if you were in my situation?”
“Of course I would. Are you going to visit them?”
“Yes, in the fall. At least, before my grandparents go to Florida again for the winter.”
She leaned against him, and Jacob put his arm around her shoulders. “You can’t imagine what a burden has been lifted from my shoulders.”
“Yes, I can…I can tell by the absence of a hint of sadness that always seemed to be lurking in your eyes. I pray that I’ll never see it there again.”
Jacob took her face and held it gently, kissed her and cradled her in his arms. She returned his caresses eagerly, until at last they were content to just sit in a close embrace and savor their moments together. Jacob looked ahead, praying that their future years would be as poignant as this moment they shared.
He went home jubilant, feeling that his problems were behind him. His paternal grandparents had recognized him and wanted to become a part of his life. Samantha was becoming less antagonistic about his relationship with Aimee. Everything was falling into place for Aimee and him to plan a life together. He couldn’t envision a cloud in the sky of their future happiness.
The next afternoon when the phone rang, not only did a cloud hover on the horizon, Jacob knew immediately that he faced a storm of gigantic proportions.
“Jacob,” said a voice he hadn’t heard for years, “this is Megan Russell.”
He was momentarily speechless in his surprise, and his body stiffened in shock.
“Jacob?” Megan said again.
“Yes,” he managed to squeeze out the one word from a throat that seemed temporarily numbed by disbelief.
“I’m coming to Benton for the big celebration next month, and I’d like to see you. I owe you an apology and an explanation of what happened between us. I wouldn’t blame you if you refused to see me, but it’s time I set the record straight.”
She spoke calmly, seemingly unaware that she had pulled an emotional rug from under his feet.
Jacob had believed he had forgiven Megan for the trouble and anguish she had caused him, but when he heard her voice, all of the anger he’d once harbored against her surfaced. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, although he knew it carried an undertone of his resentment.
“I can’t believe it. After shaming me before the whole town of Benton and allowing people to think I’d fathered your child, you have the audacity to believe that a mere apology can set things right between us?”
Jacob pictured Megan shrugging her shoulders before she answered, “Well, it’s up to you. Do you think you’re the only one who’s been miserable? I cared about you, Jacob, and I’m not proud of what I did. I had to make a choice between embarrassing you and naming the father of my child. I am sorry I treated you the way I did, but frankly I thought you could deal with the disgrace easier than he could. As I said, I care for you, but I loved him.”
Jacob thought her comments were too bizarre to deserve an answer. “No, I don’t want to see you, Megan. By the mercy of God, I’ve forgiven you for the way you treated me, and I’ll accept your apology. I’ve lived down the bad reputation you foisted upon me. So, let’s leave it at that. I don’t want to see you, and I prefer that you stay away from Benton. If you come back, all the gossip of the past will be resurrected. I don’t think I deserve that.”
“I am coming to Benton for the celebration. I’ll try to sneak in and out of town without making any waves, but I still think we should talk. I owe you an explanation, but it’s up to you. I’ll call after I get to Benton, in case you change your mind.”
She hung up, and almost immediately, Jacob wished he had learned more. Where did she live? He checked quickly to see if his caller ID had registered her telephone number. It hadn’t. Jacob buried his head in his hands.
“God, why? Why did she have to return now? It took years to get over the rejection I had from Megan and from my friends and neighbors who believed I was guilty. Why did she have to return after I’ve found Aimee and want to spend my future with her? Why, God?”