Chapter Twenty-Six
KENDALL IGNORED THE ACHE in her chest every time she thought of Gabe and instead focused on her computer screen. She had no right to be upset, no right to expect things that Gabe hadn’t promised her. It was good, actually, that she’d had things put into perspective for her. In a single week, she’d forgotten the whole reason she’d come to Jasper Lake—to sell her property here and buy the house that had been the closest thing to home for the last several years. Going through the photos of the Woolridge House, making notes on her pocket notepad, was a good way to realign her focus.
But she had to admit that Gabe wasn’t the only thing dragging her mind back to Jasper Lake. She’d resisted any feeling of connection to this mountain town, the missing pieces of her past leaving painful jagged holes inside her. But finding her mother’s letters had changed all that. Yes, there were still gaps in the narrative; it didn’t change the fact that things had gone wrong in ways she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. But it showed her that the one thing she’d always feared was untrue.
She’d been loved.
Her mother had been trying to bring her back home to her family, trying to give her a better life. No matter what had interrupted that goal, she could hold on to the knowledge that she hadn’t been dismissed as damaged or a deadweight or unworthy of love.
No matter what Gabe might think of her.
Kendall sighed and put aside her notepad. There was no way she was going to focus on the California house, and to be honest, there was very little she could do. For reasons she didn’t fully understand, she hadn’t been able to get herself to contact the owners of the home and tell them she would take the job. Something told her she’d never be able to move on with her life without some closure in Jasper Lake.
There was no point in putting it off. She had to know.
She brought up the genealogy site and opened an account, then entered her credit card number for the monthly trial that would give her access to all the original records they had on file. She then found herself staring at a clean white screen with a search box.
She sat there, her fingers hovering over the keys. Then she typed Kendall Green followed by her birthday. At the last minute, she entered her place of birth as Colorado, though she had no idea which town she was born in.
An animated symbol indicated it was searching, and Kendall held her breath. Only to receive the message No results found.
Hmm. That was disappointing, but not completely unexpected. She typed in her mother’s name, Caroline Green.
Nothing.
She thought for a second and then typed Constance Green and Jasper Lake in the keyword box.
Nothing there either.
Clearly she needed a birth date. She turned to open the file box containing her grandmother’s medical records . . . and realized she’d been in such a hurry to escape, she’d left them in the back of Gabe’s truck. She winced, weighing the need to get the information against the awkwardness of texting him after she’d blown him off.
The desire for information won out. She texted,
A minute later, he replied,
No, that was the last thing she needed. She was on a roll and he was only a distraction, especially if he wanted to talk about what had happened.
Several minutes passed, and Kendall couldn’t help wondering where he was. At home? Eating lunch? Obviously she’d sent him out in the cold and snow to check the boxes.
And then he came back with
She put the phone aside and carefully typed the birth date into the search box. This time when the little animation was done spinning, it brought up three records. One had been filed in St. Louis, Missouri, the second in Charleston, South Carolina. But the third? Longmont, Colorado.
Kendall’s heart pounded as she clicked on the arrow that led to the record. She’d expected it to lead her to a birth certificate, but instead it led her to the deed of an old house in Denver, owned by Jonathan and Constance Green.
She wanted to slap her hand to her forehead. She was looking up Connie’s married name. But now that she remembered her grandfather’s name, maybe she could find a marriage certificate.
It took several permutations of her search before she came up with a plausible record: a marriage license between Jonathan William Green and Constance Amelia Jankowsky.
Kendall gave a sharp laugh. She was part Polish? That was something she’d never expected.
She typed in Connie’s maiden name, almost giddy with anticipation of what she’d find.
No records found.
She sighed and slumped back against the pillows on her bed. That was anticlimactic. Here she’d been sure she was about to uncover something important about her past, something that might even help her with the house, and she’d hit a dead end.
She stared at the ceiling for a long moment, tracing the smooth slope of plaster into the cove molding, letting the sense of failure wash over her. And then she sat bolt upright.
She was an idiot. The original owner—or at least an early owner—hadn’t been a Jankowsky. He had been a Green. Related to her grandfather, not her grandmother.
Kendall rolled her eyes at her own sluggish thinking and typed in her grandfather’s name and birth date. This brought up a short list of records—marriage certificate, the deed to the Denver house, even a military enlistment record. Apparently Jonathan Green had been a Navy man. Well, that would explain why he had repressed his true identity for so long. Gay men in the military were barely tolerated today; back then, they would have been prohibited from serving at all.
And then she came across something that she should have expected but hadn’t: a death certificate dated November 5, 1993.
An unexpected wash of disappointment flooded her. It wasn’t as if she had given her grandfather much thought until now; she’d been much too focused on her relationship to Connie and Carrie. But now she realized that in the back of her mind, she’d hoped he might still be alive out there somewhere, one of the last links to her family. And as much of a long shot as it might have been, one of the last links to the provenance of the house.
She shut the lid of the laptop in frustration. It was slightly more than she’d known before—she was a Jankowsky on her grandmother’s side—but it didn’t give any more insight into the house and how it had made its way back around into the hands of a family member. If indeed J. Green and Jonathan Green were even related. It was a common enough name; she could be reading into things far too deeply.
No, if they were going to find out anything helpful about the Green family line and how these houses fit into the history of Jasper Lake, they’d have to do it through the house itself. She just hoped that when they cut into the ceiling of the master bedroom closet tomorrow, she was left with more than drywall dust to show for it.