5
HANNAH STERLING
DECEMBER 1972
The brass bell over the door of Ward Beecham’s downtown office tinkled. There was no secretary in the lobby. No secretary and no desk for one. Just an orange vinyl sofa with walnut-veneer legs and a matching chair that might have come off the floor of the five-and-dime, or been left over from my principal’s office.
But the paintings on the walls could have been set in any upscale attorney’s office in Charlotte. Instead of the printed portraits of the founding fathers, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy sported in black plastic frames by every judicial and political office in town, Mr. Beecham’s walls held cityscapes of Paris and London, and the ruins of two castles set somewhere in Scotland —places the locals had probably never dreamed of, let alone visited. The paintings —original oils in carved gilt frames —drew me and gave me a tingling sense of freedom, that perhaps the world held more possibilities than I’d imagined, that maybe one day I’d sit in a Parisian café or walk the paths of the Highlands. And then I pinched myself. Who am I kidding? At the rate I’m going I’ll be lucky to pay my weekly boardinghouse room rate and hold on to my ancient Royal typewriter.
The inner office door opened. I wouldn’t have guessed that the bespectacled, brown-eyed man with curly dark hair and sporting the first signs of a midlife paunch was the owner of the paintings —the vinyl sofa, maybe.
“Miss Sterling, I’m pleased to meet you.” Ward Beecham, with loosened tie and shirtsleeves rolled above his wrists, extended his hand. “Please come in.”
His office was as mismatched as his lobby. He offered me the single wine-colored leather wingback chair, taking a seat behind a gunmetal-gray desk —Army surplus, by the looks of it.
“I appreciate you calling me, Mr. Beecham.”
“Call me Ward, Miss Sterling.” He smiled, brown eyes creasing at the corners.
“Then call me Hannah.”
“Hannah.”
The way he said it warmed my face, which was just silly and further proof that I needed a life. “You mentioned that my mother left a key, as well as her will.”
“To her safe-deposit box. She was very particular that I see you privately and place it in your hand.”
“Yes, you said. I had no idea my parents rented a safe-deposit box, or that they owned anything to put in it.”
He nodded, but shifted forward and, all business, clasped his hands on top of the desk. “Let me go through the will with you. Then we’ll talk about the box. I’ll share with you everything she told me.”
There was nothing in the will but the house and land —the title free and clear, just as I’d expected. “Won’t I need a deed to sell the house?”
“Your mother opened the box at the bank when she learned her cancer was terminal. I advised her to place the deed and any other documents, some extra cash, whatever she thought pertinent, there.”
The vise in my chest tightened. That’s it? You made it sound so important, like there was something . . . something special from my mother, just for me. But I nodded, as if that were what I’d expected, and stood to go. I wouldn’t cry in front of this man.
He stood too. “Miss Sterling, I don’t know how to say this.”
I bit my lower lip and straightened my shoulders, waiting.
“Your mother was an unusual woman.”
You’re telling me this as if it’s news? As if I need a perfect stranger to point out my family’s strangeness?
“That came out wrong. What I mean to say is that I admired her very much. She endured a great deal.”
“The cancer,” I conceded.
“I didn’t mean that. Yes, certainly, she did endure that with grace, but she was a kind woman, a brave woman . . . in a none-too-friendly community.”
It was the nicest thing I’d ever heard anyone say about my mother. But how do you know this? Why did she come to you in the first place? “A none-too-friendly community” . . . “I guess you know something about that.”
He half grunted and sighed. “It’s not easy being the newcomer on the block.”
“But my mother wasn’t a newcomer. She lived here for over twenty-five years.”
“It could have been a hundred and I don’t think it would have mattered, do you?”
“Or a hundred and fifty. No, I don’t. But I never fully understood why, unless it was her accent. She was Austrian, you know.”
He looked away. He knows something.
“Mr. Beecham —”
“Ward.”
“If you know something about my mother, I beg you to tell me. We were not close, but I need to understand . . . to . . .” But I couldn’t finish. I didn’t know how.
“To put the puzzle pieces together.”
“Yes. But I don’t even understand how you know that. What did she tell you?”
He shook his head. “Only that there are things she couldn’t explain, that she’d never been able to talk about. But she said you are bright; you would figure it out. She was fiercely proud of you.”
He’s lying.
“She said only that the things she left in the box would create more questions than answers for you. She hoped you’d be satisfied with what you find there. But if you need help or legal advice, she asked me to assist you in any way I can.”
I nodded my thanks, still uncertain, and turned to go.
“Your mother paid for a year.”
“Excuse me?”
“Retainer . . . for me to handle anything you need.”
I couldn’t leave his office fast enough, couldn’t walk to the bank quickly enough. I shook as I showed the clerk my mother’s key and signed the registry. My knees wobbled as I followed the bank manager into the small vault and watched him insert my key and the bank’s key into the slots on a metal box. He handed me the box, which for some reason I’d expected to be heavier, and showed me into a private room, then closed the door.
Please, God. Let there be something here . . . something that explains, that helps me understand her. I drew a deep breath and opened the box. Papers —nothing but papers. My heart sank. My parents’ marriage certificate, Mama’s naturalization papers, the deed to the house, Daddy’s Army discharge papers. A couple of pictures of me as a baby —one was an old sepia-toned snapshot of Mama holding me. And an array of empty, faded envelopes with foreign stamps. I’d expected something personal —a diary, a letter written to me, an heirloom ring or brooch —something to link us, to explain.
Stop being so juvenile. You knew she owned no such thing, would write no such thing. Then why all the cloak-and-dagger, Mama?
I turned over the envelopes, all addressed to Mama, all in the same handwriting but one. I could barely make out the addresses and dates on some of them. The words were certainly foreign to me, but all the stamps were German.
Aunt Lavinia phoned two nights later, the first time since Thanksgiving weekend. “Norma mentioned that she saw you in town today. I’m glad you’re getting out, Hannah. Working in that old house day after day must be depressing.”
Did she mention that she saw me coming out of Ward Beecham’s? Or the bank?
“It’s not so bad. I’m nearly finished.” I traced the letters and numbers on Mama and Daddy’s marriage certificate —the certificate I’d read two hundred times since pulling it from the safe-deposit box. But no amount of tracing or rubbing the paper changed the date.
“Oh?” Aunt Lavinia waited. “Everything all right?”
“Sure, why wouldn’t it be?”
“I’m just concerned about you, that’s all. You haven’t been by for over a week. I miss you. I don’t want all this to come between us, sweetheart.”
“I don’t want that either, Aunt Lavinia, but I don’t really see much way around it. You know something about Mama and Daddy and refuse to tell me, even though you know what this means to me —even though you know I’m apt to lose my job if I don’t get some closure, some resolution. Sooner or later I’m going to figure it out. I’d much rather hear it from you.”
“Did you talk with Ward Beecham?”
“Didn’t Norma tell you that I did —twice this week?”
“Don’t get so defensive. Did you settle everything? Can you go ahead and sell the house?”
“The death certificate was issued and the deed is free and clear. I can sell whenever I want —when I’m ready, when I find a buyer. Why are you in such a hurry for me to do that? You know if I don’t own the house, I’ll never move back here.”
“And you know you’re always welcome to stay with me. But you deserve a life of your own, Hannah. You have a good job and —”
“I’m not sure I’ll go back after Christmas, at least not right away.”
“You’re staying here?” Aunt Lavinia paused. “Does this have something to do with Clyde?” She sounded so hopeful.
“No! I might take a trip is all. I don’t know yet.” I couldn’t keep the snap from my voice.
“Oh, honey, that vacation we talked about? That’s just what you need. It will do you a world of good.”
“I certainly hope so.”
“Where are you going?”
I knew that telling Aunt Lavinia might start a new war, a war I didn’t want or need. But maybe it would inspire her to tell me what she knew before I traveled halfway around the world.
“Germany.”
The silence on the other end of the line was deafening.
“Why do you want to go to Germany? I’d have thought Myrtle Beach or Nags Head, maybe even Hawaii if the house sells.”
“I think Mama might not have been Austrian after all. I think she might —I might —even have family still living in Germany.”
“You’re not serious.”
“I’ve been busy, Aunt Lavinia. I contacted one of Daddy’s old war buddies. He was in Italy, with the 45th, until the month before his unit helped liberate Dachau, and that was just a month before he was shipped back to the States.”
“What difference does that make?”
But I knew from Aunt Lavinia’s voice —strained and quiet —that she knew very well. “Mama was pregnant before she married Daddy.”
“Well, you know, soldiers during the war. Your daddy —”
“Daddy couldn’t have been my father, not my real father. They didn’t even meet until a few weeks before I was born.” Saying it aloud made me sick, sick at heart and sick to my stomach. Why did you never tell me, Daddy? How could you and Mama keep that from me all my life, pretend I was yours?
“Hannah, how can you say such a thing? He loved you. He raised you from a baby.”
“I saw his discharge papers. I tracked his war record. I have their marriage certificate and I know my own birthday.” It was all a statement of fact, but it sounded so cold.
“Oh, Hannah.”
“All it takes is a little math.”