| |
A second police car pulled up, and the officers put Bud in the back of that car. They parked the truck, and we all drove to the house, stopping close to the front door. I watched from the back seat and rolled my window down so I could hear what would be said.
The officers knocked on the door. Mom answered, looking scared.
The taller officer said, “Are you Sue Smith?” When she nodded, he cleared his throat and said, “We’re arresting you and Walter Smith for the kidnapping of Violet Anne Lafferty.” He pulled a set of handcuffs from his back pocket. “Ma’am, please turn around and place your hands behind your back.”
Suddenly, everything was chaos. More police cars pulled into the driveway. I watched while the only parents I knew were handcuffed and taken away. It all happened so quickly that neither of them so much as glanced in my direction.
The woman I was sitting beside introduced herself as a social worker. She took me inside the house. “Sit down, honey, before you fall down. Everything’s going to be all right now.”
I turned a blank gaze to her. “Kidnapping?”
She nodded. “They called you Faye? Do you remember when these people took you?”
I shook my head. The police officer had said my name was Violet, not Pilot. Maybe I’d been too young to correctly say my own name.
A man in street clothes came inside and said gently, “I’m Detective Willis. Detective Hunt called us from Florida because your fingerprints match those of Violet Anne Lafferty, who disappeared from her family’s wrecked car in 1956. It took him a while to get the final confirmation from the police in Massachusetts, but when he called us, we got to you as soon as we could. Is there somebody I can call for you?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Laney. Call Laney. She’ll come.” I could barely feel my lips, but I gave him her phone number.
I must have fainted then. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the couch. The man was kneeling beside me, holding my hand. When he saw I was awake, he offered me a glass of water. “I know this is a terrible shock, but you’re safe now. The Smiths will never bother you again. Your friend Laney will be here in the morning, and your real father will also come tomorrow.” He cleared his throat. “For now, if you’re able, I’d like to take you back to the police station to answer a few questions. And I can tell you more about what happened to you. When you’ve had enough, we’ve arranged for you to stay in a foster home. It’s a nice family who’ll be happy to welcome you for tonight or as long as it takes to get everything settled.”
At last—a foster home with a nice family. Hysteria was close to the surface, and I almost giggled. But with an effort, I stopped myself. The detective wouldn’t understand. And then my mind kicked in. My real father. Real father. Father. What about my real mother?
Things became a little hazy after that. The police found my suitcase and took me to the station, where I met with the social worker and several officers. They told me the outline of the story. My parents—Ron and Marie Lafferty—and I had been in a terrible car accident on our way home from my grandparents’ house in Springfield, Massachusetts, in April 1956. My mother was killed and my father knocked unconscious. Sitting in the back seat, I apparently hadn’t been hurt badly. I wasn’t at the scene of the accident when the car was discovered. The police figured that I’d spent the night in the car by myself before either wandering away and being eaten by an animal or being kidnapped.
Somewhere in the bowels of the Greenville police station, Sue had confessed everything. The officers told me the gist of it. According to her story, she and Bud had stopped to investigate the accident when they came upon it the next morning. Their own daughter had been about my age. She had died some time back, so they took me and gave me her name.
Now I understood why I’d had the dark dream. It must have been beyond horrible, shaking my parents over and over and not being able to wake them up, seeing their blood everywhere, being afraid of the long, dark night, and having to pee so badly that I wet my pants. In the years since then, my mind had given me a wonderful gift of only allowing me to remember the details in my dreams.
When working with Terry, I had remembered seeing Sue’s face in the car window. At first, she’d looked like a monster. Which, of course, she really was. If I had known that, I would have fought to stay with my real parents, even if they weren’t responding. But I didn’t know. I was only four years old. I was probably so happy to see anybody alive that I didn’t even complain when she took me away. And look where it led me. I felt like a plant that had been uprooted and stomped on until it lay in shreds on the ground.
The social worker took me to the foster home for the night. The people seemed nice enough, but I barely noticed that my fondest dream of being safe had been realized. At that point, not much mattered except becoming unconscious. I ate a few bites then fell into bed and slept for twelve hours.
* * *
BACK AT THE POLICE station the next morning, Laney raced in. I’d never been so happy to see anyone. She enveloped me in a hug. “I’m so sorry, Faye. I shouldn’t have let Sue take you back, no matter what she said. I was wrong. Will you forgive me?”
That had happened a lifetime ago. I cleared my throat and croaked out, “It’s okay. You didn’t think this would happen. You’re here now, and that’s what matters.” I stepped back and looked around her. “Where’s Francie?”
“She’s at school. It’s just me. But we can call her later.”
I nodded and clasped her hand like a drowning person holding onto a life preserver. She held my hand just as tightly. Her hand was strong and warm, and she was the only adult I trusted. I couldn’t remember the last time an adult had held my hand like that, and I wasn’t about to let her go.
Soon, a man walked in who introduced himself as a police psychologist. He asked what I remembered about my early life, and I described the drawings I’d made of my real mother. He showed me a photograph of both parents that was taken with Violet—me—just before the accident. We were standing in front of a big car with gull wings. The mother in the photograph looked a lot like my drawings, except her chin was more pointed than I remembered. I didn’t remember my father very well. He did look a bit familiar but not as much as my mother. I must not have spent as much time with him as with her.
And the little girl—she was me. I was wearing the white dress I’d remembered, with the embroidered rose on the front. On my feet were black patent leather shoes and white socks with ruffles.
Wait a second. That car was exactly like the one that Benny drove. I shivered when I recognized it. No wonder I had been so freaked out when he ran me off the road. I’d spent the most terrible night of my life in that car.
“This was taken the day before the accident,” the psychologist said, keeping a sharp eye on me. “Just after your fourth birthday party. Do you remember that?”
“I do remember a birthday party, but... wait a minute. My birthday is in January. You said the accident happened in April?”
He glanced down at a file. “Yes. April 8. Your birthday is April 7, 1952.”
So not only was I not who I thought I was, but I had a different birthday. Different parents, different name, and now a different birthday. It was too much to endure. I teared up.
Laney patted my hand. “It’s okay. You’re still the same person inside that you’ve always been. You’ll have to get used to some new things about yourself, but you’ll always be the girl who runs like a gazelle. Don’t forget that.”
“All right,” I whispered.
He talked to me about flashbacks. Parts of my old life had flooded back into my consciousness from time to time. Benny running me off the road had probably been the trigger that started it all. But my real parents had been runners, and my dad had hoped to run the Boston Marathon one day. I might have heard him talking about it at home or run around the yard with him and my mom. Maybe Francie’s talk about the marathon had jolted my memories. The psychologist said that I might never understand why those early memories were triggered, but it was a good thing they had been, because they had led to me being safe.
Safe. What a reassuring word that was. Only four letters, but they made the difference between paralyzing terror and peaceful comfort. I wondered when the last time was that I had felt really, truly safe.
The psychologist smiled and stood up. “You can meet your father now.”
All kinds of thoughts raced through my mind before I saw him. What if he was disappointed in the girl I’d become and decided he didn’t want me after all? What if he took one look and decided he’d made a mistake and I wasn’t really his daughter? Laney rubbed my back and told me how brave I was, and that helped a little.
The psychologist stepped outside and came back a few minutes later, followed by a man I didn’t recognize. I knew it could only be my dad, but seeing him in person was different from viewing photographs. I stood up, and we stared at each other.
He was more than six feet tall. And slim, like me. Our hair was the same color, but his was starting to turn white at the temples. And we had the same freckles covering our faces. It hit me that, for the first time in my memory, there was someone who looked like me. I didn’t have to make up excuses for why nobody in my family had red hair and freckles. Anybody could tell we were related. I stared at him and let amazement wash over me.
He bit his lip, and I recognized the gesture. I did it all the time. Suddenly, a flash of red-hot anger ran through my body. If he hadn’t wrecked the car that day, we wouldn’t be meeting like this after twelve long years.
He said, “Violet,” and grinned with his whole body. “You look just like I’ve pictured you. I thought I was dreaming when I saw you on TV last year, running so proud in that race.”
I tried to contain myself, but I couldn’t keep the outrage from seeping out. “You saw me? Why didn’t you come and get me then? Why wait for six months until the police found me?” Laney clasped my fingers, encouraging me to calm down. I shook my head. I needed to know.
He flushed bright crimson. “I wrote a letter to your coach, but I never got an answer. And I’d had so many disappointments, so many times when I thought it was you but it wasn’t, that I didn’t dare drive all the way down to Florida if I wasn’t sure. I kept waiting to hear back before I did anything. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I should have come and gotten you right away.”
My heart sank. So it really had been him writing to Coach Lopez about me possibly being his long-lost daughter. We’d thought he was a crank, but if I’d written back, everything might have been different. And if I hadn’t thrown the letter away the night before we moved, I might have known, before I was nearly killed, that I had a real dad who wanted me. But I hadn’t known. I hadn’t known.
After that, my anger dissolved. He held out his arms, and I walked into them. We hugged for a long time. I heard sniffles behind me—Laney, probably, and maybe even the psychologist.
But neither my dad nor I cried. Tears weren’t strong enough for how I felt. I basked in the feel of his arms around me. I even thought I recognized his smell—a mixture of talcum powder and Aqua Velva aftershave. It felt safe.
After a while, with his arm still around my shoulders, we sat down. The police officers went on to other duties, and only Laney and the psychologist remained.
My dad told me about my family. My mother, Marie, was from Montreal, and her first language was French. That was why she had an accent. He held back a sob. “She loved you so much, Violet. More than anything in the world. We hoped for more children, but it hadn’t happened yet.” He said that both sets of grandparents were still alive. I also had an uncle and two cousins. Ron had called them the previous night, before boarding the plane to North Carolina, and told them the wonderful news. They were eager to meet me whenever I was ready.
Of course I wanted to meet them, but I needed some time to get used to all this. If I had ever had epilepsy, all this change would have surely set off a seizure. I found myself wishing I had one of the pills my mom—Sue—had made me take. In spite of them being aspirin, I could have used the sheer familiarity of something soothing. Right then, the only thing in my world that was familiar was Laney. I didn’t let go of her hand.
I asked him about the accident. His eyes grew sad. “It was completely my fault. We’d gone to your grandparents’ house on Saturday for your birthday party and spent the night. We were slow to get started back to Boston on Sunday afternoon.”
He was quiet for a while, and when he finally spoke, his words came slowly, as if they hurt his throat. “It started snowing as we crossed the mountains. I can’t recall everything, but I think I lost control of the car when I swerved to miss a deer. I should have been more careful. I grew up in the mountains, and I knew how bad the deer are at sunset. Anyway, we smashed into a tree, hard enough to demolish the front of the car. I woke up three days later in the hospital. The doctor told me that your mother was dead and you were missing. It was a terrible time.” He stopped to take some breaths. “You must have been terrified all alone in the back seat. I’m so sorry, Violet.”
Violet. That didn’t seem like my name, but I nodded. We sat for a while, thinking our own thoughts. I had so many questions and no idea where to start.
“Uh, did you ever call me Pilot?”
He laughed. “Sure. It was my pet nickname for you. It sounded a little like Violet, and when you were tiny you couldn’t say your Vs. Why?”
“I had a wreck a couple of months ago, and when I woke up, I thought my name was Pilot. Everybody thought it was a joke.”
Shaking his head, he said, “No. No joke.”
We sat for another few minutes in silence. Eventually, I told him about finding the letter about the race and going to visit our house in Boston. “It didn’t look at all familiar.” I showed him the drawing I’d made of a house. “Do you recognize it?”
He stared at my drawing. “I’m not sure, but it might be your grandparents’ house in Springfield. We lived around the corner from there before we moved to Boston. We’d only been on Eustis Street for about six months before the accident. After a couple of years, I moved back to Springfield and spent most of my time searching for you.”
“Do you know why Sue and Bud had the letter in their metal box?”
“Not at all. But it might have been in your mom’s pocketbook that day.”
The psychologist said, “We can ask Mr. and Mrs. Smith about it if you want.”
I nodded. And then a wave of exhaustion washed over me. Too much emotion. I couldn’t cope. I made a face at Laney. Help me out here.
She looked at her watch. “I hate to break up the party, but Faye needs to make some phone calls right now. We’ll have to finish this later.”
Thank God for Laney. I felt like a shirt that had gone through a wringer washer—flat and dry. Before we left, I asked if it would be all right if I called him “Ron” instead of “Dad,” at least for a while.
“Call me anything,” he said with a smile, “as long as you call me.”
An old joke, but he meant it. And I hoped I would never be without him again. I just needed to take a break and talk to Francie and Reese to get my bearings.
As Laney and I walked out of the police station, I stopped the psychologist who had introduced me to my dad. I knew I shouldn’t be thinking this way, but I couldn’t help myself. “Uh... I hate to ask this, but how is my mom... Sue... doing?”
He took a long inhalation before answering. “She’s in a cell now. I’ve talked to her. She’s sad and remorseful. She knew what she did was wrong, and she feels terrible about it. But her main thoughts are with you, that you’re all right. She asked me to apologize to you if I saw you. But I didn’t want to bring it up unless you asked, and now you have.” He leaned in toward me. “Faye, it’s going to take some time for everybody to get used to the new situation. I think it’s best that you not see her right now but focus on getting to know your real dad instead. You and Sue can write letters to each other later if you want.”
“No,” I said as forcefully as I could. “I hate her, and I especially hate him. I don’t want to see either of them ever again.” I turned away.
“That’s your choice, of course,” I heard him say as Laney and I walked out the door.