Full Circle

By Patty Brant

It looks like someone left the door to the nether region open again, and reporter Molly Martindale has got another batch of otherworldly supplicants who need her help.

Not long ago, Molly quite literally went to hell to help secure peace for her friend Dennis, who was born Buddy Parker in the 1920s in her beloved, adopted hometown of Oxbow, Florida. Oxbow has always felt charmed to Mollythat is, if she doesnt count the ghostly visitors who turn her world upside down or the recent return of her ex-boyfriend Greg Richards, who brings with him the scourge of illicit drugs and a burning need to get even with her.

Molly is working on acquainting her best friend Dana with Denniss memory. He is the father Dana has never known but always resented. Molly must tread carefully, all too aware that she could easily lose her best friend in the process. Whats more, things heat up when Dana meets Glenn Morrison, the wheelchair-bound veteran Molly kind of thinks of as hers. But soon Molly finds herself threatened from all sides, as residents of hell plead for her help yet again.

In this sequel to Bitter Secrets, only time will tell if she can deal with worldly and supernatural problems as she fights her newest unholy foesthe advent of drugs into her world, decades of lies involving the powerful St. Claire family, and the shadows of her past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491743874

Patty Brant

Patty Brant honed her writing skills as a small-town newspaper reporter and editor in a rural South Florida county. Born in Canton, Ohio, she lives with her husband and daughters in Clewiston, Florida. Her first book, Bitter Secrets, earned a finalist position in the 2013 Indie Excellence Book Awards.

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Copyright © 2014 Patty Brant.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-4386-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-4388-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-4387-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014914635

iUniverse rev. date: 10/24/2014

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 1

Oxbow, Florida

1985

S OMETHING WAS DISTURBING MY peace, tickling at the edges—light without hope gathering at the corners of my consciousness. Cold. Pitiable. Lonely. Growing. Dissolving the warm, safe darkness. Suffocating my soul.

A woman appeared, pretty and young with empty eyes and strawberry hair. A man reached for her, straining to get closer, aching to bridge the gap with just a gentle touch. She saw him but was powerless to help herself or him.

It had been another sleepless night, and after the icy scene I had just witnessed, the soft moonlight streaming through my window confused me. It felt like slamming into a radiant, glowing wall, and my senses were overwhelmed as I once again rebounded from the unnatural cold in which my ghostly visitors always enveloped me. Numbed from this eerily familiar and hated cold, I wrapped myself tightly in an old comforter I kept handy at the foot of my bed. Even in the warmth of the southwest Florida autumn, I felt the need for my old talisman. My five-year-old chocolate lab, Dutch, tentatively placed a paw on the edge of the bed, seeking to reassure me. His warm brown eyes pleaded to help me. His low growl turned into a pitiful whine. We were alone again.

It’s okay, boy, I lied, reaching out to ruffle his thick brown coat.

I slipped onto the floor with my comforter and welcomed him into its feathery folds with me, trying to generate warmth after my visitors had sucked the heat from my very bones. I couldn’t ignore my own pale, drawn face as it stared back at me from the full-length mirror in the corner. For once that mirror didn’t remind me of any excess baggage attached to my backside. Rich chestnut hair, wild and tangled, framed my face, and pure terror shone in my eyes—what my mom had always called my grandmother’s blue eyes.

Molly Martindale, that’s me, doorway to the netherworld. How in the world did this happen?

I know, I know, our visitors scare you as much as they do me, I said soothingly to Dutch, closing my eyes and placing my smooth, icy forehead against his furry warm one. These two intruders were just the latest. I had thought I was free of these otherworldly interlopers since finally uncovering the truth about my friend Dennis, but apparently that wasn’t to be.

What could it be now? Oh, God, what could these sorrowful, hollow tendrils from hell be seeking from me this time?

The oh-so-normal day still hadn’t quite thawed the previous night’s horror, even as my friend Dana and I prepared to enjoy another glorious Florida sunset.

Dana D’Lorenzo had been in Oxbow for a little over a year, and during that time we had become great friends—even though I was a little bit country, and she was a little bit rock ‘n’ roll, as the song goes.

Raised in a working-class West Palm Beach neighborhood, Dana had gone to the University of Florida in Gainesville before returning to the East Coast to practice medicine, so she was at home in the big city. Oxbow, Florida, certainly had none of the things she was used to. When she first arrived, I didn’t think she’d make it even six months before hightailing it back to the coast. I guess you just never know.

I had successfully shaken off the shadows of the previous night’s visitors as I went about my workday—collecting information for my front-page stories and gathering tidbits for this week’s edition of the Oxbow Independent. It was my job to make sure the residents of Oxbow had their local paper to go with their after-dinner coffee, a Wednesday evening ritual at most homes, and it took a full week get it all together. Now as I tried to relax this Friday evening, I was having a hard time keeping my ghosts at bay. Would Dana understand about my hell-spawned visitors if I told her? Would anybody?

I was in the kitchen refilling our empty tea glasses—heavy on the ice and lemon for Dana—and had left her out on the back porch. Through the kitchen window I could see her, picking absently at a couple of pieces of pasta left on her plate, gazing out over the sun-kissed river slowly making its way to the Gulf of Mexico. Dana’s pediatric practice was a magnet for all the mothers in Oxbow, and our us time seemed to dwindle weekly. My mind went over our earlier conversation as I tumbled ice cubes into our glasses and splashed the sweet brown liquid over them, trying not to think about the extra pounds our girlie night pasta dinner would add to my posterior. That fight and trying to quit chewing my nails were the never-ending struggles of my existence. Someday …

Sitting there on the porch during supper, Dana and I had mused over the past several months of her life—remarkable mainly in their lack of remarkableness, she had said. She was a woman used to highs and lows. We had talked, half-mesmerized by the steady westward flow of the Oxbow River, while Dutch chased a small rabbit. The past few months had been a revelation to Dana.

Growing up, Dana had never had access to the finer things in life, but she was used to a somewhat faster pace—movies, theater, nightlife, traffic. Oxbow had none of those. It was quiet, and life was slow. The small things in life still had importance. Yet there were times when a girl just wanted to have a good time. And Oxbow—well, Oxbow just fell short in that category.

I do like it here, she said, reaffirming an earlier comment as I returned to the table with the two large sparkling glasses of sweet tea.

I gave my friend a quizzical look. As a sister of sorts, I had often witnessed Dana’s symptoms of withdrawal from city life—and it wasn’t pretty. Is this the same Dana D’Lorenzo I’ve come to know and love? I asked. The one who has moaned time and again about no movies, no nightlife, no shopping?

I know, I know, Dana said, laughing and brushing her thatch of auburn hair away from her lovely face. I’ve been a real pest about that, and I still have a problem with no shopping, for heaven’s sake.

I couldn’t resist intoning her trademark line. No shopping, no civilization.

Dana smiled ruefully. Yes, I admit I’m a shopaholic. Being here has introduced me to the joys of junk store shopping, though—a whole new branch of the sport for me!

I know. I’m as guilty as you are, I said.

It was true. We had elevated thrift store shopping if not to a religion, then at least to something just short of idol worship. We both smiled at the shared memories. It was a point of pride—no thrift store within a hundred miles was safe from these two bargain-store plunderers!

We continued to sip our tea as a virtual legion of brilliant red dragonflies swooped across the yard in staggered formation. The troops were well disciplined—there were no malingerers, and every soldier seemed to be aligned just right, their objective, whatever that might be, apparently clear in their little minds.

Still, in all honesty, I do miss being able to catch a movie on a whim or just head over to the zoo. I used to love to go to the zoo. My mom and I, and later Aunt Stella, spent many a Saturday there when I was growing up.

After her mother died, Dana had been raised by what used to be referred to as a maiden aunt. We had found out early in our friendship that this was one of life’s experiences we shared.

I recalled how our friendship had started. Dr. Dana, as all the kids called her, had come to Oxbow to take over the pediatric practice that her mentor, Dr. Arthur Michaelson, had begun in the office across from mine at the Oxbow Independent, where I had worked full-time since high school. (I had started out as the receptionist, contributing stories now and then, shepherded by the editor, until she deemed me ready to take on reporter duties.) The doctor had been Dana’s mentor since childhood and was an old flame of her Aunt Stella’s.

The flame had withered many years earlier when Dr. M. met Verna, the love of his life, but against the supposed rules, they had all remained friends over the years. Aunt Stella and Dr. M. had grown up together in the same working-class neighborhood where Stella still lived. He had remained true to his dream and had become a doctor, thanks in large part to Verna’s devotion and hard work.

Aunt Stella had stayed in the old neighborhood and made her living as a bookkeeper. She never married, but that didn’t seem to be a problem for her. She was basically a happy, well-adjusted human being and did not particularly feel the need to have a man of her very own, at least not a permanent one.

When Virginia, Dana’s mother, was diagnosed with breast cancer, Stella took care of both her sister Virginia and little Dana, then a precocious eight-year-old. Virginia’s illness took her quickly. Soon it was just Dana and her Aunt Stella. Dana’s father had long since vanished. At least that’s what Dana believed. In all the world, only a couple of people knew the truth about him.

The truth was that Buddy Parker and Dennis Blankenship, my friend, the man Dana could see only as pathetic at best, were one and the same. And the truth was also that Buddy Parker was Dana’s father.

Franklin Brown knew it. He was the oldest man in Oxbow and maybe the best. He was the grandson of slaves, and every kid who grew up in Oxbow had called him friend since—well, since way before I came to town as a scared thirteen-year-old orphan.

The experience of losing our parents early in life had helped Dana and me bond very quickly, but the truth was that Dana’s father had not abandoned her and her mother, although that’s what she’d grown up believing. Buddy Parker had managed to come home from the hell that was Korea in the early 1950s, but he would never be the same. An explosion had seared the flesh on most of one side of his body, leaving him grotesquely disfigured. By the time I met him, decades later, the horrific scars still had the power to repel people, and most couldn’t or wouldn’t meet his gaze. Although he was very capable, securing more than an occasional menial job was impossible. His drinking only served to alienate people even more, although he never made a scene. I’m sure drinking and his scruffy mutt, Li’l Bit, were the only buffers he had against a world that had stripped him of everything. I prayed that the friendships he had with a few folks in Oxbow had also given him some comfort.

Anyway, his injuries had kept him from returning to his family. He had resolved not to subject them to the stares and ostracism he would endure for the rest of his life—but he always did everything he could to help provide for them. Dennis, born Buddy Parker right here in Oxbow, had died just about a year before this autumn evening Dana and I were sharing. Uncovering the Parker family story had been one of the most difficult and rewarding things I’d ever done. And Dennis had entrusted me with the task of finding the right way, time, and place to tell Dana about him.

Dana hadn’t realized who he was, but she had actually met her father here in Oxbow when she first arrived—long after she had been told he died. That meeting was a fiasco. Dana saw Dennis as creepy and inept, but what she actually saw was his utter befuddlement at suddenly being face-to-face with his beautiful and intelligent daughter after a lifetime of self-inflicted deprivation.

There was so much about the man that Dana could not know, could not appreciate. In fact, Buddy Parker—the man Dana knew as Dennis Blankenship—had been the sole survivor of his family. The rest had all died in 1943 in a fire set by the sainted mayor of the time, Anderson St. Claire, his brother, and a couple of his flunkies. Of course, they’d covered up the fire and told everyone the family had pulled up stakes and moved to Georgia. No one in Oxbow would question anything Anderson St. Claire said. Only a handful of people knew the truth, and without irrefutable proof, the powerful St. Claires could hardly be accused of murder. Still, the truth had satisfied my original ghostly visitors, the ones who had introduced me to that unfathomable hell to bring Buddy’s story to light. I had fulfilled their need and had been left in peace—until the previous night’s newcomers had found their way into my head and my life.

I thought again about Dana’s arrival in town. Dr. Michaelson was a kind elderly man with a gentle touch and quick smile. His practice here, which he had started after they moved to Oxbow from West Palm Beach, was just beginning to get off the ground when his beloved wife Verna was diagnosed with a slow-spreading terminal cancer. They had always talked about traveling the world, so Dr. Michaelson took Verna off to do all the things they’d always dreamed about before it was too late.

Dr. M. was Dana’s godfather and had been her mentor for as long as she could remember. When he and Verna decided to travel, Dr. M. offered Dana his practice. Not long after she’d started coming here from the coast, Dana confided in me that she wasn’t really keen on moving to a small agriculture-based town. But she eventually did decide to divide her time between her practice on the coast and Oxbow, and then she decided to stay—I think more because her old mentor wanted her to than anything else, at least in the beginning.

My story was different. My parents died in a traffic crash when I was thirteen. That’s when I came to live with Aunt Nell in Oxbow. Dana and I found that we’d had a lot in common as children—the pain of losing our parents and the care each of us had found with a strong and loving maternal aunt.

We hit it off from the beginning. I learned a lot about Dana when I interviewed her for the paper—a new doctor in town was big news. Our acquaintance quickly expanded to a real friendship that gave both of us a shared sense of belonging.

Now it was a fine Friday evening, and neither of us had any demands on our time for once. Dana had wiped the last toddler’s runny nose and sent her back home with her mother with a recommendation for some TLC and an over-the-counter cold medication. After such a short time in Oxbow, Dr. Dana was already well known and well loved by all the children and their mothers, who had soon found that she was an excellent physician and seemed to have just the right touch with both her young patients and their moms.

I had actually gotten out of the newspaper office shortly after five that afternoon. I had then called Dana, and we quickly made plans to have dinner. We usually had our little dinners at my place because we loved to watch the river roll by as we ate. Plus, it gave Dana the chance to get out of her tiny apartment for the evening and play with Dutch. Dana leased an apartment above Ruby Mae’s Café, one of Oxbow’s social centers. It was an especially nice apartment just down the block from her office (and from mine), so it was convenient. But her landlord, Oliver St. Claire, wouldn’t allow any real pets there, so I graciously shared Dutch with her.

Our little suppers were nothing fancy. Dana had her mom’s recipe for spaghetti and brought her world famous sauce. I made the salad and garlic rolls. If we really felt decadent later, we’d pull out the ice cream (Rocky Road for me, butter pecan for Dana) to put the perfect cap on the perfect girls’ evening. Neither of us had a man in our life at that time, and that was just fine—or so we always told ourselves.

As we were getting ready to clear the table the phone rang, and I stepped inside to answer it. It was Glenn Morrison calling from Hayworth, Georgia.

Hey, girl! How’s everything down in the Land of Sunshine? This, Glenn’s usual greeting, always gave me a little lift when I heard it. He had helped open the door to one of the most important friendships of my life—that with Dana’s father—and had helped me find some elusive pieces to the forty-year-old mystery of what had happened to the Parker family. We had kept in touch ever since.

Did I catch you at a bad time?

Hey yourself, Glenn! You know very well you couldn’t possibly call at a bad time! My friend Dana and I are just finishing a great spaghetti supper—we’re well fed and happy. You don’t know what you’re missing! So tell me the news. Are you running that law office yet? And how are your folks?

The chitchat continued for a short time, but Glenn soon got to the reason for his call. We’re plannin’ a surprise wingding for Mom’s fiftieth birthday next month, and we’re hopin’ you can make it, Glenn said in his slow Georgia drawl. I know you hate to drive alone, so we’d be pleased if you brought someone with you.

We talked just a while longer and then hung up, plans already forming in my head.

Stepping back outside, I said to Dana, How would you like to go to Georgia with me next month?

As expected, the question was met with a quizzical look in Dana’s large hazel eyes.

That was my friend Glenn. You know—I’ve told you about him before, I said.

Sure, Dana replied, wheelchair, Vietnam vet, helped you with some kind of mystery or other a while back. You never did tell me about it.

I knew this was my moment to crack open the door to the real Buddy Parker, to start to show Dana the person he really was. I had already explained to her that my friend Dennis was actually Buddy.

But I had no idea how to proceed with my mission. After all this time, only Franklin Brown and I really understood what had happened. Okay, in all honesty, I had to admit that neither of us really understood some of it—and we probably never would. Even now, parts of the story didn’t seem real. The whole experience had opened the door to some netherworld, the residents of which seemed determined to suck me into their hell. Still, the time had come, so I steeled myself and jumped right in. Easy, Molly, I thought. Haven’t you practiced this for months?

Thoughtfully, I began to explain in as much detail as I thought I could. Well, it all started when I first heard about this family named Parker. They lived here in Oxbow for … oh, about forty years … from the early 1900s till the mid-forties. You’ve been over to the museum—they have mountains of information on virtually every family that ever lived here. Well, I got curious when the name came up because I’d never heard of them before.

Dana gave me a knowing look and said, Yes, I’ve been around long enough to know about the museum! And about your curiosity.

Both amused and exasperated, I continued. Okay. Well, there was no information about this Parker family anywhere. Folks didn’t talk about them, and even the museum was a blank.

What about Miss Jolene? Dana asked. She must remember everybody who ever lived here from day one.

It was true. Miss Jolene was the daughter of one of Oxbow’s oldest families and a well of local historical information. Even she was reluctant to talk about them, I said. But I finally got her to open up some when I brought up the children. There were two, a boy named Buddy and a girl named Jeannie Sue. The mother’s name was Hannah, and the father was Milton. According to Miss Jolene, Milton was her age, born here in 1909. His parents came here from Georgia. Milton’s father was an incredible carpenter and a real hard worker. When Milton was a young boy, his dad taught him about carpentry and such. Together they built their home, right there on that corner lot across from the Oxbow Independent, where your office is now.

That brought a mildly surprised glance from Dana.

"Well, anyway, Milton’s mother died when he was just a boy, and she was buried back home in Georgia. After her funeral Milton and his dad came back here to pick up their lives. From what I learned, his dad worked the boy very hard after that, so it’s a good thing he had inherited his father’s talent for woodworking.

By the time Milton was in his late teens, he had already married and had a small boy to raise—Buddy. But Milton and his wife were both a little on the wild side, and apparently, caring for a husband and child wasn’t exciting enough for her. She ran off with a traveling salesman. Anyway, when his father died, Milton took his body back home to Georgia to bury him next to his mother. While he was there, he married another young girl, Hannah Fletcher.

Dana’s eyebrows shot up, but she didn’t interrupt, and I went on.

"The girl was pregnant, and her fanatical churchgoing parents were glad enough to get rid of her. The three of them—Milton, his son Buddy, and Hannah—came back and lived in the house there on the corner. The child Hannah was carrying, Jeannie Sue, was born here, and three-year-old Buddy got a sister.

In 1943, Milton’s cousin, who had farmed the family land in Georgia, died. As the only direct family member left, Milton inherited the peanut farm. Well, the last thing Milton wanted to do was work a farm—his talents leaned more toward drinking and running around, you see. He was very capable, though, and worked hard when he had to. It’s just too bad he had such a talent for the less constructive things in life and the taste to go with it. So he went up to Georgia for his cousin’s funeral, unloaded the farm as fast as he could, and made a quick buck before coming back here.

I stopped there to see how Dana was taking all this in. I saw merely mild interest in my friend’s large and expressive eyes, so I went on. "This is where things get strange. According to Miss Jolene and old copies of the Independent, the night Milton got back to town after his cousin’s funeral, he immediately packed up the family and took off for Georgia to work the family farm."

Up went Dana’s eyebrows again. I thought Milton didn’t want anything to do with the farm?

Exactly, I responded. And it gets stranger. According to the paper, that same night, after they left, an accidental fire gutted the house, and the fire department finished it off a couple of months later.

Well, Dana conceded, it does seem a little odd, but I really don’t see the big deal. Lots of things could have happened. Maybe Milton had just had enough of life here and decided to try it up there. Maybe the newspaper didn’t get the story straight, she reasoned, with a wickedly amused glance in my direction. Maybe Milton just told people that was the plan, or maybe it was just a nice way for the paper to get around Milton’s character. See—there are lots of possibilities.

Just wait, I said, aware of a little testiness in my voice. I have something to show you.

With that, I left the table, returning in a few minutes with a small leather-bound book, which I handed to my friend. I watched as Dana ran a slender finger over the faded word Diary on its brown cover. Opening the well-handled cover to the first page, she read aloud the words displayed in small, neat handwriting: This book belongs to Jeannie Sue Parker.

It’s just a nondescript diary, no different from thousands of others. What could be so special about this one? Dana wondered aloud.

Jeannie Sue’s best friend Barbara gave me the diary as I was wrestling with the Parker family mystery. She had heard I was asking questions about them and decided to give it to me … thought it might help me understand the family better. Jeannie Sue kept it at Barbara’s house so her father wouldn’t find it. Then the family disappeared, and Barbara just stuck it away.

I was sure Dana had no idea why I was handing her this old diary, and her quizzical look confirmed it. Still, she accepted it—good enough for me. I had no idea how to tell my friend the truth about her father, but Jeannie Sue’s story seemed to be a good place to start.

Chapter 2

I T WAS NINE IN the morning and already hot, hot, hot. Southwest Florida could seem like a natural sauna from May through October and even beyond, and this was a typical year. It was already getting steamy when I left my little cracker house on the river and headed into town for a few groce ries.

Birchwood’s was on the main drag, and on Saturday mornings it was a magnet for just about everybody in and around Oxbow. I hardly got through an aisle without stopping to chat with someone.

Through the checkout line and back out into the heat, I pushed my cart and loaded up my old Oldsmobile. It was long past time to buy a new car, I knew, but I just hadn’t been able to force myself to look for one. Maybe now was the time to stop thinking about it and take the plunge. If I was going to head up to Georgia again in a few weeks, I sure didn’t want a repeat of that first trip when my old clunker got me into a very uncomfortable situation—forced to accept a ride into town with a would-be Romeo.

Maybe I’ll just take my groceries home and head over to the car dealership this afternoon, I thought. This is the week for their big ad in the Independent. I think I’ll take a look at it and then go talk to Pete at the dealership. Maybe it’s time to stop thinking about it and just do it.

Back at home, by the time I had my grocery bags unloaded, with canned goods, meat, and produce covering every square inch of my tiny kitchen table and counter space, sweat was trickling down my neck. I thought about breaking down and turning on the air conditioning. Normally I had a nice breeze coming off the river and preferred that to closing my windows and cutting off the outside world. As I stopped to wipe my face and neck, I got swept up in the excitement of buying a new car. I’d been thinking about it for some time, and I knew I could swing it financially. The trip to Georgia pretty much clinched it in my mind: the time was right.

By the time the groceries were all put away, I was ready to make my move. Yes, today’s the day. I’m going to buy myself a new car.

The sun was just beginning to send elongated shadows creeping toward the west when Dana and I piled our suitcases into the trunk of my brand-new car, its silver paint glistening in the already hot morning sun. I slid into the driver’s seat—a satisfying new feeling—while Dana buckled her seatbelt. After a quick check to make sure we hadn’t forgotten anything, we were off. I had filled the tank the night before, so we headed straight out to the highway and turned north. We placed our coffee cups in their holders, and Dana stashed the chocolate in the glove box for later. As a doctor, she had tried to talk me into a healthier form of quick energy, like fruit, but I’d held firm. I usually stayed on a pretty healthy diet (my backside looming large in my mind), but if I was going to drive any distance, I needed caffeine and chocolate—and that was that!

Since Dana agreed that stuffing oneself with chocolate was preferable to wrapping one’s vehicle around a tree or drifting into oncoming traffic, she didn’t argue too much. She knew my self-admitted shortcoming as a long-distance driver and switched with me every few hours. Besides, doctor or no doctor, she finally admitted to me that she’d never met an M&M she didn’t like either.

Stopping every few hours and sharing each other’s company made the ride go quickly till we stopped for supper at a tiny diner somewhere in North Florida. It was there that Dana brought up the subject I had been waiting for.

I finished Jeannie Sue’s diary. Twice, Dana said quietly, almost reverently. She didn’t have to say anything else. I well understood her feelings. Jeannie Sue had managed to put her whole heart and soul onto those pages.

I know. It hit me pretty hard too, I said. Wanting to allow Dana the space to voice her own feelings, I didn’t say anything more, but she remained quiet too.

Our food came, but neither of us was very interested in it. We sat for a while, both of us immersed in our own thoughts and picking at our food.

Finally, we decided to call it a night. Dana left a nice tip, a habit that went back to her waitressing days in college, when she’d promised herself she’d always leave a good waitress a good tip. We headed to the cute little 1950s mom-and-pop motel next door.

When we closed the door to our room, the silence got heavy. It was time to continue the background to Jeannie Sue’s diary, information that Dana needed to truly begin the journey to knowing her father.

With our bags dropped in the corner—no need to unpack for just one night—we sat on our respective beds and just looked at each other.

Time to get this started, I thought. Heaven, please help me get this right. So are you ready to hear the rest of the story? I asked.

Yeah, I figured there had to be more, Dana said, rolling over on her side with her elbow bent and balancing her head in her hand. Tell me.

I decided to start by explaining about Charlie Weaver.

Mmm. I remember him from Jeannie Sue’s diary, Dana recalled. "You could feel her awe when she wrote about what this Charlie Weaver meant to her family and then about her brother thinking he might be a spy! But I don’t