Her Mother’s Grave

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Lisette was in her usual spot in the cafeteria, sitting at a table working on a crossword puzzle as other residents drifted in and out. A pair of glasses sat low on the bridge of her nose, and her gray curls fell around her face as her head bent to the page in front of her. She looked up when Josie appeared beside her. “Sweetheart, how lovely to see you. In the middle of the day too.” She craned her neck to look behind Josie. “Work again?”

Josie shook her head. Lisette must have seen from her expression that something was very wrong. Abandoning her puzzle, she stood and grasped both sides of her walker, pushing past Josie. “Come then, we’ll talk in my room.”

Lisette sat in her recliner while Josie perched across from her on the edge of her bed. “What’s going on, Josie?” Lisette asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Gram,” Josie said, “I need to ask you some questions, and I need you to be honest. Promise me. If you do nothing else for me in this life, I need you to answer my questions truthfully.”

Lisette gave a nervous chuckle. “Of course, dear.”

“When I was born, was my dad there at the hospital?”

The faint smile on Lisette’s face tightened into something strained. “No, he wasn’t. Your mother—well they’d been living together, and they got into some big fight. Your mother left. She was gone for months. Eli thought it was over. He never expected to see her again, honestly. He was about to move out of the trailer, had met another girl and gone on a few dates with her. Then one day he came home, and there was your mother sitting on his couch with you in the crook of her arm.”

A band of pain wrapped itself around Josie’s skull. Throbbing began in her temples. “She just showed up with a baby one day?”

“Not just a baby. You.”

“Dad didn’t question the paternity?”

“Of course not,” Lisette scoffed. “What kind of man would do that? Belinda said that she found out she was a few months along after she left him, and that she wasn’t going to even tell him about you, but that once you came the guilt was too much, so she came back. She gave him the option—to be involved, or not. Naturally, your father wanted to be involved. He loved you the very instant he saw you.”

Josie knew that there weren’t DNA tests back in 1987—not the kind that were readily available to anyone in the public. These days, you could order a paternity kit online, swab your cheek, and mail it to a lab. But in the late ’80s, if you had suspicions, you’d have no way of proving whether or not a child was your own.

“Did she say what hospital I was born in?”

“Oh, she had a home birth. Actually, she hadn’t even sent away for your birth certificate until after she brought you home to your father.”

“How old?” Josie asked. “How old was I?”

“Three months. She brought you home sometime in December; it was the most wonderful Christmas present we’d ever received!”

Under normal circumstances, Josie would smile, basking in the love her grandmother had for her. But at the moment, every muscle in her face felt frozen. The suspicion that had started growing during her conversation with Shannon Payne was still shrouded in her mind. To tear away the veil would mean shattering everything she knew to be true. Not to mention the absurdity of what she now suspected about the Payne fire and her own origins. She couldn’t bring herself to think it, let alone say it aloud.

“Josie, why are you asking me these questions? What’s wrong?”

Josie’s voice trembled. “Did you know right away that I was someone else’s child?”

Lisette went very still, holding her posture like a granite statue. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t look like Dad,” Josie said. “And I don’t look like you.”

“You got your mother’s looks,” Lisette said.

“No,” Josie said. “Both of us having black hair doesn’t mean much. Gram, you knew, didn’t you? You had to have known, or at least suspected, that I was not a blood relation to you and my father.”

Lisette’s face flushed. “Does it matter? Does it really matter? You’re mine. You’ve always been mine. I didn’t need a blood test to prove that, and you shouldn’t either. Who helped raise you, Josie? Who fought for you? I battled like hell to bring you home with me.”

“The deck was stacked, Gram. The judge you went before, Malcolm Bowen? He knew my mother, knew she was using an assumed identity. I was always leaving with her, no matter what happened that day.”

“You don’t know that. Judge Bowen was a good man, a fair man. When your mother finally left, he put the custody order through quickly and painlessly. He helped me.”

“Judge Bowen was not a good man. Sorry to shatter your illusions, Gram. If he helped you, it was only because—” She broke off as her brain worked through it.

It was only a theory that Judge Bowen had been involved in helping Josie’s mother, but Josie was sure that she had it right. She was certain that her mother had gone to him after Lisette first filed for custody and had him handle the whole thing quietly, using private mediation. Lila had had something on him—probably the knowledge that he had been having an affair with the real Belinda Rose as a minor. He wouldn’t have wanted her exposing that secret, so he would have helped her. The only way that he would then turn around and help Lisette four years later is if Lila allowed him to, and Lila wouldn’t have allowed Lisette to have custody of Josie after fourteen years unless…

“Gram, what did you do?”

“Josie Quinn,” Lisette began in a scolding tone.

“Judge Bowen was in league with my mother. They wouldn’t have let you have me unless you did something. My mother never did anything for nothing. What did you give her? What did you promise her?”

Lisette’s head hung. “My sweet Josie.”

“Just tell me.”

With a sigh, Lisette said, “Fifty thousand dollars.”

“What?” Josie’s voice came out high-pitched. “Where did you get that kind of money?”

“Your father had a life-insurance policy. I didn’t touch it after he died. I knew he would want me to save it for you to use for college or to buy your first home. But after the fire in the trailer, your mother came to me. She said she wanted to work something out. I think the police were really looking at her for burning the trailer down and for what happened to that poor boy, Dexter. I didn’t argue. I offered her twenty-five thousand, but she had to leave and never come back. She wanted more. I told her for fifty she had to give me full legal and physical custody and never set foot in your life again.”

Josie stood and paced the room. “Jesus, Gram.”

“I had to. It was my only chance. I know it was a lot of money, but it was worth it. I had to get you away from her. I’m just sorry I couldn’t do it sooner. The damage she did—Josie, I hope you know how sorry I am.”

Josie held up her hands. “Stop. Just stop. I can’t—I can’t talk about that. I just—I don’t—Gram, you knew I didn’t belong to you all along. You worked so hard to get me, but why did you keep me? Why didn’t you say anything? Did it ever occur to you that some family out there was missing me?”

Lisette gave a dismissive laugh. “A family? Please. Maybe some drug-addled man that your mother took into her bed for one night. Don’t you see? For all I knew, whoever had really fathered you might be even worse than your mother. It was hard enough getting you away from her, especially after your father died. We were supposed to fight for you together. He promised me we would petition the court for custody. We were not going to be intimidated by her. He was going to spend every last dime he had, and I was going to help him. I’ll never understand why he gave up. It wasn’t like him at all. But then he was gone, and you were alone with that… that monster. All I knew was that I had to get you away from her.”

“You could have said something,” Josie said. “Told someone you didn’t believe I was hers. Raised hell. Talked to Judge Bowen. Sent up red flags. But you didn’t.”

Lisette’s eyes flashed. She pointed a crooked finger at Josie. “You’re not listening to me. What if I had done that and we somehow figured out who your real father was, and he was worse than your mother? Have you never thought of that?”

“Not my real father,” Josie said. “My real family. Gram, I think she took me from another family entirely.”

“Josie, what on earth are you talking about?”

Josie knelt before her grandmother and held both her hands. “Gram, what I’m about to tell you is going to sound crazy. Or maybe, knowing what you already know about my mother, it will sound exactly right.”