“He’s spent time in jail.”
“And Mom married him?”
“This was after he and your mom split up,” Paul said. “Several years after. But make no mistake: the guy’s bad news. I never liked him. He was an asshole back in high school, and I’m sure he hasn’t changed.”
Asshole? Paul rarely cursed.
“Mom was a good judge of character,” I said. “She didn’t tolerate anything. She acted like leaving the toilet seat up meant you were going to hell.”
“They met in high school,” Paul said. “Your mom was quiet. Bookish would be the polite way to put it. A nerd, I guess, is what young people would say now. She didn’t have a lot of friends. She certainly never dated. She didn’t even go to the dances we had at the school. And Gordon… he was something of a big man on campus. He played sports, football and baseball. He had a lot of friends. I guess he was handsome in his own way, even though he was short.”
Again, I visualized the man I’d spoken to in McDonald’s, the man who’d been married to my mother. “Handsome” didn’t come to mind. “Toadish” was more like it. But I was meeting him fifty years after the fact. In the wedding photo, he had looked only okay, but I wouldn’t say handsome.
“Go on,” I said.
“He took an interest in Leslie,” Paul said. “I don’t know why. She was a pretty girl when she was young, even if she was reserved and quiet. You’ve seen the pictures of her. It would be easy to see, given her looks, that a young man could be taken with her. I suspect her quiet nature, her refusal or inability—I’m not sure which it was—to reveal anything of herself to the world made her seem even more alluring. You know, the power of mystery. So he pursued her. Asked her out on dates. Took her to dances. He fell for her, and she for him.”
“What did she see in him, then, if he was such an asshole?”
“You remember high school,” Paul said. “What would it be like to have a popular guy show an interest in you? Everybody wants to feel special, to feel pursued and desirable. Right? Your mother was different, but she wasn’t that different. Inside, she was a teenage girl who wanted the things teenage girls want.”
“She wanted them enough to marry him?”
“They got married during their senior year in high school and settled in Haxton.”
“Wait—during their senior year. They got married while they were still in high school?”
“Yes.”
“Was Mom… ?” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. The whole idea seemed so crazy to me.
Paul nodded his head. “She became pregnant with Beth during her senior year and had her when she was just seventeen. Your mom’s birthday is late. July. She didn’t turn eighteen until after graduation. After Beth was born in June.”
“Jesus,” I said. “Mom? Mom got knocked up?”
“Don’t be crude,” he said.
“Was it a scandal? Didn’t they used to send girls away for that?”
“They did. Sometimes. But your mom got married to Gordon as soon as they realized what had happened. They cut it close. I’m sure people did the math and figured it out, but they got married so fast it couldn’t really become an issue. Some couples just got married during high school back then, pregnant or not. This was small-town Ohio. Kids got married young. Girls started having babies young.”
“And Mom didn’t want to go to college?” I asked. “Even once she had the baby?”
“This was 1960,” Paul said. “Do you think women from Haxton, Ohio, went off to college, baby or not? Hell, the guys barely did. I was one of the few. When I told my father, your grandfather, I wanted to go to Ohio State and get a college degree, he laughed at me. It was another time.”
“But you said Mom was different.”
“She was. But even she couldn’t fight the combined societal forces of sexism and low expectations for girls. She did what she was supposed to do. More so, really. Do you think my parents ever expected her to get married? They probably looked at her all those years and imagined she’d end up an old maid, living at home with them until they died. Not only did she get married, she married a good guy. In their eyes. And in the town’s. She snagged a prize. Gordon had a respectable job as a salesman. He made a comfortable living. And…”
“And?” I prompted him.
“And they had a baby. Right away, they had a baby.”
I reached for my glass of milk and took a big gulp. “This is Elizabeth.”
“Beth,” Paul said. “We always called her Beth.”
My voice rose for the first time in our conversation. “Why the hell did Mom name me after a dead girl? If she’s really dead. Why did anyone let her do that? Why did Dad?”
“Leslie felt guilty about what happened to Beth,” Paul said. “Any parent would. She felt responsible. You know, she and Beth had a rocky relationship. It was the seventies. Beth was a strong-willed teenager.”
“I heard,” I said.
“Gordon told you all this?”
I nodded. “She had a rough time with her daughter. With my half sister. I still don’t know why she named me after a dead kid.”
“I know it’s strange,” Paul said. “I thought it was strange too. But I tried to understand where she was coming from. That name told me how much she valued you because I understood how deeply she was affected by losing Beth. You were a second chance, especially with Ronnie… you were her best chance. You really were.”
“I thought she had me just so I could take care of Ronnie.”
“Who told you that?”
“She did. She said it right to my face.”
Paul sighed. “That’s not the only reason they had you. And you know it.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. Your mom was practical. She did think that way. She devoted her life to making sure Ronnie was cared for. But she also desperately wanted to have children. She loved being a mom. That was her whole life, you and Ronnie. She wanted you very much, just for you.”
A cafeteria worker pushed a big cart full of empty and dirty trays past us, the wheels squeaking against the tile floor. We couldn’t talk for a moment, and I took the opportunity to gather my thoughts. Had she really wanted me? Or was I a caretaker for Ronnie? A do-over for the first Elizabeth?
Would I ever really know?
Chapter Thirty-nine
I returned to my food for a few minutes. We both did. Maybe Paul hoped the conversation had run its natural course, that all of the questions I had come armed with as a result of my conversation with Gordon Baxter had been answered. Of course, that wasn’t true. Not by a long shot.
“Damn,” I said. “Mom got pregnant and got married in high school.”
“She did.”
“The girl,” I said.
“What?”
“The girl. Elizabeth. Gordon says she was murdered. Is that true?”
“She ran away. That’s the first thing you need to know,” Paul said. He looked down at his food and jabbed at the salad with more intensity than before.
“Out in the waiting room, you said you thought she was dead. Gordon said the same thing.”
“I’m sure she is,” Paul said, still not looking up. “I’m sure she fell in with the wrong crowd. She was doing drugs. Hard drugs. You can’t expect a life like that to turn out well.”
He sounded cold, dismissive. His voice carried no empathy or understanding for Elizabeth. It didn’t seem like the Paul I knew, and I called him on it.
“Running away,” he said, “is the worst thing you can do to a parent. She put Leslie through hell when she was here, but once she ran away, that was the worst thing of all. To not let your mother know where you are? I can’t imagine.”
“Do you know about the will?” I asked.