(Author’s Note: This is the continuation from previous newsletters. To find the earlier installments, please CLICK HERE. The first 11 installments are available as a FREE download for Kindle and Other E-Readers.) The second 10 are now also available.
Those Who Came Before
22nd Installment of Adelaide’s Secret
By C. Jane Reid
It was November before I met with Adelaide. We sat in the kitchen of The Yarn Shoppe on Aspen Ave in La Center, tea cups in front of us and the rain falling on the sullen chickens in the back yard.
Adelaide looked older today, worn and tired. She was wearing a colorful crochet vest made out of granny squares, but the bright colors didn’t seem to lighten her mood.
I pulled out a few sheets of paper from the folder I’d brought and handed her the first sheet. “I managed to trace Daniel Guthrie back two generations,” I told her.
The news didn’t cheer her. “And Edith?” she asked, ignoring the page.
“I decided to focus on Daniel first,” I answered.
“So what am I looking at?” Adelaide finally looked at the sheet of paper.
“My notes. At the top is Daniel in 1930.”
“And this fellow below him?”
“Danny Guthrie. His father.”
Adelaide’s gaze caught mine. Her expression tightened in the first signs of emotion. She ran one finger under Danny Guthrie’s name.
And it hit me. This wasn’t just a person in the past I’d uncovered. It was her great-grandfather.
I remembered that shock and awe the first time I found my Great Grandfather Hileski's name. It felt as though someone had handed me a piece of myself that I’d never noticed was missing.
“He was born somewhere in Texas,” I told her, my voice quieter. “I’m sorry I don’t know where, but it was around 1879. In 1910 he was living in Atoka, Oklahoma, and working as a ranch hand. Daniel was there, too, fifteen-years-old. And a daughter, Susan, who was ten.”
“Daniel had a sister?”
“It seems so, but I didn’t find any other trace of her.” Admittedly, I hadn’t dug too deeply. I was suddenly ashamed of that.
Adelaide nodded, distracted and staring at the page in front of her.
I handed her another.
“This is who I think Danny’s mother is,” I said as she looked over the page. “She’s—” But Adelaide cut me off.
“I’ll look these over,” she said, collecting both the pages together and folding them. “Let me know if you find anything else.”
I stood with her, uncertain. I’d meant to ask her if all this could wait so I could concentrate on Elsie and her story, but Adelaide’s distraction was taking on an edge that I didn’t like to see. She was worrying me. “I’ll look into Edith—” I began, but she cut me off again.
“Don’t worry about that right now. Go back as far as you can on this.” She held up the folded pages.
“All right.” I gathered up my other notes and put them in the folder. “Adelaide,” I began, but I stopped when she fixed me in her sights.
“Sometime soon,” she said in a hushed voice. “I’ll explain it all to you sometime soon.”
I nodded. She saw me to the door, and I headed back home. During the drive, though, my thoughts were turning over themselves.
I didn’t know where any of this was going anymore. It all seemed so far removed from Ailee and Elsie and what I’d learned of their lives. That Adelaide knew more than she was telling, I was certain, but what was it she was holding back? She’d already trusted me with the story of the strange creatures, hinted at a search for someone special, and made references to her time in a mental institution. Was I witnessing a breakdown?
If I was, she was very calm about it.
I decided that I couldn’t push her to learn more, not yet anyway. I didn’t want to lose what little trust she’d given me. I was too wrapped up in learning more about her family and its history to stop now. But one thought kept coming back to me during that quiet drive home.
How long would I have to wait before she trusted me enough to share it all?
(to be continued)
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