Homecoming Queen, page 25
Priscilla waved and added, “Say hello to Benny for me. Tell him I love him, too!”
Together they stared out over the water for a long, long time, then finally turned to go back to the fire. Llayne dropped the box into the flames and they watched it burn until every shred had been incinerated.
“Llayne,” Priscilla said. “We can love again because they taught us how to love.”
Llayne took a moment to let that sink in. “That’s true, Pris. We’ve been blessed beyond measure to have had their love.”
Priscilla nodded. They fell back into silence.
After a bit, they threw sand on the fire to put it out. The ceremony in honor of the men they’d loved and the baby that was lost was over.
Wrapping their arms around one another’s waists, the two young women walked up the shore and through the woods to the car. They drove away knowing they would be forever friends, in life and in death.
For the next month Llayne prepared for her new life, the one that the miracle letter had portended. Knowing she couldn’t mess up now, she outlined every detail, every aspect of what needed to be done. Coming home from work at the community college each evening, she had not a moment to relax. Two evenings a week were spent in therapy in Dr. Leibowitz’s office, one was spent dancing in Kerina’s basement, and every other free moment went into planning and tying up loose ends.
Finally, the momentous day arrived.
CHAPTER 34
The colorful patchwork pattern below was fringed with vivid green trees, sequined with sparkling blue lakes, embroidered with bright red barns and white farm houses, and braided with prosaic brown trails and gray roads. The earth became a giant, homespun Americana quilt of square-acre fields and various other designs of rural life.
The United Airlines Boeing 707 rose above the scene surrounding the Indianapolis Airport and entered billowing, white clouds tinged in pink. The little girl’s wide, hazel eyes glared out the window, half fascinated and half afraid. Llayne and the child occupied three seats, with no one beside them. Llayne held the two-and-a-half-year-old tightly in her lap and the little one responded by grasping the front of her new mother’s blouse.
Mother. The awesome word had been used to describe Llayne a few days earlier in court for the first time in her life. The judge had said, “Congratulations, Mrs. Lexington, on becoming a mother,” when the official adoption proceedings concluded.
Llayne watched her daughter’s heavy, dark eyelashes flutter, then close. Her little tummy rose and fell gently as she snoozed, and Llayne swept a wisp of black hair off her cheek. The new mother knew she had never before held anything so precious.
Like her child, she too was fascinated but frightened by this new adventure they embarked upon together, this new life for each of them. Her daughter presented an enormous responsibility, but this time would be different from the first time when Llayne had wistfully thought she wanted to be a parent. This time she felt not only prepared to fulfill the needs of her child but worthy of doing so.
The lustrous black eyelashes flickered and opened, and the little girl examined Llayne’s face with inquisitive eyes, still not totally comfortable with this new woman who was taking care of her now for some reason she couldn’t comprehend.
“Sto-wee?” she said shyly in her child’s tongue. Llayne had told her the “story” the night before at bedtime in the hotel room and she seemed enthralled with it.
“Okay, sweetheart.” Llayne patted the front of her daughter’s yellow jumper. Using her best story-telling voice, she began. “Well, once upon a time there was a strong, handsome, American soldier named Alexander Lexington who went to Vietnam to fight so a long war could end, so nice people wouldn’t get hurt anymore. This handsome soldier met a beautiful young woman named Soon Lee Francois.”
“Soon Lee?” the wee one repeated, picking out the words that sounded familiar.
“Yes, the name Soon Lee is Vietnamese and the name Francois is French because her grandfather had been a French soldier. Now, beautiful Soon Lee and the handsome American soldier fell in love. But the American Army told Alexander, who everybody called Lex, the Army told him it was time for him to go home all the way across the ocean, so he did. Soon Lee couldn’t go with him. When he got home he married Llayne. That’s me,” she said, pointing at herself.
Mesmerized and mystified, the child watched Llayne’s mouth, trying to comprehend words beyond her grasp. She didn’t understand them but seemed to find comfort in the tone of voice.
“So, Alexander Lexington never even knew that he and Soon Lee had a daughter, or that Soon Lee died, and that their daughter was raised by an aunt. Then, sadly, before anybody could write and tell him that he had a child, he got sick and died too. He went to Heaven. To be with Soon Lee,” she added in an abrupt improvisation.
“Then I got a letter from the American Red Cross. The letter told me about my husband’s daughter, about Ken Yoon Francois. You!” She tickled the little belly and the girl giggled. “Well, I was sooo excited because, you see, I don’t have any children. Then, they sent you to me. You came on that big military airplane all the way across that big ocean with all those other women and children. Remember?”
The child realized she’d been asked a question and her eyes searched the air to her upper left for meaning and memory. She wasn’t certain but nodded.
“A few days ago, I went to court to make you my daughter and changed your name to Kenyon Francois Lexington, so you can have your daddy’s last name. Then I flew to Indianapolis to pick you up, because that’s where that nice Red Cross lady lives and she took you with her. Wasn’t that nice of her?”
Kenyon searched Llayne’s face in wonderment.
“Now,” Llayne continued, “we’re flying into an airport called Tri-City, then we’re getting into your daddy’s car that is my car now. It’s called a Cutlass.” She’d sold her Beetle for the cost of having a junkman haul it away. “We’re going home to Mt. Pleasant. But it won’t be our home for long. We’re starting a new life in Lansing.”
As she expected, the little eyes closed again and Kenyon fell fast asleep. It’d been a long, exhausting, confusing journey for her.
Llayne thought of the letter, which was at home in the safe deposit box with the picture that Lex had kept of Kenyon’s mother. It truly was a miracle letter, telling of the child’s existence, which no one on this side of the Pacific Ocean had previously had any knowledge of. The letter described Soon Lee, the young Vietnamese woman Lex had told her about, the one he fell in love with. Soon Lee had been a mere fifteen-year-old when she’d been sold by her father to the whorehouse. Lex had thought her seventeen, and too young at that. He’d taken her to her great aunt, having no idea he’d impregnated her. Soon Lee had died in childbirth and the aunt had raised the baby. Then the old woman had died of tuberculosis.
Ruth Leibowitz, who served as Llayne’s lawyer, had insisted on checking the records. There was as much certainty as possible that this was Alexander Lexington’s child. The birth certificate, a rare commodity in war-torn Saigon, listed Lex Lexington, U.S.A., as the father. The baptism record - thank God the old aunt had been Catholic or there wouldn’t have been corroborating evidence - also noted him as the father.
But once she laid eyes on the girl, Llayne didn’t need official documents. Kenyon was not a typical, delicate Asian girl. She had her mother’s lush, black hair and sensually shaped eyes, but the crystal blue-green hazel hue of those eyes matched Lex’s perfectly. And the square jaw, the lean but muscular body, the broad lips sheltering perfect white teeth, and the voice, which was already husky for one so young, were feminine versions of Alexander Lexington.
The letter explained that when the little Amerasian girl showed up in an orphanage, someone took special notice because of the information on the birth certificate and baptism record, and called the American Red Cross. It truly was a miracle that anyone had called and that the Red Cross had seen fit to write to the father of the child, finding instead his widow.
She looked out the window into the clouds and knew that Lex’s spirit hovered nearby and that he was happy to finally know he had, after all, been a father. He would absolutely adore this little girl.
Studying her sleeping daughter, Llayne felt an odd pang of guilt over the thought, which felt disloyal, that this baby would help heal the hole in her heart over the loss of her own flesh-and-blood baby. The guilt waned as quickly as it’d come. Although Kenyon would help her get over the sorrow of her losses, that of her baby and that of her husband, she suddenly understood how a mother can love each of her children equally. One child could never take the place of another; each had their own special place in a mother’s heart. If a child was lost to a mother, that child’s spot stayed in her heart forever, no matter how many other spots were happily occupied. A mother never forgets.
The same was true for husbands. The love for one would be in her heart always, opening rather than closing that heart to accept another man.
Kenyon let out a huge sigh in her sleep, tasted her tongue a few times, then fell still again.
Llayne stroked Kenyon’s hair, feeling consummately blessed. Looking out at the clouds below, she felt a thrill at traveling toward a new life. She realized that this trip to Indianapolis might be her first time on an airplane but her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter had already traveled half way around the world.
She held tight to her sleeping child and gazed out the window at the amazing, shimmering, cloud-cast sky. With absolute certainly she felt Lex’s presence. He is here. He knows. This makes him very happy. “Don’t worry, honey,” she whispered. “I’ll take care of her with every bit of wisdom, strength, and love I can possibly muster. I’ll do it for you, and for her, and for me. And I promise to teach her about you and about your love.”
Love for him and for his daughter, now her daughter, too, swelled within her breast.
The surprise homecoming bash her friends threw to welcome Kenyon was overwhelming. The little girl’s eyes formed huge orbs, taking in all the people and food and gifts. Everyone Llayne and Lex had ever known in town seemed to be in the Ember’s party room, and the stack of gifts for Kenyon made Llayne cry in appreciation. She was dead broke and had no way of buying anything. The scant life insurance policy Lex had went to paying medical bills and her salary was barely enough for the basics. Still, she’d been certain she could stretch her funds enough to take good care of a child. These big-hearted people, many hometown friends of Lex’s, had provided every toy, every item of clothing, and every necessity a new parent could possibly need.
Still shy, Kenyon clung to her mother’s skirt as she met Uncle Conrad; Aunt Priscilla, whose tummy looked like it might explode; Uncle Bob who wore orange and white shoes that matched his Hawaiian shirt; and, Aunt Delia. The introductions could have gone on-and-on, but Uncle Conrad suggested they forget that and open presents.
Kenyon liked that a lot. Still wadding a corner of her mother’s skirt into her fist, she used her other hand to fondle each gift as a grown-up unwrapped it. She especially liked the child-sized dancing veil with sparkles on the edges that Mrs. Kerina gave her.
Then they opened Uncle Bob’s and Aunt Delia’s gift. They gave Kenyon a pair of red sequined shoes. For the first time the little girl let go of her mother’s skirt and with both hands grabbed the shoes out of the box. She wanted them on right away. And she wasn’t about to take them off. It was a week before Llayne could convince her not to sleep in them.
Kenyon had found her comfort zone, and it included razzle-dazzle. Llayne had to laugh at that discovery. This motherhood thing was going to be quite the adventure. She needed to make sure she stayed shored up for the occasion.
CHAPTER 35
Llayne pulled up to the beautiful Victorian house and sat for a moment in the car, taking it in. She would miss the place.
Kenyon, who’d been crunched over snoozing in the roomy passenger seat of the Cutlass, stirred and popped her head up to peer out the window. Another new place, another new adventure.
No sooner had they exited the car and started up the brick walk when Ruth Leibowitz, with her husband close behind, flurried out the door and down the steps to greet them. “Here she is!” she exclaimed, holding out her hands to Kenyon. Kenyon apparently liked what she saw in the woman’s brightly colored dress, because she flung her arms up to be picked up. “Oh my!” Ruth happily picked her up. “Aren’t you a dear?”
Kenyon grabbed at her red, dangling earring and Ruth chuckled as she held the little hand away.
“Hello, Llayne,” Dr. Leibowitz said, shaking her hand.
“Oh, yes, hello, Llayne,” his wife said, laughing, reaching out to give Llayne’s hand a squeeze. “Didn’t mean to ignore you. Come on in.”
Once inside, Ruth whisked the little girl through the living room and they disappeared behind the kitchen door.
“She’ll feed her,” Dr. Leibowitz explained as he and Llayne walked down the hall. “She feeds everybody.”
They went into his office, closed the door, and sat in their usual chairs. She felt sad and ecstatic at the same time, both emotions crossing her face.
He understood. “It’s hard to believe this is our last session,” he said. “It’s August, seven months since your husband died.”
“I can’t believe it, either. It seems like everything has happened so fast but at the same time it’s taken forever.”
“We’ve accomplished a lot in a short time,” he said. “And now you have a new life. An extraordinary new life.”
She couldn’t help but beam with pleasure. She stood up and went to the window, remembering the time right after she’d been elected homecoming queen when she wanted to escape out of the window in his campus office. Now she wasn’t sure she wanted to leave his safe haven. She’d been more of her true self in this room than anywhere else on earth, vulnerable, terrified, capable, incompetent, petulant, funny, angry, womanly, childish, self-assured, ignorant, a genius. So many aspects of her personality, her mind, her very soul, had been revealed right here.
Once in a while she felt a stab of fear that if she left the security of this place, she might lose some of those parts of herself and not be able to handle the “extraordinary new life” that awaited her.
But mostly she felt ready. It was time. They had discussed that at great length, too, for the past two and a half months, ever since the letter about Kenyon had arrived, the letter that had changed her life so drastically, forever.
She leaned on the window sill, unaware that the broad green leaves of the maple tree outside blew softly to form an impressionistic frame around her sun-dress with its yellow flowers. Dr. Leibowitz thought her quite a pretty woman. Someday, if she filled out a little like his Ruthie, he thought she might even be a very pretty woman.
They discussed her new life, her fears, and her excitement. She’d been accepted into the Communications Master’s Degree Program at Michigan State University, which felt like she was walking into a new country, the whole television business was so foreign to her. But that was part of its appeal. She’d learned through Kerina’s perpetual filming of their dancing that she looked good on camera. Very good. Everyone in Scheherazade had encouraged her to pursue that as a career.
There was the little hang-up of being dead broke. Lex’s meager life insurance policy had paid off the last of the medical bills that hadn’t been covered by his health insurance, and their vacation savings had paid for the adoption and Kenyon’s transportation to the United States, which meant there was nary a sou in the coffer. But Llayne’s experience at the community college had helped her secure a part-time job advising students in the Financial Aid Office at State. She surmised that would be a real yawner, but determined she could handle it as long as it was temporary.
As a part-time employee of the college, she qualified to take Kenyon to the school’s child care center. Kenyon was very sociable, having had a ball playing with Kerina’s children. Even though they were older and spoke to her in English, which she didn’t yet understand, Kenyon enjoyed being with them while Llayne did one final dance session with Scheherazade.
To help matters even more in her new life, as long as Llayne took at least twelve hours each semester, she’d qualify for a student loan. She’d make it, somehow.
She and Dr. Leibowitz chatted amicably, making certain her plans were well set, with her asking a few questions and him interjecting spurts of wise advice, until finally an hour was up.
“Ruthie’s probably filled your daughter to the gills,” he said, motioning toward the kitchen. “She hasn’t had a young one to feed this week. Our son is visiting his grandmother. We’d better go save your child.”
“She’s so neat, isn’t she? Ruth, your wife.”
“Neat?” he repeated, smiling broadly. “I never quite thought of Ruthie as ‘neat,’ but indeed she is.”
“You adore her, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do,” he admitted, opening up to his personal life since it was their final session.
“I hope I have that someday. The kind of marriage you two have.”
“Well, then, you’ll have to work for it like we have. We don’t take each other for granted; we listen to one another; we understand that true love is much more than physical attraction, although that’s nice too. We’ve learned to negotiate our disagreements, which we didn’t know how to do at first. And Ruthie has learned to totally ignore my mother during her annual visit when she complains incessantly about the way Ruthie dresses and about our messy house.”
