Row 22, Seats A&B: Two Towns Down
By Frederick Waterman / Illustration by Tatsuro Kiuchi
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This month, we bring you the conclusion of a brand-new story in Hemispheres’ Row 22, Seats A&B fiction series.
HEMISPHERES’ 15th-anniversary gift to you is a first-time-ever invitation to download a free audio book podcast of Row 22, Seats A&B. Find Parts 1
and 2 of “Two Towns Down”
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On Saturday morning, I looked through several newspapers, and I was in all of them, with photos and quotes. One of the papers had a front-page article with the headline “Four ‘Daughters’ of Sandra Pierce Come Forward.” That didn’t take long. I read the imaginative and entertaining stories of the four fortune hunters, each of whom was indignant about the others’ claims. Two of them even referred to Pierce as “Mom.”
Later that morning, I had three meetings, with Pierce’s lawyer, agent, and accountant. She had been rich since she was 20, and people who are used to wealth often have the easiest estates to settle. Using bank statements, old checkbooks, and credit-card records, it’s simple to follow the money into the corners of their lives. After an hour with her accountant, I was fairly sure he knew where every dollar had gone for the past 30 years.
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On the way to my hotel, I stopped and bought a DVD of Twenty Miles, the story of two teenage sisters, abandoned by their parents during the Depression and trying to get to Mississippi, where an older brother lived. Sandra Pierce was supposed to be the tougher sister, but as she gradually let the camera look into her face, you saw it wasn’t true; it was the protector who most needed protecting. I watched the movie and wondered if anyone had protected Sandra Pierce.
On Sunday at about 9 a.m., a dozen movie fans were still in front of the house when I drove up the driveway that curved around to the garage. A woman was sitting on the back steps of the house, leaning back against the kitchen door, her eyes closed and her chin raised to the morning sun that fell full on her face. She did not move as I turned off the engine and got out. She had no tape recorder, video camera, or photographer’s equipment, nor the excited jitteriness of a fan. Her hair was black, her face tanned and a bit weathered; she was dressed neatly in jeans, a white shirt, and a vest em- broidered with symbols that I guessed were American Indian. I stopped about 10 feet from her, and she opened her eyes.
“You’re the most famous man in Hollywood this weekend,” she said. “How’s it feel?”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Julia Spence.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you.”
“Why?”
“Because you want to talk to me.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Because you never met her,” she added.
“No?”
“No. Sandy told me she never met you. It was an older, white man who went up to New York when she signed the executor papers. He was the one who recommended you, who said that you kept your mouth shut about things.”
“So, you did know her,” I acknowledged.
“Everybody needs a friend—even famous people.”
“When did you meet her?”
“Thirty-one years ago. Twenty Miles was my first film, too, except I didn’t have any talent. I was pretty, that’s all, and pretty girls arrive here every day. Too bad—I would have enjoyed the fame.”
I walked to the side of the steps, and Julia Spence moved over. I sat down next to her. “Doesn’t everyone in the movies want fame?” I asked.
“Oh, at first, even Sandy liked it—and fame gives you confidence. But it was the acting that she really wanted. Sandy did two other movies right after Twenty Miles; the money was too good to say no. Then she spent the next five years on stage. During the filming of a movie, you don’t do much acting, sometimes just a few minutes a day. For actors, a movie’s not much of an escape.”
Julia had my full attention.
“In a play,” she continued, “you are the character for two or two-and-a-half hours, every night. And, depending on the play, for all the time you’re on stage, you might be part of a family, you might be loved, or you might be in love. Anything’s possible. It’s always a different fictional life.”
“You get to be someone you’re not,” I said.
“Right,” she nodded. “Sandy was the hardest-working actress on Broadway; she’d start rehearsals for a new show while she was finishing the last one. Four times, she closed a show on Sunday and opened the next one on Tuesday. The films made her rich, but the stage work gave her escape.”
“From what?”
Julia exhaled slowly.
“I don’t think that boys or men quite understand what the world looks like from the other side—and how fast it changes. For the first 12 or 13 years, we’re just girls; then, suddenly, we become physically desirable and we’re looked at by every man who passes. At 15, 16, 17, we’re still only girls, but now we’re in a woman’s body. We were playing with dolls a few years before, and then we’re being told in smooth words how beautiful we are, how wonderful—and you want to believe it. That’s how the species keeps going. The luckiest women lose their innocence slowly, over a few years; when it’s too sudden, you never quite recover.
“We’re wired to love, probably more than men are. We love our mates, but we love our children more—that’s what fulfills us. Then, we grow old and die, and the next generation of women does the same thing all over again.”
“You know the rumors about her. Do you think she had a daughter?”
“I never asked her—maybe that’s why we were friends for so long.”
“But you have a guess.”
Julia hesitated, then said, “Yes—and I think she did.”
“Because ...”
“Because of two things. First, after I realized I wasn’t going to be a big star, I decided I might as well be happy, so I married a nice guy who worked in special effects, and we had two daughters. When they were babies, Sandy never wanted to hold them; you’d have thought I was handing her a snake. The other thing is, I was in New York when Sandy did her first Broadway show. At a Saturday matinee, there were about 10 children, all quiet and perfectly behaved, sitting in the first two rows. Throughout the show, I saw Sandy glancing down at them. Afterward, I sat outside her dressing room while she sobbed for an hour. She never told me why. But, if a woman had a baby and gave it up for adoption, I think she’d always wonder what that child grew up to look like. Then, if she saw a child who fit that image ...” Julia let her words trail off.
“Why did you come here to tell me this?” I asked.
“Sandy always said that I had good instincts about people. A few weeks ago, when she knew there was no hope, she asked me to come by and meet you. She said if I liked you, we should talk because it would help you. Her life wasn’t exactly an open book.”
“What was she like?”
“She could be very funny, and she was smart and perceptive, but there were things she didn’t talk about. You enjoyed what she gave you, and you didn’t ask for more.”
“Rules for her friendship?”
“Probably. Sandy was beautiful, rich, and famous, but she was more alone than anyone I ever met. I think she’d have traded her life for someone else’s—in a second.”
Julia looked at her watch, then stood up and told me how I could contact her, if I needed to. She walked a few steps away, then turned around. “You’ve read that the tumors weren’t discovered until it was too late. Well, no one will ever be sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Sandy knew about them for a while. It happens that way, sometimes— a quiet kind of suicide.”
After she was gone, I remained on the back steps. Sandra Pierce’s note had said: “A part of me will always be on the other side of the Bibb.” I repeated the sentence to myself, and then I had a guess. I entered the house, walked up to Sandra Pierce’s bedroom, and picked up the picture of the girl on the river.
She had asked, “Is he clever?”
Maybe, I thought, and I turned the picture over, unfastened the frame, and found that Sandra Pierce had told me the truth—a part of her was there, long-hidden, on the other side of the Bibb. I unfolded the document and read its words, written and printed, a dozen times; I put it in an inside jacket pocket, made one phone call, and left the house. Three hours later, I left California.
As the plane sailed through the sky, I thought what a terrible thing a secret is. It sets you apart because you must always be on guard, against yourself, so that your thoughts will never slip into your words. And the more important the secret, the worse the prison—you don’t expect to ever get out, but, if you’re lucky, maybe someone will join you; that’s the best you can hope for.
It was just past 10 p.m. when I drove back into McComb, and I parked next to the restaurant. The full moon hung bright and round, while its twin swam in the river. My father was sitting on the building’s back steps, just as I had found Julia Spence. I sat down next to him, pulled out the old document, and handed it to him.
“When you went out to California,” he said, barely glancing at the paper, “I knew it was going to end up like this.”
“Did you ever meet her?”
“No.”
“Will you tell me what happened?”
I waited while he searched for a place to start. He said, “Since your mother was a little girl, she wanted to have children, and the eight years after we got married were difficult for her. When she finally got pregnant, she just glowed as she got bigger and bigger. Thirty-five years ago, the doctor in McComb was Dr. Stephen Fells, who’s been dead for a long time now. His wife was his nurse, and, near his office, there was a small infirmary. You couldn’t call it a hospital, but it was all that a small, black town could afford: a few beds and a sterile room. And we were lucky to have that.
“The night your mother went into labor, I took her down to the infirmary, and I was worried because Fells didn’t arrive until your mother was just about to give birth. She was almost delirious with pain. Willie’s birth wasn’t easy and as soon as he was born, Fells knew there was something wrong because Willie didn’t cry. Fells sedated your mother, and, while his wife stayed with her, he took Willie into the next room.
“The doctor checked to make sure Willie was breathing properly, but there were no obstructions. Fells said that Willie looked at him, real calm, and didn’t make a sound. Doctors dread a silent baby because it means there’s something wrong—usually with the child’s mind.
“Fells called me into the room; then he said something I never expected. Without really looking at me, as if he were just talking to himself, Fells said that women who were pregnant with twins, back then, usually didn’t know it. He said that a few hours before, he’d delivered a child to a girl, 15 or 16 years old, who wouldn’t say who the father was, but she was white and the child’s skin was as dark as Willie’s. The girl didn’t have any relatives; she didn’t even know who her parents were, Fells said. She’d been passed around to different families, and she couldn’t care for the child.
“Fells looked at me. ‘The state doesn’t care what goes on in Harding County. They pretty much leave us alone to sort things out. So, we have a choice: That girl’s baby can be an orphan, or it can grow up in a good family and be happy and loved. It took Keely eight years to get pregnant, and it may not happen again. Reese, many women judge themselves by their children. Keely always wanted to have babies, and if she only managed this one, and he isn’t right, I think she’ll always be disappointed in herself. It’s unfair, but that’s the way she’ll probably think. I’m willing to say that Keely Johnson gave birth to twins tonight— and it’s a lie I can live with.’
“I said that she’d remember giving birth only once, but Fells told me he’d had plenty of women who had twins and didn’t remem- ber the second birth because the pain all flows together. He said he’d filled out part of the birth certificate for the girl’s child. ‘But,’ he said, ‘I’ll just make out a new one. Congratulations on your twin boys.’”
My father looked out at the moon on the Bibb. “Everything went just as Fells said it would. Your mother didn’t know, and she was ecstatic to find out she had two sons. And Fells was also right that she never got pregnant again; your being healthy made it easier for her to handle what happened to Willie.
“A few weeks later, on a Sunday morning, I was standing in church, telling the congregation how important it was to lead an honest life—and I realized that I couldn’t live what I was preaching. I was lying to your mother every day, and I was never going to stop doing that, so I told one more lie and said that my family needed more money, and I opened the restaurant.”
My father looked at the birth certificate again. There was the date I knew so well: October 12, 1972, the weight of 7 lbs., 4 oz., and a length of 22 inches. The mother’s name was listed as “Jane Smith,” but the child’s first name was more believable: “Cayce.” The space for the father’s name was blank, as was the location and the doctor’s name.
“While your mother was sedated, Fells went and got you. When he came back, he said the teenage girl had one request: that we use the first name she’d given you. Spelled that way, it almost looked like a girl’s name, but I didn’t care.”
Sandra Pierce’s long-lost daughter, I thought. The whispers were almost right.
With the Internet, it’s easy to keep track of people, especially those with a distinctive first name. I thought of Graham’s conversation with Sandra Pierce, and I could imagine their casual discussion about who would be the trust officer to handle her estate. Actresses act, of course— Cayce Johnson was always going to be her choice. But, after 35 years, why bother? Guilt? Remorse? Maybe, but I think she was offering me an escape, in case I, too, needed it.
I told my father about Sandra Pierce’s will and its last paragraph. “I didn’t focus on the wording before—it said the money was left to anyone who could prove they were her ‘child.’ It didn’t say ‘daughter.’”
“Five million dollars is a lot of money,” my father said.
I stood up, gestured for my father to do the same, and then we walked down to the river, where I took my birth certificate and tore it into small pieces.
“I’ve been Keely Johnson’s son for my whole life, and Willie Johnson’s brother,” I said, as I let the pieces of paper fall from my fingertips into the river, “and that’s who I’ll always be.”
Standing on the shore with my father, I watched the white specks as they were carried away. Maybe some of them would reach the other side of the Bibb—I didn’t know, but I hoped a few of them would.
Frederick Waterman's Row 22, Seats A&B stories are available in a printed collection and on audio at row22.com and Amazon.
