“You're here on a visit?”
“Work.”
“Police work?”
“Yes.” I quickly opened my handbag to dodge any explanations.
“Here's the picture.”
She studied the two little girls for a long time. “Can't imagine how it got left behind with Cindy.”
“And I can't imagine the path that's taken me here, bringing it back to you.”
“I guess you could say that.” Mona's face was softening now that I had presented my credentials. “Did you know I was named Sara Monica, but my father shortened it?”
I nodded. “And my aunt â Sara's daughter â is Janetta. The twins never forgot each other.”
Like Wendell, like Dad, Janetta, even Gail and Monty, we spoke of the great injustice done to them by their aunts in keeping them ignorant of the other's existence. I asked Mona what her mother remembered of Sara and their mother Jane.
“Mother didn't talk much, and I didn't ask. She was cozier with Wendell about family matters, because he loves to gab.”
“So neither of you ever went through her things when you brought her to Calgary?”
“She was getting forgetful by then, and I didn't want to disturb anything. Though I did go down to the trunk this morning after you called.” She got up and took two yellowed envelopes from the dining table and handed them to me. When she continued to stand, I wondered if I was to read them quickly and give them back like the milk and marmalade. But she sat down and sipped her tea.
I opened the one tied with a blue ribbon. It was a bangle and handkerchief identical to the ones Janetta gave me. I told her so. If she thought this was as remarkable as I did, she didn't let on.
“I opened that envelope but didn't get around to the letters.”
“Did your mother ever say anything about them â when you were growing up, I mean?”
“Just that they were all she had from her mother, along with the picture.” She sniffed. “And to think Cindy had it.”
The other envelope was bulkier. Inside were six sheets of paper: one was a letter on fine stationery from Catherine Williams in Wales, and the other five were lined sheets torn from a notebook and written in a scrawled hand I didn't recognize. My throat was dry; I swallowed some tea before I started.
March 22, 1947
Llantrisant, Glamorganshire
Dear Lizzie,
Though I have never had the pleasure of your
acquaintanceship, I hope you will be familiar with my
name from your departed husband, my dear brother
Thomas.
My health is failing and there is something I want to
accomplish before it deserts me completely. Yours is the only
address I possess for any of my Canadian relatives and
I ask your assistance in carrying out this mission for me.
Enclosed is a packet of letters from my beloved sister
Jane written from Vancouver Island to me in Wales. We
always prayed that one day we would meet again, and
after her death and that of her son Llewyllyn and her sweet
Janet, I had hopes of meeting with Sara and presenting
the letters in person. This was not to be. I did receive three
letters from young Sara written from your address but it
seems my replies did not reach her and she stopped writing.
Thomas advised me of her marriage to Miles Dryvynsydes
and her move to the Canadian prairies but no address was
included. I continue to cherish the picture of the two little
girls, but I believe it is time to relinquish custody of my
sister's letters to her only daughter.
I will be ever grateful if you would kindly forward this
packet to Sara Dryvynsydes. I will die in peace knowing
they have ended up where they belong.
I hope you and Laura, and my other nieces, Edna and
Myrtle, are keeping well.
My sincere thanks to you, dear sister-in-law, for aiding
me in this special task.
Yours truly,
Catherine Williams
The most astonishing part of the letter was that it hadn't been read. If it had, someone might have noticed that Janet was presumed dead and Sara was still alive. So it was not just Lizzie keeping the twins apart; one twin was herself an unwitting accomplice. What were the odds of the uncurious sister receiving the letter with all the clues and then passing it on to the uncurious daughter? If it had fallen into Wendell's hands, the Mingus family might have started a search for Sara Dryvynsydes somewhere on the prairies.
If, if, if.
When I looked up, Mona was drinking tea in the same recliner where her mother had sat in Wendell's picture. I controlled my tone. “Would you like to take a look at this now, Mona? It's fascinating. Aunt Catherine was also led to believe your mother had died as a child.”
“Is that so?” She checked her watch with
Wheel of Fortune
in mind. “Maybe later.”
Clearly Mona's only interest in words was one vowel at a time. Thoughts of little Sara writing to her Aunt Catherine in Wales grieved me. How did she express herself? Did she confide how much she missed her sister? Did she beg her aunt to get her out of Lizzie's home or did she use the same restraint her mother did in her letters, allowing her unhappiness to escape between words? Did Lizzie tear up Catherine's replies? My hands were shaking as I unfolded the brittle bundle of lined pages. The writing was almost illegible, and certainly not the careful hand of Jane Hughes that I knew. To make sure, I checked the last of the five pages and saw a faint signature:
“Your loving sister Jane xxxx.”
Those kisses comforted me as I sank back into my great-aunt's sofa to decipher each scribbled word in her mother's letter.
October 27, 1918
My dearest Cassie,
I started life with you at my side and now I send a final
farewell to you with my sweet daughters next to me. In my
mind I have shared all my trials and blessings with you,
always in the hope of speaking them one day in person.
That will never happen on this earth.
The Spanish flu is stealing my breath as I record the
sadness that has burdened my heart since I left Chase
River. To you I direct my story because here in Nanaimo
it might cause hurt where none is deserved. The fever now
consuming me has opened a passage to another high fever
almost 24 years ago on the most terrible night of my life.
Dear Cassie, I was witness to a brutal murder of a
friend I held in high esteem. You might recall me speaking
of my favourite laundry customer, a Negro gentleman.
Louis Strong was killed because he refused to sell his
orchard that lay over rich deposits of coal. The murderer
was a butcher, skilled in the bludgeoning of animals, and
required only one blow to my poor friend's head, thereby
making it difficult to prove blame when his body was
found at the foot of a bluff as an accident two days later.
The biggest clue was a bundle of clothes he dropped outside
the butcher's house. Can you imagine that he was bringing
them to me to launder when he was struck down?
You may wonder what I was doing there on a dark
night. Based on hearsay from another customer, I was
on my way to his cabin to warn him that the butcher who
acted like a friend was not to be trusted. But I was too
late. Mama believed I had gone in search of a lemon for
Gomer's croup and never knew better. And I myself lost
memory of it because that night in hiding I cut my thumb
on a rusty hasp and almost died of blood poisoning. When
I recovered, the land had been claimed for the Extension
coal mine which would soon provide a livelihood for my
husband, our brother and Mama, so you will understand,
dear Cassie, my grave dilemma in coming forward. Maybe
it was fortunate my fevered brain locked away details of
that gruesome night or I could not have forgiven myself
when the butcher was charged for the murder, then later
set free for lack of evidence. Only now I see things clearly.
There is more. Your little sister is not who you think.
My first baby son Owen born just before I turned 17 was
not from my husband Roland but from Adam Strong, the
son of my murdered friend Louis. A chance meeting after
my convalescence landed me in his arms and never have
I known such a beautiful man before or since. Our baby
has been my secret alone, and now yours. Tragically, he
stopped breathing within hours of his birth. Was he meant
to be a sacrifice for his mother's sins? Suspicions of his
origins were buried with his ruddy skin, and with him
a piece of my heart.
You have read unkind references to Roland Hughes
from my own pen, dear sister, but I was the false-hearted
one in encouraging marriage for my own motives. He
came from a motherless home with a drunken father and
there is goodness in the man when not in the clutches of
alcohol. How can I now bear the thought of Sara and
Janet in the same predicament? Oh Cassie, if only you
were closer to raise them as I would. My best friend has
just died of the flu and our brothers' wives would make
life more miserable for them than being abandoned. I can
only hope Llewyllyn returns whole and mature from the
battlefield soon to help care for them.
I am failing fast and must close. I ask God's mercy
in judging me for my sins against Roland and the Strong
family and against our decent Owens name. But it is
strange my head is only filled with the bliss I have known
â
of my childhood in Wales with you and the others, of
the miracles of Llewyllyn, Sara and Janet, of an afternoon
in a log cabin, and of many everyday moments we do not
recognize as such at the time. I pray you will meet my
children one day and present me well. Go you with God.
I had a vague sensation of a
TV
being turned on. Was it in this room or in the house next door? Latitude and longitude no longer applied.
Jane Owens Hughes: the finale. Images crowded out one another: the fairytale twin girls, in their bows and dresses from the photo, weeping at their mother's deathbed; a sunlit porch with two perfect lovers â doomed and therefore more perfect; the broken-hearted young mother; a decrepit but noble Roland Hughes in the background. Without a photo trail, my imagination was free to assign my own features to them all. I even pictured myself bursting into a courtroom waving the letter as last-minute evidence. What would my uniform look like then?
I sat up straighter on Janet's couch, my shoulders squared in respect to our matriarch casting her pages to currents that would deposit them, four generations later, into my hands. How Sara would have feasted on this letter! How did Janet miss her chance?
Eventually I noticed Mona sitting in the room. But she was now oblivious to me. I waited for the commercial before asking, “Would you mind if I made copies of these letters â for my father and Aunt Janetta and me? If there's a copy shop around, I could take a cab and be back in no time.”
“There's one at the Sears mall. I'll drive you.” Her eyes returned to the screen.
Why didn't it surprise me that Mona would not let these precious possessions out of her safekeeping, even without knowing how precious they were? I thanked her and excused myself to the bathroom while
Wheel of Fortune
finished.
“I can take you back to the hotel from there,” she said, as we walked to her old stucco garage at the back, alone in its original state among new double garages.
A clear dismissal. So much for any notions of looking through family albums to put a face to Janet. Wendell would have to supply those someday. And I had already hit the jackpot.
At the mall, I made copies of the two letters â for Dad and me, Janetta, Monty and Gail. Then a final one for Wendell; despite access to the originals, he'd receive a copy sooner from me. On the way to the hotel, Mona talked about Calgary growing too big and how she didn't drive anywhere beyond the north hill anymore. I thanked her for making an exception in my case, though it was a small sacrifice to get rid of me. “And thank you for sharing the letters. Maybe we'll meet again.”
“Maybe,” she said, checking her watch, likely for sitcoms she never missed. She drove off with the family treasures to be returned to the guarded trunk. Until they disintegrated or she did.
The evening air chilled my intentions of searching for a trendy restaurant for supper. Room service would do just fine for me to go over the letters again; maybe I'd call Dad and Gail later with the news. Back in my room, I flopped on the bed to digest the day. Warren had been pushed out by Robin Basa, Mona Mingus, and Jane Hughes. No wonder that's how he felt. Sara said there were no accidents, so this bad timing might not be entirely my fault.
Two cases wrapped up in one day. Robin Basa had given us a lot in confirming Frank Naylor's M.O., and Jane Hughes put a lid on the Strong cold case. What were the historical implications? Should I notify the textbooks to add a footnote to their next editions? Or at least inform Professor Barnwell to set the record straight in future classes?