Trail of Secrets(94)
Seth glanced over his shoulder and then pushed the door open wider. A young man who looked to be in his early thirties stood in the hallway behind Seth. He smiled as Seth ushered him inside. They stopped at the foot of her uncle’s bed.
“Dan, Callie, this is Michael Traywick. He’s Valerie’s son, and he’s come to Memphis to take his mother’s body home for burial.”
Callie sucked in her breath and pushed her fist against her trembling lips as she stared down at her uncle. Tears slipped out of the corners of his eyes, and he held out his hand to Michael. “Come here, son.”
Michael walked around the end of the bed and clasped Uncle Dan’s hand in his. “I’m so happy to meet you. I can’t believe that you have tried for twenty-five years to find out who my mother was and where she came from. How can I ever thank you for answering the questions that have haunted me since I was six years old?”
“Seeing you here and knowing your mother is finally going home is all the thanks I need. But I want to know what she was doing here. Callie has told me what happened after she arrived in Memphis, but we don’t know anything else.”
Michael pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed. Callie drifted over to where Seth stood, and he put his arm around her. All three of them listened as Michael began his story.
“I was five years old when my parents divorced. From what my dad’s told me, she’d always wanted to get out of West Virginia. When I was six, she convinced him to let me stay with him until she could go to California and get a job. Then she would send for me. She left home and was never heard from again.”
“That must have been hard for a little boy,” Uncle Dan said.
“Yes, it was. I cried many nights when I was growing up, wondering why my mother didn’t love me enough to send for me like she’d said she would. My father told me she didn’t care about me, or she would have written. After a while I believed him and began to hate her. Then when I got married and had a son, I began to think about my mother, and I wanted to find her. I entered my DNA in the national database three years ago, but I’d never heard anything until last week when I received word there had been a hit. I finally found out the truth, thanks to you.”
Uncle Dan looked up at her and Seth. “And to those two also. They found the missing pieces and pulled everything together. I just kept the interest going all these years.”
Michael reached over and squeezed her uncle’s hand. “You buried her and placed a tombstone on her grave. I’m forever in your debt.”
“No, you’re not. Take your mother’s body home and bury her where she grew up. And tell your son about a woman named Hope who came to be an important part of a man’s life in Tennessee.”
“I will. There were several letters in her suitcase she had written to me. She wrote how much she loved me, and that she could hardly wait to get settled in California so I could join her. She said the first thing she’d do would be take me to the beach. There were also several envelopes with pictures of the two of us together. I’ll keep those always.” He glanced up at Seth. “Detective Dawtry tells me there’s a locket in the evidence bin. It has a picture in it of her and me. Maybe someday I’ll have a daughter to give it to.”
“We’ll get that back to you as soon as the trial is over,” Seth said.
Michael pushed to his feet. “I hope you’ll let me know when that is. I want to come back and face the man in court who robbed me of the most important person in my life when I was a child.”