He tried to look at the evidence before him with a detached attitude, to place logically into the puzzle the three letters from 1976. But, just like every day since discovering the names of his father and paternal grandparents, his eyes sprang from one record to another, the content—names, dates and places—so intimately engrained in his mind that they no longer had any impact; familiarity had dulled their meaning.
It was time to try a different approach: Juliette’s methodical timeline.
Spreading several sheets of plain paper out on the floor, Morton went back to the beginning, to the very first in a veritable flurry of documents that had flowed from the Ancestry website, promising so much, so quickly: his grandparents’ marriage entry. He carefully copied out the record from the Massachusetts Marriage Index 1901-1955, where he had found that Roscoe Jacklin had married Velda Henderson in Wellfleet in 1953.
He finished noting down the details of their marriage, experiencing a resonance of the overwhelming pleasure and satisfaction that he had first felt when it had appeared onscreen a few months ago. His entire career had been built on reassembling histories with irrefutable, concrete facts and so it came as an almost pleasing shock when he allowed his thoughts to slide into the territory of his imagination. He had pictured his grandparents’ wedding several times since that day, each time the scene became a little more embellished and a little more real. It was in the summer. A cool, Cape Cod breeze tempering the high heat of the day. The church, overlooking endless stretches of sandy beach, was built of pristine white weatherboards and had a small bell-tower atop. His grandparents—she in white, he in a sharp black suit—exited the church under the Stars and Stripes, blissfully happy, as friends and family showered them with confetti.
With some degree of effort, Morton refocused his meanderings back on the facts presented on the wall before him; the warm-coated, nostalgic scenes slowly fading away.
He began to copy down the single document that he had wished to see for so long. He looked at the original, stuck to the wall, despite its being etched onto his memory. He had found his father’s birth record in the Massachusetts Town and Vital Records Index 1620-1988 with not a single bit of effort; it had been sitting online all this time, just waiting to be accessed.
Date of birth: 2nd June 1956
Name: Harley Joseph Jacklin
Sex: Male
Colour: White
Condition: Legitimate
Place of birth: Barnstable
Names of parents: Roscoe Joseph Jacklin & Velda Henderson
Residence of parents: Barnstable
Occupation of father: Businessman
Birthplace of father: Boston, MA
Birthplace of mother: Wellfleet, MA
Informant: Roscoe Joseph Jacklin
He had questioned the three-year gap between his grandparents’ marriage and his father’s birth and, having returned to the birth index, had quickly found another child. The details were all identical, but for her name and date of birth: Alice Velda Jacklin, born 19th October 1954.
Accompanying those three documents had come a carefree, JFK-era fantasy world of detached white homes with perfectly manicured lawns; of Harley and Alice paddling on the Cape Cod shores whilst their smiling parents watched and waved from the sandy beaches; of family holidays in a red Pontiac; and of traditional white Christmases. It was stupid and indulgent, he knew that, but still he had allowed the fantasies to continue. Trying his luck, Morton had searched for his newfound family on social media sites. Nothing at all for his father, but he found, with surprising ease, his new aunt on Facebook. Alice Velda Jacklin, an artist, born 1954, was now living in Provincetown, right on the tip of Cape Cod. He had looked at the photos of her with tears in his eyes. She looked a feisty thing—wild curly hair, striking dark eyes, bohemian clothing and, in every picture, unsmiling. ‘Oh my God, but she’s the spitting image of you!’ Juliette had declared, craning her neck to get a better view of the photographs. ‘Do you think so?’ Morton had asked. But he had seen it, too; there was an unmistakable likeness. ‘Undoubtedly! I swear if I had seen her without knowing who she was I would have thought that she was related to you. God,’ she had said.
He had spent an age composing a message to send to her. His first, full of exclamation marks, was a gushing I-can’t-believe-I’ve-finally-found-you type of message. Then he had deleted it all and written a much flatter, more neutral introduction. Then he had deleted that and written a short and simple sentence, not wanting to spook the poor woman. Dear Alice, I wonder if you can help me? I’m trying to track down an old friend of mine, Harley Joseph Jacklin, whom I think is your brother. Many thanks, Morton Farrier.
He had sent the message at nine o’clock in the morning and had then waited all day long, nervously anticipating the reply. It had come that evening. I have neither seen nor heard from my brother since 1976. Alice.
And there, Morton’s American Dream fantasy had ended. The imagined scenes of his father’s life began to peel away like a veneer.
He had replied immediately, but when that message had elicited no response, he sent a follow-up three days later, this time explaining everything. It had been a long message, carefully crafted with Juliette’s help over several hours. He had clicked send and waited, impatiently checking his emails every few minutes. A nervousness such as he had not experienced before scratched
