‘Boston,’ his mom answered.
‘And what did your parents think about you getting married?’
Another strange look passed from his dad’s eyes.
‘They were…’ he began.
‘Dead before we married,’ his mom answered, finishing the sentence.
‘Oh yeah, the automobile accident,’ Jack said, trying not to sound disingenuous. ‘How did that happen, exactly?’
His mom set down her knife and fork and glanced around the restaurant. She leant closer to Jack and lowered her voice. ‘Look, what is all this?’
Jack shrugged innocently. ‘I’m just curious about my family, is all. I mean, you guys never talk about it—’ he faced his dad ‘—I’ve never even seen a picture of your mom and dad.’
‘They’re dead,’ his mom snapped. ‘Now leave it alone.’
‘No, it’s okay, Velda,’ his dad said. ‘He has a right to know about what happened. They were out for the evening—I forget where, movie theatre, I think—and there was a real freezing fog hanging over Boston.’ He paused to take a breath. He shrugged his shoulders, then continued, ‘My mom was driving and she drove right into the back of a truck. The driver—an old veteran—had apparently fallen asleep at the wheel, right in the middle of street and she didn’t see him in time. They had no chance. Their car just crumpled up into the back of the truck.’
Jack nodded, unable to look either of them in the eye. It was a damned good story. It might have happened to someone at some point, but not to his grandparents in Boston in 1946. He had absolutely no doubt in his mind that they were still alive at the time of his dad’s first wedding in 1949.
As far as his mom and dad were concerned, the story had done the trick and had dissolved his curiosity. Their expressions showed that they were poised for further questions. When none came, his dad struck up a conversation about the upcoming election. ‘A poll in the paper points to Carter taking the White House.’
And that was that, the discussion switched from a sinking sand of lies to more solid ground, as it always had, he realised.
Jack’s expression said that he was listening. In truth, his thoughts were turned firmly to what he had just heard. The words that had been spoken were not in themselves revelatory—indeed, his mom and dad had simply reiterated, with some convincing embellishment, the same narrative that Jack had always known; it was the looks, the body language and the manner of their speech—like they were amateur actors, struggling to recall an exact script from long ago.
The truth was out there, somewhere, and he was going to find it.
Chapter Six
16th August 2016, Barnstable, Massachusetts, USA
Juliette was getting annoyed; Morton could tell that she was biting her tongue and chewing over her choice of words. They were standing in the queue of the Nirvana Coffee Shop on Barnstable Main Street, waiting to order. She drew a long breath—one of her exasperated ones. ‘All I’m saying is that you’re spending a lot of time inspecting the minutiae of your extended family: getting newspaper reports into your grandfather’s death, looking at the census for your great-grandparents—’
‘But I really think that Jack’s story is bound up with theirs,’ Morton pleaded.
She sighed. ‘Look…why are we here?’
Morton glanced around him. ‘Coffee.’
‘You know full well what I meant—in America—why are we here?’
He thought for a moment, wondering if this was a trick question. ‘Honeymoon,’ he answered.
‘And?’
‘To find my father.’
‘Precisely!’ Juliette asserted. ‘To find your father—the one thing that you could be doing to help with that, you’re avoiding doing.’
She was referring to his Aunt Alice. ‘It’s not as simple as that.’
Another long breath in. ‘It never is with you, is it?’
‘What can I get you folks?’ the man behind the counter asked.
‘Take-out latte for me, please,’ Morton ordered, before turning to Juliette. ‘Decaf,’ he added swiftly for her benefit, despite feeling a desperate need for caffeine right now.
‘Same for me,’ Juliette said, shaking her head with mock displeasure. ‘Look, what is it that you’re scared of? That you don’t find him, or that you do?’
It did, in typical Juliette style, cut straight to the heart of the issue. It was, however, only partly true. He was certain that his father’s story was somehow connected with his grandfather’s, but yes, there was a hesitant part of him, content to live forever in ignorance of his father’s whereabouts. Right now, his father could be alive and delighted at the prospect of meeting his long-lost son. Equally, the opposite could be true; discovering that knowledge was irreversible.
Juliette paid the server and took the two drinks. ‘Right,’ she said, handing him his latte. ‘Today you do whatever it is you’re doing. Tomorrow we’re exploring Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, then the next day we’re going whale-watching from Provincetown, after which, you’re going to find your Aunt Alice. Okay?’
‘Fine.’
‘See you later,’ she said, kissing him on the lips.
‘Bye,’ he mumbled.
Outside, they headed in opposite directions. He walked briskly, sipping his latte as he went, analysing and regretting their frosty parting. He could tell that at the heart of her contention was the word that she had swallowed down but that had loomed large in the background of their conversation: honeymoon. They were three days into it and had yet to do anything meaningful together. He had spent the entirety of last night researching his family on the internet. His discoveries had taken him well into the early hours of this morning. And now he was feeling it and the decaf wasn’t helping matters.
Having found his grandfather’s first marriage to Audrey Fuller in 1949, he had discovered the birth of a child, Florence, in 1951. The 1940 census had been revealing. The Jacklin family, all having been born in San
