Thirty-Four and a Half Predicaments
Page 98

“From what?” When she didn’t answer, I pressed on. “Was Harrison Gardner my father?”
“Oh, Rose. He claimed you as his own.”
I fought my rising panic. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
She was silent for several seconds. “People judged her. They didn’t understand what a scared little girl she was. She may have been in her twenties, but she took her grandma’s death pretty hard. It made her feel so alone. She wanted more than anything to be loved, and men took advantage of that.”
I wanted to ask her what she meant, but I suspected. I didn’t need the nitty-gritty details spelled out for me. “Did she have an affair with Henry Buchanan?”
“No,” she sighed. “She saw him more as a father figure. She’d known him for years. We went to school with his daughter. I’m sure that’s part of the reason he hired her when she came back from Shreveport. He felt sorry for her.”
I swallowed my fear and pushed on. “Her journal says she was having an affair with an older married man around the time she got pregnant with me. Was that my daddy?”
She groaned and shook her head. “The key to the mystery of what happened here in this factory and to Dora and Henry and even Bill Niedermier is in that journal!” She flung her finger toward me, her voice rising with every word until she was shouting, her words echoing throughout the plant. “And you’re focused on finding out who your biological father is?”
“Yes!” I shouted, stomping my foot. “I don’t care what you think of me for wanting to know, but it’s my history! It’s my DNA! I have a right to know!”
Some of her fight bled out of her, and her voice softened. “Just accept that Harrison Gardner is your father and leave it at that.”
I shook my head, surprised my eyes were dry. “I’m not giving you a damn thing until you tell me the truth.”
“How do you know I’m not gonna lie to you?”
I lowered my voice. “Because I have ways of finding out.”
Her eyes widened and I knew she thought I’d resort to something unsavory. I wondered if Jed thought the same thing as he waited in the wings, prepared to do just that if I asked it of him. But it wasn’t what I meant. I could always force a vision. Very few people had secrets they kept entirely to themselves, and I suspected Hattie was the same. All I had to do was force a vision while focusing on the question of my paternity, and I knew there was a good chance I’d see her telling someone.
I nearly gasped as I realized how far I’d come since last June when Joe had encouraged me to force a vision for the first time. But my work as the Lady in Black had prompted the most growth. Skeeter was right. I was good at this. I was learning how to read a situation and ask the questions that would get me the answers I needed. Neely Kate was right too. My visions could actually be a gift, not a curse, and I was going to use them to my advantage.
But my pronouncement still hung out there, and apparently Hattie didn’t take kindly to being threatened. “You want to know that Dora wasn’t sure who your father was?” Her tone was ugly.
At the moment I didn’t care, further proof of how much I’d changed. “Yes. I want you to narrow it down. The list can’t be that big.”
She jutted out her hip and held out her hand. “Let’s see. It could have been Bill Trousseau, the bank president. Or maybe Jim Collins. Or—” But I could see the terror in her eyes. She really didn’t want to tell me.
I took two steps closer. “You’re lying,” I said softly. “You said you were trying to protect me.”
“Rose,” she said quietly. “You don’t want to know.”
But I did. I had to know. At least I had to rule out one man. I took a deep breath, preparing for the worst. “Was it J.R. Simmons?” My voice broke, betraying my fear.
She watched me for three agonizing seconds before a soft smile spread across her face. “No. I promise you it wasn’t J.R. Simmons.”
I burst into tears of relief. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She paused as though trying to decide how much to tell me. Finally, she released a sigh. “Dora met J.R. after she was pregnant with you. Henry Buchanan’s daughter Bea moved to Little Rock just after her brother and his wife were killed in a horrific car crash. It was lonely for her in Little Rock, so she asked Dora to come up for a weekend. While she was there, Bea took Dora to a dinner at the state capitol, which is where she met J.R. Dora told him all about the plant and he said that he had a business proposition for someone looking for growth. So he came to Henryetta the next week and Dora, Henry, and J.R. went out to dinner. And so their partnership was born. Henry was thrilled. He thought he was being given a final chance to save his business.”
“Until it all went bad,” I said quietly.
She gave me a sad smile. “It all went bad long before it went bad on the assembly line. Bea desperately wanted her father’s approval, but she was a flighty girl and mostly worthless. She was furious that Dora had accomplished what she couldn’t, so she seduced Dirk, the line supervisor, and convinced him to make sure the new parts were flawed and worthless.”
I couldn’t believe she was giving me answers, even if what she was telling me was horrifying.
“Harrison was in charge of quality control, so he was the one who brought the situation to Henry’s attention. Henry was in a panic. He’d put his entire life savings into the venture and if he didn’t make the deadline, he would be bankrupt.”