Tangled Memories

For twenty-nine years, Corrie Grant had thought she'd never know who her father was. Now she knew, and no one would believe her.No one, at this point, was represented by a pair of smooth, silver-haired attorneys with Southern drawls as thick as molasses. They looked about as expensive as this hotel suite, where she sank to the ankles in plush carpeting. The denim skirt and three-year-old sweater she usually wore for her monthly shopping trip had definitely not been right for this meeting. She hadn't known Cheyenne, Wyoming boasted a hotel suite like this.She slid well-worn loafers under her chair and straightened her back.You're as good as anyone,her great-aunt's voice echoed in her mind, its independent Wyoming attitude strong.Don't you let anyone intimidate you."I've already told you everything I know about my parents." Her words stopped one of the lawyers -- Courtland or Broadbent, she didn't know which -- in mid-question. "I came here to meet Baxter Manning." Her grandfather. She tried out the phrase in her mind, not quite ready to say it aloud yet. "Where is he?""Now, Ms. Grant, surely you understand that we have to ascertain the validity of your claim before involving Mr. Manning, don't you?"Courtland or Broadbent had the smooth Southern courtesy down pat. He'd just managed to imply that she was a fraud without actually saying it.She gripped the tapestry chair arms, resisting the impulse to surge to her feet. "I'm not making any claims. I don't expect anything from Mr. Manning. I just want to know if it's true that his son was my father."Twenty-nine years. That was how long Aunt Ella had known about her mother's marriage and kept it from her. Corrie could only marvel that she hadn't pressed for answers earlier. She'd simply accepted what Aunt Ella said -- that her mother had come home to Ulee, Wyoming, pregnant, at eighteen. That she'd died in an accident when Corrie was six months old. That her mother had loved her.Pain clutched her heart. Was that any more true than the rest of the fairy tale?The attorneys exchanged glances. "You must realize," one of them began.She shot to her feet. "Never mind what I must realize." Coming on top of the struggle to stretch her teaching salary and the meager income from Last Chance Cafeacute; to pay Aunt Ella's hospital bills and funeral expenses, she didn't think she could handle any further runaround. "I'm done here. If Mr. Manning is interested in talking to me, he knows where to reach me. I'll be on my way."She was halfway to the door when the voice stopped her. "Come back here, young woman."She turned, pulse accelerating. The man who'd come out of the suite's bedroom was older than either of the lawyers -- in his seventies, at least. Slight and white-haired, his pallid skin declared his fragility, but he stood as straight as a man half his age."Mr. Manning." It had to be.He lifted silvery eyebrows. "Aren't you going to call me 'Grandfather'?""No."He let out a short laugh. "Fair enough, as I have no intention of letting you." He extended his hand to one of the attorneys without looking. The man gave him the copies she'd brought of her mother's marriage certificate and her own birth certificate."The birth certificate doesn't name a father." He zeroed in on the blank line, his gaze inimical.She'd learned, over the years, to brace herself for that reaction whenever she had to produce a birth certificate.You're a child of God,Aunt Ella would say.Let that be enough for you.Not exactly what a crying eight-year-old had wanted to hear, but typical of the tough Christian woman who'd raised her. Ella Grant had taken what life dished out without complaint, even when that meant bringing up an orphaned great-niece with little money and no help."According to my great-aunt, when I was born after my father died, my mother was afraid her husband's family would try to take me away. Later, she decided that theyPerry, Marta is the author of 'Tangled Memories', published 2006 under ISBN 9780373873845 and ISBN 0373873840.