Chapter 2

Kate and I headed out and by nightfall we were over the border and into Kentucky. Gram had given us directions and most of the travel was by interstate, so we made good time. I asked Kate if she wanted a motel, but she wanted to keep going for awhile. She then proceeded to curl up and go to sleep. I kept driving, thinking about Gram and the way things had changed for the better between Kate and me. Also, if Gram sold the company, I would have to find some other employment. I counted up our net worth in my head. Although Kate and I have done well and were living comfortably, we weren't rich.

Gram would back me in anything I would try, but I didn't think I would avail myself of her largess. Thoughts and ideas played around in my head and before I realized it, I was only twenty miles from our destination. "Kate wake up. I'm tired and we are almost there. Why don't I find a motel and sack out for a few hours, so we will be fresh when we get to where your folks live?"

"Okay, I could use a shower. Oh, I'm so excited. Do you think any of my family will remember me?"

"I'm sure they will." I pulled into a fair-sized motel with a sign that said Open All Night. It was nearly five a.m., and I could hardly keep my eyes open.

While I went to the desk to register, Kate walked around the lobby. She got a newspaper out of a machine by the door, folding it under her arm and was waiting for me to finish at the desk. An old black man was sweeping the floor, I suppose ending his night's work. He stopped and stood staring at Kate. "Oh my! If it isn't Miss Katie," I heard him say to Kate. "I saw you down to meeting just last week. I never expected to see you in this place. Is everything all right with you?" He seemed concerned and truly mystified seeing Kate in the motel.

Kate was as mystified as I was, but not wanting to seem ignorant or asking for an explanation, passed it off feeling that he had made a mistake somehow. Thinking quickly, she smiled and said, "We have been traveling all night and are too tired to go on. I'm going to catch a few winks here so I will be fresh later."

Still being inquisitive he asked her if I was her new fella'. "Yes he is, and not only that he is my husband, and I love him very much."

The old guy ran behind the desk and got a small camera and asked us to pose for him. He wanted it to show his wife. Wanting to get to our room as soon as possible, we humored him. I crashed as soon as I got in the door. Kate was hardly in the shower before I zonked out.

It was a little after nine when I woke up. Kate was out of the room, so immediately I headed to the bathroom to relieve myself and freshen up. While taking my shower, I heard Kate come back. When I came out, she was bubbling over with joy. "I went to the coffee shop for coffee. People stared at me and I know why!" Pointing at the newspaper she had purchased last night, she said, "Look at that. I'm famous."

There was a full page likeness in color of Kate staring at me from the centerfold. The lady had on a long floor length gown of green satin. Standing in the background were four men in light colored tuxedoes. In the lower left corner, text stated:

Tune in this coming Saturday. Miss Katie is a local celebrity who is becoming more and more known. Miss Katie and her Gospel Quartet has been chosen to headline a charity event in Biloxi. She is famous for her attention to pure gospel and folk music. The haunting quality of her voice has touched her fans as none ever before.

The quartet, famous in their own right, with their harmonious and melodic voices gives anyone that hears them a wondrous experience. This newspaper and your local Channel Nine have collaborated to bring it to you on their program, "Live On Saturday." Tune in at 9 p.m. for a truly great performance.

"That has to be my sister!" Kate was unable to contain herself. "Hurry and get dressed, I want to get to papa and mama's to see if I am related to anyone else famous." Then she looked troubled. "I hope the family will speak to me. I've been gone almost fourteen years. They will have to know who I am, though. I look enough like Katie to be her twin."

I calmed her down and went to the front desk to check out. The clerk seemed to fidget as if he had something to say. Finally, as he was clearing my credit card, he asked, "Is Miss Katie really married?"

I smiled and answered, "I don't really know. The lady with me is my wife, the former Catherine O'Toole. However we believe that she is a close relative to Miss Katie. We are on our way to find out now. We saw the picture in the paper this morning. There is a startling likeness, isn't there?" He agreed, but seemed disappointed that someone famous hadn't stayed the night.

Wanting to get on the road, Kate got me a coffee while I was checking out. "It is only twenty miles to Dinky's Diner in town. It is a greasy spoon and he always serves bigger portions than you want. You can eat while I ask someone if they know Billy Bob and Daisy Mae Gruber. Oh, I hope they are still alive. They should be. Papa would be about sixty and Mama is a couple of years younger."

An hour later we slowly drove down Main Street in Kate's hometown. She pointed out different places that she remembered. She said to me, "One more block to Dinky's Diner." When we got near, she saw that the name had been changed to Daisy's Diner. "Oh it's much bigger and a lot neater than I remember," she said.

I pulled off Main Street and parked in back. Kate was shaking. "If they have booths, let's get one. I have to sit down and want to see if I remember anyone. I can look around without people looking at me. I'll ask the waitress if she knows Mama and Papa."

Kate had on a gray traveling suit, knee length with a short jacket and yellow blouse. Also calf-high black suede boots. With her carriage, she looked the elegant lady. I smiled to give her confidence and held the door open as she entered before me.

A gentleman seated at the table with others nearest the door looked up and said, "Hi Miss Katie." He paused, then apologized saying, "I'm sorry, I thought you were someone I knew." We left him with a puzzled expression on his face. The diner was more than half full and we had to travel the length of the room before there was an empty booth. The chatter from the patrons silenced as we proceeded. People, I guess, thought at first that this was a person they all knew, but realized that it wasn't. Who could it be? Whispers replaced the chatter.

A gray-haired waitress came out of the kitchen entrance near us bearing a loaded tray. She went by us, not looking, just acknowledging that she had another customer. Halfway down the diner she set the heavy tray down and dispersed the orders. It took her until she passed out the last order to realize that the silence in the room was deafening. "What? Am I naked? What?"

Kate had whispered to me, "That's Mama. Help me. What am I going to do? All of the people are looking at us. I don't want to make a scene." She kind of cowered in the corner of the booth.

Kate's mom slowly looked at her customers and saw that their attention was centered on our booth. Coming hesitantly toward where we sat, she approached us. I stood and very formally said, "My name is Jim Ryan. I would like to have you meet my wife, Catherine O'Toole Ryan. Would you sit with us a minute?" I placed her facing across the booth from Kate.

Kate was facing away until her mother sat. I rarely used Kate's name, but I did now. "Catherine, look at Miss Daisy!"

"Mama."

Miss Daisy hadn't got the mix-up in name change yet, but she knew her child. "Hattie Mae? Is it you? Oh, the Lord be praised!"

"Mama, I didn't expect to see you so soon. I didn't know you worked in Dinky's. We stopped to eat before looking for you. Oh, Mama, it is so good to see you!" Kate was rambling on.

"Oh child, I can't believe it's really you! Where have you been? Why haven't you come sooner?" Finally Miss Daisy took Kate's hands and held them while looking into her eyes.

Neither Kate nor her mother really knew what to say to each other. The diner was filling with the lunch crowd and most of the patrons were curious as to what was going on in the corner booth.

Collecting herself, Miss Daisy said, "Come with me. We can be private in my office." Taking us into the kitchen, she pointed to a small room. She then went back out and we could hear her tell the other help that her long missing daughter was home. I also heard a few people clapping. Miss Daisy came back to us with tears in her eyes. "Oh Hattie," and she hugged Kate as if she would never let her go.

I sat down and watched--and was ignored. The food smell was driving me crazy, so I went into the kitchen after closing the door, and asked if I could have a sandwich. The kitchen help were busy and unaware of what was going on. The cook came over and asked who I was and I told him I guessed that I was Miss Daisy's son-in-law. "Bullshit," he said, "I know all of Miss Daisy's kin, and you ain't one of 'em."

I shrugged and said, "Ask her."

He looked in the office and never said a word to them in there. Looking at me he said, "I didn't know that Miss Katie had a twin, but it could just be. She surely looks like her." The cook was much more gracious then and rapidly had a bowl of stew in front of me while he put a hamburger steak on the grill. Everyone in the kitchen was rushing around so I just enjoyed my meal, waiting for the door of the office to open.

It took an hour or so. I finally saw Kate standing there, motioning to me. Kate hugged me as I entered the room. Both her and her mom looked so happy. "How are you doing Kate?" was all I could think of to say. I turned to her mother and asked, "How should I address you? Miss Daisy, Mom, or Mama? I never had a mom that I knew."

Miss Daisy said, "All my children call me Mama and everyone else calls me Miss Daisy. If you don't have a mom and would like one, why don't you call me Mom, and I'll call you Son or Jim. Hattie tells me that it was at your insistence that she is here with me now. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for that."

"Okay, then I guess until I know you better I'll call you Miss Daisy. Did Kate explain about her name change? How she came to have a name different than her birth name?"

"No, not really."

"It took awhile for me to find out about it all. A lot of it was revealed in the last month or so. Some of it may be hurtful to you and Kate can correct me if I'm wrong. She and I have bared our souls to each other to save our marriage. To start with, Kate told me that she was a nasty little kid the year before she left. Social Services took her away and had her adopted out to the O'Tooles. She waited for her family to come looking for her, but she never saw you again. I don't understand that, myself, but over the years, Kate has built up a lot of resentment for being abandoned.

"The O'Tooles gave her a good home, but not much affection. She did come to love them and still cares for her adopted mother, Winona, who at present is in a nursing home. When Kate reached adulthood, the resentment of being abandoned decided her to make the name O'Toole permanent. So she had her name legally changed from Hattie Mae Gruber to Catherine O'Toole and asked to be called Kate. She tells me that every time someone addresses her as Kate, it lets her connect to the one she remembers most fondly. This because she feels closest to Katie, her next oldest sister."

Miss Daisy looked at Kate. "Why did you wait this long to come home? Didn't you know we loved you? I don't understand how you could wait almost fifteen years."

Kate's attitude started to show. "You let those people take me and never, ever came after me. I thought you felt well rid of me. You didn't even show up before that old judge sent me to an orphanage. I spent seven months before the O'Tooles met and liked me and took me out of there. If that isn't being abandoned, I don't know what is."

"But Hattie, it wasn't like that at all." Miss Daisy was crying now. "I don't know what happened. Someone has made a horrible mistake. Papa couldn't come and I didn't drive then. We sent an old lawyer named Bannock to represent us. He told us you didn't want to come home because your daddy kept touching you and you were afraid of him. That is what he said you told the judge. He said the judge ruled that we had an unfit household and he was making sure you wouldn't have to live in that situation. The judge sealed your records, he said, to protect you. Did you ever say anything like that?"

"Mama, I never said that. I love Papa!"

"Well we were in a terrible situation at home at that time. Papa was in trouble with the law over some stuff up on the mountain growing on his land. It wasn't his, but he got sent to jail for it. Maybe that judge knew something about it. Damn the law here. Most of them are a bunch of crooks, or were. A lot of the old ones have died recently. That old lawyer died two years ago, so I don't suppose we will ever know what was said at that hearing.

"You will see Papa tonight. I'll call your brother Tom and you can meet his family. Bethanne and The Preacher will come over. Katie won't be here as she has a show in Biloxi this weekend. Joe, your other brother, is doing a tour in Germany with the air force.

"I must tell you that your Papa is a changed man. Three days after Social Services came for you Papa was charged with growing marijuana. He had a one-day trial and was sentenced to three to seven years. Going to jail just took the fire out of him. He felt that he had failed his family. You may remember that I let Papa do everything and I stood back and watched. When he went away I had myself and Katie to take care of. We were all broken up over losing you to the state. Everyone thought we were trash.