These Clues to a Hidden Life

Roxie was at it again despite Phillip throwing her a sidelong glance. Her eyes swept over the name cards on the long crystal-and-china-dressed table, the mail stacked on an inlaid tray in the hallway. Books in the library called to her with possible personal notations right inside the covers. She knew she should mind her own business but it was difficult to ignore her passionate interest in handwriting.

The party’s voluminous conviviality and scents of beer, wine and mixed drinks swirled about her like gladly deranged toxins. She sneaked past them, into the back garden. No one would notice. Phillip was again caught up in a mesmerizing narrative of his latest humanitarian medical trip, this time to the Colombian jungle.

Roxie was a fan of Phillip’s; he was her husband. She was not a fan of dinner parties but went to a minimum of four a year, maximum of six. It was part of their recent negotiation whereupon he agreed to no longer fret and fume about her graphology business, Interpretive Analysis Enterprises (IAE), and she pledged to put on a good front for his increasingly public medical career. More precisely, humanitarian medical work’s fundraising. Once a year she threw the party, which required significant expense for catering services. She was at best a turkey meatloaf with boiled potatoes and steamed asparagus sort of cook. Meanwhile, they had never specifically addressed snooping around in random places and taking a peek at “graphology samples”, as she called all writing on personal or business envelopes, guest books at weddings, email or address request sheets at shops and galleries, etc.

She had noticed a pale sage green envelope with interesting writing. It had spirit, a decided intelligence. It lay on top of a small pile of papers in the tray set upon the hall table in Ella’s house. The woman was a remarkable party-thrower and good neighbor, but not truly tidy despite having a housekeeper in twice a week. Roxie could get writing samples here anytime if she kept her eyes open.

It wasn’t that she actually needed any, she just enjoyed them. Her business was going well, she had roughly ten new inquiries per week, most resulting in a new graphoanalysis client. She would have to put a cap on it soon if it kept up this rate of growth. It felt more like a full time job and less like a fun experiment, which is what it originally was a year ago. Roxie had wanted to see where her newly acquired skills could take her. She had gotten dull, too sluggish-minded as her twelve year old daughter seemed always busy and too fussy for much chat or even shopping and lunch–plus a husband who was an in-demand doctor. So she got quietly certified for graphology on her own. He had first seemed amused, then annoyed, then angry that she chose “to actually in fact pursue foolish hocus pocus”–despite her offering evidence to the contrary. But in time he’d softened just barely enough. It did make money; there was virtually no overhead.

Ella’s landscaped garden looked almost animated, a high moon shining like a silver dollar, flowers glowing beneath fairy lights that marked the lawn’s edges and two pathways. Ever deepening, color-tinged shadows were affecting. A few couples stood about in quiet groups, as if nature’s lushness lent a gentling effect. Roxie’s eyes roamed over the landscape and registered a flash of yellow amid greenery. She watched the woman wearing the sunny dress sink to a bench beneath purple azaleas. Her hands went to her face, and then she looked blankly into a narrow pathway bordered by hyacinths and tulips. It was Ella. She must have slipped away, too. Roxie was torn between restfulness of taking in fragrant spring air as she waited for Phillip to find her and wanting to thank her for the delicious dinner. Ella turned her head, then saw her neighbor friend on the patio by the double French doors. After a small pause, she gestured at her so Roxie joined her in the sheltered area.

After settling on the bench and thanking Ella for the grilled salmon dinner, Ella laid a hand on her forearm.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something. A favor, of sorts, a bit of advice.”

“What? I might be able to help. No promises, though.”

Ella’s strong features were made more dramatic in moonlight, her thick black hair in a loose bun at her neck, an aquiline nose a statement of pedigree, her usually pouty lips thinned as she pressed them together. She smiled nervously at Roxie, then looked down the pathway once more.

“I got a letter a couple of months ago from someone I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear from…but after some detective work I decided the person was likely the person indicated and so I replied. I wasn’t too encouraging, however. It’s…a difficult matter….but this person wrote back again! I got a second letter today, in fact. I didn’t even open it yet–gosh, I forgot to put it away with all the activity around the party. I’d better do that right after we talk.”

Her voice was inflected with the slightest reveal of anxiety. She looked about to check the immediate area was clear of eavesdroppers. Roxie was calmly listening, having already deduced the favor and decided that naturally she would analyze the writing of whomever had written Ella.

“Is it someone who, well, scares you a little? You seem unnerved.”

“I am. Scared? Well, the person is not someone I’d expected to hear from, not now. No, not ever. It was a visitation from the past…a reminder of decisions made out of utter disregard for the future. I was eighteen and now here I am nearly middle aged and one might hope that the past stayed in its place rather than sneak up on you, a cunning snake.”

“I see. Look, Ella, I understand what you mean but I can’t know who or what this is about, exactly. Can you clue me in more?”

“There you are, gorgeous!”

The women, startled, surveyed the area beyond their inadequate refuge.

“We’ve looked all over for our fabulous but errant ladies!”

The women gave one another a raised eyebrow, then surveyed the two bodies that gave forth those voices. Phillip and Tag peered at them, sloshing glasses carried with a lack of grace, arms about each other’s shoulders. Their husbands were more than a little loosened up, it seemed.

“The hostess always need be about for adoring guests, my darling…so why run off into these unattendant azaleas? A party headache crept up? Oh, sorry, Roxie, you’re there, that’s better. Or more than usual, different.”

His loosely connected speech made Tag seem someone quite other than who he was, Theodore Taggert “Tag” Huntley, esteemed lawyer and sought-after master of ceremonies at numerous events. He tended to be sober when everyone else was not. Phillip had a couple of traditional holiday drunk fests in him each year but Tag had had his way with alcohol–or it, with him– long ago and now rarely drank much, if at all.  They were such good friends that the women wondered how Tag had gotten so into his cups without being checked by Phillip.

“Here we come to gather you up from said flowers, in any case,” laughed Phillip.

They both had thrown caution to the wind, now found it funny joke they were all hiding in the bushes.

Roxie patted Ella’s hand; she gave it a squeeze in response.

“We’ll talk more soon, Roxie. It’s been good to sit with you.” She got up and took her husband’s arm. “Yes, Tag, I’m the dutiful hostess and you’re the more charming host and here we go back to the party. Perhaps it has gone on long enough, do you think?”

“What’s that about?” Roxie asked Phillip. “Isn’t he sticking to the straighter and narrower road?”

“It appears he slipped up, enjoyed himself a mite too much.”

“I must say the same goes for you. You almost sound poetic. Let’s head home, shall we, Mr. Stannis?”

Phillip put his good face close to hers, noses touching, and gave her an off-center kiss that she found delicious if messy.

******

“I’m  glad you were able to come by today. I have two hours totally free.”

Roxie ushered Ella into the solarium where she had her desk, a comfortable setting for clients.

“I really had to–it was that or enter a useless depression which doesn’t suit me at all. I’ve enough on my hands lately and need to keep my wits about me.”

Roxie wanted to know if the “enough” included Tag’s alcohol use, but kept quiet. Her usually social friend looked beleaguered. It had been three days since the dinner party.

“I brought them with me, both letters from Philadelphia.” She rooted around in her enormous soft blue leather handbag until she found them at the bottom. “Here you are…”

Roxie took them and set them on the side table. “Tell me a little more before we start. What am I going to be looking at, Ella? All you said during the phone call was a rehash of what you noted before and a request for my services.”

Ella pulled her thin shoulders back. “You’re so right, I became alarmed enough to let loose some concerns and you don’t even know what or why yet. This will not be easy, Roxie, please know how daunting, even embarrassing it is.” She smoothed the floral fabric on both arms of the sumptuous chair, then clasped her hands in her lap. “I was eighteen. It was the summer before I went to Mills College. I was a camp counselor for the second year in a row and I valued that job. I’d always enjoyed kids, and it felt like the last time I’d be able to have fun while making a little money. I might have gone to Tuscany as my parents had planned a vacation, but I’d been to Europe the year before–and who wanted to go with parents at eighteen?– so I felt inclined to stay home. They went off for two months. I went to camp, so to speak, for the entire summer.”

She reached for a glass of iced water on the glass topped coffee table, next to a plate of apple slices and cheese. Roxie had missed lunch so grabbed a slice of both, then leaned close in.

“That was so independent of you–to turn down a cushy trip to work with rascally kids!”

“I know it doesn’t seem like the reasonable decision, but I also had another agenda. I knew there was freedom there–I had a day off once a week and a couple of evenings as well. Beyond the 8 to 6 routines and activities, I could be free as a second year counselor to other activities with a few co-workers We were on a pretty lake for sailing and swims, and Camp Clearwater was two miles from a small town. I had my car. There were things to do–a pool hall, a cafe where they had great BLT sandwiches– or at least it felt like there were interesting options then.”

Ella’s eyes warmed as she talked on, hands moving expressively with words. Roxie was distracted by the redundant buzzing of a captive fly and watched Wiley the cat’s tail switch as he stalked the insect. She let imagination take her to a lakefront with its hoards of bugs, simmering summer air. She imagined Ella as more captivating than even presently, already tall and willowy and tanned (Roxie had then felt like a cookie cutter girl, and was barely five foot five). There were boats zooming about the lake, kids swimming and diving, male counselors splashing female counselors, and all glittered in brazen summer light or glistened in that otherworldly manner of moon’s opalescent light.

Heavenly. And she got paid for all that? Roxie was washing and waxing cars at her uncle’s car wash her last summer at home.

“And there was Rod.”

Roxie shook off her reverie, attended to at her friend.

“Rod? Another counselor or a townie?”

“Oh, he was a counselor. I knew he’d be there again; we had written off and on during our senior year.”

“I see. So you two were… in love?”

“I didn’t really think so until I saw him again. He had bright auburn hair, freckles scattered over his nose and cheekbones and the deepest blue eyes…I mean, none of this had changed from before. But it was how he wore those freckles that summer, how he carried himself, how he talked to people. To me. As if he had something to say that I–we–might want to hear. A natural leader had started to form. The kids loved him, he was fun as well as just strict enough. And I certainly heard him loud and clear.” Ella turned to study Roxie, eyes squinted as if trying to ascertain more than she could see. “Didn’t you have a first love like that?”

“Sure. I married him.”

“Oh.” She seemed disappointed. “Well, this was something entirely unexpected. I was going to college in a couple of months and I just meant to have some fun but Rod was so, he was just …too much… for me. I fell in love, hard. But he entirely disappeared from my life after camp ended.”

Roxie frowned at the idea of heartbreak. Waited as Ella collected herself. It had to have been something pretty fantastic. Roxie helped herself to another cheddar and apple slice then settled into her matching floral love seat, two sage green envelopes now in hand.

“This is intriguing. Also tough. But I’m wondering who these letters are from. I look forward to studying the handwriting but my question is: who are they from, Ella? is it Rod? Did he reach out to you after all this time?”

Ella suddenly covered her face, then peered out from between gaping fingers, trying to steady her voice. “No. They are from…from, uh, our daughter. The one I gave birth to, then gave up for adoption the year I was supposed to be a college freshman! She’s now twenty four! And she’s tracked me down…”

Roxie nodded as Ella revealed her misery. She had about decided it was something like that. It had happened to too many girls. Abortion wasn’t necessarily a desired much less legal answer then. She could never have done it. But she was taken aback by the effect giving birth so young was having on Ella even now. She wasn’t just thrown off guard by the proffered letters–she assumed they’d arrived out of the blue–but Ella seemed fearful, as she had the night of the party.

“I understand, this is not an easy thing to assimilate after so long with such a lack of information available to you, I assume. Do you want to keep corresponding, find out more about her? Meet, perhaps?”

Ella’s face was slack with sorrow, marred by uncertainty. “I just don’t know. What I would like now is your very appreciated help. I need to know what you see in her handwriting, what you can tell me  about her. You will still do that?”

“Yes, of course.” She pulled out the letters, opened them up.

Roxie didn’t read for content at all the first few times. What sentences told meant far less to her than the actual means to the end product. So she rapidly scanned first, then studied diligently. The flow of the words told a story, the shapes of them and their separate letters, spaces between both, the pressure of pen or pencil or felt tip, the endings and beginnings of letters and loops above and below a central line. The slants of the writing, if and where it was cursive or printed. The rhythm of it and its size, the uniformity or the lack of it. How were the “ts” crossed, with a light line or a slashing one, a sturdy crossing or a bare half-line? Was the bottom loop athletic and sensual, thwarted, independent, efficient, angry? There was so much to take in that Roxie savored and noted and studied again, then memos were sent to her brain and she looked over things again. By the end of the writer’s second page, the script had relaxed a little, not surprisingly. And the signature was altogether different than the rest–as often it was: public persona versus private human being.

“Well? What do you see?” Ella was on the edge of her seat.

“It will take time, Ella, quite a bit of it. I can take an hour now and give you a very cursory evaluation or take several hours and get back to you.”

“Take your time, please. I need to know the truth, as much of it as you can possibly gather.”

“Alright. Give me a couple of days. I have another job or two ahead of this.”

“Of course. I’ll pay your rate, don’t say no.  But please don’t say anything to Phillip– or anyone.”

“I wouldn’t think of it; there are ethics involved.”

Roxie led her out to the front door and then got back to work.

******

It wasn’t hard to determine that Frances Reynolds was a bright, rather circumspect, hard working, emotionally sensitive person. She was an empathetic person but she was also likely to get prickly, was  given to dependence on others, ambitious in spite of that yet also self doubting. Given to excesses emotionally at times and perhaps behaviorally, likely not terrible things. The pronoun “I” was very small compared to the rest of the capital letters, nearly protectively enclosed in a circular stroke. Roxie mused over the young woman’s intense desire to meet her biological mother, over how much her being adopted might have impacted her sense of self worth. It might have been something else that created a sense of identity lacking in sturdy confidence. The sizable, even spacing indicated a more cautious nature despite her taking the chance to reach out to Ella. Full lower loops on letters “y” and “g” for two appeared to indicate Frances’ physicality, strong physical needs as well as a likely imaginative tendency, well supported by other indicators.

Roxie spent two afternoons going over the letters with singular concentration. She did not want to disappoint her friend with a sloppy review of personal characteristics belonging to someone this important. Rarely had anyone who requested her services done so as a mere lark. It was always serious business but if so. Roxie had noted on her website that she strongly advised against it (no “gag” gift certificates, please). Graphology could make a significant difference in a person’s view of another, for good or ill. It could ferret out tendencies if not also clear-cut behaviors that might be heretofore unknown to the requester. For police or psychological aid, this was entirely useful.

In the wrong hands, it could be devastating.

Ella had never even met the young woman who was likely her lost daughter, a pregnancy the result of a youthful, passionate and all too brief love affair. Roxie did not want to form a picture that would irrevocably influence a mother’s decision, even if she saw her once and that was that. It had to be an  addendum to Ella’s carefully wrought determination. Meeting the girl would tell the greater story.

She called Ella to set up another appointment.

******

When Roxie was finished the results of her analysis, Ella asked her if she thought Frances Reynolds was, after all was said and done, “the sort of person I truly should allow into my life. She seems to be!”

Roxie was taken aback by this. Frances was, after all, her daughter and despite the trauma adoption may or may not have incited, she had gone this far, replying to Frances’ letter once and asking for Roxie’s graphological insights.

“Is that the reason you actually brought the letters to me? I can’t decide for you, Ella, it has to be what you feel is right, how your see her presence in your life and what it means to your family. You have two grown sons, you have a husband. How do you see all this affecting the big picture?”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it? It’s not only meeting Frances, having a serious cry and perhaps trying to make a kind of bridge–or perhaps just parting ways. She may want to enter our greater lives. I may even want her there.” She twisted a tissue in her hands. So far she had not wept. “But Tag will not, I can assure you…”

“Ah, I’d thought of that. But why assume this to be true?”

“He would find it entirely inconvenient right now since he’s running for the city council– and very embarrassing. Disappointing on one level or another. I worry every day he’ll find out she even wrote me. If I actually meet up with her…he would be so upset with me. With us.”

Roxie thought about Tag, his inherent sense of justice, his accolades in his field, a generous nature and seeming good humor. It was hard for her to believe he would turn his back on her at such a time. Unless she did not have a good idea of who he was. Or he was drinking heavily again–then things got messy. But Phillip had assured her it was not the case. So maybe she was too ashamed or conflicted, herself.

“Maybe that deduction allows you to feel…protected somehow. Like you have an automatic ‘out’…?”

“I think not, Roxie! I can make my own decisions but I DO have a family already, don’t I? We have a life, a future.”

Roxie looked out the window at the waning sun, a light rain spattering the flowers. “I think Frances–who also has a life– just wants to meet you, the woman who gave her life. You don’t have to decide anything much right off the bat, do you?” She cleared her throat, hesitantly asked, “Is Tag going at the booze again?”

Ella looked up sharply at her neighborly friend. Her new and only support. “No. But I worry he might again, especially after the party. Especially if I tell him this news, the big truth I omitted from the start…”

They sat in silence awhile. Wiley the cat got up from the floor, front paws stretched out long, back end in the air, then sauntered out the room, rubbing against Roxie’s leg as he went. How simple a life to live, sunning, eating, chasing more flies, sniffing flowers and yet another nap.

“Well, I do thank you, Roxie. Frances seems like a decent and lovely human being, a young woman who is making her own way after college. Who just wants to see if I am even worth knowing. I don’t blame her a bit after what I did, leaving her behind.” Her voice lapsed into a quiet rasp and one, then another tear trickled down.

Roxie let her be. She didn’t want to intrude on those innermost feelings and her private space. They were not that close though closer now. Keeping such secrets was a demanding part of her work. Anyway, she couldn’t pretend to know how this would all play out. It might become very rough.  Nor did she know how Ella felt in the middle of the night with memories breaking open, likely regrets of one kind or another, and Tag lying beside her with cozy with an innocent snore. She didn’t always have good news to offer people who came to her with the driving need to know the truth.

Did they really? she often speculated. Did people want the truth, after all, if it was not what was suspected or desired? Or did they want only confirmation of the best or worst of someone they loved or hated, or hoped to know or were trying like crazy to forget? The story was never exactly as it appeared, not even as Roxie discerned it on the page. She knew that. But people came to her hoping it would eliminate fear or worry or misgivings; bolster dreams or goals or arguments or clarify life when they could not clarify it themselves. She was not an oracle, not a soothsayer. She could only find the complex clues and offer what she thought would help. Not even all the clues. There was such depth of uniqueness, that layered singularity of a person, so that such shadows and secrets could be at times clouded by the hand that scrawled across the page. Did we even know ourselves, Roxie wondered?

So she was careful with the information that could make a needed difference. And was she right to determine which she told and which she held back? No, her work was getting harder the more she understood, the more she talked with her clients, and people had begun to seem more mysterious.

Ella pressed the tissue against her pale cheeks and stood up, life-altering letters pushed into the depths of her blue bag, the other hand protectively pressing it close to her side.

“Thank you for your help, your patience with all this,” she said and held Rosie’s warm hand in both of her cool ones. “I’ll let you know what happens. If anything happens.”

And she smiled that sunny welcoming smile that must have pulled Rod closer. But it was a mad hormone-fueled summer they got caught up in while trying on more freedom. A powerful trickery of summered water and earth, a time shared in delight and surprise. And then let go.

But Ella would look into her daughter’s eyes and discover a great deal more. Pain, yes, but also a chance at happiness she would not otherwise get to experience: the presence of her own blood and bone designed into an exquisitely new female human being. One of her own.

Roxie closed the heavy door, leaned on it a moment. She sighed deeply and wound her way through the quiet rambling house, out the back way to her damp and sweetly beckoning garden, Wiley, too, but dashing off.

 

Note to readers: This is the second of short stories about graphology and Roxie. The first may be read here: https://talesforlife.wordpress.com/2016/03/28/more-hocus-pocus/