Chapter 22 #2
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Hours later we sat cross-legged on the living room floor with various boxes in front of us. Some of them had turned out to be filled with old account books and tax documents. But the rest were a virtual treasure trove of photographs and other personal items.
I’d already set aside a pile of photos to frame or put in albums. Jake had frowned at the idea but had finally agreed when I promised he didn’t have to be involved in the album-making.
“What an elegant woman your mother was,” I said as I studied a photo of her in her twenties, sitting in a Parisian café. She was tall and blonde, very beautiful, always perfectly coiffed.
“Yeah, she dreamed of modeling in Paris, but ended up marrying my dad instead. She had money then and could come on her own terms.” He tossed a photo aside that I quickly snatched back.
“She never felt at home in the States. She’d take me back to the Netherlands every summer, and sometimes I wished we’d never go back. ”
Aside from wedding photos, there weren’t many pictures of his father, the rubber bumper-heir from Grand Rapids.
In the wedding photo, his father was tall with dark hair and a stern face.
Jake definitely resembled him, but judging by how he’d tossed the photo aside, he wouldn’t appreciate me pointing that out.
I learned bits and pieces about his family as we went through the rest of the boxes.
His Dutch-American grandfather had invented a prototype of a rubber bumper, which had made him millions.
His father had been an engineer for General Motors, before taking over the reins of the company.
Suddenly, Jake’s passion for refurbishing his old car made more sense.
When I suggested it, however, he failed to see the connection and gave me a bewildered look.
In his mind, clearly, he’d sprung to life fully formed like Athena from Zeus’s head.
“And you don’t think your love of France came from your mother?
” Again, he shook his head and stared at me vacantly.
For someone like me who’d spent most of her teen years grappling with generational trauma, it was a major surprise that some people chose to ignore it when the evidence of it was right under their nose.
We saved the box labeled Jakob for last. I even considered leaving him alone with it, but when I suggested leaving, Jake shook his head and went to the kitchen to get us two cold beers. It was early evening now, and a nice breeze was coming through the windows we’d opened.
When he returned from the kitchen, Jake sat down next to me and dragged the dreaded box to him, opening it carefully as if it might contain a tangle of hissing vipers. To my delight, there were already several albums in there.
“Oh look, a baby album with all your baby accomplishments. Wow, you were rolling over at four months! Already so precocious,” I teased as I flipped through it. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen this before?”
“My mother never showed it to me,” he said as he dug more photos from the box. I was transfixed by baby Jake—blond, smiley, and dimpled. My ovaries pinged at the sight, and I tried not to imagine what our babies would look like.
Don’t go there, Liv.
The next photo took me by surprise. He was young—maybe nine or ten—with a big orange cat on his lap and a huge grin on his face. “Oh, who’s this?”
His face darkened. “Dewey, like the decimal system. He was a cool cat. Used to play ball with me.”
“How long did you have him?”
“I don’t know, a couple years. He disappeared one summer when I was in the Netherlands,” he said nonchalantly, riffling through the box.
Then suddenly he stilled. “That’s not true.
My father got rid of him. To punish me. I overheard him telling my mother that he drove an hour out of town and left him in a dumpster somewhere. ”
It felt like someone had just punched me in the gut, and my hand fisted at my side. The absolute cruelty. Tears burned in my eyes. “Jake . . . I’m so sorry.”
I put my hand on his back, and he flinched, drew away from me and went back to picking through the box. We flipped through more photos in silence. I was still burning with sadness and rage, but I wasn’t about to make him share more than he was ready to.
“Aha! There were more!” He handed me a stack of larger prints. On top was an image of my dad in his baseball jersey, kicking back with some friends.
“Oh! He had so much more hair. And no beer belly.” I tried to smile despite the ache in my heart.
It was a wonderful portrait and really captured the moment so well.
I could almost smell their sweaty teenage bodies and hear their laughter.
The other photos were all of my grandparents or their dog, and the old house by the lake.
“I’m sure Janet thought I was a big pest. Always hanging out at dinner time.” He shook his head. “Your family just seemed so perfect compared to mine.” He showed me another photo of my grandparents on the porch, Gran leaning her head on my grandfather’s shoulder. “Keep those if you want.”
“Sure you don’t want them?” I asked.
“Nah, I’ve got everything I need up here.” He tapped a finger against his temple. Then he reached into the box and took out the last leather-bound album. His smile disappeared as he flipped through it.
The pages were filled with newspaper and magazine clippings of Jake’s career.
From the article about him becoming the youngest Master of Wine in history to small quotes in wine and food journals.
There were articles from Asian magazines and French newspapers all annotated in Dutch and an elegant script.
“Your mother must have made this,” I said as he handed me the album. “She must have been really proud of you.”
“Well, she never showed it,” Jake grumbled and stood abruptly. “I think we’re finished here. Are you hungry? I’m taking you to La Vague d’Or tonight.”
“Don’t we need a reservation? That’s fancy.” His sudden change of mood had me reeling. Was he really going to change the subject by taking me to the most sought-after restaurant in Saint-Tropez?
“I know the chef.”
“Of course you do,” I said, pins and needles in my right foot pricking me as Jake helped me up from the floor. “Let me help you clean up.”
“No way, you’ve done enough.” He pushed me toward the door. “Go get ready. I’ll handle this.”
I stepped out into the hallway, pausing briefly to glance back at Jake. He’d picked up the album again and was staring down at it as if it contained the mysteries of the universe.