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Chapter 5: THE SEARCH
Chandler, after leaving his mother's house, walked to Central Park and sat for more than an hour watching the lake and the people go by. When he got to the park, his heart was galloping and his head was exploding.
As the minutes passed, he calmed down, he was satisfied that he had been able to tell Nora everything he felt, he had once spoken to his mother, but never in those terms, it was the time when he still believed that his mother loved him, but now he had seen the painful reality, Nora didn't want anyone but herself, and she was never going to change, and at this point in his life he didn't care that she changed either, there was no turning back.
He came home needing a hug from Monica who received him with a tender smile and a strong and long hug... "how was it... how are you..."
"It was as it had to go, I told her everything that I kept for years and what has accumulated since I found out about Elizabeth, she tries to make excuses without meaning, as you anticipated, she was even annoyed with my monologue and I ended up telling her that I didn't I liked her and I didn't want to see her anymore"
"Then I stayed in the park for a while to calm down, and then I felt an enormous need to be home and in your arms," Chandler told her with a beautiful smile.
Monica gave him another kiss, this time more passionate, and they stayed in the room holding each other, kissing tenderly until the twins arrived with all their energy and stole their attention.
A couple of weeks later, one Saturday morning while Monica was making breakfast, Chandler came over and hugged her from behind and said:
"Honey, I think I'm ready to go look for Elizabeth. I talked to Dr. Burton about it and he told me to follow my instinct, not to be afraid of the result"
"Honey, I think it's great, I think it's the best decision"
"Yes, on Monday I'm going to look for a good detective agency so they can look for it."
Obviously, for Chandler, that he had a practical mind, considered that this was the best path for the search.
But for Monica it was totally different, she needed, she was looking for challenges, competitions, so she told him:
"Love, that's stupid, an agency is going to take you a long time, the longer they take, the more you pay, also when they go to ask a house, people close, they don't like detectives."
"We are going to look for her, we are a couple that will give confidence to whom we speak to tell us about Elizabeth's. It will surely take us some time, but we will get it"
"Please, listen to me," Monica said with a huge smile.
Chandler looked at her with a smirk.
"What are you laughing at?" Monica asked.
"Baby … since I've known you, including the years of friendship, I always ended up paying attention to you, I had no choice… you were and you are very persuasive, like your mother" and this time he laughed out loud.
Monica gave him a Geller look but she continued, "Perfect, we'll look for her."
Monica obviously with her organizational spirit that same day she put together a plan.
"Chandler, look, the first thing we have to do is go to the return address on the letters that were sent to Nora, next weekend we can travel to Boston and go to that address, obviously it's been about 30 years since the last letter, we don't know if the family that adopted Elizabeth still lives there, but it's a start..."
The following Saturday Monica and Chandler flew to Boston, leaving the twins with Judy and Jack.
They stayed at a hotel, rented a car, and went immediately to the address on the letter.
The address corresponded to a suburb of Boston with beautiful houses with flowery gardens.
When they arrived at Chandler's exact address, his heart was racing and his hands were sweating, they got out of the car and Chandler took Monica's hand hard.
They knocked on the door of the house, attended by a woman in her 40s, who was carrying a small child in her arms.
Monica spoke first because Chandler was paralyzed.
"Hello, my name is Monica and this is Chandler my husband, is this the home of the Morrison family, Janet and Harold Morrison?
"No, this is my house and we are not that family…"
Monica continued "Look, we're looking for that family, we got this address from some letters they sent to my husband's family 35 years ago, do you have any idea where they might be?"
The lady kindly answered them "No, no idea, we lived here five years ago, and we bought the house from a family named Brown who were returning to their country of origin in England"
Monica asked again, "And you don't know of anyone in this area who has lived since that time and might know anything about the Morrison?
"Look, the only thing I can think of is maybe the family that lives on the parallel street and whose funds match mine, they have always been from the area, they have lived in that house for years, they are a couple of elderly people who know everyone, maybe they have met them and know something…" said the lady.
Monica and Chandler thanked the lady and apologized for wasting time and got back in the car, turning onto the parallel street.
They didn't have the exact address, but they calculated what it could be, the house was well cared for and in the front garden there was a gentleman with soft hair mowing the lawn.
They got out of the car and again Monica spoke first.
She explained to the man that they were looking for the Morrison family, Janet and Harold Morrison...
The man was thoughtful and then told them "wait a moment", he went inside the house and returned with a lady also with white hair whose face denoted that in her youth she must have been a very beautiful woman.
"Hello," said the gray-haired lady, "did my husband tell me that you are asking about the Morrison family, why are you looking for them?
Chandler wasn't sure he was going to tell the whole story, but this time he decided to speak on… "Look ma'am, the Morrison family adopted a girl they named Elizabeth, I have the letters that Mrs. Janet Morrison sent to my mother with photos of the girl." Chandler took from his pocket one of the letters and one of the photos he had with him. "I am Elizabeth's half brother and a few months ago I found out about her existence and I am looking for her, she is my sister, my family and I want to meet her"
The gray-haired lady looked at him carefully, she looked into his eyes "Yes, wow, you have the same eyes as that girl, they were a very beautiful blue color like yours, her beautiful eyes had always caught my attention"
Monica intervened "Madam, do you know where they may be living, since they don't live in the house that is at the address of the letters"
"Look, a long time ago, I think the girl was about twelve or thirteen years old, when they moved to Canada, I don't remember if it was Toronto or Montreal, because Mr. Morrison was transferred from his job, they were good people and they loved to their girl"
Chandler asked, "You. Do you know where Mr. Morrison worked, in what company or what he did? "
"Son, my memory is not that good", that's when Mr. Gray-haired spoke "I remember that he was an accountant in a very prestigious Administration company in Boston, but I don't remember the name, he had told me that he had studied economics at Harvard but I don't remember anything else."
Monica gave them a smile, "we thank you very much, what you remember gives us a thread to pull from, we know it's been a long time and it won't be easy, but we'll get there"
"Wait girl," said the gray-haired lady, "I remember something else, Mr. Morrison from his first marriage had a son who, although he did not live with them, always came to visit his father, I think his name was Philip and he would have 5 or 6 years older than Elizabeth"
"One more fact," Monica said.
Chandler took out a personal card and handed it to the elderly "My name is Chandler, this is Monica, here is the home phone number and our cell phones, if you remember anything else feel free to call them"
The gray-haired man looked at the card and said "Oh, ... you come from NY, you have come a long way in your search, I hope you are lucky ..."
Chandler and Monica said their thanks and went back to the car.
"Honey, we should start with Harvard, maybe we can find more information about Mr. Harold Morrison there" said Monica excitedly
"Mon, now it's Saturday afternoon, I don't think the university administration is working, what we can do when we get back home is search the internet and see if we can find something, I can do it from the office and you from home."
"Honey, I'm hungry, and I read that the lobsters here are delicious, and then we can walk a bit," Monica said with a smile.
"Exactly, for now we can't do anything else, now we're going to have dinner and tomorrow before the flight we can visit downtown Boston, I've never been to this city," Chandler said.
"Me neither," Monica replied.
On Monday morning both began the search on the Internet. -
First they reviewed the Harvard yearbooks, within a time range of 1950 to 1980, after several hours Monica managed to locate Harold Morrison, there was a photo and not much more information about him. She also look for Philip Morrison, but at Harvard she can't find anything, in fact he could have studied at any other university in the country, but she tried it at MIT and found it.
Chandler found that a certain Harold Morrison had worked for Price Waterhouse Coopers in Boston and then looked up the company in Canada and located a subsidiary in Montreal.
Chandler first called the Boston branch, but was told that they didn't give out information on their employees, that it was confidential.
Monica called the Montreal branch asking directly for Mr. Harold Morrison and the assistant answered told her that Mr. Morrison had passed away ten years ago. Monica attempted to obtain some other information, but the assistant told her that she could not give any personal information on their employees. Monica asked her if traveling to Montreal she could personally obtain some information, but the assistant told her no, that she should not bother since this type of information is not given over the phone or in person.
Chandler was discouraged, they had reached a dead end. -
On Saturday, Chandler's in-laws, the gang, and even Ben went to Chandler's house to celebrate Monica's birthday, and by the way to say goodbye because the following weekend they would travel to Greece for their anniversary.
Ross asked them how the investigations on Elizabeth were going and both Monica and Chandler told them the progress they had made, but now they found themselves with no new paths to follow, Harold Morrison had been located in Montreal, but he died 10 years ago. The company where he worked does not provide personal data of its employees. And the only thing they had discovered about Philip, Harold's eldest son, was that he had studied at MIT.
That's as far as they got because they don't know where they lived in Montreal.
It was there that Ben told them why they didn't post a search on Facebook, if Philip had studied at MIT he would surely be a Facebook user, or someone who knows him could see the search.
Chandler thought it was a brilliant idea. On Monday morning he searched Facebook, but he didn't find anything on Philip, but it could well be that he was dealing in private. So he decided to post on Facebook the search for Philip Morrison, who is about 44 or 45 years old and that he had studied at MIT in Boston.
Monica and Chandler left for Greece without hearing from Philip yet. The trip was wonderful, Athens interested them a lot, but Santorini fascinated them, they were nights as hot as those in London.
Chandler had brought his laptop anyway, and every night he checked Facebook to see if there were any contacts.
A couple of weeks after returning from the trip, Chandler saw on his office computer that he had a Facebook message.
He entered immediately, the message was from a man named Miller in which he told him that it was possible that he knew Philip Morrison, but first he wanted to know why he was looking for him.
Chandler replied immediately, telling him that he was looking for Philip to see if he could give him information on how to locate Janet or Elizabeth Morrison. He explained that Harold Morrison, Philip's father, and his second wife Janet approximately 37 years ago had adopted a girl whom they named "Elizabeth", that several months ago he had found out about the existence of that girl, who is his half-sister on his mother's side, and he wants to find her and hear from her.
Chandler called Monica to tell her about his news and agreed to let her know if she had any news.
A couple of hours later Miller told him by Facebook that he would talk to Philip and tell him about Chandler's interest in contacting him, but he couldn't assure him that he would want to answer his questions.
Chandler privately sent him his home phone and his and Monica's mobile phones, if Philip wanted to contact him he could do it to any of those phones. Chandler thanked Miller for getting back to him and looked forward to hearing from Philip.
That night after dinner the phone rang at the Mondlers' house, Chandler answered and Philip Morrison appeared on the other end of the line.
Chandler recounted the revelation that he had a half-sister and the search he and his wife had undertaken.
Philip told him "Look man, I've been living in London for years. I did not have a good relationship with Janet, although I remember that Elizabeth was a beautiful and sweet young woman. When my dad passed away, I stopped having contact with them, I never heard from them again, only that Elizabeth had received her medical degree and was getting married in a few months"
"And you have the address where they lived in Montreal? asked Chandler
"My friend, I don't think they live there anymore, that house was given to them by the company and when dad died they surely had to move. In any case, I don't remember the address well, I know that it was an area of the suburbs where many company executives lived. But since I keep all the agendas, it's my OCD" said Philip laughed, "give me a couple of days, I'm behind work, but I assure you I'll check and call you"
"Thank you Philip, being able to move forward a little gives me hope, I await your call."
