What Doesn't Kill Us--A McKenzie Novel by David Housewright (most read books txt) 📗

the Rochester Invitational Swimming Meet in December. The photo of her holding up all of her medals revealed a tall woman with short black hair and a glittering smile.

That left Elliot Sohm.

The first thing that came up—Elliot Sohm wins the Samuel Strauss Prize for Humorous Writing for her short story “The Hippopotamus in the Room” from the English Department at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota. The second—Elliot Sohm on Pinterest. The third—Elliot Sohm on Instagram.

Instagram revealed instantly that Elliot was, in fact, the cute blonde with a round face, wide eyes, ready smile, and dimples that I had met at CakeWalk. But among her 182 posts was a pic of the young woman with auburn hair worn in a ponytail who was sitting behind us. In the pic she was eating the most flamboyant cupcake I had ever seen. I clicked on the image and was given a column of copy to read under the heading “Exploring Our Back-Up Careers.” Among the posts: “Making cupcakes and thrifting and real talks with my favorite cousin Emma King. #Emma&EllieForever.”

In the back of my mind I heard my inner voice shouting, Aha.

I switched my search parameters to “Emma King Carleton College.” The first thing that popped up was an article that appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press three years earlier. The piece listed the names and photos of all of the students who had finished in the top one percent of their high school graduating classes that year. Under St. Paul Academy it read:

Name: Emma King

Parents: Jenna King

College: Carleton College, Northfield, MN

Quote: “I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”—Mark Twain

This is where I would normally have performed a victory dance; imagine just about anyone who scores a touchdown in the NFL these days. Except, as often happens to me, the answer I found led me to yet another question that made me go “Hmm.” For example, I couldn’t help but notice that there was only one name listed under parents—Jenna King. That meant that Jenna did not list her husband’s name. This is supposing, of course, that Jenna had a husband when Emma was born and that his name was King and there was no reason to assume that other than current social norms. Which raised the question—who was Emma’s father? Was Charles K. her father? Did the K stand for King? Why wasn’t he listed? Is this what Elliot meant by things in her family going kerflooey?

I searched for “Jenna King Orono Minnesota” and got one—count ’em, one—hit, an administrative assistant working for Medtronic, a medical device company based in Minneapolis. Unfortunately, she couldn’t have been Emma’s mother unless she gave birth at the age of nine. Still, I saved the contact.

I kept looking and discovered 178 additional Jenna and Jennifer Kings in Minnesota. I tried to narrow the search by adding the name Emma, but that only made it worse.

No one said this would be easy, my inner voice told me.

I kept at it, finding nothing that identified a Jenna King living in Orono who was the mother of a young woman named Emma. There was an article that piqued my interest, though, that appeared in the Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal under the title “40 Under 40—the most influential young people in business in Minnesota today.”

Among the forty were sixteen women and among those was—

Jenna King, 31, president of Social King, Inc., the fast-growing start-up that helps companies large and small actively manage their social media presence across multiple sites. Headquartered in St. Paul, she launched her firm with only $10,000 in funding loaned to her by her brother Porter. King admits to being an overachiever. She double-majored and double-minored in business subjects at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. She has attended executive management training at the Aspen Institute, the Menninger Foundation, and the Stanford School of Business Executive Leadership Program. When not working, she makes personal time for her daughter and the violin. King summed up her business style thus: “Never stay still. Always keep moving forward. Patience is a virtue and one that I am sorely lacking.”

What made me stop and stare were five separate lines. The first—headquartered in St. Paul. Emma attended high school in St. Paul. The second—She double-majored and double-minored in business subjects at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. Was it possible that her daughter attended Mom’s alma mater? The third—she makes personal time for her daughter and the violin. But not husband. Four—Jenna King, 31. The article was published six years ago, which would make Jennifer thirty-seven years old today. Emma was twenty. Which meant Jenna was only sixteen or seventeen when Emma was born. That would explain why there was no husband mentioned. Emma was the result of a teenage pregnancy. Which would also explain the name. King is Jenna’s name; that’s what she gave Emma instead of a father. Which would make Jenna an impressive woman, I told myself, excelling in school, starting a business, and raising a child while barely more than a child herself.

If, my inner voice reminded me, this particular Jenna King was Emma’s mother.

There were just too many coincidences to blow off. Unfortunately, the article had been published half a dozen years ago and did not include a photograph. I kept searching and found only one other related story, and that was three brief paragraphs appearing in the business section of the Minneapolis Star Tribune announcing that a large technology firm located in Seattle had bought St. Paul–based Social King, Inc. for $12,621,000, a very specific number, I thought, wondering how they came up with it. That was two years ago. Since then, nothing. No more newspaper or magazine articles. No Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr, Tinder, Reddit, Snapchat; no Skype. I had the presence of mind to access the website of the Minnesota Judicial Branch which allowed me to search through most of the court records in the State of Minnesota Court Information System. No Jenna King