Searching for Sylvie Lee (27 page)

She blew a lock of hair out of her face. Her forearm had a big smudge of flour on it. “I don’t know. It’s been pretty long and I still don’t feel like a woman.”

“Come on, let’s finish this and I’ll do your makeup and hair.” I always felt clumsy and useless in the kitchen, probably because I never paid attention when I was there. At least I could do her face.

But of course, Amy resisted my attempts to play fairy godmother to her Cinderella. “Stop it, Sylvie. I’m not a doll. And I don’t want any fashion advice either, my clothes are fine. But can I ask you something?”

I beamed. I loved giving advice.

She poured the brownie mix into a square tin. “Why did you choose Jim? I mean, there were always boys calling the house. It drove Pa crazy.”

I stuck a finger in the mix for a taste. Amy slapped my hand away. With my pinkie still in my mouth, I thought back. “Oh, they just wanted help with their schoolwork. And none of them had any idea who I really was. The thing I noticed about Jim on our first date was that he was such a good listener. He wasn’t looking around. He was only paying attention to me. He asked questions.”

“Like what?” Amy pulled on the oven mitts and slid the brownie tray into the oven, which she had somehow remembered to preheat.

I watched her wash her hands. I started filling the dishwasher with the dirty dishes. I found the wooden stirring spoon she had used, still covered with batter, and licked it thoughtfully. “You know, ‘What was that like for you? Why do you think that happened?’ I felt like he really saw me for who I was, not just the surface of me but all of me.”

Amy took the spoon and tossed it in the sink. “Stop that. You can get salmonella.” She pushed up her glasses with her middle finger. “Well, he may be good at listening, but he’s not that adept at remembering. He’s had the same conversation with me three times. He asks me exactly the same questions each time and reacts with the same amount of surprise at just the right moment too. And he talks on and on, like one big monologue.”

My face grew tight and I jerked back, surprised and angry. “What do you know? With those loser boys you fall in love with, sneaking around Ma and Pa as if they didn’t already suspect.”

She flinched, her mouth falling open. The moment I saw the hurt flash in her eyes, I was sorry. That was me, lip service to how great Amy was one moment and putting her down the next. No wonder she had such low self-esteem. When she was little, Amy had once run up to a girl who called me
Chinkerbell
on the street and kicked her hard in the shins.

But now, of course, I realized she was right about Jim. I had been blind. He had seemed warm and kind but he did it to be admired and loved, not out of any true generosity of the soul. He was not that observant either. More than once, we had fought because he was much more social than I was. Like a golden retriever, he loved everyone, or at least wanted them to admire him, whereas I did not have much use for most people. I networked when I had to but never wanted to waste my own time listening to others trying to impress me—and most thought I was cold and stiff anyway.

How could two people move so far away from each other without ever sensing it? How could they lose each other while seeing each other every day?

I
t started when I found the leopard-print thong mixed in our laundry
. It has to be a mistake,
I thought. Was it mine somehow? Or Amy’s? Was Jim secretly a cross-dresser? But the part of me that had always relied on no one but myself took over. I hid the thong from him. I controlled the part of me that wanted to confront him immediately because I knew that if I did, I would never have proof.

I started making mistakes at work. I could keep only so much of myself under control—sloppy errors, forgotten emails, unprepared-for important presentations, incomplete financial records. When my engagement manager, Martin, asked if something was going on at home, I lied and said no. I could not admit the truth to anyone because I could barely face it myself.

I did not find anything on Jim’s electronics, so I finally added spy programs to his laptop and his phone to log every keystroke. I watched him with the hundred eyes of Argos. I was the technical one in our relationship and had set up all our gadgets. I had given myself access so I could recover our information if Jim ever inadvertently locked himself out, which he had done before. Meanwhile, I smiled at him as if my heart were not breaking inside.

It did not take long. A colleague on the verge of a divorce had once said to me:
If a man takes his phone with him into the bathroom or to shower at night, watch out
. But when Jim had started doing those things, I had rationalized them away. I had been completely taken in.

The text messages came in as I was preparing to leave for a late morning meeting. First from her:
Got my phone back today. Thinking of licking u, this math class’s so boring.
Then his response:
You make me lose my mind.
The cold rose from the floor to meet me, as if I were falling. First the betrayal, that my Jim could do this to me, and then the slow realization that the other “woman” was a child of sixteen. I had sunk to our unrelenting living room floor, my entire life disintegrating around me, all the pieces flying away like leaves from a tree.

In love and life, we never know when we are telling ourselves stories. We are the ultimate unreliable narrators. If we desire to forgive someone, we tell ourselves one version—he did not mean it, he is sorry and will never do it again. And when we are finally ready to walk away, something else—he has always been a lying bastard, I never should have trusted him and you could always see the lie in his eyes. That day, I called in sick to work and read their texts to each other, each one dropping like a brick against the wounded flesh of my heart. I waited for Jim to come home. He was late. He stopped short when he saw me sitting at the table with my computer open, my head leaning back against the wall of our kitchen. I turned the screen to show him the record of his text messages.

I did not need to say a word. His face froze and slowly flushed a deep red. Then all of my composure left me and I started to keen like an animal: Sylvie, who hated to cry. He came over and held me in his arms and I let him. He, the man I had allowed into the most intimate, hidden part of myself, still felt comforting.

I kept saying, “You cheated on me, you cheated on me,” as if to convince myself.

“Oh my God, Sylvie, what have I done? I am so sorry. It’s over, honey. I’ll never see her again.”

For a few minutes, we formed a truce in which we held each other. Until the memory of what I had seen that day crawled into my mind.
I’m counting the hours until we can be together again. Nothing else matters when I’m with you.

I pulled away, still heaving as I spoke. “I can’t believe you did this.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes, and sighed. “Please believe me. I don’t love her. You were always gone and she was there, and I missed you so. She was just a stand-in for you, for the way things were with us.”

But instead of mollifying me, this only enraged me further. I jabbed my finger in his face, my voice rising. “A sixteen-year-old girl could take my place? I looked her up. She’s a student at your school, Jim. She’s half your age. What the hell are you doing?”

He froze, and then gripped the sides of his head as if he could block out my words. He groaned. “What a goddamn mess. There’s no excuse. I know. It’s just you’re always so competent, so brilliant at everything. You don’t really need me.”

I pounded my fist against my thigh. “And this child did. You can’t handle a successful woman, so you had to find a girl who thinks you’re really something. Fuck you.”

His jaw hardened and a cold, hard glint flashed in his eyes. “Sylvie, don’t do anything rash. I could lose my job.”

He dared to warn me? “Shouldn’t you have thought of that before you decided to have an affair with a minor?” I was almost yelling. The neighbors must be having a fit. I pressed my nails into my skin so hard I was afraid I would start bleeding. He should suffer as much as me. “Don’t underestimate me, Jim. I’ll see you pay for this.”

“You vindictive bitch,” he said, and slapped me across the face so hard my head slammed against the wall. I fell onto the floor, stunned by the blow, my vision unfocused. It was all too much. How had this happened? How could this be real? I curled in on myself, sobbing.

There was a slam and he was gone.

Chapter 20

Amy

Sunday, May 8

I
t’s Mother’s Day morning and Lukas’s real grandma and grandpa are coming to visit. Lukas calls his grandmother
Oma
and his grandfather
Opa
in the Dutch way, so I do the same, in accordance with the Chinese tradition of following along in naming family. Oma is tiny and round with a fritz of hair she dyes jet-black. Opa is only a bit taller, but skinnier and white-haired. They remind me of a set of matching garden gnomes.

When they enter the house, I stand and wait to greet them as is proper, but then none of us know which traditions to use. Oma closes her eyes and purses her lips to kiss me three times at the same time I open my arms for a hug. I drop my arms to my sides and extend my hand while Opa places his palms together and bows to me. We all shift on our feet, and Oma says something to me in Chinese. Her accent is really weird. When I look at her blankly, Opa chirps in Dutch.

Finally, Oma gives me a weak little wave of her hand and says, “Hello.”

I follow them into the living room. Willem pats me on the shoulder and winks. I wish he would stop touching me at every opportunity. I am dismayed to find that all of the chairs have been arranged in one large circle. I am forced to sit between Willem and Lukas on the couch. We all face each other, every expression, gesture, and word laid bare to everyone else in the group. If this is what Dutch parties are like, how in the world do they manage to flirt here?

Silence again. I clear my throat and say to Willem, “Are your parents coming too?”

Helena enters the room with the coffee and tea and says, “They died in China. Long ago.”

Oh. We sit in silence as Helena passes around a plate of
boterspritsen,
swirled buttery shortbread cookies that melt in your mouth. I missed breakfast, since the family ate extra early today, so I take two, even though I notice Opa watching me. When the plate gets to Oma at the end, it is empty.

I cringe in my seat.

Oma waves her pudgy hands like she didn’t want a cookie anyway, but Helena, careful not to look at me, goes to the kitchen and returns with a single
botersprits
on the plate, which she then gives to Oma. Opa waggles his eyebrows at me.

“I didn’t know we were only supposed to take one each,” I whisper to Lukas. I try to ignore Willem, who sits close to me, his legs pressed against my thigh and knee. He has swiveled his head to stare at me.

Lukas snickers. “Welcome in Holland. People count the number of cookies here.”

Willem taps me on the back of my hand and says, “Did you do something with your hair, Amy? You seem different today.”

I try not to move away too abruptly. “No. It’s just that I’m wearing my contact lenses.”

Willem throws his head back and laughs as if I’ve made a great joke. “Ah, that is it. You look very much like . . .”

“Sylvie,” Helena finishes for him when his voice trails off. The lines around her lips and eyes tighten. She bares her teeth in a way that is more a gesture of aggression than a smile. “How are you enjoying Holland so far?”

“Very much. But why do your parents live in Belgium?” She had told me they drove in this morning. Is it safe to have Opa behind the wheel of a car?

“I grew up in this village, but when Willem and I married, we took over my parents’ restaurant in Amsterdam. They had a business opportunity in Antwerp, so they moved away. They have a number of restaurants there now.” So that’s why Helena had to hijack our grandma to care for Lukas and Sylvie instead of asking her own parents to help.

Oma leans forward and says to me, “How you sister?”

My stomach churns and I feel my insides quiver. I wring my hands. “We don’t know. No one has heard from her.”

Lukas translates for me while Oma clucks sadly, shaking her head. He rubs his hand over his face and massages his eyes, as if he’s as worried as I am.

I’d been hoping to bring this up later, after Oma and Opa left, but I can’t wait any longer. We have to take action before it’s too late. I turn to Helena. “Actually, I’ve been considering something. I heard about an organization that searches for missing people.”

Helena’s head jerks back and she gives me an incredulous look. “What is this?”

I continue anyway. They have to agree. We have no other choice. “They have a very impressive website, in both Dutch and English. I could show you.”

She taps her lipstick-reddened lips with a finger. Her voice is high. “And who will pay for it?”

Is that all she cares about? They’re rich and Sylvie was practically their daughter. What does money matter at a time like this? I’m fuming and cross my arms as I stare at the two uneaten cookies on my tea saucer. “I don’t know yet. We’ll figure it out, but the most important thing is that Sylvie might need our help.”