The Search Angel (16 page)

I
sabelle sits at Eleanor’s linoleum table and fingers a red leather address book so weathered the edges have turned seashell pink. “I’m not accustomed to being locked out of any establishment, least of all one as shabby as this. Living above a store—are you certain it’s legal?”

Eleanor sets two mugs on the counter, one of them Jonathan’s green Starbucks mug. After careful consideration, she stomps on the pedal of the trash can and drops the mug into the garbage with a muffled smash.

Isabelle clutches her chest. “Was that a gunshot?”

“I’m so stupid.” Eleanor reaches for a Dunkin’ Donuts mug and pours steeped tea into both. She brings them to the table and sets them beside the milk carton, sugar bowl, and spoons. “I actually thought he wanted to reconcile.”

“The water is safe, I presume.”

“I mean, I actually thought he wanted to come back.”

“Who?”

“Jonathan. That’s where I was. At Blue Water Grill making a fool of myself.”

Isabelle stares at her. “Eleanor Sweet, I did not risk life and limb coming here to discuss your war-torn love life. Do
you realize how quickly the traffic moves along Beacon? Where are all those people heading at this hour?”

Battersea Road meets Beacon. The intersection is two blocks from Isabelle’s house. Eleanor thinks back to the delivery cartons in Isabelle’s foyer. The books that arrive by mail. “You coming to my store the other day. Coming here. Is that rare for you? Getting out of the house like that?”

Isabelle pushes the address book across the table toward Eleanor. “Let’s just keep our focus, shall we?”

Eleanor obeys. She stares at the little book. It has no doubt squatted atop many, many tables, waiting for connections to be made. Some healing. Some not. The anticipation the book has witnessed—the moment before that initial phone call is made. The second thoughts. The dreams made. The dreams crushed. “You don’t think it’s too late to call?”

Isabelle glances at the clock. Eight forty. “Anyone who’s turned in for the night at this hour doesn’t deserve our notice. If your mother is in bed, she’s dead to us. We’ll find you another one.”

Beside them, Angus yawns, revealing rows of ominous white stalactites and stalagmites and a long tongue stained with a black birthmark on one side. The yawn ends with a high-pitched yowl.

“Must the animal sit so close?”

“He likes to be part of things.”

“I’d like not to be part of him, thank you very much.”

Eleanor runs her fingers over the cover of the little red book. She put Sylvie’s arrival at risk, ditching Isabelle to meet with Jonathan. What if Isabelle had walked? Dropped out of the search? Things would be looking a lot worse right now.

“It isn’t going to go as you’re likely imagining,” Isabelle says, shifting her chair away from Angus. “I don’t like to approach directly. It’s a huge piece of information for the searched-for relative, and rather than to blurt it out, I prefer to just give a hint of news and see if the person wants to move forward with the discovery. Some people are flatly against contact. As much as it hurts, we have to be prepared for that.”

Eleanor’s fingers find the velvety comfort of Angus’s ears. She doesn’t take her eyes off him. He doesn’t take his eyes off Isabelle.

“Why does he look at me like that?”

“He’s curious.”

“But he’s been fed?”

“What if my mother isn’t interested?”

“He doesn’t have a pen we can lock him in? A stall?”

“What about my mother?”

Isabelle sighs. “If she isn’t interested, you won’t take it as final. She may think about it and change her mind. Which would be perfectly reasonable.” She touches Eleanor’s chin and tilts her face up until their eyes meet. “Are you ready?”

Eleanor can’t answer.

Isabelle opens her book and reaches for the phone. Dials the number Eleanor has already memorized.

The phone is on speaker. One ring. Two, three. On the fifth ring, the line clicks and a machine, a man’s voice, says:
You’ve reached Ruth and Richard. Leave us a message and we’ll get right back to you
.

Isabelle clears her throat before speaking. “This message is for Ruth Woolsey. My name is Isabelle Santos and I have some information about a family member of hers.” She gives Eleanor’s cell number.

“Why not a family member of his?”

“We don’t know for sure that he’s your father.” She reaches for an overloaded canvas bag and sets it with a bang on the table.

“What’s this?”

Out of the sac comes blue plastic Tupperware ranging from the size of a tangerine to that of a cooked chicken. “Ingredients for lemon squares. So you don’t drive me to drink while we wait.” She stands and ties a rumpled linen apron around her hips, then roots through the kitchen drawers, pulling out a package of plastic spoons and making a face.

“Where on earth do you keep your whisk?”

“Is that one of those little brushes?”

Isabelle closes her eyes in frustration. “I always suspected it, but now I know for sure.” She tosses the plastic cutlery back in the drawer. “Being outside of Beacon Hill is exactly like camping.”

After watching Eleanor mix butter, sugar, and eggs into a shortbread paste and set it inside the oven, Isabelle leaves her to whip up four egg whites with—the horror—a large fork meant to toss salads. Eleanor beats the eggs, looking from Isabelle to the bowl and back again.

“Who is he?”

“Who is who?”

“The baby boy. The photo in your kitchen.”

“That child is none of your business.”

Eleanor opens the oven door to check the shortbread. Just starting to turn golden at the edges. She eyes Isabelle as she turns back to the bowl and folds the sugar into the mix. “He’s programmed to love you no matter what. You know that, right?”

Isabelle snatches the bowl from her and starts to beat the mixture. She stirs harder. Faster. Soon tiny golden teardrops splatter out of the bowl and onto the counter. Then longer threads of lemon topping fly, attaching themselves to the cupboard doors, Isabelle’s elegant apron, the floor at their feet.

“I’m sorry,” Eleanor says, reaching for the bowl. “I shouldn’t have pried.”

Isabelle refuses to relinquish the bowl. With it tucked beneath her breast, she opens the oven and, with a bare hand, reaches for the metal pan. She shrieks and drops it to the floor, along with the mixing bowl. A strip of singed red flesh runs along her fingers and thumb. Before their eyes, the flesh starts to bubble.

Eleanor rushes her to the sink and runs cold water, pushes Isabelle’s hand into the stream. “Keep it there!”

“Just fill a Ziploc bag with ice.” Isabelle leans over the counter, pale. “I need to sit.”

Eleanor does as told and helps Isabelle to the table, where they wrap a tea towel around the little bag of ice and press it to her hand. Angus wanders over to the mess of broken shortbread and wet lemon topping and sniffs at it, even deigning to taste small bits of crust. Isabelle stares at the dog. After a few minutes, she speaks.

“The boy in the photograph is my son. I left him in the hospital the day he was born. While he slept in the nursery, I got out of bed. Pulled on my clothes. Lit a cigarette and walked to the nearest bus stop.”

Outside a horn honks. Angus pads into the other room, leaving behind a trail of lemon-shortbread paw prints.

“You don’t have to talk about it, Isabelle.”

“I was eight months pregnant when my boyfriend left
me. Sixteen and extraordinarily stupid. Our plan—however injudicious—was to marry once the baby was born. Dean was going to drop out of school and work at a motorcycle repair shop run by his best friend’s brother. His salary, however meager, would pay the rent and keep our baby in diaper cream and strained apricots. The plan never would have worked, not least of all because Dean was lazier than tar and delusional enough to believe he was born to be a rock star. He told me in my thirty-sixth week of pregnancy that he was moving to Australia to be lead singer in an Aerosmith cover band. He said that me not terminating the pregnancy had been a mistake. That I was free—lucky girl that I am—to do with the baby whatever I wished. I am thoroughly ashamed of what I did.”

“How could you be ashamed? You were a child yourself. You left your baby in a safe place where he would be safe. That was brave. Not stupid.”

“Bravery didn’t enter into it for a second. I was furious and immature. I didn’t leave my baby in that hospital for his own good. I did it to wound Dean, who never bothered to find out what happened.” The timer buzzes and Isabelle gets up to silence it and turn off the oven. When she turns around, her cheeks shine with tears. “I gave away my son out of spite.” Eleanor starts toward her and Isabelle holds up a hand. “I am not now, nor ever was I, a creature to be pitied.”

The clock ticking from the wall. Angus groaning and stretching out on the floor by the fridge. The constant hiss of the radiators heating up. “Do you know where your son is now?”

“I do. He’s at 341 Cherry Blossom Court, Sandwich, Massachusetts. He has a sensible wife and two towheaded
children who leave their bicycles on the lawn no matter how many times they’re told to put them in the garage. He keeps his driveway impeccably shoveled and when the snow is particularly bad, he shovels the driveway of an elderly neighbor. No one can say he isn’t a good person.”

“So you’ve seen him.”

“Oh, I’ve seen him. Only from afar, though. I’ve never actually approached him or introduced myself.”

“Don’t you think it’s time for that now?”

“I do not.”

“Why?”

“Because the time has passed.”

From the center of the table, Isabelle’s cell phone rings.

She composes herself and wipes her cheeks before holding it up to show Eleanor. Area code 317.

“Your decision, Eleanor Sweet. You answer it or I will.”

Another ring.

Eleanor takes the phone, taps it to accept the call, and presses it to her ear. She whispers, “Hello?”

N
ow, lined up at Security at Logan International Airport, Eleanor realizes she can stop looking for Woody Allen. Diane Keaton is not her mother, and unless Ruth Woolsey had a fling with Woody Allen in the mid-seventies, he’s not her father.

She thought she saw Woody Allen once in New York City. She was on a twelfth-grade class trip, and between the Central Park Zoo and dinner in Times Square, the students were allotted two hours of freedom. Most kids went shopping. Or to Central Park to look at the autumn leaves. Not Eleanor. She was determined to find her famous father. And to catch his attention, she was going to dress like Annie Hall in one of the most iconic Woody Allen moments ever: the lobster scene. It was during this sequence that Alvy Singer fell in love with Annie.

She knew, as did the rest of the world, that Woody’s bucket hat and rumpled khaki jacket were a common sighting in the city, particularly around East 55th and 3rd on Monday nights when he played clarinet at Michael’s Pub. So when he bumped into her on the street, clutching his little leather
briefcase, he would be struck by something vaguely familiar. At the very least, she figured, he’d give her a second glance.

Eleanor spent three days planning. Her hair would be in a loose bun, she would dress in white pants and matching blouse—untucked! collar flipped up!—with a creamy vest and white neck scarf. To top it off: a tweed blazer.

Even as a teenager she felt better wrapped up.

The Soon-Yi Previn scandal (something Eleanor, as his birth child, was willing to overlook) was fresh, so there was no sharing her plans with the other kids. Eleanor slipped away and planted herself in front of Michael’s. After a few hours, from across the street, she spotted a diminutive man in a khaki jacket and canvas rain hat, his face long and his glasses black. He kept his face down in a way that was befitting of the very famous.

Eleanor, her white scarf flying behind her, her hair falling out of the too-loose bun, trotted behind him for four blocks. When he disappeared into a market, she carefully arranged herself against a lamp post so they’d be face to face when he came out. In a few minutes he emerged, carrying a bouquet of orange sunflowers. He looked up and gave her a half smile. Hesitated a moment, then headed back the way he came.

Eleanor walked the other way. It wasn’t Woody. This man’s nose was different—much smaller and more structured. And the teeth were too big. But she didn’t need to see his face. She knew the moment she saw the flowers. No way would Woody pick out such a flashy bouquet.

Now the airport security officer, his shirt buttons straining, waits with a plastic tray. “You got the thick soles and the high heels. The boots have to come off or you go next door for a pat-down.”

The woman by the X-ray machine appears ominous with her linebacker hands and chin criss-crossed with frown lines. On the other hand, it had taken some effort to tuck her jeans into knee socks, then riding boots, before the cab arrived to pick her up. “Up to you, ma’am.” Eleanor had been up before 4 a.m. trying to decide what to wear to meet her birth parents. Was it best to appear businesslike in a pale gray suit and sensible shoes, or elegant in her navy shift and matching pumps? She wants them to be assured she is taking this meeting seriously. But doesn’t want to make them uncomfortable if they’re all sitting around in sweats. Eventually, she settled on what made her feel both comfortable and insulated: dark jeans tucked into riding boots, and a crisp blue shirt over a long-sleeved white T-shirt, topped by a vintage cardigan with ruffled edges.

Ruth’s voice had been a surprise. Deep and throaty, not unlike Angus growling in his sleep. Maybe her voice was wrecked from years of smoking. Maybe she was just born with splintered vocal cords. It was clear that her mother was every bit as nervous as Eleanor. She kept saying, “My word, it’s really you? This is really you?”

Eleanor had dreamed of this moment all her life. She’d imagined it this way and that way, but never with the workaday undertone of the actual conversation.

Isabelle, with the call on speaker, had explained the situation. That she was sitting across from Eleanor Sweet, the child Ruth gave up thirty-five years ago. Ruth had gone silent a full minute. Eleanor thought the call had been dropped. Or, worse, her mother had hung up.

Finally, Ruth whispered, “I don’t believe it. All these years, it’s really you.”

Eleanor’s turn. “It is. It’s me … and this is you.”

“Oh, this is unbelievable. Unbelieva—Richard?” She covers the phone a moment and calls out to Richard again. Then she’s back. “You won’t believe this, sweetie, but I married your biological father. Richard?” More scuffling. “Oh, this is ridiculous. When can I get my hands on you for a big hug?”

The man at Security stares at Eleanor and smacks his gum. “Some folks just don’t like to be in their stocking feet. My wife hates it. Makes her feel like a kindergartner, she says.”

“Eleanor Sweet!” Isabelle is already seated at the gate, waving. “I’ve been waiting forever.”

A businessman in line behind Eleanor sets his brogues in her shoe tray. There. Decision made. She looks at the security guard. “I’ll take the pat-down.”

“They’ve informed me there’s no business class on this flight,” Isabelle says as Eleanor drops into the seat next to her. “None at all. I thought I’d misheard the woman. I asked if the plane has wings or will I be required to flap my arms to keep the machine in the air.”

“I don’t think these little commuter airlines have business class. The flight is short. They assume you can rough it for an hour and a half.”

“If I’d wanted to rough it, I’d have strapped a saddle onto that plow horse you keep on your kitchen floor. Do you know they tried to charge me extra for the weight of my bag?”

“We’re only gone overnight. How much could you possibly—?”

“I pointed to the hefty person behind me and demanded they compare our weights, bags included. Said if my total
exceeded hers, I’d gladly pay.” She huffs out a sigh and nods toward a large woman with piercings that ridge her entire left ear and tattoos creeping up her neck. Beside her is her equally massive boyfriend, studs dotted along the lapel of his leather jacket. “They let me through.”

“Jesus, Isabelle. You’re going to get us killed.”

“Nonsense. I’ve booked the bulkhead for us. It may be a short flight, but I refuse to spend it dying of deep-vein thrombosis.”

“Bulkhead’s fine with me.”

“You’ll take the window. And you’ll shut the blind before takeoff. I prefer to pretend I’m in the back of a cab, rather than forty thousand feet above any sort of common sense.”

“I insist on reimbursing you for your flight,” Eleanor says. “You have to agree to that.”

Isabelle leans back in her chair, crosses her arms over the purse in her lap, and closes her eyes. “Shut up, Eleanor Sweet. And wake me when they have my plane ready.”

The flight is delayed almost two hours because the pilots are late for work. Something about a traffic jam on the I-95. Drinks and snacks are suddenly free, but the passengers are warned that the toilets aren’t functioning because the engines haven’t been turned on yet. As a result, Isabelle orders herself a cup of coffee, but refuses to drink it. “I’m far too old to subject myself to staring down at another person’s shortsightedness.”

“Do what I just did in the bathroom,” Eleanor says, biting into a muffin. “Don’t look down.”

“I’m not a cave woman.” Isabelle hauls her oversize leather bag onto her lap and washes down a Gravol with the tiniest sip of coffee, then proceeds to dig through her Gucci purse. “Damn these hippie sacks. You cannot find a thing when you need it.” She pulls out a fluffy sleep-mask and sets to work untangling the elastic band.

“What’s his name?”

“Whose name?”

“You know.”

“Ethan Bradley Santos and I think about him every day.”

Isabelle tugs the sleep-mask over her eyes and leans back. She lets her bag slide down her leg. It catches on the tray and, fully blinded, she gives it a shove, knocking her entire coffee cup onto Eleanor’s lap.

“Hey, I’m soaked!”

Isabelle balls her jacket up into a pillow and tucks it between her head and the shaded window. “Keep it down, darling. I’ve taken a pill.”