The Vanishing Year(44)

“Faulkner?” I can’t help but tease. He shrugs.

“You’re so surprised? Because why? My muscular physique?” His eyebrows waggle Groucho style and I laugh. He’s flirting with me. I sit up straight and he clears his throat, holding out a manila file folder in my direction. “So. Because you dragged me all the way to the Village, for some unknown godforsaken reason, I brought you this.” He hands me the folder and I open it.

“You live in the village,” I remind him with a smirk.

A picture of Caroline Reeves glosses under my fingertips. She is making another playful face into the camera, her lip curled in mock anger, her eyes twinkling, her mouth curved up in a half-smile, a pronounced double V on the bridge of her wrinkled nose. Someone else’s hand rests on her shoulder. In the background glitters a Ferris wheel.

Underneath the picture are two typed pages of information. She has a family. She lives in Danbury, Connecticut. I do the math: She had me when she was seventeen. A fresh stab of rejection lands right under my sternum. I’d expected, somehow, my birth mother to still be wallowing in her thirty-year-old decision, pale and gaunt with greasy hair and a listless expression. But she’s not; she’s moved on and, judging by her fun-loving online presence, quite happily.

Cash rubs his knees with his palms and looks around. His posture inches forward like he’s going to get up.

“Wait,” I say. I open my mouth to ask how he got all this information, but instead I hear myself say, “Will you come with me?”

“Where?” He looks startled.

I shrug, knowing it’s a bad idea. I think of driving alone and my stomach clenches. Truthfully, I’m so sick of going alone.

“Yeah, of course, Zoe. I’ll go with you.” His voice softens and I give him a small smile. If Cash goes with me, the narrow window I have to tell Henry about Caroline closes, and I know that, but Henry would never go. By making the decision to invite Cash, I’m inadvertently making the decision to leave Henry out. My brain reasons this out, almost subconsciously. The justification follows just as fast: Henry will have to work. Henry will be busy. Henry won’t want to go.

“When?” My brain is three steps behind my mouth.

“You should call her first.” Cash looks startled that I haven’t thought of that before and I feel my cheeks flush. He checks his watch, I’m sure he thinks surreptitiously, but he scoots forward, restive, crossing and uncrossing his ankle over his knee.

“Okay.” I squint at her photo again, the sun glinting off the high gloss. “I’ll call her today.”

“Zoe, I don’t know how to say this, but you seem like someone who can handle things. She might . . . not want to see you. It happens a lot. Just be prepared for that. But if she agrees to see you, give me a call. I’ll go with you. I’ve done it before.”

“You have?”

“Yeah, a few times. People don’t like to do this alone and sometimes I was the only person in their lives who knew. From that series, remember?”

“Like me,” I say softly, and that stab of guilt is back like a hot poker, reminding me that I’m a liar. I’m lying to my husband. I mouth the words to myself to see how they feel, but it’s not so bad. Technically, I’ve always lied to him.

I stand, abruptly, and a few pages slide out of the manila folder. Cash bends to pick them up.

“I’ll call you, okay?”

“Oh! Zoe, wait.” He holds out a folded up newspaper. “It ran today. It’s a good spread. Take a look, give me a call. We’ll talk.”

I stare at the newspaper and it takes me a minute to figure it out. CARE. The event seems aged and distant. I shove it clumsily under the file in my arms and force a smile.

“I’ll call you, okay?” I say it again, turn and rush through the crowd. The sun suddenly seems too bright, a glaring, carnival spotlight. A man on a unicycle swerves in and out of park benches, tipping his hat for money. I glance over my shoulder and Cash is heading east, his hands in his pockets, his head tipped back, black hair glinting, as he looks at the treetops. For what, I don’t know.

Before I can lose my nerve, I pull out my cell phone, flip the folder open with one hand, locate her current phone number. I dial.

“Hello.” An impatient female voice picks up and I clear my throat.

“Hi, is this Caroline?”

There is a whoosh like she’s rubbed the pad of her thumb over the mouthpiece.

“That depends, are you selling me something?”

“No.”

“Then, sure, I’m Caroline.” Her voice is tired, worn thin like we’re talking into two tin cans and a string. I open and close my mouth, stuck on what to say next. I feel like that children’s book with the bird, asking the bulldozer, Are you my mother?

“Hi. My name is Zoe Whittaker. Um, do you know Evelyn Lawlor?”

“Who is this again?” She’s sharp now, like broken glass.

“I’m Evelyn’s daughter. Well, her adopted daughter.” I stop then because the next logical thing to say is I’m your daughter, but I can’t actually say that because it sounds too hokey. Like an awful movie. So I stand there in silence and watch the park. The unicycle man is chasing a screaming towheaded boy who clings to his mother’s skirt. An oversize yellow helium balloon drunkenly weaves up toward the clouds. Two men are arguing in what sounds like Polish over a chess board.