by Lisa Tucker
Now I wished I hadn’t seen the photographs. I felt like I’d fallen in love with her picture only to discover that she hadn’t really loved me.
Fifteen minutes later, we were in Mrs. Fowler’s automobile, inching our way down a street that was so filled with cars I couldn’t imagine where all these people were going, unless they were trying to get to the ocean. I’d been looking around for it ever since I arrived, but I’d seen nothing yet. So far the real California was dirty and crowded and nothing like the beautiful pictures in my book.
“I have all Lucy’s movies. Most of your dad’s too. Some DVDs, some the old-fashioned kind. I got them out when Charles called, thinking it might be fun for you to watch some of them, but then I realized you’d probably seen them already.”
“No. We didn’t have a television.”
“Jeez, that’s different. My kids couldn’t live without a TV.” She glanced over. “Didn’t Charles have a screening room? I remember Lucy telling me the original prints of all his movies were one of the only things he took when he left L.A.”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘screening room.’”
“Well, I’ve only seen one myself. It’s like a movie theater, but in a house. Your mom and dad had one in Malibu. Lucy and Al turned it into a workshop-type thing instead. Al makes these cute little mailboxes out of wood. They look like miniature houses, with doors and shutters and even chimneys. It’s just a hobby; Lucy says it helps him work off the stress from his work at the software company. He gives them away to people at work, friends, thrift stores. He made a two-story mailbox for my family because my daughter gets a lot of mail now that she’s applying to colleges. And Kyle, my fourteen-year-old, gets a ton of magazines about cars.” She paused. “Where did you go to college, Dorothea?”
“I didn’t.”
“Really? How about Jimmy?”
“He didn’t either.”
“I’m surprised. Why not? Your dad could obviously afford it.”
“We were taught at home.”
“Homeschooled? You can’t do that for college, can you?”
“I think I need to rest for a moment,” I said, knowing I was being a little rude, but afraid I would become a lot ruder if I continued to try to talk. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the door of her car, trying to adjust to all this. If our mother was alive, I thought, at least it would help Jimmy. Even if she didn’t care enough about us to send one letter in nineteen years, she would have to write to her son now. If I had to, I would tell her about his condition. Surely any mother would feel sorry for a child who was suffering as much as Jimmy.
I wanted to believe this anyway, though I’d read books with mothers who were unfeeling monsters who deserted their children and never looked back. If Mother was like this, no wonder Father couldn’t bring himself to tell us the true situation, especially if he was still in love with her, which I never doubted he was. Even in those newspaper articles, Father’s love for her shone through in everything he said. “My sweet bride,” he’d called her. “My Lucy.”
If I could forgive her for neglecting me, I could not forgive her for leaving Father and Jimmy. For the first and only time in my life, I could think of no reason whatsoever for optimism. It was dark now, and the flat, starless Los Angeles sky reflected the lack of any light inside myself, but I couldn’t take comfort in the connection. Mrs. Fowler said the sky was almost always like this, due to what she called smog. So it wasn’t a pattern. There was no pattern to any of this that I could see.
Mrs. Fowler pulled her car into a parking lot next to what looked to be another restaurant. She told me it was a club though. When I asked what kind of club, she said, “You know, a bar. Let’s go in and find Al.”
I didn’t want to see this Al person, but I had no choice. I stood up very straight and reminded myself that whatever my legal name, I was Dorothea O’Brien, and I had a father and brother who loved me very much.
The club was a dark, smoky place with people standing everywhere in clusters of three and four, like acorns on a tree. Even to make our way to where Al was sitting in the back took several minutes, as we pushed through the small groups drinking and listening to the music, which was very loud but not unpleasant like so many of the songs on Stephen’s radio. The music cheered me a little as I knew the piece; it was one of Father’s favorite jazz songs, “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.” He used to play it on the piano while Grandma and Jimmy and I would sing. Then Father would laugh that it fit us perfectly, since we never left the Sanctuary.
“You made it,” Al said, taking my hand before I could stop him, shaking it enthusiastically. He turned to Mrs. Fowler. “I screwed up.”
“You told her?” Mrs. Fowler said.
“I had to. She was so low tonight. These last few days have been really hard on her. Sit down, Dorothea,” Al said, pointing at the chair next to him. I acted as if I didn’t notice and took the other seat, across the table.
Even though it was dark except for the candles flickering on every table, I could see this Al was not a handsome man as Father was. He was younger than Father, but he was short and balding, with a graying beard and a paunch that made the middle of his shirt seem wrinkled. He asked me how I was, how my flight was, what I thought of Los Angeles so far, and I answered as little as politeness would allow. Then I turned my head in the direction of the music and discovered that it wasn’t a record, but a live pianist and singer. They were very good, and when the song was over, I clapped heartily.
Mrs. Fowler leaned over and whispered, “Can you guess who that is?”
“Who?” I said, but she didn’t hear me, and I didn’t repeat the question. The next song was another one I knew from Father, “My Funny Valentine.” I turned back to listen.
We were very far from the stage, with lots of people in front of us. I couldn’t see the faces of the singer or the piano player, which was why it took me so long to understand. They were up to the fifth tune; Mrs. Fowler and Al were almost finished with their drinks when I realized why I loved this singer’s voice. The fifth song was “Moondance.”
The effect it had on me was like a starving man discovering a feast is within his grasp. I had no thoughts when I stood up and started moving to the stage, so I could see her. I was almost there when Mrs. Fowler took my arm and told me to wait until the music stopped. But I couldn’t wait because now I could see her, and she was just as beautiful as in the pictures, maybe more beautiful because of the sorrow written on her face and in her movements and especially in the way she sang this song that she had taught me, sitting on the side of my bed at night. I couldn’t remember her doing this, but I didn’t need to. I knew it.
I climbed the steps to the stage like a girl in a trance, unaware of everything but the bright light over my mother, and the sound of her singing the same words that I had sung so many times over the past nineteen years. The expression on her face when she saw me standing in front of her was like looking into a mirror of my own feelings. The sorrow was still there, but it was mixed with a profound confusion; there was happiness, but even more, a desperate kind of relief.
She managed to finish the song, but she sang it to me. Then, after the clapping for the song died down, she said into her microphone, “This is my daughter.”
The applause that followed this announcement was very loud, and there was laughter too. The intrusive approval of these strangers seemed very wrong to me, but not as wrong as what Lucy had just said. Though I may have been her daughter in the literal sense, she’d shown no interest in my brother or me for nineteen years. My father was the only person in the world who could claim me as a daughter. The spell was broken, and I knew I didn’t belong in this place.
I moved away from her and off the stage. Mrs. Fowler tried to stop me, but I shrugged off her hand and kept going until I’d made my way through the crowd of people and out the front door. The sidewalk was crowded too, and I was so confused I didn’t know which way to go. My plan was to find a taxicab and h
ave the cab take me back to the airport, where I would wait until I could contact Dr. Humphrey to ask Father to arrange another plane to take me home. But the street was still thick with cars and I didn’t see a cab anywhere. My heart was pounding, though I hoped it was only because I’d been hurrying. I’d taken my miracle pill many hours earlier, but I was afraid to take another one because Stephen had told me only one per day.
I’d just made my way over to a bench a few buildings down from the club, when Mrs. Fowler appeared. “What happened to you?”
I sat down. “I’ve decided I don’t care to know Lucy.”
“Good Lord, why?”
I took a deep breath and then another, but still, my heart was getting worse. “She didn’t want to know me for most of my life, and I don’t want to know her now.”
“Wait a minute, kiddo. Lucy had no idea where you were. That father of yours took you and Jimmy while she was working in D.C. She came home and he hadn’t even left her a note to tell her what had happened. He vanished on November 28, 1984, and she’s been looking for you ever since, all over the country and the world.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said, panting now, suddenly, horribly struggling for air.
“Why do you think Charles changed your last name? Why didn’t he put you in school, come to think of it? Why did he tell you Lucy was dead?”
“He must have had a good reason,” I whispered. My attack was coming on so quickly it made me even more afraid. My heart was already racing faster than I ever remembered; I thought it would burst and I would die right here, on this dirty street, surrounded only by strangers. I tried to think of Father’s face, but it wouldn’t come to me. I couldn’t hear his voice either. If I died here, I would never see him again.
“Yeah, he had a good reason. So Lucy wouldn’t find you and he wouldn’t be charged with kidnapping.”
“Untrue,” I gasped.
“It’s a felony. He could have gone to jail for what he did.”
No, I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t even speak. I dropped my head between my knees as the tears came too fast and hard for me to sing even if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t. Singing was a connection to her now.
Mrs. Fowler was cursing herself for not noticing what was happening to me. I held up my hand and waved in her direction, hoping she would go away and leave me alone. But she didn’t. I felt the bench move as she sat down next to me, and then slowly began to rub my back. I tried to shrug her off, but she persisted. Her touch was surprisingly gentle, and after a while, I managed to get one breath, and then another, but I was still sobbing.
“My father is a good person,” I cried.
“Yes, he is. He’s a very good person.” Then I realized it hadn’t been Mrs. Fowler rubbing my back, for the voice wasn’t hers, but Lucy’s.
“You shouldn’t tell her that,” Mrs. Fowler said. “She thinks you—”
“Charles loves you very much,” Lucy said firmly. “The day you were born was one of the happiest days of his life.”
I sniffed hard and gained control of myself, but Lucy kept rubbing small circles on my back, even when I could sit up again. And she kept talking about my father. She told stories of him playing with Jimmy and me when we were small, and laughing with us, and taking us places, and always, she said, loving us more than anything in the world.
I don’t know how long we stayed on the street that way, but it felt like a very long time. I finally broke down and spoke to Lucy after she told me about Father teaching four-year-old Jimmy to play chess, and I couldn’t resist mentioning that Jimmy had continued to play chess for all these years. “He’s very good at it,” I said, turning to face her. “He’s also a wonderful painter. He’s really a brilliant person.”
“I’d love to hear more about him,” she said, and smiled a quiet, rather shy smile that made me think of Jimmy. Of course she was his mother. This was all so new, and very difficult to keep in my mind. “But right now,” Lucy said, “I think we need to get you some sleep. You look like you’ve been up for days.”
I noticed both Al and Mrs. Fowler were standing only a few feet down from us.
“You have several choices,” Lucy said. “We can drive you to whatever hotel you’d like. There are some wonderful hotels in L.A., as your father may have told you. You can stay with Janice, if you’d rather do that. She has a great family, three nice teenagers. Or you can stay with me. Of course I’d like that, but I don’t want to pressure you. It’s totally up to you.”
I had no interest in staying with Mrs. Fowler, and I was still a little afraid of hotels. But I was nervous about staying with Lucy too, especially because I knew her husband, Al, would be there. I did need sleep though. I’d hardly slept at all last night; I’d been so worried about what was happening to Stephen.
“Why don’t I give you a moment to think about it?” Lucy said, standing up.
She started in the direction of Al and Mrs. Fowler, but she walked very slowly because she seemed to have something wrong with her right leg. It wasn’t a limp; it was more of a stiffness or weakness, and it wasn’t her foot, but the leg itself. Still, I knew it was a sign. Here was the charming coincidence, a nearly perfect example. I knew what I needed to do.
I stood up and walked over to them, but I spoke only to Lucy. “Thank you for your offer. I’ll stay with you tonight.”
twenty-one
LUCY ALWAYS DREAMED of what it would be like to have her daughter back, but it didn’t take her long to discover that the reality of being with Dorothea was nothing like her dreams. In Lucy’s best fantasy, Dorothea was always glad to be home, thrilled to see Lucy, understanding of all that had happened before—and that was essentially it. What Dorothea herself was like, the person she’d become, Lucy could never imagine, no matter how hard she tried. Whenever she looked at the age-enhanced pictures of Dorothea or Jimmy, it was like looking at a gross distortion of their small child selves and it was both depressing and a little frightening, as if two oddly featureless adults had swallowed up her babies.
The most startling thing about the real Dorothea was that she was so absolutely the same person Lucy had known. She’d grown up, but she was still unmistakably the daughter Lucy had loved for the first four years of her life. There was no distortion, just what Lucy thought of as a completion, and a truly fascinating one.
Of course she didn’t look the same, yet there were surprising similarities. Her skin was so white and baby perfect that both Al and Janice noticed it immediately: Janice whispered to Lucy that it looked like Dorothea had been brought up in a cave; Al said more kindly that it was one of many pretty things about her very pretty daughter. Dorothea also had the same hair she’d had before: dark brown, thick and very straight, though it had grown so long she had to move it whenever she sat down, and Lucy wondered why she wore it that way, when it had to be such a hassle to take care of. Her eyes were still large and the brightest blue, still clear and open in a way Al called “absorbing.” Al also said Dorothea had Lucy’s eyes, but Charles had blue eyes too, though naturally Lucy didn’t mention that.
Dorothea had been born tiny, and she was still thin, but she was also very tall. Lucy estimated that she was about five-ten, though it was hard to tell for sure because she didn’t slump like most tall women did. Her daughter had great posture, even when she was sitting, and it struck Lucy that this was part of the overall confidence she’d always had from the time she was very little. Al said she had a way of looking everyone directly in the eye, as though no one could intimidate her. “And did you see the way she just marched up on the stage? That’s an actress’s kid for you.”
The other side of the story, of course, was that she’d had a breakdown only a few minutes later. Lucy had felt so sad when she came outside and saw Dorothea doubled over, desperate for air. Her daughter’s breathing problems and rapid heartbeat were the one thing she hadn’t wanted to stay the same.
Late that night, when Lucy and Al were getting ready for bed, Al told her he agreed
with Janice that it was wrong to let Dorothea keep believing her father was a good man. “I know you wanted her to feel better. But you have to set the record straight.”
Lucy told him that she would say more, when the time was right. Something was obviously going on with her daughter, and Lucy wanted to figure out what it was before she risked alienating Dorothea. In the car on the way to their house, Dorothea had answered Al’s question about why she’d come to California with a terse, “Because my father told me to.” When Al asked how long she planned to stay, she said she’d rather discuss it later, but Lucy heard a sadness in her voice that made her wish she could fold Dorothea in her arms.
What had her daughter’s life been like these last nineteen years? Though Lucy was reluctant to ask her directly, knowing Dorothea didn’t trust her yet, she had a hunch from the way Dorothea spoke that it had been more than a little unusual. Al noticed it too. He said she sounded a little old-fashioned, but that wasn’t really a bad thing. “No kids today say ‘thank you’ and ‘you’re welcome’ all the time like she does.”
The next morning, Lucy had an idea. Janice had already told her that Dorothea had grown up without a TV and had never seen any of Charles’s movies. When Dorothea came into the breakfast room, Lucy suggested that she might want to watch The View from Main Street. “It’s very good. Your father won an award for the screenplay.”
“Do you mean now?” Dorothea said. Lucy noticed that her outfit looked a little wrinkled, which wasn’t surprising, given that she’d brought her clothes in a large green garbage bag rather than a suitcase. She couldn’t imagine Charles letting his daughter travel like that. She wanted to conclude Dorothea didn’t live with him anymore, but she had a feeling there was more to the story.
“Why not now?” Lucy said. “Al’s at work. We could watch it together and have toast or bagels.”
