Little Girl Lost

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  To her assistant, Carolyn Coons, and to all the crew at William Morrow;

  To my agent, Laura Blake Peterson—so ready to take that lunch raincheck now,

  To my film agent, Holly Frederick and the gang at Curtis Brown;

  To Cissy, Degan, Susan, and Celeste at Writerspace;

  To Carol Fitzgerald and the gang at Bookreporter;

  To Noah Leiboff for the website work;

  To Morgan Staub for the research and notes;

  To Chris Spain for dropping his life to bail me out when I’d written myself into a corner;

  And to the enchanting Seretha Tuttle for the guided tour of St. Helena Island. I will be back!

  An Excerpt from Little Boy Blue

  Continue reading for a sneak peek at

  LITTLE BOY BLUE

  On sale Summer 2019!

  Chapter One

  May 12, Present Day

  New York City

  Even before she opens her eyes, Amelia Crenshaw Haines knows she’s alone in her bed, in the room, in the apartment. Sleep’s mellow hush lifts, and she hears traffic honking on Amsterdam Avenue ten stories below, sirens in the distance, and the soft whir of the HEPA air purifier on Aaron’s dresser.

  It’s beyond her, how he’d gone all his life without knowing he’s allergic to cats. That became apparent only after she’d brought home, and fallen in love with, the first of many rescue kittens. She hadn’t offered to return it to the shelter. Nor had he asked her to.

  He hadn’t offered to skip today’s business trip. Nor had she asked him to.

  But she’d thought maybe . . .

  She opens her eyes.

  A small gift box sits on the pillow beside hers. Telltale turquoise, tied with a white satin ribbon: Tiffany’s. A year ago, her heart would have leapt. Today, it sinks.

  She leaves the box where it is, gets up, and goes into the adjoining bathroom. Aaron’s navy cotton pajamas with the white piping hang on a hook behind the door. Early in their relationship, she got a kick out of his real pajamas, the kind with matching top and bottoms.

  “What else would I wear?”

  “You know . . . boxers and a tee shirt, or something, or . . . nothing.”

  He laughed and pulled her into his arms.

  She kicks the door shut and reaches for her toothbrush, alone in the white porcelain holder. His went with him to Chicago . . . or was it Denver today? Not LA. That trip is next week. She’d toyed with tagging along until he told her his schedule will be too jammed for time together.

  Just as well. Sunday is Mother’s Day. Business always picks up around then, for obvious reasons.

  Amelia stares into the mirror above the sink. She’d read once that light-skinned black women don’t age as well as their darker counterparts. Maybe it’s true. Today, she notes the deepening lines around her eyes and mouth, the slight sag beneath her jaw. There are no longer any wiry gray strands in her sleek shoulder-length hair, but only because she had it straightened and colored last month as an early birthday gift to herself.

  “Girl, you are getting old.”

  The woman in the mirror nods and turns away.

  She takes her steamy old time in the new shower, with gleaming white marble and dual high-end rain heads. The contractor had slyly pointed out that there’s plenty of room for two, but she and Aaron have yet to test that. He’s taken to showering when he gets home at night, and she’s tried not to wonder why. Nor has she asked him. She has never been, and refuses to become, a suspicious wife.

  Wrapped in a fluffy new white towel, Amelia returns to the bedroom and lifts the shades. The two tall windows face east, and the first beams of sunlight have cleared the building next door, spilling over the unmade bed and the turquoise box on Aaron’s pillow.

  She leaves it, goes to her closet, and pulls out her most boring—er, professional—outfit: a lightweight wool navy Brooks Brothers skirt suit and white silk blouse. She dresses quickly, adding panty hose, low-heeled pumps, a string of pearls, and matching earrings. Boring, boring. If she had her way, she’d be wearing jeans, boots, a splashy-hued spring sweater, and the chunky teal and purple beads she bought in Union Square last week.

  But she has a new client coming in this morning, and she learned early in her career that when her wardrobe leans casual, people don’t seem to take her seriously.

  “So, an investigative genealogist? What is it that you do, exactly?”

  “I try to find out who you are and where you came from.”

  That simple response doesn’t satisfy most people, but in the end, that’s the information they want her to provide. It’s what she wants to know herself. Someday, she might uncover the truth about her own past. More likely, she never will. But it’s been gratifying to help other abandoned children discover their own roots.

  She makes the bed, though she’s the only one who will be climbing back into it tonight. Second nature, when you grow up sleeping on a pullout couch in the center of a cramped Harlem apartment. There was a time, after her mother died and before Amelia went away to college, when she’d taken perverse pleasure in leaving a rumpled tangle of bedding in the living room every morning.

  She’d been so angry back then—at her mother, for dying, at her father, for letting grief consume him, at both of them for not telling her she wasn’t their biological child. She’d discovered that shocking truth by chance the day she lost her mother.

  A scant few years later, she’d lost her father as well. She’s been an orphan for most of her adult life—an orphan who might still have parents out there somewhere.

  “But you have me,” Aaron used to say, and he’d be wounded if she told him that a husband was not a parent.

  “You have my parents, though, and my brothers and sisters, and all the nieces and nephews . . .”

  No, Aaron has them. She’s the in-law. Yes, they’re her family, and she knows better than anyone that familial bonds don’t depend on blood.

  Maybe Aaron’s large, loving family is part of the reason she was so drawn to him in the first place.

  Maybe?

  Part of?

  She’d met him through his sister, Karyn, who had the home life Amelia had always longed for. Bettina and Calvin had been as happily married as her in-laws are, but they didn’t get to live into their golden years surrounded by a large, close-knit clan, and they sure didn’t have money.

  Karyn invited Amelia to spend Thanksgiving in a leafy suburb, at the three-story brick colonial where her parents had raised her and her four siblings. Generations gathered around a long table, just like a Hallmark movie—an elderly great uncle, a pair of newlyweds, a firstborn grandchild, and handsome, brilliant Aaron, just graduated from law school. The weekend was magical, scented with wood smoke, pumpkin spice, and fallen leaves. Trivial Pursuit by the fireplace, touch football on the lawn, a moonlit walk with Aaron. He held the leash of his brother’s frisky chocolate lab in one hand, and clasped Amelia’s with the other. She returned to her lonely little urban apartment certain that he was The One. She wanted to be a part of his world. Part of his family.

  And so she has been, for over two decades. She can’t imagine life without her in-laws. But life without Aaron?

  Isn’t that what she’s been living?

  They used to be so happy together. Life was full—of each other, work, family and friends. Too full to miss the children they’d decided not to have. They weren’t parental types, they’d agreed early on. A dozen nieces and nephews more than filled any void, as did their careers.

  Aaron made partner a few years ago. She rented office space downtown for her burgeoning business. They bought this dream apartment, a prewar two-bedroom on the Upper West Side and embarked on extensive, disruptive renovations: rubble, dust, noise, and an endless parade of workmen. They completed the bathroom last month and moved on to the kitchen. It’s currently gutted and tarped off so that they can no longer even share a home-cooked meal. Aaron dines with colleagues most nights—or so he says—and Amelia gobb
les takeout in front of some reality TV show he finds ridiculous.

  “Haven’t you ever heard of guilty pleasures, Aaron?” she’d asked, not long ago, when he walked in on her in sweatpants, clutching a white carton of greasy beef chow fun, riveted by a Real Housewives catfight.

  “Sure I have, babe. But this would definitely not be mine.”

  What is yours, Aaron?

  She was afraid to ask.

  Now he’s abandoned her on her birthday.

  Abandoned?

  No, your birth parents abandoned you. Your husband is away on business. There’s a big difference. Remember that. And you might be wrong. He might not be having an affair. He might just be busy, distracted, stressed, same as you. Same as anyone . . .

  Except, she’s never wrong.

  She picks up the shiny turquoise box. The white satin ribbon slips away with a slight tug. She lifts the lid, bracing herself for the sparkly diamond bracelet, sapphire earrings, some expensive bauble a philandering husband presents to his supposedly unsuspecting wife.

  But inside, she finds a silver Tiffany horseshoe key ring.

  It holds a set of keys.

  What in the . . . ?

  The heart-shaped charm is engraved with a Sutton Place address and 7:30 p.m.

  You’re never wrong, huh?

  A slow smile spreads across her face.

  Some days, Amelia misses working from home. This isn’t one of them, and not just because a plumber and several hammer-toting workmen arrived as she was leaving.

  The city is glorious on this sunny spring morning. She bypasses the subway, treating herself to a birthday cab to her office on the Lower East Side. The driver cuts through Central Park, a sea of tulip blossoms, horse-drawn carriages, joggers and baby buggies. Beyond an awning of tender chartreuse foliage, the Manhattan skyline gleams a cloudless blue expanse.

  Stuck in traffic on the southbound FDR, she snaps a photo of her new keychain and texts it to Aaron with a heart emoji.

  Sometimes he responds instantaneously to her texts, but not today. He’s probably on the plane. But he must be flying home tonight, to meet her . . . where? Googling the address on the charm, she finds that it belongs to a luxurious garden townhouse along the river. She has no idea why he wants her to meet him there, but one thing’s for certain: he didn’t buy the place as a birthday surprise. They’re not hurting, but they can’t afford eight-figure Sutton Place real estate.

  She’d have reached downtown a half hour sooner had she taken the subway, arriving just five minutes before her first appointment.

  Her office consists of one third-floor room in a brick tenement on Allen Street just off Delancey. Hardwood floors, tin ceilings, and a fire escape window framed by swaying maple boughs rising from patchwork courtyards below. Every time she sees the brass door placard, she feels a prickle of satisfaction.

  Amelia Crenshaw Haines, Investigative Genealogist.

  Calvin and Bettina would have been proud; Silas Moss, her mentor, even prouder. She’d met the Cornell University professor at nineteen, having heard about his pioneering DNA research as it related to adoptees and so-called foundlings—abandoned children, like herself. Si’s efforts to find her biological parents had never come to fruition, but she’d spent almost a decade in Ithaca, earning a college degree and then working as his assistant.

  He’s elderly now, but she visits him as often as she can—or so she tells herself. It’s just hard to get away; harder still to see him as he is now, confined to a wheelchair, sharp eyes and brilliant mind extinguished.

  Expecting her client any minute now, Amelia logs into her desktop computer to access the electronic paperwork the woman, Lily Tucker, filled out in advance of this appointment.

  Lily had been found abandoned as a toddler at a suburban Connecticut shopping mall in 1990. She’d been well cared for, and didn’t match the description of any known missing children.

  She and Amelia have a lot in common. Lily is also African-American, and was raised by loving adoptive parents. But she was older when she was found, and might have some memory of—

  Amelia’s cell phone buzzes with an incoming call.

  Aaron!

  She snatches it up, but it isn’t her husband. She grins, answering it.

  “Happy maybe birthday to you . . . happy maybe birthday to you . . . happy maybe birthday, dear Mimi . . . happy maybe birthday to you.”

  Only one person in the world has ever called her by that nickname.

  “Thanks, Jessie. You always remember.”

  “It’s pretty much the only thing. I mean, don’t ask me to stop at the store for milk, pay the electric bill, or remember where I parked my car in the downtown garage, because this middle-aged brain is more useless every day.”

  Jessie, middle-aged. It’s hard to imagine, though they try to see each other at least once a year. At least two, maybe three, have flown by since they last met. Jessie, married with children, still lives up in Ithaca.

  “So how are you celebrating, Mimi? Tell me you’re off today.”

  “I’m off today,” she obliges. “But actually, I’m not.”

  “Come on, nobody works on her birthday.”

  “I’m guessing most people do.”

  “Not when they’re self-employed! Why didn’t you give yourself the day off?”

  “To do what?”

  “Visit me. You haven’t been to Ithaca in ages. Si’s been asking for you.”

  “Really?” Last time they spoke, Jessie told her that Silas Moss hadn’t strung together a coherent sentence in months.

  “Well, not asking. But he misses you. And whenever I tell him about you, he smiles, like he knows. He’s in there somewhere, Mimi. Come see him. Us. I have plenty of room.”

  “With four kids and a dog?”

  “Okay, not plenty. But our door is always open. You and Aaron should plan a road trip.”

  “We don’t have a car, remember?”

  Plus, her husband isn’t a fan of Ithaca. He finds it—and all of upstate New York—dreary and depressing. She told him that was because he’d never seen it in summer or fall, but when they remedied that with additional visits, it poured the duration of both.

  “Why don’t you come to New York instead?” she tells Jessie. “Girls’ weekend at my place.”

  “What about Aaron?”

  “He’ll make himself scarce. He’s good at that.” Her laugh sounds brittle even to her own ears.

  A pause. “Mimi, are you guys okay?”

  “Sure, we are. We’re actually celebrating my birthday tonight, and—” A knock sounds at the door. “Sorry, Jess, I have a client. I’ll call you back later, okay?”

  “Make sure you do. I miss you, Mimi.”

  “I miss you, too.”

  She hangs up and compartmentalizes a tide of wistfulness before opening the door to one of the most beautiful young women she’s ever seen.

  “Are you Lily?”

  “Yes.”

  Even taller than Amelia, Lily Tucker must be close to six-foot. A model, maybe. She certainly has the willowy build and the looks. Her hair is cropped short, enhancing her delicate facial bone structure, glowing ebony complexion, and exotic wide-set eyes. She’s effortlessly glamorous in a simple white tee shirt, black blazer, faded jeans, and flats, with sunglasses on her head and an oversized leather bag over her shoulder.

  “I’m Amelia. Nice to meet you. Come on in and have a seat.”

  When Amelia first rented the space, she’d set up a pair of visitor chairs facing her desk. That arrangement had felt stilted, though, after years of meeting clients at her home. She’s since replaced the chairs with a big, cushy leather couch and wooden coffee table.

  “It doesn’t seem very professional,” Aaron said when he dropped by and saw the new setup.

  “That’s why I did it. People come in here and share their most private, emotional secrets. I want to put them at ease, not intimidate them.”

  She watches Lily set her bag on the floor
and settle on the couch, lanky legs crossed. Leaving a full cushion between them, Amelia sits on the opposite end, her back propped against the arm of the sofa, like a friend settling in for a chat.

  “First things first,” she says.

  “Oh, right. You take credit cards?”

  “Not that.” Amelia smiles. “You can pay at the end of the session. I just wanted to explain what I do, and why.”

  She tells Lily about her own past. How someone had left her, as a tiny baby, in a basket in Park Baptist Church up in Harlem.

  She doesn’t mention that it had happened forty-eight years to this very day.

  This isn’t her actual birthday. She might never know when, exactly, that is. But she’s always celebrated it on May 12th. That had been Mother’s Day, back in 1968—the day she’d been found by Calvin Crenshaw, the quiet, hard-working church janitor who’d gone on to become her father.

  “He and my mother, Bettina, loved me with all their hearts, and I miss them both every day of my life,” she tells Lily. “But I’ve also missed the strangers who brought me into this world. I’ve been trying to find them for almost thirty years now.”

  “Have you found any leads?”

  She shrugs. “A few. And I won’t give up. But we’re not here to talk about my journey. I just wanted you to know that I get it. I know what it’s like to be in your shoes.”

  “You know, it’s funny. Until I found you online, I never knew there was a name for it—for what we are. Abandoned babies. Foundling—it’s ironic, isn’t it? Because most days, I don’t feel found at all. I feel lost.”

  Amelia nods. “I understand. Tell me what you know about your past.”

  Lily recaps the information she’d shared in her pre-appointment forms, reiterating that she’d had a happy childhood in a wonderful adoptive home. She’s staving off guilt, Amelia knows, over wanting—needing—to seek the parents who’d left her when she already has parents who love her.

  “Do they know you’re here today?” Amelia asks.

  “Not specifically. But when I told them I wanted to look into my past, they gave me their blessing. They also gave me this.” She reaches into the leather bag and pulls out a manila envelope, handing it over to Amelia. “It’s full of articles about how I was found in the mall.”