Before William could answer, Eric said, “It’s going to be a nightmare, mark my words. Computers crashing all over the globe, power grids shutting down. People won’t be able to get cash out of the ATMs. Missile systems hiccupping all over the globe.” Eric taught marketing at Harvard Business School and often acted like he knew everything about everything.
“We’re selling passes to the bunker in our basement,” Zoe said. “Five hundred dollars a night per person. Bring your own booze and cyanide capsules.”
We all laughed, no one harder than Eric. Zoe was always the quietest person at the table, but she had a knack for zinging her husband on his more outrageous statements.
William said, “This Y2K stuff is much ado about nothing. Our biggest problem is what to call the new decade. Here it is, less than a month away, and nobody can agree on a name.”
Everyone had an idea—the aughts, the zeros, the O-ties—which led to some very good puns.
On the way home William said, “Well, Eric succeeded in making an ass of himself again.”
“I know. He can be insufferable. But do you see how he looks at Zoe with that boyish devotion and laughs when she cuts him off at the knees? It helps me forgive his pomposity.”
“Is that what you want from me? Boyish devotion?”
“At the very least. Diamonds would also be appreciated.”
William and I had been going out for three years. The two of us were more like pals than lovers. We met through an adult literacy program we were associated with—I gave my time and William gave his money. There weren’t any fireworks, good or bad, between us, just a solid, comfortable connection. We had both been married twice and didn’t want to make another mistake. I didn’t like to think of us as cynics, more as realists who had lived and learned.
I’d met my second husband, Drew Lofton, in 1991. In the eight years since the children had been kidnapped I’d gone back to graduate school for a degree in library science and taken a job in a small private day school, leaving my summers free for travel. Drew and I met in the Château de Chenonceau in the Loire Valley, then found ourselves at the same restaurant that evening. He was traveling with his two daughters, who were in their early twenties. My instincts told me to decline Drew’s offer when he asked me to join them at their table—I could see those girls had no interest in sharing their father’s attention—but I have never been good at following my instincts, at least not the cautionary ones.
Drew’s wife had died the previous winter, and he and his daughters had come to France to spread her ashes in a place she loved. I didn’t give him my address or phone number that evening at dinner, but he remembered my name and looked me up when he got home. A professor of comparative literature at Boston College, Drew was the most well-read person I had ever met, someone who could snatch a quote from Molière or Goethe out of the air as easily as a nursery rhyme, but he was a wounded man. His wife had spent the last few years of her life spiraling into madness before committing suicide. Drew needed to talk, and his openness pulled me in. We dated for a year, and he asked me to marry him. I accepted without hesitation, but we were at odds over where to live. He didn’t want to leave his lovely old house in Manchester-by-the-Sea; I was adamant about staying in Jamaica Plain.
My house, I tried to explain to Drew, was both a prison and a sanctuary. I believed that as long as I lived there, my children might come home and find me, never mind that they wouldn’t have remembered the address or a single thing about it. I didn’t maintain it as a shrine. I had redecorated their rooms and, except for a few treasured items, had given away most of their clothes and furniture, the trampoline and swing set. But the house still held the sounds of their laughter, the rhythm of Sarah’s quick footsteps on the stairs, the soughing of Nathan’s breath in the night. I kept their pictures on the mantel in my bedroom, though I purged them from the rest of the house. I didn’t want any questions from people who didn’t know what had happened to me, no reminders of so much sadness for those who did.
Do you have children? In some ways that everyday question was the most difficult for me. Saying yes inevitably led to more questions—How many? How old? Where are they now?—ones which I couldn’t answer without telling my story or telling a lie. My story had no moral, no end, only sorrow and pain for me. If I answered by saying I didn’t have kids, it felt like I was denying their existence, admitting they were gone forever. I had never found a strategy to cut off that question before it was asked. I knew that people were simply making conversation, but it could seem like an unwittingly cruel reminder of what I was missing. Each time the question required me to do a quick mental calculation: Who was this person? A passing acquaintance? A new colleague at work? How would my truthful answer change the way that person saw me? How would I undo the lie if I chose to tell one?
In the first year or two after the kidnapping, when I’d be at work at Garbo’s or walk into a room full of people, I’d notice some woman—it was almost always a woman—give me a furtive glance and whisper to the person beside her. I couldn’t hear the words, but I knew what she was saying: That’s her, the woman whose husband kidnapped their children. I didn’t know if she was saying it in pity or blame, but at least there was some comfort in knowing that she and the person she was whispering to were already aware of my story. Sooner or later, when I had to tell a new friend or lover about the kidnapping, it was easier for me to make it brief and direct, sticking to the facts and trying to describe the whole thing as if it had happened to someone else. The reaction was invariably a mix of outrage and sympathy and curiosity. But I had learned over time that my sorrow and loss, even my anger at Matt, wasn’t something anyone else could share. They were mine to endure alone, and they touched me most deeply when they came unbidden—when I was brushing my teeth or sitting at a traffic light or trying to pick out a ripe avocado in the supermarket.
Drew knew about sorrow and loss as well as I did. The more we talked and fell in love, the more we believed we could pull each other through. He agreed to come live with me in JP, and we were married in a small ceremony in the fall of 1992.
Drew’s daughters put on their plastic smiles for the wedding, but both of them had disapproved of our romance from the start. Plain, prickly young women, they were unhappy in their jobs and neither had a man in her life—no one except their father. They felt he had gotten involved with me too quickly after their mother’s death, which, in retrospect, was probably true. Drew and I convinced ourselves that the girls’ resentment would diminish over time, but it only became more entrenched. One girl moved to France and rarely communicated, while her sister contracted a mysterious illness that left her debilitated and unable to work. Drew worried about both girls constantly. I said they were acting like spoiled brats, and he and I began to quarrel about them. Things came to a head when he got a vituperative letter from his daughter in France, a litany of perceived slights and wild accusations.
“Oh, Drew, I’m so sorry,” I said when I read the letter.
“This is how it starts.” His face twisted in anguish. “They get paranoid and lose touch with reality.” He was afraid the girl was contemplating suicide. “I should go see her.”
I looked into his sad brown eyes. It didn’t matter if his daughter was a manipulative vixen or mentally ill like her mother; either way the drama would keep escalating until she had won her father back or descended into madness.
“Yes, you should go,” I said.
I can’t honestly say if letting Drew go was an act of generosity or cowardice, good judgment or bad. The older I get, the more I realize the answer to most questions is: All of the above.
***
The second week in December, I was in the teachers’ lounge when Lewis came in. Lewis was the vice principal and our de facto computer expert.
“Lewis,” I said, “what do you make of this whole Y2K problem?” I had recently finished computerizing the checkout system in
the library.
“Why, Lucy?” He smiled. “Don’t tell me you’re worried about overdue library books?”
“Just curious. There’s been so many articles about it in the newspaper lately.”
“Forget about Y2K. It’s much ado about nothing.”
“That’s exactly what another friend said. I wonder if Shakespeare anticipated this.”
“Absolutely. The man was prescient. This whole thing is a tempest”—he dunked a teabag in his cup—“in a teapot.”
“All’s well that ends well?”
“Exactly. Which is just as you like it, my dear.” He had a devilish glint in his eyes, waiting for my retort.
I paused, stumped. “You win, Lewis.”
He chuckled and sat down across from me. “I saw Amy Vogel’s mother today, and she was singing your praises.”
“Amy’s a doll,” I said. She was in the third grade and one of my reading junkies, kids who read on the school bus, in the lunchroom, outside at recess. They’d finish one book and immediately start another, like a chain smoker lighting his next cigarette off the last. I wanted every child to be an avid reader, so I set up a challenge to give them some incentive. Each student started out the year as a Walker; after finishing five books and handing in a short report on each, he became a Jogger. The next level was Runner, then Sprinter, Jet Pilot, and Astronaut, with a small prize at the end of the year for every student who made it to Sprinter.
When I was studying for my master’s in library science, I pictured myself working in a university helping professors with their research and tracking down rare books, but the market was tight when I got my degree, and I took a job at an elementary school in Arlington. I spent the summer boning up on children’s and young adult literature and found I really enjoyed it. Once school began, I fed off the energy of the kids. I loved their wide-eyed enthusiasm and candid reactions to books. It was such a pleasure to read to them, to pause before some dramatic moment in a story, anticipating their gasps of horror or squeals of delight. Parents began telling me how much their children enjoyed story hour, so I set up an evening workshop to help them improve their reading skills and discover new books for their kids. The workshop was so popular I turned it into a regular course at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. I felt like I had finally found my calling.
I finished my tea and asked Lewis if he’d come by the library some afternoon to make sure I was backing up my computer system properly, just in case Y2K was real. He said he’d be glad to.
As I was straightening up the library at the end of the day, Sophie Reardon hurried in to pick out a few books. Sophie was a second-grader new to our school this fall, a delicate Asian girl with silky black hair that hung down to her waist. She was reading well above grade level and working her way through Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary. At the rate she was going, she’d be an Astronaut soon. I considered inventing a new category for readers like her. Moonbeams? Shooting Stars?
Sophie came up to the front desk with Double Fudge.
“Can you please find another good book for me, Ms. Thornhill?”
“Of course.” We went to the shelves. “Have you read Harriet the Spy yet?”
She shook her head.
“Oh, you’ll love that one, honey,” a woman said behind us.
We turned around. Sophie said, “Mummy!” and ran and gave her a hug.
I recognized the woman instantly. She was wearing a stylish black coat and a fur hat, wisps of gray hair framing her face. She had Sophie’s red jacket over her arm.
“Hello, Winnie,” I said.
“Hello.” She had a confused look on her face. “I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Lucy.” People had only used first names at GrieveWell. “Lucy Thornhill.” I never went back to the group after the night Winnie rebuked me.
“Yes, of course,” she said, though I could tell she was faking it, trying to fix me in a time and place.
“Let me check these books out for you,” I said to Sophie.
I wasn’t surprised that Winnie didn’t remember me. When I met her, she was still in the throes of grief and rage, eviscerating strangers like me and probably her loved ones as well. Perhaps I should have pretended I’d never seen her before. What good would it do her to be reminded of our brief acquaintance all those years ago at such a painful time in both our lives?
While I checked out the books, Winnie helped her daughter into her coat. Sophie pulled a white wool cap from her sleeve and put it on her head.
“Sophie has been telling me how much she loves coming to the library,” Winnie said.
I nodded. “She’s a terrific reader.”
As Winnie tucked a strand of hair under Sophie’s cap, I saw the light go on in her eyes. “How are you, Lucy?”
“I’m well.” I smiled. “Really well.”
“Me too.” She returned the smile, her gaze firm and steady, the look of one survivor to another, free of longing or surrender or guilt. “Would you like to go have coffee sometime?”
“Yes, I would. I’d like that a lot.”
***
Monday evening five days before Christmas I was sitting on the couch, reading, when Sam came into the room and meowed at me. He hopped up into my lap, and I scratched his head and said, “I know, baby. I know.” My dog Frodo had died two months before, and Sam missed him as much as I did. I kept promising myself I’d get a new puppy, but I wasn’t ready. The book I was reading was Open Secrets by Alice Munro, each story so rich it felt like a novel. The kids’ line rang in the hall, and I sighed and put my book down. I no longer felt a shiver of hope when I heard that phone or came home and saw the red light blinking on the answering machine, but I had no intention of having it disconnected. The phone went hand in hand with my superstition about staying in the house, another link to Sarah and Nathan. Big nose, ice snows, jiggy wiggy piggy toes. There were rarely more than two or three calls a month; usually it was a blank message or a recording from a telemarketer or political candidate, one machine talking to another. If I was home, I didn’t pick it up when it rang, just stood in the hall next to the credenza, waiting as I screened the call, listening to the sound of my own voice on the answering machine.
Hello, you have reached 617-244-6673. This is Lucy Thornhill Drobyshev, mother of Sarah and Nathan Drobyshev. I have not seen my children since they were kidnapped by their father, Matthew Drobyshev, sixteen years ago, in June, nineteen eighty-three. But I have never given up hope. Nathan was two and Sarah almost five when they were taken. If you have any information about my children or their whereabouts, please leave a message here, or you can reach me at 617-464-2539. You may also contact my attorney, Arthur Hoyt, at 617-237-8821. Thank you… Sarah and Nathan, I love you and miss you beyond words. Every morning I wake up believing that today is the day you will come back to me. Every night I try to find you in my dreams.
Most callers would hang up as soon as they realized they’d dialed the wrong number, though occasionally someone would listen all the way to the end and leave a message. Over the years I’d had people say Good luck or Hang in there. One woman said Miracles happen; another told me she’d remember me in her prayers. A few years after the kidnapping, a man left a series of messages so filled with venom they brought me to tears.
Tonight the caller waited to the end of my message. After the beep there was a distinct pause, as if the person were trying to think of something to say. Then the line went dead. There was no caller ID on the phone. I’d thought about getting it, but that was Pandora’s box; every time there was a blank message on the machine I’d probably feel compelled to call the number back. I went into the living room and tried to read my book, but I couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking someone was on the other end of the line, reaching out to me. I stretched out on the couch and looked at the ceiling, one of those nights when I wished I still smoked.
&n
bsp; Chapter 30
Adam
Encinitas, California—December 1999
Sara spent the first semester of her senior year in Paris, studying and doing research for her thesis on Cézanne. I smiled when she first told me she was going to major in art history. I rarely spoke about our lives before we left Boston, so she was surprised when I mentioned some of the paintings I’d seen and transported on the job as a courier. I told her about Vermeer’s Geographer and View of Delft and how much they had moved me. It made me wish I’d kept my collection of postcards of my favorite pieces of art to show her. I had stopped going to art museums after I took off with the kids, as if I were no longer me, or didn’t want to be reminded of the life I’d left behind.
Sara came home from France Saturday afternoon a week before Christmas. I was supposed to pick her up at the airport, but she left a message on my cell phone telling me Ajit would meet her instead. They were like two lovers in a country song, unable to quit each other or get it right. Aside from Ajit’s parents’ disapproval of the relationship, I wasn’t sure what the problems were. Ajit seemed quite jealous. It made me uncomfortable thinking Sara might be unfaithful, like Lucy.
She had been up for twenty-fours straight when she straggled in Saturday night. I dragged her out of bed at noon on Sunday and took her out to brunch. In the afternoon we played a round of golf. I held my own through the front nine, then she pulled away. I teased her about how I used to let her win. That lasted until she was fifteen. I’d only beaten her a few times since. I tried to get Elliot to join us, but he wouldn’t even go to the driving range. Except for his music, he didn’t have a competitive bone in his body. He was finishing up his first semester at Berklee. I’d tried to talk him into coming home for Thanksgiving break, but he said he was too busy. He had a paper to write and was playing in a jazz quintet called The Spendthrifts. At my insistence he was taking a full load of academic subjects. He seemed interested in a contemporary American history course in which they were studying topics like Watergate and the war in Vietnam. It gave us something to talk about in our once-a-week phone calls. I missed the sound of his music wafting through the house. With him and Sara gone, I thought I’d get to work on some long-overdue projects, like repairing the back deck and adding a second bathroom, but I spent what free time I had reading or watching TV. I was between girlfriends and couldn’t find the energy to look for another.
Lies You Wanted to Hear Page 26
