The Search Angel

by Tish Cohen

  “She’s having trouble adjusting.” Or she hates me.

  “Perhaps it’s having a mother who takes her for an evening stroll in a monsoon,” Isabelle calls down, wiping rain from her face and leaving a dirty streak on her chin.

  Maybe it’s exhaustion, maybe it’s seeing Isabelle all alone and scaling the side of her house, but Eleanor is overwhelmed with the need to confess. “Would you mind coming down here a sec?”

  “I’m coming down, but if this is a big, sappy thank-you, I think I’ll pass. I didn’t ‘search’ for the accolades then and I don’t do it now.” She steps down the ladder, but before she nears the bottom, Eleanor blurts it out.

  “I drove out to Ethan’s house, Isabelle. I saw his wife.”

  Isabelle stops her descent. “Whoever authorized you to do such a thing?”

  “I left a message just like you do. A note. And she’s been in touch. She wants to speak to you.”

  “How dare you tamper with my life.” Isabelle shakes her head. “And hers!”

  “Her name is Tiffany Runion and she’s very interested.”

  “You are giving me her name? Hah!” Her hand grips the edge of the wet ladder.

  “Isabelle, please come down.”

  “I will do as I choose.”

  “I just can’t stand to see you like this. You’ll rattle around this huge house alone for the rest of your life because you’re too proud to contact his family.”

  “Presumptuous thing. You think because you’re merging with your birth family that everyone on earth should follow suit? This is why I got out of the business. Because of people like you who get overly sentimental about the past. Some birth mothers adopt out for a reason. They don’t want to see their babies ever again!”

  “That’s not why you quit.”

  “I will not be lectured to in such a fashion.” She climbs all the way down and starts gathering up her branches. The salad tongs fall to the sidewalk with a clatter and she lunges angrily to snatch them up.

  Sylvie’s cries lessen as the patter of rain on the plastic stroller shield grows faster. Louder. Eleanor watches Isabelle pile the branches by the side of her porch. Quieter now, she says, “You got out of the business because Ethan is dead and you can’t stand the guilt.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Your plan isn’t going to work. The only thing that will help you now is getting to know his family. Your family.”

  “I will thank you to stay out of my—”

  “Don’t make the same mistake, Isabelle. It may be too late for you and Ethan, but his children. His wife. Don’t let a lifetime pass without meeting them.”

  “Go. Do you hear me, Eleanor Sweet? Go. Get off my property and leave me to manage my life the way I see fit.”

  Eleanor stares at her a moment, Isabelle’s silver hair drenched now. Her collar flattened. Her cheeks are hollow, her eyes sunken. Her mouth grim.

  Without a word, Eleanor turns the stroller around. She bumps it along the brick sidewalk back to Beacon Street, rain stinging her face like needles.

  Chapter 50

  On the walk back, Sylvie’s crying rises in pitch until Angus is howling alongside her.

  Eleanor pushes the stroller up the slope after cutting through the bowl of the park and heads straight along on Newbury. The temperature has dropped considerably since they left the apartment, and freezing rain sits like glittery slop on the sidewalks and streets. Every step Eleanor takes, her boots slip sideways.

  From the end of the block, she can see busyness in front of her store and picks up her pace. Even Angus seems fascinated by the people walking this way and that, and he strains against his leash, helping propel them forward. Lights flood out not from Pretty Baby but from Death by Vinyl. A couple walks out of the shop with two black shopping bags and hold the door for three hooded teens to tumble in.

  Music thumps from Noel’s place and it isn’t “Bohemian Rhapsody.” It’s something else, something frantic that Eleanor doesn’t recognize right away. The Sex Pistols, “God Save the Queen.” That’s what’s playing. She stops in front of the store and peers inside. Noel is busy at the cash, ringing in the purchase of two girls who are taking pictures of themselves with the Sasquatch. Small armies of teenagers prowl the store, and one gangly boy with a shaved head comes out of the change room curtain to model a unicorn skeleton T-shirt for his girlfriend. The skater kids gather around a phone booth kitted out with headphones and a turntable. Above it all, a disco ball turns slowly. Angus presses his nose against the window and whines, his tail wagging.

  Death by Vinyl, it appears, is open for business.

  Eleanor looks down at the stroller. Sylvie, who until this moment has been inconsolable, is quiet. She stares, her body hiccuping with calm, at the tiny droplets of disco-ball light creeping across Noel’s ceiling.

  Eleanor’s phone rings from her pocket. Nancy. At this hour, it cannot be good news. Eleanor covers one ear and picks up. “Nancy, hi.”

  “Hon, I’ve been trying to get to you all day but have been battling the California office. Domenique has come forward again.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “He doesn’t necessarily want Sylvie back, which is the good news. But this has come as a big shock to him. Now normally the courts won’t overturn an adoption once it’s taken place as it’s disruptive to the baby, but in this case the natural father didn’t know about his child’s existence. So we’re on thinner ground here.”

  “I can’t lose her, Nancy. I can’t.” Eleanor’s heart hammers in her chest, her throat, her stomach. Her shoulder hurts so bad she has to sit on Noel’s window ledge.

  “I know, sweetie. I’m doing everything I can here. A judge down there is going to hear his argument tomorrow. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know which way we’re headed next. Just try to stay positive in the meantime. We at the agency will do everything we can to support you and …”

  Eleanor lets the phone slide into her bag. Sylvie smiles, points at Noel’s ceiling as if to show Eleanor. She can’t, she cannot lose her daughter.

  Noel looks up from the cash, sees Sylvie in the stroller, and lunges for the stereo to turn down the music. “I’m so sorry. Did I wake her?” he says through the doorway.

  “No.” Eleanor feels tears sting her eyes and blinks hard. There is no way she’ll cry in front of Noel.

  “I opened. Almost nine o’clock at night, but I opened.”

  “Yeah.” She nods, biting down on her lip. “That’s great. Really.”

  “Excuse me?” A woman and her preteen son approach Noel from behind, a handful of DVDs in the boy’s hands. “Are these ones on sale?”

  Noel nods yes and turns back to Eleanor. “Everything okay? You don’t look so good.”

  She stands. “Sylvie’s father wants to overturn the adoption. And I want to pick her up and flee. Anywhere he can’t find us. I’ve waited my whole life for her. I can’t lose her now.”

  Noel pulls her close and presses her head into his shoulder. “Hey, hey. Stop that talk. You’re not going on the run with your infant daughter.”

  It feels good, to be held again. It feels safe. She allows it, then pulls back. “I am. You’ll see. I’ll pack up the Bug and take her and Angus and we’ll just drive. I’ll change my name. I’ll get some job as a bartender or a chambermaid in some isolated town. I’ll—”

  He pushes the hair off her face. “Eleanor. You’re not running, do you hear me? Running is only going to prolong the outcome. You’re going to take charge of this situation. Face it.”

  “Face it how?”

  “You’re going to call your contact at the agency and you’re going to tell him or her that you want to speak with Sylvie’s father yourself.”

  “I am?”

  “You are. Now get out of here so I can serve my customers.” He turns away.

  “Noel?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.” With a wave, she pulls the stroller away to unlock her periwinkle door. Holding
it open with her knee, she scoops up Sylvie, whose face crumples like a paper bag. The infant lets out a sadder-than-sad moan and once again begins to sob.

  It can only be me, Eleanor thinks. It’s me making her this miserable. Maybe she would be better off with her father.

  Chapter 51

  At one in the morning, Jonathan slides the stethoscope up the back of Sylvie’s tiny T-shirt as Eleanor holds her close and coos in her ear. The crying hasn’t abated. After taking Sylvie’s temperature, after writing three unsent e-mails to Nancy to explain that Sylvie is desperately unhappy and that her father is probably right to remove his daughter from her care, after contemplating driving Sylvie down to Mass General to Emerg but deciding she was so bleary-eyed she’d probably qualify as Under the Influence, she finally did it. She broke down and called Jonathan.

  Eleanor rocks the whimpering Sylvie as Jonathan listens to her heart, her lungs. The child is yawning violently now. She’s tired herself out. Satisfied, Jonathan wraps the stethoscope around his hand and slides it into his medical bag.

  “I don’t see anything at all that would alarm me. Her heartbeat’s good. Ears are clear, abdomen feels normal. Breathing is clear, she has good oxygen. I think you’re just looking at a bit of anxiety, combined with jet lag and a pretty major life change.”

  Relief floods Eleanor to her toes. She pops a pacifier into Sylvie’s mouth and the child’s jaw works away at it. Sylvie’s eyes droop shut. She forces them open again. “It’s as if she won’t let herself sleep. As if she doesn’t trust me or something. Doesn’t feel safe.”

  “Nah.” He reaches down to scratch Angus’s back. Angus’s legs nearly give out with pleasure. The dog is in ecstasy having Jonathan back in the house. He grins up at his favorite master, tongue lolling out of his mouth like a great sopping towel. Behind him is the rocking horse, which Eleanor dragged out of the closet before Jonathan’s arrival. “Nothing that sophisticated, trust me.” He glances around at the walls they painted yellow. “The room looks good. Cheery.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be cheering her.” Eleanor sets the now-calmer Sylvie into the crib. The baby looks alarmed at first, then sucks hard on the pacifier and allows Eleanor to tuck the blanket around her. When Eleanor turns on the mobile—smiling zoo animals in faded colors—Sylvie is mesmerized.

  Jonathan is at her side, his hands on the rail of the crib he assembled himself. “She’s even more beautiful in real life.”

  Eleanor nods. “Isn’t she?”

  “You’re good with her. Better than most new moms who come in.”

  “You’re just saying that.”

  “Seriously. You couldn’t be more natural if she’d been born to you.”

  A buzzer goes off in Jonathan’s pocket and he checks a small black beeper. “Sorry,” he says to Eleanor as he reaches for his jacket on the rocking chair. “On call tonight. New doc’s wife is in labor. I have to go relieve him.”

  “It’s fine. Thanks for coming.”

  Jacketed now, he makes no move to leave. “There are things in life I regret. Being in Europe backpacking when my grandfather had his heart attack. Not going back to med school for a specialty that would allow me to work days like a regular human.” He stares at her. “And this. I’m ashamed of myself.”

  She doesn’t know what to say. A few weeks ago, she’d have taken this as an opening. He wants to come back, she’d have convinced herself.

  “If you ever want to discuss things, I’d be open to that.”

  Always so cryptic. “You mean us? Discuss us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sylvie’s here now. She comes with me.” If Domenique doesn’t take her away.

  “I know.”

  “So the us you’re open to discussing is the three of us.”

  “Yes.”

  She glances at the rocking horse behind him. He can be so good, Jonathan. But he’s become changeable. One day he’s out, the next day he’s in her bed. If she allows him a major role in Sylvie’s life, he could do that to her too. Easily. He could be the perfect father or he could bolt again. Even if Sylvie is removed from Eleanor’s life, Jonathan remains a question mark.

  Too many seconds pass.

  “Okay. Gotta fly.” He kisses her forehead and marches toward the door, Angus trotting in his wake. Eleanor follows them.

  With a quick salute, he starts down the stairs. She remembers the “Dada” DVD. If he’s even remotely open to coming back, watching the video could stir just the right thing in him. She calls, “Jonathan?”

  He stops, looks back.

  No. It’s wrong. “Thanks for the house call.”

  Chapter 52

  A phone call is scheduled for this afternoon. Two thirty. She’s done it. She called up Nancy the next morning and told her she’d like to talk to Domenique directly. Said he needed to hear her out. And if he still felt his daughter was in less-than-ideal hands, she’d understand.

  The man is Sylvie’s natural father. He has a right to want the best for her.

  Nancy didn’t think it a great idea—she thought the situation would be better handled through the formality of the agencies and it would be less personal, less dangerous, if Eleanor and Domenique spoke through their representatives. But she agreed to extend him the offer.

  Sylvie was up crying again after Jonathan left; Eleanor didn’t sleep at all. By morning, she’d accepted it. The adoption wasn’t meant to be. From Jonathan pulling out to people’s reactions to Sylvie’s unhappiness to Domenique’s emergence.

  Eleanor Sweet wasn’t meant to have a baby.

  She’s all cried out. Whatever comes, she’s ready for it.

  The morning passes far too slowly. Somehow, on less than three hours of sleep, Sylvie is wide-eyed and chipper, but Eleanor can’t eat. Can’t focus. And every time she looks at Sylvie, she breaks down yet again. She’ll tell Domenique when he calls. To grow up with her own father, her half-siblings—Eleanor knows now the importance of that. If Sylvie was happy, thriving under Eleanor’s care, that would be one thing. But she’s not. The child wants out. Sylvie doesn’t deserve to see that rope swing one day and ache.

  Eleanor has no more fight left. She’s ready to surrender.

  There are still three hours to survive.

  Sylvie has been here only five days. To leave her with Ginny, even for an hour, is not something she feels good about doing right now—especially given the circumstances. But Isabelle called. She wants her dress back. Today.

  The morning is cold and bright enough that Eleanor has to squint even when she steps into the clattering china sounds of the café. The place is busier than she expected. She gets herself a coffee and waits for a pair of students to gather their backpacks and cups and vacate their little round table by the window. The glare from the street is almost painful. Eleanor lowers the window shade and sips. The bitter coffee seems fitting for today.

  Maybe another sort of life is fine. Like Isabelle, she can live alone and find happiness in helping other people. In preparing the mothers who come into the shop for what is to come. She knows better now. In some small way, she’ll be sharing in all her customers’ milestones, fears, joys.

  The door opens and Isabelle walks in, prim as ever. She buys herself a coffee. Arranges herself in the chair opposite Eleanor and sips. Tries not to make a face. “Your poor child is still alive, I hope?”

  The conversation cannot be about Sylvie. Eleanor won’t survive it. “She is. Especially at night.”

  “And you? Do you have any immediate plans to brush your hair and dress in something you haven’t slept in?”

  Eleanor looks down at her baggy sweatshirt and leggings. It’s true. She hasn’t given her appearance a moment’s consideration. She’s gone from artful layers to survivor chic.

  Eleanor passes Isabelle the bag with the borrowed dress in it. Isabelle casts a glance at the logo and stuffs it into her leather shopping tote. “The last thing I need is to have people looking at a baby-store bag, then at my face, and attemptin
g to do the math.”

  “The dress pulled across the rib cage.”

  “Presenting oneself properly doesn’t come without pain, Eleanor Sweet. Perhaps you’ll try it sometime.”

  In spite of herself, Eleanor smiles.

  “I didn’t come here to collect my Armani. Couldn’t give a damn about it, if you’d like to know the truth. I came to inform you that it’s not all true, what I said about Ethan.”

  A man with a large briefcase squeezes past them to get to the table in the corner. He too closes his blinds. He too sips and grimaces.

  “I was ashamed,” says Isabelle. “Not unlike your Ruth. My husband married me not knowing I’d given up a baby four years prior. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. So I concocted this internal story that Ethan was better off not knowing me. The truth was that I was too ashamed to face my own son. The guilt put me into a depression. How could I sit in front of my child, knowing he’s wondering what kind of mother I am? Even I don’t have the answer.”

  Eleanor dips her finger into her coffee and draws a lumpy S on her napkin. She never once wondered what kind of mother Ruth was. Or Diane Keaton. They were each, in their own times, her mother. Period. She was willing to forgive either or both of them anything. “It’s pretty clear to me.”

  “How so?”

  “Here’s what it is to be a mother. You love your baby so much you don’t know where she ends and you begin. You love her enough to do without food, without sleep. And if it costs you a relationship, it’s not too high a price. And if, God forbid, it ever comes to it, you love that child enough to do the unthinkable, to give her up. If walking away is what she needs—or wants—you find the strength to do it.”

  Isabelle leans back in her chair and crosses her legs. “Like Ruth did?”

  This Eleanor doesn’t answer. She pulls a sheet of paper from her bag and sets it on the table. On the paper is an address. “Her name is Tiffany Runion and she’s your daughter-in-law. Your grandsons are ages seven and ten and are named Joshua and Ben. Ben is getting nineties in school and Joshua can break an egg with one hand just like his dad. Both boys are going to camp next summer for the very first time. And they very much want to meet you. If you are interested, be at the Sidecar Diner at nine thirty Saturday morning.”