The Search Angel (17 page)

I
t’s like something out of a movie.”

They stand on the sidewalk and stare at creamy gold brick, luscious white trim, and a cedar-shingled roof. The house is flanked by old trees long past the height of their autumn color. Masses of spent hydrangea, pinkish green dried to brown, line the base of a stone porch, the steps of which are scattered with leaves. In the air, far warmer than at home, the smoky tang of burning leaves. At one side of the property, a wheelbarrow full of clippings beside a partially denuded cedar suggests someone was distracted by the football game on TV.

From an ancient, sprawling chestnut tree hangs an old rope swing. The way it sways in the breeze is almost taunting.
You weren’t good enough
, it seems to whisper.

“I wonder if they’ll adopt me.” Isabelle starts up the steps. When Eleanor doesn’t follow her, she turns around. “Two for one, what do you think?”

“I think I want to throw up.”

“If this is a bid to get your clutches on my Gravol, you can give it up right now. I have two pills left—one for the terrible sleep I’ll have sharing a hotel room with you, and the other to
knock me out when we step back onto that cattle-mover with bar service tomorrow morning. Now, get your delicate system up here and let’s get this done.”

Eleanor climbs the steps, aware of her own rumpledness next to Isabelle’s fresh-pressed perfection. They had both set out at the same time, traveled on the same flight. Why does Eleanor look like something pulled out of a trash can?

“Can we just leave? Go back? I don’t think I can do this.”

“Nonsense. Now take off that scarf. You look like you’ve been rear-ended and are too miserly to buy a proper neck brace.” She starts to untie the linen scarf.

“No, no, no!” Eleanor’s hands go to her throat to stop her. “I need it.”

But Isabelle already has it off. She rolls it up and stuffs it in her bag. “There. How does that feel?”

“Naked.” Eleanor looks at the toes of her boots. At home they looked so much newer. “What if she doesn’t like me?”

“Won’t happen. She’s been wondering about you for even longer than you’ve been wondering about her. She’s likely worried you won’t like
her
. Think about it. You have every right to be angry.”

“You’re coming in, right? You’re staying?”

Isabelle tucks a stray piece of hair behind Eleanor’s ear. “I am, darling. Now, take two steps back. You smell like stale urine.”

“Urine? That’s your coffee!”

“Stale coffee smells remarkably like urine.”

“Is it too late to fire you?”

“Rule number three. The search angel cannot be fired. But she can quit at any time. Rule number four is that they’re to open the door with a snifter of brandy in each hand, both
for the search angel.” She rings the bell and shakes her head. “Rule number four doesn’t seem to take.”

Distraction. Isabelle knows exactly what she’s doing.

The front door flies open. Standing before them is a beautiful woman of about fifty. With her long, wavy, ash-blond hair, wide mouth, and teacup-handle ears, this is, without question, a sophisticated version of the girl from the yearbook. The way she smiles, exposing her lower teeth, the way she holds her hand (devoid of brandy snifter) with her fingers lined up like a Chinese fan—Eleanor can see these in herself.

Ruth steps onto the porch. “I don’t believe it. I don’t even believe what I’m seeing. You look exactly like me.” She takes Eleanor’s hands. “May I give you a hug?”

Eleanor nods. Right away she is wrapped in her mother. She tries to feel something. Anything other than numbness and wonder. Ruth’s shoulders start to shake. “Sorry. Heavens … just to have you here.”

Her mother’s back is muscled and strong through her blouse. Her athletic build Eleanor did not inherit. The hug continues and Eleanor finds herself staring at Isabelle, who motions that she’s sipping from an invisible snifter and nods toward the house. Eleanor smiles. Then closes her eyes and shuts Isabelle out. All thoughts of finding Ruth for Sylvie are momentarily pushed aside. This is her mother, flesh and blood and Chanel No. 5.

Ruth pulls back. “You’re simply gorgeous. So delicate with that perfect bone structure.”

A small child, also blond, comes barreling out of the house and attaches himself to Ruth’s leg. Stupidly, Eleanor feels jealous. She’s waited thirty-five years for this moment. Can’t it last longer than twenty seconds?

With his finger looking for his nostril, the boy gazes up at Eleanor. “She doesn’t look like a baby.”

Ruth laughs, pulling away and wiping wet eyes. “This, dear Eleanor, is your nephew Robbie. Robbie, this is your Auntie Eleanor, all grown up.”

“Why did you give her away, Nana?”

Robbie’s question hangs in the air between them. From the yard, the porch swing creaks. A small plane buzzes overhead. Leaves blow across the porch at their feet. No one moves, speaks. If Eleanor had any strength in her legs, she’d run.

“Our flight was delayed due to good weather,” Isabelle says quickly. “The pilots, who showed up with suntans, were likely off on a beach somewhere drinking mojitos.”

Robbie runs back into the house, chanting, “Mosquito juice, mosquito juice!”

And the tension has passed.

“Never a dull moment around here.” Ruth squeezes Eleanor’s arm in hers and winks. “Come. Everyone is dying to meet you. We’re a big family.”

I’m from a big family
, she’ll tell people. She’ll tell Jonathan.
And you should see them. They’re straight out of the movies
.

Inside, the hallway is empty but jovial voices come from the back of the house—a man telling a story, a woman shrieking in laughter. It’s a lively home.

Her life at the Prues’ didn’t sound like this. Marion and Thomas were good and kind, but old enough to be her grandparents. Saturday afternoons like this one were filled with the scratch of Eleanor’s pencil as she did homework on the dining room table, or the soft scrape of Thomas turning a page in his book.

Ruth stops. “I want a moment with you. Just you. Before
the others invade. We never had this at the hospital. They whisked you away before I could even see you.” Her strong hands squeeze her daughter’s as she studies Eleanor’s face. “You’re like a more feminine version of your sisters.”

Clearly Eleanor did not inherit her infertility from Ruth. “I have sisters?”

A bald man, tall and wide-shouldered, nicely weathered, in jeans and a buffalo-plaid shirt, heads down the hall with a side-to-side swagger. His hand reaches for hers from miles away. “This must be our girl.”

Eleanor looks at Ruth, who nods. “This is Richard. My husband. And your father.” Eleanor’s face is mashed into Richard’s flannel sleeve.

“I married your mom not two years after you were born.” He steps back but leaves an arm draped over her shoulder. “Because of you, I’ve always thought. Pulled my whole life together, princess. Went back to high school. Started working on an engineering degree, later opened up the business. A real wake-up call, you were.”

“He did good, your old dad,” Ruth says.

He would have been such a wonderful father. Strong and energetic. Young enough to run alongside her bike as she learned how to ride. As it was, she taught herself. Eleanor looks around. This would have been her life.

“That’s great,” she hears herself say.

“You want to hear great,” says Ruth. “The twins—your sisters, full sisters—were born two years after you. Ronnie and Roxie are thirty-three.”

Ronnie, Roxie, Ruth, Richard, Robbie. The entire family with the
Rs
. Ruth continues. “Identical twins—you should know that it runs in the family in case you ever … wait.” She
stops, her face brightening. “Thirty-five, you must have kids of your own?”

Eleanor shakes her head. “No, Well, yes. Hopefully …”

The clomping of footsteps from what appears to be an open kitchen and family room drowns out Eleanor’s voice. The twins, clearly, with their long blond hair and bangs, matching peach-toned lipstick, and wide, denimed hips, rush forward with toothy grins. They’re shorter, but share the lower-half smiles with Ruth and Eleanor, and something else around the eyebrows—a definitive slope toward the nose—that Eleanor has. No sexy arch there. More of a hasty slash, and much darker than their hair.

“Lordy, lordy,” says the one with the slightly longer face. “Mom told us—we had no idea. Holy crap, this is wild. We have a big sister. Ronnie has been lording her six-minutes-older status over me all my life.” Her grin is genuine and could not get any wider. “I’m Rox. So completely incredible to meet you.” A quick hug.

“I’m Ronnie. And you’re a total bitch for usurping me …” Another hug and everyone bursts into soft laughter. “Robbie’s mine. You’ll meet my husband later.”

“And how come you got the long legs?” Rox says. “So not fair.”

Isabelle stands by the front door. She watches Eleanor’s face with a controlled urgency, acknowledging the fact that her parents going on without her, marrying each other after giving her up, going on to have more kids—all of whom are her full siblings—
is
something to get upset about, yes. But Eleanor was not to freak out.

“And you’re all together still. I never pictured that.” Eleanor forces a smile. “It’s amazing.”

With a slow blink, Isabelle nods her approval.

Eleanor’s throat is nearly closed tight with envy. With hurt. These girls weren’t left behind. They grew up cherished, wanted. Why didn’t Ruth come looking for Eleanor if the whole gang was intact? Even just for visitation?

“Honey, you’re shaking,” says Ruth, taking her hands. “You want a drink to calm your nerves?”

Eleanor nods.

Ruth leads Isabelle and Eleanor back into a massive great room with huge pine beams overhead and a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace. The fridge is covered in photographs and Robbie’s crayon drawings of bullets hitting army men and exploding rocket ships and roaring
T. rexes
. On the marble island are plates of tiny spring rolls and dips and veggies and miniature pita, homemade cookies and iced brownies dusted with icing sugar. In the oven, a turkey sizzles.

It smells like a home.

“Why don’t you ladies get comfortable, and I’ll get you both a glass of wine,” says Richard. “You okay with white?” When they both nod, he opens the fridge and fills two glasses from a box.

Eleanor accepts hers, wanders over to where a wooden train set is arranged on the rug by the fire, and watches Robbie push a yellow engine through a covered bridge. “Grandpa, will you play with me?”

Richard calls out from where he’s checking the roast. “In a sec, big man. Just let Grandpa check the dinner.”

“I want somebody to play with me
now
.”

Ronnie and Roxie drape themselves over the same stuffed armchair as if they’re still tangled in the womb. Ruth drops onto the sofa and pats the seat beside her. “Come, Eleanor.
Sit with me. We have decades of catching up to do. Tell me what’s going on in your life.”

Eleanor sits. Behind her mother are framed family photos that could very well be on Eleanor’s windowsill at home. An arty black and white of the entire family in a studio. A color shot of all of the
R
s frolicking in the surf, everyone dressed in rolled-up jeans and white T-shirts, skin the color of summer and blond hair blowing in the wind. Grinning and feeling the ocean lap at their toes. A picture of the entire clan at the base of a Christmas tree. In every shot, the family appears as joyous as if they were faking it in a stock photo. Only, this family is real.

She should have been in these shots. Christmas after Christmas, thirty-four times over, they didn’t reach out to her. Did Ruth or Richard ever, while wrapping presents for the twins, wonder about Eleanor? What she was doing Christmas morning?

She looks at Ruth. “Did you tell Rox and Ronnie about me?”

“Of course! You see them sitting here, don’t you?”

“No, I mean when they were young. Did they grow up knowing?”

“Oh goodness, no. I guess I worried I’d scar them or who knows what. Or worried what they’d think of me.” She looks at the twins, who smile back. “I didn’t tell them until just after your phone call.”

“It’s fine, Mom,” says Ronnie. “We’re glad we know now is all.”

“So, Eleanor. Spill,” says Roxie, leaning over her sister’s legs as if they’re her own. “We want to hear all about your life.”

Ruth smiles up at Isabelle, who cradles her wineglass at the entry to the hall. “Won’t you come sit, Isabelle? We owe so much of our joy to you.”

Isabelle shakes her head, her eyes a bit glassy. “Thank you, but if you would you kindly direct me to the powder room?” Ruth sends her down the hall and to the left, then all eyes turn to Eleanor, who gulps from her glass.

“Actually, I’m about to adopt a baby girl. All by myself.”

As the room fills up with
oohs
and
aahs
and pats of approval, Ruth touches Eleanor’s wedding band. “But there’s someone in your life?”

“That is a bit of a story …”

Isabelle has been gone too long. Once her story has been told, and Robbie has commandeered everyone’s attention with his train set, Eleanor wanders into the kitchen to refill her glass from the box on the island. Once sure no one is watching, she hoists the carton onto her hip and slips down the hall to rap on the bathroom door.

“Isabelle? Are you okay?”

From inside: “Eleanor Sweet, if there is one thing I forbid my clients to do, it’s harass the search angel when they should be bonding with their newfound birth families. Now get back to that perfect family of yours.”

Eleanor rattles the knob. “Let me in.”

“I will do no such thing.”

“How’s your wineglass?”

“Aside from being thoroughly horrified at having been filled with wine from a cardboard casket, it is empty. Thank you for asking.”

“Then unlock the door. I’ve brought you a refill.”

Isabelle opens the door. Eleanor pushes her way in and locks up behind her. “Don’t just stand there. Help me with this box.”

Isabelle supports the carton while Eleanor positions the
spout over the glass and presses the button. Chardonnay splashes into the glass. “You have got to be the rudest birth daughter I’ve encountered. In here saucing up the search angel when you should be out there sharing your lifetime of anguish with those who deserted you.”