Chapter 13 Lee
Lee
Lee and the girls brought her luggage upstairs. Isabelle fumbled with keys to three different locks and shoved open the door. As Lee stepped inside, she was struck by the appealing apartment.
How was it possible that in this unknown city, Regan had made a home that smelled so similar to her old house in Savannah?
A fragrance that was difficult to parse, combining Regan’s strawberry shampoo, Lubriderm lotion, vanilla candles, and the glue sticks she used in her collages.
Her chicken noodle soup and the mac and cheese she made with spaghetti and way, way too much cheddar.
The scent was Regan herself: homey and loving.
And Lee’s little sister had taken such care in designing this space!
In the center of the living room was a mid-century modern couch newly upholstered in a mint-green fabric and a dinged-up-but-recently-polished coffee table.
Two mismatched end tables held lamps with new shades.
A large desk in the corner of the room was a neatly organized workstation for Regan’s collage art—there were the glue sticks, X-Acto knives, scissors, tape in various colors, and a row of flat boxes that must have held works in progress.
A small radio anchored a pile of clippings.
The walls were wood-paneled, very “late-eighties party basement.” Above the couch, Lee saw a giant, bad painting of the Acropolis in a rococo frame. In the corner was a signature: Dennis Royale.
Around the painting, Regan had hung her own creations.
Lee walked over to peer at one collage, which featured an old Willingham Christmas card.
Both Regan and Matt had been excised from the card, leaving Isabelle and Flora in the center, smiling stiltedly.
Regan had surrounded her girls with images of birds and waves, and covered the Christmas tree with cutouts of pink-and-purple blossoms, leaving the impression of unmoored children surrounded by fragile flowers—a jarring image, but piercingly beautiful and somehow suffused with hope.
Lee was heartened that Regan had returned to her art—she was really talented.
The coffee table was covered with art and photography books—Collage: The Making of Modern Art; Collage by Women: 50 Essential Contemporary Artists; Greece: History and Treasures of an Ancient Civilization; and Aegean: The Invention of the Sea.
Lee recognized a framed poster of a painting that had once hung in Regan’s teenaged bedroom: Degas’s The Star.
Lee stared at the ballerina in the image, a young girl in a pale tutu, her arms extended gracefully, eyes lifted toward the spotlight.
Lee remembered lying on Regan’s carpeted bedroom floor, reading or pretending to read as their father’s drunken voice thundered below them.
Regan and Cord would snuggle in Regan’s bed, Lee hoping that her presence made them feel safe, or at least safer.
Teenaged Lee would stare at Degas’s ballerina and wish for her siblings the vulnerability and radiance on the dancer’s face.
With Lee as constant sentinel, she hoped her brother and sister, at least, could have a childhood.
Flora and Isabelle looked at her expectantly. The fog of despair that had enveloped Lee in Savannah thinned—just a tiny bit—as Lee felt that old tug: the need to fix, to be the watchman. She put her hands on her hips. She had not flown all night to wallow in childhood memories.
“Tell me everything,” she said, sitting in a caramel-colored chair. “From the beginning.”
Lee noticed Flora’s careful posture, the way she sat with her hands folded, waiting for permission to speak. It was very different from the chatty, enthusiastic child Flora had been before Lee’s first hospitalization. “You can relax, Flora,” Lee said gently.
Flora’s eyes widened slightly. Nervously, she said, “Mom went to a collage retreat on Santorini on Tuesday. She left this.” As Lee looked over Regan’s note, Flora continued, “But she didn’t text me back that night, and when I checked Find My, her phone was disabled!”
“There’s no way Mom disabled Find My on her own,” noted Isabelle.
“And I searched for the Santorini retreat online. It doesn’t exist,” said Flora.
“The truth is, Mom’s been different for months,” said Isabelle, quietly.
“Different how?” Lee leaned forward.
“She started renting out one of our rooms on Airbnb. She said we’d be able to afford NYU, my dream school, even though we’re broke. And she…she spends all day on her computer, like, texting with her boyfriend, Francois.”
“She’s never seen him in person,” added Flora. “Not even on a video chat.”
The pieces clicked into place with sickening clarity. Lee had seen enough Dateline episodes to know where this was heading.
“Flora,” Lee said carefully, “you mentioned you know about online scams?”
“I’m doing a school report about pig butchering,” said Flora. “They make you fall in love, then steal your money. And Mom’s been acting exactly like the victims I’ve been researching.”
“Mom’s not stupid, though,” said Isabelle.
Flora looked at her boots. “Smart people get scammed too. That’s what makes it work.”
Lee wanted to calm the girls, assure them their mother was safe. She also knew she needed to protect what was left of her own fragile mental health. Instead, she heard herself say, “You’re right. We need to find your mom now.”
The girls looked at their aunt, alarmed, and Lee realized they’d assumed Lee would placate them and offer hope.
Lee felt an old weight settle on her shoulders—the responsibility of being in charge.
But this time, it wasn’t just family drama.
This was real danger. Lee knew she had no choice.
“We need to find her now,” Lee repeated. “Let’s get to work.”