Chapter Two
Eliza was in a fog as she rode the train to Grand Central Station. She’d tucked the envelope into her purse and kept checking that it was still there?—the same way she did when she went to the airport and needed constant reassurance that she’d brought her ID with her. She almost wished she’d read the letter sitting in the car next to Aunt Claude?—if only so she wouldn’t be so afraid she’d lose it before knowing what her mother had written.
Clutching her handbag under her arm as she made her way to the subway uptown, she began the final leg home, finally emerging at her stop on the Upper East Side. She was practically shaking by the time she got into her apartment and slid the deadbolt shut.
After forcing herself to hang up her jacket and pull off her boots, she sat down on the sage green loveseat that served as the sofa in her tiny apartment. Then she jumped up again to find a knife in the kitchen to use as a letter opener. She carefully slit the envelope and slid out a single folded sheet of paper, which she brought back to the sofa. The letter was handwritten in her mother’s script.
Dear Eliza,
I’m sure you’re surprised to get this letter from me. Your whole life, this has weighed on me, especially once I knew I wouldn’t be here with you as you become an adult. I suppose my deciding to do this this way is the coward’s way out. I should have looked into your eyes when I told you. Given you a chance to yell at me, or ask me questions, or... honestly, I don’t know how you will react. Especially since you will probably be much, much older when you read this than you are today. But knowing that Dad will be the only parent you have left very soon, I don’t want to do anything that will hurt your relationship with him. And, if I’m honest, I guess I just don’t want him to know the truth. But you deserve to know it.
Eliza felt like she’d stopped breathing. Part of her wanted to put the letter back into the envelope. Wait until she felt stronger to keep reading. But the irony was she didn’t have the strength to set the letter aside. She had to keep going.
Your biological father is a man named Ross Sawyer. He was my high school boyfriend. I’m sure you’ve been in love by now?—and know how powerful first love is. Ross always had a part of my heart, and I always wondered how things would have turned out if we hadn’t gone to college on opposite coasts. Anyway, when I went to my ten-year high school reunion, he was there. Things with your dad and me weren’t great. You probably know we had our ups and downs. Well, it was a time of a pretty big down.
I’m not proud of myself. I could blame it on drinking too much, but I know that I’m responsible for the choice I made that night.
Unconsciously, Eliza clenched the letter in her hand, crumpling the paper. It was incomprehensible. She tried to reach back into her memory for the name Ross Sawyer. Had she heard it before? Had she ever met him? She didn’t think so, but she also knew her synapses weren’t firing correctly. Her brain was muddled, and her memories were jumbled and out of order.
Ross doesn’t know. He reached out to me a few times after, but I told him what we did was a mistake. But YOU are not a mistake. I love you so much, my beautiful girl. And I’m sorry for not having the courage to tell you this sooner. Please know I never regretted having you?—and I tried to make the best decision I could when I found out I was pregnant and did the math. I knew for sure when I saw your eyes. They’re Ross’s eyes.
I’m not perfect. But I did the best I could. I wish I could be there with you now, but I’m sure you’ve turned into an amazing woman?—even more beautiful, kind, and strong than you were as a girl. I hope you’re happy and have found love. You deserve the best.
I love you,
Mom
Eliza read the letter again. And then a third time. Absently, she realized she was shivering and reached for the throw next to her and pulled it around herself.
How did you wrap your head around news like this? Her father wasn’t really her father? A stranger out there somewhere had contributed half her DNA? And her mother...? Her mother had slept with another man? And kept it a secret for all those years? Did anyone else know? Aunt Claude? Had Aunt Claude hidden this from her?
But wait. Maybe it wasn’t true. Had Laura known for sure? There had been no DNA test. Eliza bit her lip. No. Her mom wouldn’t have written this letter had she not felt one hundred percent positive.
All these years that she and Jack had grown more distant, and now it turned out he wasn’t even her father. Had Jack known? Had he guessed? And Laura?—how could she drop this bomb on her like this? Give her this earth-shattering news knowing she’d be long gone and unable to help her work through it? And while she was mourning the only father she’d ever known?
Eliza huddled over herself, having never felt so alone. With no warning, her stomach clenched, and she ran for the bathroom, bringing back up everything she’d nibbled at the shiva. And then she curled up on the cold tile floor, not even able to pull herself up to the sink to wash out her mouth.
When Eliza woke up, she was still on the floor. Her mouth was sticky and tasted like manky socks, and her throat and eyes felt raw. It was dark, and she had no idea what time it was. She rolled onto her back and stared at the invisible ceiling. How had she come to this place in just four days?
On Monday afternoon, she had been sitting at her desk at Nourish Our Youth, the nonprofit where she’d worked since graduating from college four years earlier, going over a spreadsheet for their annual gala. All she had on her mind was whether they could beat last year’s numbers; whether the board members who had lost the battle for the evening’s theme (Roaring Twenties beat out Wild Wild West by a single vote) would put their disappointment aside and serve on the decorations committee; and what she was going to get for lunch. And then Scott had called with the news.
It wasn’t surprising that Carol had called Scott rather than her. Eliza had done everything she could to avoid that house since it had become Carol’s home. How Jack could have gotten married so soon after Laura died?—it was an insult to her mother’s memory. But now, as Eliza stared at the ceiling, she had to ask herself whether she really knew anything about her parents’ marriage. Had Jack suspected what Laura had done?
She rose slowly, her bones aching from the hours on the tile floor, and brushed her teeth vigorously. Then she went out to the kitchen to put up hot water for tea. Kitchen was really a misnomer?—if you expected a kitchen to have four walls and space to prepare food. This one had only two and a half walls, with a small refrigerator and a tiny wedge of counter space. But it was New York City, and it was all hers.
According to the clock on the microwave, it was 4:32. If not for the darkness outside, Eliza wouldn’t have known whether it was a.m. or p.m. She wasn’t sure why she was making tea, but it was something to do. While the water heated up, she went into her bedroom to change out of her funeral clothes. A few minutes later, she was back on the couch, wearing a pair of fleece pajama pants and a T-shirt, her hands cupped around the mug of tea. Her mom’s letter lay on the floor where she’d dropped it when she went running for the bathroom.
She found her phone and checked her messages. There was a text from Mo asking how she was doing and telling her she would see her at the shiva at Scott’s tomorrow?—which, Eliza realized, was actually today. Mo felt terrible that she hadn’t been able to come to the funeral, but she had a huge new business pitch at work that her team had been preparing for weeks.
There was also a text from Aunt Claude, checking in. Eliza was sure she was eager to know the contents of the letter. Unless she already does?
And there was a text from Carter. It had come in around nine in the evening; he was wondering if he could come over. Typical. Eliza hadn’t even told him that Jack had died. If that didn’t show her what kind of relationship the two of them had, nothing would. But no matter how often Mo?—Eliza sometimes wished she’d never gotten into the habit of shortening her friend’s name, because Mohini was so much prettier?—lectured her about wasting her time with Carter, Eliza was okay with the way things were. She wasn’t looking for anything more.
It was now 4:54 a.m., and Eliza was wide awake. Before she could think too hard about it, she retrieved her laptop and Googled “Ross Sawyer.” It turned out to be a not-uncommon name. She found a Ross Sawyer who ran a landscaping company, one who was a stockbroker, and one who’d placed first in his age group, twenty-one to thirty-five, in a half-marathon in Jersey City. And that was just in a few minutes of searching. She shut her laptop. She couldn’t handle this yet. She clicked the remote control for the TV, found a couple looking to buy a beachfront vacation home, and curled up under the throw.
Late that afternoon, showered and wearing a loose gray silk blouse with wide-legged black trousers, her hair wound into a braid over her shoulder, Eliza was knocking on the door of her brother’s Kips Bay apartment. Maren opened the door and enveloped her in a hug, her wild red curls a cloud around her head.
“How are you doing? Stupid question, I know.” Maren answered her own inquiry as she put her arm around Eliza’s shoulder and steered her into the apartment.
Eliza shrugged. “How’s Scott?”
“Not great. Can I get you something? I was going to open a bottle of wine.”
“Perfect.”
The dining table at one end of Scott and Maren’s open living space was already laid out with food. You simply couldn’t go hungry at a shiva. Eliza looked at the plateful of mini black-and-white cookies and wished she had an appetite. She’d managed a slice of toast around midday, but that was all she remembered eating.
The day had passed in something of a blur. She’d texted Aunt Claude saying she’d read the letter but wasn’t ready to talk about it. She’d texted Mo that she was doing okay?—Mo knew her well enough to know that was a big fat lie?—and that she’d see her at Scott and Maren’s. And after some hesitation, she’d texted Carter that her dad had passed away.
Shockingly, her phone had immediately rung.
“Babe! I’m so sorry! Why didn’t you tell me?”
How could she explain that, despite the fact that she regularly shared her body with him, she wasn’t sure how much else she wanted to share?
“I don’t know.”
“What can I do? Do you want me to come over? I mean, I can’t right now, but...”
Of course he can’t. “It’s okay. I’ll be going to my brother’s soon. He’s hosting the shiva tonight.” As soon as it was out of her mouth, she was sorry she’d said it. She tended to keep her sex life and her family separate. She knew they never liked anyone she dated. Of course, neither did Mo. And sometimes, neither did she. He won’t offer to come anyway.
“Well, I’ll meet you there, then. What’s the address?”
She opened her mouth and closed it again before anything came out. But then she figured, Why not? She gave him the address, and he said he’d get there by six thirty.
Now, Maren put a glass of white wine in her hand. “Come sit,” she said.
Eliza followed her sister-in-law to the big sectional sofa. The dining chairs had been pulled over and placed around the perimeter of the room.
Sitting down with her legs tucked under her, Eliza took a sip of her wine. “Are you expecting a lot of people?” she asked, indicating the chairs.
“Probably. A lot of Scott’s friends are coming. I assume yours, too, right?”
“Some, I guess. Mo was letting people know. And some people from work might come.” Eliza decided not to mention Carter. He might not actually show up anyway.
Scott came in from the bedroom, wearing a dark green V-neck sweater and khakis. He was blotting his cheek with a bit of tissue.
“Still haven’t learned to shave?” Eliza smirked at her brother.
“My only shortcoming,” he quipped before heading into the kitchen.
“So, Maren, is that true?” Eliza asked?—loudly, to ensure Scott would hear.
Maren’s eyes twinkled. “Well, he’s got a few others,” she replied as Scott came in with a bottle of Rolling Rock. “Like drinking beer from the bottle when we’ve got wine open and glasses.”
Scott sat down heavily beside his wife, and Maren put her hand on his knee. Eliza looked at her brother’s face. His skin looked drawn around his eyes, and shadows smudged beneath them. She could read his pain so easily?—could he see that she was keeping a secret?
Scott took a long swallow from his beer. “Sorry we didn’t wait for you last night,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I just needed to get out of there. Claudia said she’d give you a ride to the train.”
When had Scott dropped the honorific? Eliza couldn’t remember. But at the same time, he’d also stopped calling her Claude.
“It’s fine. Actually, she wanted to...” Eliza trailed off, realizing she was about to talk about Laura’s letter.
“Wanted to what?”
Eliza hesitated. She still couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that no one else knew. She knew this wasn’t the right time to blurt out that they didn’t have the same father. She couldn’t do to Scott what that letter had done to her, not now, not as they were about to be inundated with people coming to pay their respects. But even as she told herself she needed to wait, she couldn’t keep the words from leaving her mouth. “Did you know Mom had left a letter for me?”
Two pairs of eyes drilled into her.
“A letter?”
“What letter?”
“I guess that answers that.” Eliza tried to laugh and took a sip from her wine.
“Lize?”
And just then, the doorbell rang. Eliza jumped up. “I’ll get it.” She quickly crossed to the front door and flung it open. Immediately, she was in Mo’s arms.
“You okay?” Mo whispered. “I mean...”
“I know what you mean. I’m okay.”
Eliza and Mo had met in college, two and a half years after Laura died. They lived in the same hall and connected right away. But their friendship was sealed the night Mo steered a drunk Eliza home from a party. Mo sat outside the bathroom door while Eliza puked and then came inside and wiped her face with a damp washcloth.
“You remind me of my mom,” Eliza had said, swaying slightly.
“Whoa there!” Mo steadied her, remarkably strong considering her petite frame. “Let’s get you sitting down.” Mo guided her to her room and straight to her bed. “Where are your PJs?”
Eliza indicated vaguely toward the institutional bureau, and Mo quickly found sweatpants and a T-shirt.
With only a little assistance, Eliza got changed, and Mo found her hairbrush. “If you leave your hair like this, you’ll be sorry in the morning. Believe me, I know.” Mo pointed at her own thick dark locks.
Eliza’s hair was loose and tangled, and Mo sat next to her, patiently pulling the brush through it.
“You really are just like my mom,” Eliza sighed, her eyes closed.
“Well, I’m sure she might react differently to the drunken puking than I did.”
Eliza shrugged. “Dunno. She’s dead.”
The hairbrush stopped midway. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
Eliza hadn’t talked about her mother’s death since she’d gotten to college. Laura’s illness and her passing had defined her in high school. Eliza was the girl whose mom was sick. Then the girl whose mom died. And then the girl who was crying in the girls’ bathroom when she was supposed to be in class learning trigonometry. Eliza was tired of being that girl.
She hadn’t meant for those words to slip out of her mouth. And once they were out, she thought maybe she could play it off as if it weren’t such a big deal. But it was exhausting to pretend she didn’t have a hole that nothing could fill?—not even the copious amounts of alcohol that had seemed to be doing the trick, at least for a little while.
Mo turned out to be a good listener. And good at keeping her friend’s secrets. Meanwhile, Eliza proved good at talking Mohini off the ledge when she was stressed about schoolwork and getting her to laugh when she needed it most.
Now, Mo peered at Eliza’s face, trying to read the truth in her eyes. “Really, Mo, I’m okay,” Eliza assured her. It took everything she had to tamp down the truth. Keeping secrets from Mo wasn’t usually in her repertoire.
Mo pointed at her own right eye, dark brown and neatly lined with eyeliner. “I’ve got my eye on you.”
“I know.”
Maren appeared in the vestibule. “Mohini! Eliza said you were coming.”
“Of course. I’m so sorry for your loss. I wasn’t sure what to bring.” Mo held out a bottle of wine.
“Looks perfect to me!” Maren took the bottle, and the three of them moved deeper into the apartment.
Within minutes, the doorbell rang again. This time Scott got it, then left it slightly ajar?—in keeping with shiva tradition if not the norms of Manhattan living?—and Eliza saw a thirtyish couple step inside. The woman was unfamiliar, but she recognized the man.
“Isn’t that Carol’s nephew? Adam?” she asked Maren.
Her sister-in-law nodded. “He and Scott are still friendly. He was at the funeral yesterday, but couldn’t come back to the house.”
Eliza’s eyes rested for a moment on Adam before she turned back to Maren, assuming her sister-in-law knew the pivotal role he’d played in their family. Scott and Adam had been high school tennis teammates, and Adam’s family had thrown an over-the-top backyard graduation party for his classmates and their families?—all that was missing was a pig roasting on a spit. But what the party?—held only a couple of months after Laura’s death?—did have was Adam’s single aunt Carol, wearing a bright yellow sundress and offering a listening ear to Scott and Eliza’s widower father.
The apartment became increasingly crowded, and Eliza was on her second glass of wine while talking with Mo and two other friends from college, explaining again how sudden her father’s death was, when she found herself wishing it was over. Everyone talked about the beauty of the shiva tradition?—being surrounded by family and friends in the early days of mourning?—but something about it made Eliza feel like her oxygen was slowly being cut off. Maybe because her mother’s letter was a huge weight on her chest.
“Sorry?—I just need to use the bathroom,” she said suddenly, noting Mo’s sharp look at her and willing her friend to just let her go.
She wove through the clusters of people, catching snippets of conversation. “I realized a few years ago that the only skiing I truly love is in Utah. So unless I can go there, I don’t bother.” “Did you hear that Julie and Todd split up? I have to say I wasn’t totally surprised.” “Can you imagine walking into your kitchen and finding your husband dead on the floor ?” (This last uttered in a loud whisper.)
“Eliza?”
She’d nearly made it to the hall en route to the bathroom when she heard her name and looked up. Her already rapid pulse increased. It was Josh, Scott’s best friend from high school. She blinked at him, still in escape mode.
“I’m so sorry,” he said quietly.
She remembered that sorrowful expression from when he’d worn it after Laura’s death, whenever he looked at her?—which wasn’t very often. Somehow, Josh never seemed to be at the house after that. Scott was always out meeting him somewhere instead. Eliza figured Josh thought hanging around the death house was a buzzkill.
The rest of him looked the same, too?—if anything, only better with time. His brown hair was thick and just the right amount of unruly. His shoulders seemed a little broader under his suit jacket than she remembered. Not that she remembered him all that well, she reminded herself.
Josh reached toward her, and she let him hug her, trying not to notice the scent of his aftershave.
“I couldn’t believe it when Scott told me. Your dad looked great at the wedding.”
Josh had been Scott’s best man a few years earlier, and had come to the wedding with an attractive brunette. If high cheekbones and big green eyes were your thing. Eliza had coveted her silky emerald green dress that draped just right across her hips. That day, Eliza wore a strapless bridesmaid dress that was inexplicably brown. She hadn’t asked the guy she was seeing at the time to be her plus-one. The thought of all the assumptions that would spark had given her dry heaves.
Eliza shrugged. “I know. He seemed totally fine.” She hoped he didn’t notice the clog in her throat, but he touched her arm.
“You hanging in there?” he asked softly.
She glanced at the worried expression in his eyes.
“You know. What can you do?” She tried to be flippant, but treacherous tears forced her to blink rapidly.
Josh’s hand on her arm tightened. “Come on. Let’s go sit somewhere.”
Unable to come up with a plausible excuse to extricate herself, she let him guide her back into the belly of the beast and pour her another glass of wine. She hadn’t drunk this much in a long time. She pushed aside the thought that it was probably not the best idea.