Chapter Nine
Later that afternoon, Eliza was again on the train headed to Grand Central, her tote bag crammed full of yearbooks, photo albums, and a few envelopes containing random pictures and memorabilia. She’d probably looked through the yearbooks before but didn’t think she’d ever seen the other items. Perhaps Laura had boxed them away from curious children’s eyes.
She was grateful that Carol hadn’t chucked it all, even as she was simmering about her stepmother’s remark that she shouldn’t “take anything else.” What did she think she was going to take? She already had the pieces of her mom’s jewelry that were important to her?—a locket with Eliza’s and Scott’s photos inside, a delicate gold watch, a pretty silver bangle, and a few other items. Scott might want some things of Jack’s?—perhaps his well-worn wallet, or his heavy, multifunction watch. Would Carol keep those items from him? What did she mean the will had to go through probate? Eliza had never thought about what would happen when Jack died. Who had he left everything to? She suspected Scott knew?—it was the kind of thing he would have paid attention to. That Jack would have discussed with him. Not much of anything was discussed with Eliza.
She’d wanted to get out of the house as fast as possible. Carol’s eerie calm made her uncomfortable. And she didn’t want to answer any other questions about her biological father. So when she found the photo of Ross Sawyer in the yearbook, she hadn’t pored over it. Hadn’t examined it?—yet?—for any resemblance between her features and his. She was hoping she’d find more photos of him, and maybe even other things?—did teenagers in the seventies write letters to each other? But all she’d done was cram everything she could find into her bag so she could head back into the city.
When she got to her apartment, she immediately emptied the tote onto the kitchen table and stood staring at the detritus of a life. Or at least the teenage portion of it. Her lips were pressed tightly together, and she could feel the telltale burning of rising tears in her sinuses. Whether it was grief over her mother, or over her father, or over the death of her origin story?—or a mixture of all three, along with a dash, or more, of anger?—she couldn’t tell. Whatever it was, she wasn’t sure she could face it alone. She quickly texted an SOS to Mo, who appeared at her door within the hour, wearing leggings and a windbreaker, not her usual pressed-and-dressed tailored garb.
“I know, I know. But I just got out of yoga, and it didn’t sound like you could wait for me to shower. So apologies in advance if I stink.”
Whatever she smelled like, Eliza was grateful to see her.
“What did you find?” Mo asked, heading straight into the kitchen for a tall glass of cold water.
Eliza gestured toward the table. “Haven’t looked at it yet. To be honest, I’m a little freaked out by what might be there.”
Mo took a long swallow. “Got it. Okay. So let’s take it one step at a time. How about yearbooks first? Probably the least radioactive.”
Soon they were poring over the black-and-white photos. Eliza resisted turning directly to the S ’s.
“Why in the world did people in the seventies think that feathered hair was a good look?” Mo marveled. “It’s not even just the girls. Some of the boys have it, too.”
“And is anyone not wearing a collared shirt?” Eliza concentrated on keeping her breathing even and slow as she turned the pages. “There’s my mom. Laura Saperstein.”
“I always knew I’d have liked your mom. No feathered hair.”
Laura’s hair was smooth and straight, with a center part. “She’s got some Marcia Brady going on, though.”
“But it suits her.”
Eliza had never known her mother with long hair?—it was bobbed by the time she was born?—but she always loved seeing her long tresses in old photos. Without thinking, she reached up to touch her own long braid. And then her eyes moved across to the opposite page of the yearbook.
Ross Sawyer. She pointed to him without speaking.
“Oh wow. Is that him?” Mo peered closer.
As Aunt Claude had described, his hair was light in color?—at least it was a light shade of gray in the black-and-white photo?—and looked thick. It was tousled?—the kind of hair that probably looked worse when you brushed it. He was barely smiling and had an intense look in his eyes.
“He reminds me of that actor?—the one in the movie about Watergate.”
“ All the President’s Men ? You mean Robert Redford?” Eliza didn’t see the resemblance?—but she was more focused on finding a resemblance between this man and herself.
“No?—the other one. Although his coloring is more like Robert Redford’s.”
“Dustin Hoffman,” Eliza replied absently, picking up the yearbook to look more closely at the photo. “Do you think I look like him?”
“Maybe?—hard to tell in that little black-and-white picture. Your hair might be similar. And your eyes have the same shape.”
“That’s what my mom said in the letter. That we have the same eyes.”
Mo peered at her. “Are you okay, Lize?”
She took a shuddery breath. “I guess. It’s just the oddest feeling. To look at a picture of a man I never met?—that I never heard of until, what, ten days ago? And know he’s my biological father. That half my DNA comes from him.”
Mo touched Eliza’s hand. “Do you want to stop?”
She shook her head, blinking. “No, let’s just tear off the Band-Aid.”
They learned that Ross had been the opinion page editor at the school newspaper?— The Ludlow High Observer ?—and that he was a cross-country runner. Most of the other items Eliza had found were clearly Laura’s?—photos of her at dance competitions (Eliza felt renewed guilt at having been a ballet dropout in first grade), birthday cards from her parents and Claude, ticket stubs from movies that she might or might not have seen with Ross. In the graduation program, they found that Ross had been awarded the social-studies prize.
Eliza sat back in her chair. “I guess I was hoping for some photos. Or letters. Or something personal.” She sighed as Mo continued to shuffle through the papers.
“Wait! What’s this?” Mo held out a color photo of a group of people in graduation gowns, their caps either in their hands or gone entirely.
Eliza grabbed it and scanned the faces. Right in the center was Laura, her gown open to show a pale green minidress, her hair piled on the top of her head. Next to her was Ross. He was a little taller than she, and his hair was dirty blond. Unlike in his yearbook photo, here he was smiling, his eyes crinkled at the corners. Their heads were inclined a little bit toward each other. The only possible indication that they were a couple. But obviously she knew they were.
Mo had gotten out of her chair and was standing behind Eliza, looking at the photo herself. “He was cute,” she said.
“Ew.”
“You know what I mean. Just looking at him as a male specimen. Not as your father.”
Eliza again felt the wind knocked out of her. “My father. That’s my father,” she breathed.
Mo rubbed her shoulders like a coach might to buck up a player in the locker room.
“I wonder what he looks like now...” Eliza tried to imagine the same face with thinning hair. The body with a gut. He’d be the same age that Laura would be?—fifty-five. A few years younger than Jack. Jack was broader and beefier?—even in his youth. Would age have treated Ross better?
“Well, there’s one way to find out. There’s this thing called the World Wide Web...” Mo teased.
Now that she had a face to go with the name, maybe she’d be able to figure out which of the many Ross Sawyers was the right one. They moved to the sofa and sat hunched over Eliza’s laptop.
“Do you think this is him?” Mo pointed to a Ross Sawyer who was an endocrinologist in Boston.
“Don’t think so.” She scrolled down. BS from Boston College. Aunt Claude seemed to think Laura’s Ross went to a college that started with H. She clicked back to the Google search results. The next one was a stockbroker with dark hair and bushy dark eyebrows. Definitely not a match. And then, suddenly, there he was. Professor of education at New York University. BA from Hampshire College. PhD from Teachers College, Columbia University. No question that the face in the photo was his. A little older, sure, but same eyes. Same smile. Hair shorter but still thick.
They clicked through to read his bio, which talked about his research interests and included a long list of publications with links. But nothing personal. His LinkedIn page was similar, and his Twitter was largely retweets of colleagues in the field. No Facebook.
“Professors probably don’t want to get friend requests from their students,” observed Mo.
Eliza rose and headed for the kitchen to put up hot water for tea. She needed to do something with her hands.
“Lize?” Mo followed her like an anxious puppy.
“I’m okay. I mean, I’m not okay. But I’m still breathing, so that’s a plus.” Eliza forced a laugh that sounded a bit like someone being strangled. She didn’t know how to explain how real this had suddenly become. Ross Sawyer wasn’t just a name in her mother’s letter. Or even an old photo in a yearbook. He was a living, breathing man who taught at a university in the very same city in which she and Mo were standing right now. What was she supposed to do now? There was no handbook to check. No mother to ask for advice.
“Do we know anyone who went to NYU and studied education?” Mo reached for the box of assorted teas and rifled through it, selecting peppermint, apparently unaware of the knots in Eliza’s intestines.
“I don’t think so.” Eliza poured hot water over the tea bags and bit her lip, seeking to be as nonchalant as her friend. “Do you think I should just email him? It feels so?—impersonal. And what if he’s a big jerk? What if he’s an axe murderer?”
“I sort of doubt he’s an axe murderer.” Mo dunked her tea bag up and down. “But he could be a jerk. Is there any way you can find out more about him? I mean, it would be good to know if he’s married, right? If he has kids. I mean, other kids.”
Eliza carried her own mug of tea over to the sofa, and Mo followed her. “My brother’s friend Josh might be able to help,” she said hesitantly. She didn’t want to admit, even to herself, how often Josh had popped into her head over the past few days. Nor did she necessarily want to ask him for assistance.
“Was he at the shiva?”
“Yeah. He’s Scott’s best friend from high school.”
Despite how close they were, and how much they’d shared, Eliza had never told Mo?—or anyone?—about Josh. Whatever had happened between them?—or hadn’t happened?—was her secret. One that she kept folded up in a box in the back corner of her mind and tried not to look at very often. All these years later, there was no reason that it should still hurt so much, but she supposed it was all tied up with everything else she had gone through back then.
Josh had been a fixture in the Levinger house for all of Scott’s time in high school. His family had moved to town the summer before their freshman year, when Eliza was about to start seventh grade, and the two boys became fast friends. Before Laura got sick, she had made their home an easy place to hang out. There were always snacks, and the basement’s squishy sectional and big-screen TV were a huge draw. Eliza knew that some of her friends opted to be at her house rather than their own because they had a thing for Scott or for one of his buddies. For her, orbiting Scott and his friends was less appealing. Her brother typically either ignored her or asked her to fetch more drinks or chips. And his friends tended to take up a lot of space?—sprawling on furniture, leaving trails of crumbs, and laughing loudly at things that made no sense.
From the beginning, though, Josh was different. Even though he was new and presumably trying to find his place in the group, he didn’t pile on to whatever they were doing and didn’t try to one-up everyone else. And he made it a point to say hello to Eliza. He even acknowledged her in public if they bumped into each other at the supermarket or the drugstore. Scott liked to joke that if Josh?—an only child himself?—wanted a little sister, he’d be willing to trade. Especially if it involved Josh’s gaming system, which was the newer model of the one the Levingers had. The joke had made Eliza seethe. Not because Scott wanted to trade her in for a game console but because she didn’t like encouraging Josh to think of her as a sister .
“So what does he do?” Mo pushed her hair behind her ear.
Eliza had to rewind their conversation in her mind to remember what they’d been talking about. “He’s a lawyer. He told me he could maybe help get background information.”
“No-brainer, then! Maybe he has a PI on retainer.”
Eliza laughed. “This isn’t a TV show. I’m not sending someone out to follow him.”
“Well, whatever?—you should ask him.”
She nodded, not wanting to open up the can of worms that was her feelings about Josh. At least not right now. Besides, it suddenly occurred to her that she had other news to share. “Hey?—did I tell you that Carol knows about my mom’s letter?”
Mo’s eyes grew wide. “What the hell? How?”
“Her nephew was at the shiva at Scott’s. He reported back, apparently.”
“What an asshole.”
Eliza shrugged. “Can you blame him? How often do people get to experience a Maury Povich moment in real life? And at a shiva no less. Jack?—you are not the father! ”
“Ugh. Did Carol say anything to you? When you went to the house?”
“Not really. Just told me she knew.”
Eliza had spent the train ride back to the city kicking herself that she hadn’t questioned her stepmom. Asked if it was news to her. Asked if Jack had known?—or suspected. But how did you start that conversation? Especially with a woman who hated you? She could still hear Jack telling her that Carol didn’t hate her. It’s not easy for her. Stepping into another woman’s house. Another woman’s family. Why didn’t he care that it wasn’t easy for Eliza? Having another woman sleep in Laura’s bed? Put her hands all over Laura’s husband? Take what was left of Eliza’s family away from her? Which reminded her...
“You know what Carol did say to me? She was very clear that she didn’t want me to take anything out of the house except my mom’s personal stuff. Said that the will had to go through probate.”
Mo cocked her head to one side. “Who did your dad leave everything to?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I would think he left it to her.”