Chapter Ten
Later that evening, Eliza was again on her own, trawling the internet for more information about Professor Sawyer. Mo had left to shower and change for a dinner date with a guy she’d met online and had a drink with earlier in the week. She’d offered to postpone, but Eliza insisted that she go. “Anyone you’re willing to see a second time definitely should not be put off.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Mo protested.
“Hey?—how would you feel if, because you postponed, he met someone else instead and she ended up marrying your husband?”
Mo rolled her eyes at the When Harry Met Sally reference. “I don’t think I’d lose any sleep over it.”
“Still. Go. I’ll be fine.”
So Mo did, and Eliza was scrolling through a site aptly called ProfessorReviews.com.
“If you want to learn about education, take a class with Professor Sawyer. He knows everything. Just listen to him for five minutes and he’ll tell you so,” wrote one disgruntled student.
“I took one class with Prof. Sawyer. I’d heard he was a hard grader?—but then I realized that as long as you feed his opinions back to him, you’ll do just fine.”
Moving her cursor down the page, she read more of the same. Is this the right Ross? She looked back at his photo on the NYU website and compared it to the yearbook image. Yep. Hard to deny that he was sounding a bit like a jerk. On the other hand, she’d been scanning the names of his courses and the abstracts of his recent research papers, and they were all about closing the achievement gap and how to help kids of less advantaged backgrounds make up lost ground and attain educational success. Just the kind of thing NOY was trying to achieve. So could he be all bad?
No one is all bad or all good.
Hadn’t Laura said those exact words to her? She’d always been the one reminding her that no one was perfect?—and that even people you didn’t like sometimes did the right thing. People are people. We all do our best. And sometimes it’s not good enough. But we try.
Those words took on such a different meaning now. Was Laura doing her best when she was unfaithful? When she decided to give birth to another man’s child without telling anyone?
Jack had always been the less-than-perfect parent. As far as Eliza was concerned, the far-from-perfect parent. The one who didn’t understand her. Who was quick to anger. And now he was gone, and everything Eliza thought she knew had been turned on its head.
Her phone chirped and she picked it up, expecting that it might be Carter again. But it wasn’t.
Hey. It’s Josh. Just thought I’d see how you’re doing.
She paused with her thumbs hovering over the screen, not sure what to say, noting that he was alone on a Saturday night.
Thx. I’m ok. She hesitated and then continued. I found my dad.
That’s big!
She closed her laptop and pulled her knees up to her chest as she typed. I mean, I haven’t contacted him. But he’s here in the city. He’s a professor at NYU.
Wow! What are you going to do?
The million $ question! I was reading his reviews online. His students think he’s a jerk.
College kids! What do they know?
She smiled. Oh, right. I forgot you’re an old man.
HAHA. Srsly?—jerk how? Hard grader? Or creepy?
Love that you’re trying to show your youth cred by writing srsly. But instead of HAHA you should try “LOL.” It stands for “Laugh Out Loud.” But as far as jerkiness goes, basically sounds like he’s a know-it-all.
Eh. Not so bad. And thanks for the tip. It’s hard to keep up with all the lingo from you young’uns.
Any time. She paused before continuing. What I can’t figure out is anything about his personal life. Wife. Kids.
You want me to dig around?
I can’t ask you to do that.
Sure you can. And btw, you didn’t. I offered.
If you’re sure it’s not a big deal.
It’s fine. Give me a few days.
Thx. And do you mind not telling Scott?
Impressive emoji use!
LOL. (see, I’m a fast learner)
She smiled. She’d forgotten his sense of humor. And how they had this natural rhythm with each other. Then her smile faded as she reminded herself that he was just being nice to his friend’s little sister. She wasn’t going to misinterpret his intentions. Not again.
When she got out of the shower on Monday morning, Eliza peered at herself in the foggy bathroom mirror. There were dark smudges under her eyes. She stretched her neck from side to side. Even when she slept, the sleep wasn’t restful.
She padded into her bedroom with her towel wrapped around her and pulled panties and a bra out of her dresser. Knowing no one was going to see them, she didn’t worry about finding a matching pair. She’d let Carter know she wasn’t up for seeing him and suspected she wouldn’t hear from him again.
She zipped up her pants, which slipped down onto her hip bones. How little had she been eating? In the kitchen, she dug in the freezer for the box of pastries Aunt Claude had brought. She hadn’t been able to stomach eating them, but hated to throw them away. But now the thought of a (microwaved) napoleon for breakfast seemed appealing.
Those had always been Jack’s choice. Cream puffs for her. éclairs for Scott. And cannoli for Laura. Whenever Scott had a tennis tournament in Rockland County, Jack would stop at a French pastry shop on the way home and pick up a box of goodies for them all.
She sat heavily in one of her kitchen chairs. She hadn’t thought about that in so long. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt the desire to pick up the phone and talk to Jack?—and now here it was. She wished she could call him and ask if he remembered those pastries. Something else that changed with Carol, who was anti refined sugar. What did refined sugar ever do to her?
On some level, she always thought things between her and Jack would change. That there was plenty of time. She had just enough memories of family game nights back when she and Scott were in elementary school, and of Jack taking her for ice cream during Scott’s soccer practices, to hang hope on?—despite their having grown so distant.
And if she was honest, the distance hadn’t begun when Carol arrived on the scene. Perhaps it started with Laura’s diagnosis. Aunt Claude was around a lot then, taking Laura for treatment and picking up the slack with carpooling when Laura was too sick or too weak to drive. Jack didn’t deal well with illness. He never had. Laura was the one who sat with Eliza and Scott in the bathroom when they had stomach flu. Jack’s go-to was to tell them to go to bed when they were sick. Out of sight, out of mind, she’d always thought. Or was it more than that? Did he find it hard to see the people he loved in pain?
She felt the familiar burn of tears in her sinuses. No wonder she never managed to eat anything. She forced herself to take another bite of the napoleon, feeling the pastry dissolve on her tongue as she went to her bookshelf to find her family photo albums.
Laura had been meticulous about documenting their family outings and events, and Scott and Eliza had split the albums up between them. Flipping through, she found the photo from Scott’s bar mitzvah?—a copy of the one that used to hang on the hallway wall in the Levinger house. She slipped it out of the album and looked at it. The smiles on their faces before the diagnosis that would change their lives forever. Jack and Laura bracketing their children?—Scott before his growth spurt, Eliza with her hair loose down her back. When they posed like that, did Laura ever think about the fact that on the DNA level, they weren’t actually all family? Or did she push that knowledge down into a part of herself that she kept hidden, even from herself?
It was getting late, and she needed to get to work. She picked up the photo and put it in her purse. It deserved a frame.