Chapter 2 Eloise #4
If my story ever became public, Molly and Adam and Evie would be the center ring of a media circus.
Molly would be singled out not just as the kid whose parent died on 9/11 but as the one whose mother returned from the dead.
Adam would be the husband married to two women at the same time.
Not to mention, the family had received money from the Victim Compensation Fund.
If anyone learns I am alive, they’d surely have to give it back.
I can’t do that to them.
I spend a few more moments in the cool hallway of the building, then step outside again. But Molly and the stroller are nowhere to be found.
She probably had to change Adie’s diaper. I pull out my phone to text her, but before I can press send, I hear a voice behind me.
“Well, hello, Eloise,” Chad drawls.
I never forget a face, he had said.
It took a while, but then, I didn’t expect to see someone whose funeral I attended.
Thankfully, at that moment, class had ended, and we were surrounded by a stream of students exiting. I had subsumed myself in them as camouflage, had run until I was no longer on the campus. Then I texted Molly, told her that I’d felt sick and took an Uber home.
I should have known.
If I don’t want to expose Adam and Molly and Evie to the inevitable backlash that will come with an accidental reveal of who I am, I have to stay far away from them.
The next day I call Molly and tell her that I have a full--blown cold and don’t want to put her or the baby at risk .
. . which is really only half a lie. Then I pull my two suitcases from the basement storage of my building and begin to pack up my clothes.
I do not have a plan, beyond leaving Rhode Island.
When the door buzzer rings, I frown. When I open the door to find Molly, holding a container of soup, I stare in disbelief. I hadn’t ever given her my address.
She waves her phone. “You shared your location with me, remember?”
I did, so that she would know where I was if she found herself spiraling and needed help. Her eyes shift from the bare walls and lack of furniture to the suitcases. “You’re running away?” she asks, her voice breaking. “Again?”
“Molly,” I begin.
“I told Jesse I wanted to bring you chicken soup because you weren’t feeling well,” she says tightly, setting the container down. “But I guess that wasn’t the case.”
I put my hand on her arm. “Adie’s six weeks old. You are way past the point where I was hearing voices or thinking about hurting myself or my infant. You’re safe. And I—-I think it’s probably best for you and Adie and everyone else if I’m not here.”
“You think,” Molly repeats coldly. “What about what I think?”
“That man we saw at RISD? Chad? He was Adam’s fraternity brother. He recognized me.”
“So what?” Molly demands.
I rear back. “So what? What if he decides to tell someone? If it becomes public knowledge? You’d be hounded by the press. You could have to give back the money that you used for college and whatever you’ve saved up for Adie. I’m doing this for you, Molly.”
“I never asked you to,” she counters. “Don’t I get a say this time?”
Ironically, now I do feel sick—-at the thought of leaving, of hurting her. “You and Jesse and Adie can come visit. Or we can FaceTime.”
She pulls away. “Don’t you want to see Adie grow up?”
Her words punch the response out of me. “Of course I do.”
“Then how can you leave?”
“Because,” I say softly. “I can’t be the one who ruins your life again.”
“This,” Molly snaps, gesturing to the suitcases. “This will ruin my life. I just got you back.”
Her gaze lands on the table where the pieces of Adie’s mosaic are taking shape. Two phoenixes are a splash of fiery orange, crimson, gold. The third, the one in flight, I haven’t started yet. It is an outline in absentia, a negative space.
Molly’s gaze locks with mine. “Nothing bad has happened yet. It may never happen. Chad wouldn’t do that to my father.”
But I think: Chad just got fired, and stories like this are worth something.
She must see this written all over my face. “Promise me you won’t leave here without telling me,” Molly begs, grabbing my hand. “You owe that much to me.”
I look down at our palms, pressed together. “I promise,” I say.
I am awakened three days later by FaceTime. “Ximena?” I ask, picking up. I glance at the time—-7:10 a.m. “Is everything okay?”
“I don’t know, is it?” Her eyes are dark with hurt. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
I sit up, rubbing my eyes. “The truth?”
“About 9/11.”
My heart starts pounding. “What?”
“Was it all a lie?” she accuses. “Everything you said? Did you even have a baby that died?”
I mumble something about needing to go and hang up. Then I turn on the television. On Good Morning America, a reporter says the name Eloise Ambrose, and then there is footage of the Twin Towers aflame.
Shit. Molly.
I start to text her, but what can I say?
I have to see her. I reach for the jeans I was wearing yesterday and the first top I can find in my dresser. I shove my feet into sneakers and grab my purse and car keys, flying out of my building and down the stairs.
When I open the door, a wall of sound slams into me. “That’s her,” I hear, and a volley of questions land. Microphones are thrust toward me.
Shocked, I retreat and close the door, which locks behind me.
When you’ve spent twenty--five years trying to be invisible, stepping into the light feels like being an ant under a magnifying glass.
So I slink back to my apartment, and hide.
In the end I text Molly two words: I’m sorry.
She writes back immediately: Don’t go. Trust me.
I know she handles catastrophes for a living, but this one is surely unprecedented. When I fire off a message saying so, it stays unread. She has likely turned her phone off; eventually, I do the same with mine, tired of being barraged by calls from unknown numbers.
Quarantined in my apartment, I stay glued to the television.
Only one station—-local ABC—-has an interview with Chad, talking about how he’d known me at RISD and had attended the memorial service Evie organized for me in Central Park.
How stunned he was to realize I was alive.
How he couldn’t speculate about why I’d faked my death, especially since it was a slap in the face to the actual victims of that tragedy.
Now other networks have run with the story.
Journalists have managed to connect me to Dr. Mantillard’s office, and they have security camera footage of me walking Adie in her stroller, with Molly.
They’ve sussed out that Adam is remarried to Evie.
From there, it’s all speculation. On MS NOW, a psychiatrist with a severe black bob says, “It’s possible, of course, that she suffered physical or emotional trauma from the attack that led to an amnesiac episode.
She may not remember why or how she left Manhattan—-”
“Still.” She is interrupted by a pundit in a suit. “That doesn’t explain staying away for twenty--five years—-”
“Or has the family known her whereabouts all along?” another panelist asks.
I flip to CNN. “Opportunism, psychologically,” says a man with oversize horn--rimmed glasses, “is when people prioritize personal gain by taking advantage of a situation, often without thinking of the negative effects on others.”
“So it’s a personality disorder?” Anderson Cooper asks.
“Opportunism isn’t a disorder per se,” the man clarifies. “Although it’s a symptom of several—-narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder. “
On PBS NewsHour, Lisa Desjardins is interviewing a former FBI agent.
“You can’t blame the victims’ families for being frustrated,” he says.
“First came the 2024 discovery of evidence seized from Omar El Bayoumi that never made its way to the 9/11 Commission. Now families learn that the reported deceased may not actually have been dead. Such ineptitude, after a quarter of a century—-”
Again, I turn the channel. An anchor on Fox News is blaming my reappearance on Joe Biden.
On The View, Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg are reminiscing about 9/11. “I thought, Are they shooting some kind of movie?” Whoopi says. “And then I turned back around . . .”
Joy shakes her head. “I’ll tell you one thing. When this Eloise Ambrose finally talks, she’s going to have a hell of a tale to tell.”
Except, I don’t. All of these talking heads are partially correct (well, except for Fox News). I did take advantage of a single moment when time stopped. I didn’t remember much, because my mind was so tangled then. But I’m not the monster they are trying to make me out to be.
“The daughter is the chief of Emergency Preparedness in the state of Rhode Island,” Whoopi adds, and my stomach sinks. “You think she saw this coming?”
Laughter from the other hosts, from the studio audience. As if this is a joke to them.
I am about to turn off the television when a breaking news segment interrupts.
Standing at a podium with the chief of police of Providence is Adam—-dressed impeccably in a suit, commanding, collected.
This is not the husband I had known, but the expert witness who appears in courtrooms all over the country talking about structural engineering.
“My name is Adam Ambrose,” he begins, in a clear, strong voice.
“My wife Eloise Ambrose was a victim of the attacks on the Twin Towers on 9/11. She went to a doctor’s appointment there that morning, and she did not return home.
” He clears his throat. “We believed that, like so many others that day, Eloise had died. My daughter was only a few months old at the time, and she grew up without her biological mother. Eloise was declared dead by the state of New York, and we held a memorial. I moved out of the city, because being there was too hard. We spent a quarter of a century trying to heal from the scars of that attack.” He takes a deep breath.
“Several weeks ago, Eloise returned. To say it was a surprise would be a gross understatement.”