Chapter 15 Brown Pelican #2
were just like real life: All people did was bicker, drink coffee, and go to restaurants. I wished they were still on.
I had not imagined that I would be a mother of three before my thirtieth birthday; if I had imagined it at all, I thought
I would be freezing my eggs on the threshold of forty. Nelia was a Damiano in every feature, but Danny and Joey were both
fair-haired but otherwise so unalike in appearance that they would grow up to tell people that they were just good friends.
Unlike Nelia, the babies were good and learned how to sleep at night. The only aspect of being a new mother again that I didn’t
like was not enough presents. I still felt that Nelia’s unplanned conception had robbed me of my life’s allotment of crystal
wineglasses and candlesticks. Danny and Joey’s double-header debut cheated me out of a baby shower. They would be wearing
pink and yellow hand-me-downs until they could walk.
When the boys were eight weeks old, and Sam commenced his part of the parental leave, I finally called Fay and Claire. I did this against Sam’s wishes. He was fearful that I might somehow step into some weird trap, although he could not imagine what that might be.
When I texted them the photo, they were elated and they were frightened. They arrived two days later, on the first flight
they could book. Though they knew that their parents might never forgive them, they decided to hold off on telling two already
brokenhearted very old people that their lost daughter might still be alive. For who knew what might happen?
My mother and Claire were happily reunited. Claire had brought along Yuri, one of her sons, who was recovering from a small
but tricky dental surgery, and he got a kick out of seeing how he and his brother must have looked when they were baby twins.
This big kid who could dive into pools was a source of fascination for Nelia, who followed him around like a puppy, sweetly
offering him her Duplo blocks and her Beyoncé Barbie.
On the second day, my parents and Sam kept all the children so I could take Claire and Fay to Space Alley. It was massive
and lustrous and noisy. There must have been twenty servers. We ate our Fusion Falafel and Sputnik Sweet Potato Fries. I could
tell how impatient they were. Fay finally asked, “Which waitress was it?”
“I don’t know,” I told them. “I wasn’t here.”
“How are we going to find her then?”
All the young women looked the same, ponytailed milk-pale blondes, in the sunniest place in America.
“They’re like carhops,” Fay said. “Remember that fifties place Dad took us to when we were kids, where you ate in your car
and the carhops were girls on roller skates? How did they carry big trays of burgers and shakes on roller skates?”
Claire said, “That was right around here.”
Finally, I asked for the manager. When the woman approached, I said in a rush, “We’re looking for someone who comes in here a lot, an old friend, she’s a teacher at the middle school, Ruth Wild?
I mean, Ruth Copeland?” Some old friend, I thought.
“We haven’t seen her since she moved here and we wanted to surprise her. ”
“I know exactly who you mean,” the manager told us. “But I don’t know where she lives. Maybe you should ask at the middle
school.”
Claire and Fay stared at me, and I thought, Yep, just good investigative reporting!
“Is that far?” I asked. There had to be more than one middle school.
“About four blocks that way,” the manager said.
On the way, we detoured to drive past the house where all of them grew up.
Fay said, “That was our room at the front on the second floor. It was a huge room, that went across the whole front of the
house, with all these windows. Three beds, three closets, and our own bathroom. I have enough space to give my boys their
own rooms, but I want them to share because it’s better, you know? It makes you grow up closer to the only person who’ll know
you all your life.”
“Imagine having siblings who weren’t your friends,” Claire put in. “Not that we always got along! I still have a bald spot
the size of my pinky nail where Ruth pulled my hair out by the roots!”
Nell and I had separate rooms, but when she was little, she ended up every night in my bed. We’d experienced that rare thing,
a happy childhood. Apparently, so had the Copeland sisters.
“She was a firecracker,” Claire said softly. Each in her own way, we meditated on Ruth and what had broken her.
The middle school parking lot was packed.
The parking space we finally found was three blocks away at the abandoned showroom of a furrier, with a ballroom dance studio on the second floor, a reminder that, however odd Florida was now, it had once been even odder, a sort of private club for the wealthy and oblivious.
I was glad of the short walk, to summon my nerve.
When we rang the buzzer and a voice asked if we had an appointment, I was able to say that yes, we had a meeting with Mrs. Copeland.
Inside, we followed a labyrinthine path to the office, green walls inexpertly adorned with daisies, porpoises, and peace signs.
Claire and Fay sat down on a bench to wait while I, armed with my phone with the photo of Ruth, stood in line behind some
burly students for my turn at the counter. Just as I got there, the secretary told me to wait, she would be right back, and
disappeared into one of the glassed-in rooms that flanked the main space. When I turned to wave to Fay and Claire, to signal
that I would be a moment, I saw her. She had come into the office and was standing just to my left, writing something in a
huge ring binder that lay open on the surface.
I said, “Ruth?”
When she looked at me, I could tell that she was about to turn around and run away. Then her shoulders sagged. She said, “Reenie.
How did you know to come here?”
“My parents saw you at that space restaurant, that big diner.”
“How did your parents know to look for me there?”
“They were just having brunch, Ruth! They weren’t looking for you! My folks have a place in Cocoa Beach now. But, Ruth, your
sisters are here, right out there in the hall on that bench. They’ve been crazy worried about you. Your parents are so worried
about you. Do you know that Felicity is in prison?”
“Not here,” Ruth said. “Bring them around to the back entrance, down by the art rooms, and I’ll meet you there.”
“How do I know that you won’t just take off?”
“Why would I tell you to go downstairs to the art rooms if I was going to just take off?”
“So you could take off quicker while we were stumbling around looking for the art rooms.”
“I won’t,” she said. “You’d just find me again.”
I still did not believe her.
“We can’t just wander the school without permission, Ruth.” I was proud of that inspiration. “I’ll wait on the bench with
your sisters.” I left the office and sat down, not replying to Claire and Fay’s urgent fusillade of questions. I watched Ruth
through the glass window of the office as she completed whatever note she’d been making in that binder. I saw as she hesitated,
glancing around her as if looking for the emergency exit. Then she walked out into the hall.
Claire cried, “Ruthie!” and rushed to her. Fay followed. Enclosed by those familiar arms, Ruth visibly allowed herself a moment
of relief.
Then she said, “We’ll go down into the sculpture studio. It’s deserted. Nobody wants to pay for art anymore, so they stopped
the program. It’s quiet down there. We can talk.”
We sat on high metal stools. There was a primitive-looking coffee station and a refrigerator. Ruth brought us cardboard cups
of vile coffee with chemical sweetener. She reached into the fridge and took out a carton of apple juice and poured some into
a cup for herself. No one knew how to begin.
Fay finally said, “We love you. We were afraid you were dead. I’m furious. I’m hurt. I don’t want to waste time being upset
but, Ruthie, how could you do this to us? And to Mom and Dad?”
Claire added, “And to Felicity? You weren’t even there, Ruth. Do you know that Felicity is in prison now? Do you know she
was convicted?”
Ruth didn’t even glance at either sister, much less answer. She stared at the wall behind Claire’s head. Whatever it was that
Ruth was seeing, I hoped I would never see anything like it. Still without moving her eyes, she said to me, “Did you tell
people where I am?”
“Just these people,” I said, gesturing to her sisters. “And of course, my parents.”
“Well, I suppose they told people.” Her voice was harsh, almost sarcastic. It surprised me.
“I don’t think they did, Ruth. There would be no reason for them to do that. They were just concerned, the way you would be
for a friend. And your sisters were so scared that they called the police.”
Ruth said, “Why?”
“Because they love you, that’s why. And they love Felicity, no matter what. They think that there’s been a terrible mistake.”
Ruth says, “There has. This is all my fault.”
Fay put her arms around Ruth, who still didn’t look at her sister. “Don’t go overboard, Ruthie. This is not your fault. You’re
a great mother. You always were.”
“I’m not.”
“You are,” said Fay. “And you don’t have to tell us why you took off if you don’t want to.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I did,” Ruth said. “Trust me.”
Fay continued, “You need to come home now, Ruthie. See Mom and Dad. If you’re sick, we’ll take care of you. You have nothing
to be afraid of.”
“I have everything to be afraid of. I can’t ever go back there . . .”
Claire finally lost it. “For god’s sake, Ruthie! What the hell is going on? Is this all about Roman and his bullshit? Is it
about his new wife? What’s her name? Faith? Is she so faithful and virtuous that she got involved with a married man, and
a minister at that? When he wasn’t even divorced? How is any of that your fault, Ruth?”
“He called her a harlot,” Ruth said.
“I don’t know if she’s a harlot but she’s not exactly a great role model of—”
“Not the new wife.”
“What?”
“He called Felicity a harlot.”