Chapter 18
When Ruth hung up the phone, she wrapped her arms around her knees and lay back on the bed, watching the shadows and sunlight perform a little dance through the curtains and across the opposite wall.
From the sounds of things, Mallory and Isaac were hanging out downstairs, watching television and making something with the blender.
If Ruth was their age, with all the money at their disposal, she imagined there would be no end to the elaborate smoothies she would make.
She’d throw anything into the blender just to see what happened. Fruit. Crackers. Chocolates. Whatever.
Ruth remembered that Sloane had often done the same.
Being a teenager with countless obligations, sports teams, and academic pressures, Sloane had always been looking for ways to rejuvenate her mind, if only so she could work harder and sleep less.
“There’s no replacement for sleep,” Ruth had told her.
But Sloane had never liked to listen to her mother.
“Nobody likes to listen to their mother,” Ruth muttered to herself now, so many years too late, blinking back tears.
Now that she was staying in Landon and Celia’s place, Ruth was reflective and sorrowful.
For two months, she’d been hiding out at the Eco-Lodge, being careful and guarded.
Now, Quentin had hunted her down. And there was nothing Ruth could do about it but wait till Quentin backed off—or she and Sophie figured out a way to blackmail the Caldwecks and force them away.
And demand that they do what she’d come here to witness.
Demand of them what she was owed after what they’d done.
Late at night, Ruth was often forced to acknowledge how weak her plan was. Was this really the best she could come up with? She wasn’t entirely sure.
It was hard to believe it had been so long since she’d held Sloane in her arms, since she’d whispered sweet dreams and closed the bedroom door, willing her daughter to sleep. A shudder went through her. “Sloane,” she murmured to the shadowy room. “Sloane, please. Please, forgive me.”
But she didn’t know exactly what she wanted Sloane to forgive her for. For not protecting her? For not ensuring that Sloane fully understood what she was getting herself into?
Ruth remembered the day she’d dropped Sloane off at Yale like it was yesterday.
She remembered seeing Ren and his daughter—a near-identical version of Sloane—standing on the corner.
It was clear Ren was at Yale to drop off his daughter for her first semester.
Somehow, whoever he'd been with during Christmas of 2002 had also gotten pregnant around then and had a daughter who almost precisely looked like Ruth’s.
What were the chances?
Driving back to Manhattan, Ruth worked herself into a panic.
What if Ren’s daughter and Sloane encountered one another on campus?
What if Sloane called Ruth and demanded answers about her father, about who she really was?
Ruth tried and failed to come up with an explanation.
Back in the apartment she’d shared with her daughter since she was a toddler, Ruth paced up and down the hallways and back and forth in her study, willing herself not to call Sloane and panic.
Sloane was in the midst of her first night at college.
Ruth didn’t want to pull her away from making new friendships.
Although maybe she should have known better, Ruth expected Sloane to call home, if not that first night, then the second or third.
Ruth spent the majority of her nights at home that week, waiting for that call.
Every time the phone rang, it was someone else.
It felt like a curse. It was then that Ruth remembered how she’d been when she’d first gotten to Yale, how it had taken her forever to call her mother and explain to her where she was.
The difference was, of course, that Ruth’s mother hadn’t cared where she was.
She hadn’t known enough to honor Ruth’s prestigious new standing in the world. Slowly but surely, they’d lost touch.
Sloane could not lose touch with me, Ruth thought now, sweat burning on her neck.
But when Ruth finally got up the nerve to call Sloane—on day four of her college career—whoever answered it in Sloane’s dorm hall explained that Sloane wasn’t there.
“I think she’s at an orientation thing,” the girl explained before hanging up. She sounded flippant.
Ruth realized she sounded like an overly worried, overly aged mother.
Growing increasingly panicked, Ruth finally willed herself to call Dina.
However, she and her college friends had grown distant over the years.
Since Sloane’s graduation and admission to Yale, Ruth and her friends had tiptoed their way back into some kind of relationship. Dina answered on the third ring.
Ruth asked Dina if she could meet for a drink.
“I’m wrapping things up at the office,” Dina explained. “I’d love one.”
Ruth sped out to a little cocktail bar not far from Dina’s law office.
Sometimes it boggled her mind that Dina had such a prestigious career in law, especially given how silly she’d often been back at Yale.
But then again, Dina had always had a brilliant mind.
She’d just also known how to live, maybe in ways Ruth hadn’t.
It didn’t take long for Ruth to explain what was wrong. “Ren Caldweck’s daughter,” she sobbed over her cocktail. “I’m terrified, every day, that the two girls will discover each other.”
Dina held her while she cried, stroking her hair.
“Maybe I did the wrong thing,” Ruth breathed. “Maybe I should have told Sloane from the beginning who her father was and why it matters that we’re not in the Caldwecks’ lives. I left too much up to chance.”
Dina furrowed her brow. “I think Sloane needs a little space. You’ve had an intense mother-daughter relationship from the very beginning.
You’ve given her everything. But she’s brilliant, Ruth.
She’s smart enough to put a few pieces together, sure.
And if Ren’s daughter looks so similar to her, I’m sure she’ll have plenty of questions.
But that won’t negate her love for you.”
Ruth’s heart swelled with longing. She wasn’t sure if Dina was right.
Eventually, Sloane called. It was a week and a half after move-in, and Ruth was desperate for answers.
But Sloane kept to the bullet points of her college career.
She talked about her professors and how at least two of Ruth’s previous professors had asked Sloane about Ruth.
“Your reputation precedes you, Mama,” Sloane joked.
Ruth was too terrified to ask anything about Ren’s daughter. She kept to the bullet points, too.
Mid-October was parents’ weekend. Ruth made arrangements to drive to New Haven.
In her car, she packed all of Sloane’s favorite Manhattan goodies, including the bagels she used to be addicted to and the cookies she said she was craving.
During the beautiful drive, Ruth gazed at the cerulean October sky above and thanked her lucky stars.
Sloane still hadn’t mentioned Ren’s daughter.
Maybe the two of them hadn’t figured it out after all.
Ruth wasn’t sure what had made her so naive.
When Ruth reached Yale’s campus, she parked in a brand-new lot near Sloane’s dorm, then hauled her bag out of the trunk and hurried to meet Sloane.
Around her were other parents, husbands and wives bickering about innocuous things.
Ruth was grateful not to have a husband to hold her back.
She was grateful that she could keep her heart and mind focused on Sloane.
At Sloane’s dormitory, Ruth checked herself in at the front desk, then went to the third floor and down the hall to Sloane’s room.
They’d initially said they would meet in the foyer at three, but Ruth was about a half hour early and eager to surprise her daughter.
She was happy to see Sloane’s bedroom door cracked open, proof that she was social and always willing to make new friends.
Right before Ruth knocked, she heard Sloane’s voice and two other female voices.
They were talking about something—a literature class, Ruth thought.
They were talking about Moby Dick, one of Ruth’s favorites.
She and Sloane had had a reading club when Sloane was twelve, and they’d read it together, discussing each chapter in-depth.
It had been one of the most beautiful situations in Ruth’s life.
“Wait, you read Moby Dick when you were twelve?” one of the girls asked now, yanking Ruth from her reverie.
“My mom’s obsessed with it,” Sloane explained.
Ruth’s heart dropped a little. Rather than wait for her daughter to say something ill about her, Ruth knocked so hard that her knuckles stung.
“Come in?” Frankie, Sloane’s roommate, called.
Ruth cracked the door wider, smiling in at Sloane, who sat on her bed with a book spread across her thighs. On the opposite side of the room was Frankie, her roommate. And sitting on a bean bag between them was a girl who Ruth would have recognized anywhere.
Her heart split open.
It was Ren’s daughter. It was Sloane’s twin.
“Mom, hi!” Sloane popped up and hurried over to hug her.
Ruth tried to embrace her daughter’s warmth.
She tried to remind herself that she’d been waiting for this for nearly two months.
But she couldn’t help but stare at the girl on the beanbag, sitting cross-legged and giving Ruth a self-serious, stern look, one that said, "You can’t fool me. " I’m a Caldweck.
Ruth’s mind spun into overdrive. Of course Sloane and Ren’s daughter had met.
Of course they’d grown closer, trying to figure out why they looked so similar.
Ruth cursed the Caldweck genes for being so strong.
If only Sloane looked a little more like Ruth.
If only she didn’t wear her father’s face, just as this girl wore Ren’s.