The Lost Daughter Read online

  Acclaim for the work of Lucy Ferriss

  “The Lost Daughter delivers the goods: flawed but sympathetic characters and a plot that will keep readers turning the pages voraciously. From its harrowing prologue to its final sentences, I was emotionally engaged with this fine novel. Ferriss is a masterful storyteller.”

  —Wally Lamb, New York Times bestselling author of

  She’s Come Undone and The Hour I First Believed

  “This achingly beautiful novel about marriage and love, pulsing with complex life, is the work of a master American realist, up there with Richard Yates or anyone else. With spellbinding attentiveness and intimacy it explores what a husband and wife can be sure they know about each other but also, in prose wearing night-vision glasses, the inaccessible places where the hidden past lies threateningly coiled, and which love must also find a way to reach.”

  —Francisco Goldman, author of Say Her Name

  “In her well-crafted novel, Ferriss considers the tender moments that shape our choices and challenge our most sacred bonds. Her story reminds us how vulnerable our destinies are to the mistakes of our pasts.”

  —Elizabeth Brundage, author of A Stranger Like You and The Doctor’s Wife

  “In The Lost Daughter, Lucy Ferriss has crafted a moving tale of sin and redemption, motherhood and second chances, that is sure to touch the reader’s heart. This is a plot fully loaded, with flawed, compelling characters, in whom we recognize our best dreams of ourselves.”

  —Eric Goodman, author of Twelfth and Race and

  Child of My Right Hand

  “Ah, motherhood—who can know your bliss, your ache, your secrets? Lucy Ferriss knows and tells in this fast-paced, engrossing, and sometimes gruesome tale of mothers and daughters who are not what anyone expected.”

  —Deb Olin Unferth, author of Vacation and Revolution:

  The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War

  “Lucy Ferriss holds a mirror to today’s headlines, smashes it, and turns the splintered shards into a tension-filled, beautifully written story of the moment, when a deadly secret takes on a life of its own.”

  —Mary-Ann Tirone Smith, author of Girls of Tender Age

  “A hugely affecting meditation on the fragility of even the strongest bonds, when it comes to marriage…a beautifully constructed and moving novel.”

  —Jim Shepard, author of You Think That’s Bad

  “The Lost Daughter is an intelligent, entertaining, and deeply moving book about three courageous people who think they have escaped the past—‘with its small-town gossip and strip malls and mistakes’—only to find that they are still deeply entangled with it and with each other. This is my favorite of Lucy Ferriss’s novels and I read it with great pleasure.”

  —Molly Giles, author of Iron Shoes and Creek Walk

  “This is the voice of a major writer.”

  —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  “Ferriss precisely traces the evolution of feeling.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Tough, grave, and sweet…a book that will stay with me for a long time.”

  —Lee Smith, author of Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger

  “Beautiful…sympathetic, well-defined characters.”

  —The Advocate

  “Sad and soaring and sexy,…lyrical, honest prose.”

  —Susan Straight, author of Take One Candle Light a Room

  “Bittersweet but often laugh-out-loud funny.”

  —ForeWord

  “Sharp humor and dazzling writing…one of the best books of the year, period.”

  —St. Louis Riverfront Times

  “Thought-provoking and disturbing…subtle and original.”

  —Contra Costa Times

  “If in this novel Ferriss makes you think, she will also make you feel.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Elegant and fearless.”

  —Mark Winegardner, author of Crooked River Burning

  “Ferriss’s strength as an author is her uncanny ability to layer so many emotions in her fiction.… This is a beautifully written collection, worthy of winning a prize.”

  —St. Paul Pioneer Press

  “A powerful, painful book.”

  —Frederick Busch, author of Rescue Missions

  “A gripping coming-of-age story…dense and richly evocative.”

  —The Washington Times

  “A complex, satisfying work.”

  —Ms.

  “A beautiful novel about family and love, from one of the best writers around.”

  —Oscar Hijuelos, author of Beautiful Maria of My Soul

  “Ferriss writes with mesmerizing power and confidence. Her characters throb with life, and her story takes turns that alternately fire and chill the blood.”

  —Knight Ridder

  “Tight, cleanly structured, and polished…The author’s voice is intelligent and her analysis shrewd.…Interiors—the parts that matter—are brilliantly drawn, and the prose itself is often superb.”

  —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  THE LOST DAUGHTER

  Lucy Ferriss

  BERKLEY BOOKS. NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  Lines from “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” are taken from Harmonium by Wallace Stevens. Lines from

  “The Disquieting Muses” are taken from The Collected Poems © Sylvia Plath and reprinted by permission of Faber

  and Faber Ltd. Lines from “Daddy” are taken from Ariel by Sylvia Plath © Ted Hughes and reprinted by permission of

  Faber and Faber Ltd. Lines from “Nature the Gentlest

  Mother Is” are by Emily Dickinson.

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s

  imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business

  establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over

  and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2012 by Lucy Ferriss.

  “Readers Guide” copyright © 2012 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Cover photograph copyright © by Irene Lamprakou / Arcangel Images. Cover design by Lesley Worrell.

  Interior text design by Laura K. Corless.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or

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piracy of

  copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley trade paperback edition / February 2012

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Ferriss, Lucy, 1954–

  The lost daughter / Lucy Ferriss. — Berkley trade paperback ed.

  p. cm.

  EISBN: 9781101560167

  1. Marriage—Fiction. 2. Family secrets—Fiction. 3. Triangles (Interpersonal relations)—

  Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3556.E754L67 2012

  813’.54—dc23

  2011023502

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Don

  Many believers breathed life into the sparks of this story. Fellow writers Eric Goodman and Irene Papoulis helped keep the fire burning. Al Zuckerman, my agent, gave his immense vitality and insight to the forging of characters and their all-too-human actions. Don Moon kept seeing the possibilities in one glowing ember or another. The acumen of my editor, Jackie Cantor, along with copyeditor Amy Schneider, brought both light and warmth to the project. For help on issues of disability in school and in the family, I am grateful to Jeffrey Kittay, as well as to Jonathan Mooney’s The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal and Jane Bernstein’s Rachel in the World. I offer humble and enduring thanks to all.

  What seas what shores what granite islands towards my timbers

  And woodthrush calling through the fog

  My daughter.

  —T. S. Eliot, “Marina”

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Prologue

  1993

  Even as Brooke signed the guest register at the motel, she was trying to remember whose idea this had been. Alex had had fifty bucks in his wallet, and she’d had thirty-five, which she’d handed to him before they walked through the glass doors of the lobby. It was Alex who’d driven away from Daisy’s Kitchen, away from Windermere toward Scranton. It was Brooke who’d spotted the Econo Lodge sign. “We’ll just get to the room,” Alex had said when he parked the car, “and then we’ll have time to think.”

  There was an old box of Kleenex on the dash of his car. She’d shoved maybe a dozen tissues into her panties, and they were all soaked now, a warm wet load. At first she’d thought of telling Alex that sometimes nothing happened for a day or two after your water broke, but then the cramps had started, in the car, and she’d gritted her teeth and let him bring her here.

  The room was on the third floor, toward the back. “I told them,” Alex said in a stage whisper as he steered her down the dim hallway, “that we wanted quiet.”

  “Didn’t he think it was weird that we didn’t have luggage?”

  “Sure. He thinks we’re here to screw.”

  “Done that,” said Brooke feebly.

  “Here,” said Alex when he’d gotten the card key to work. “Just lie down. We’ll figure this out.”

  “I want a bath,” she said.

  “Bath? Oh, right. Bath. Warm bath. Coming up.” He was going around the room, flicking on lights. In their unnatural light his face looked bleached, almost powdery. Brooke wondered if he was going to faint. She sank to the edge of the bed. It felt like period cramps, only coming and going. Reaching between her legs, she scooped out the wet wad of Kleenex. Immediately there was a new rush of water. She stepped quickly to the bathroom, where Alex was kneeling by the shallow tub. Dumping the wad in the toilet, she grabbed a towel.

  “We’re going to make a mess,” she said, hearing her mother’s tone in her own voice.

  “We can’t think about that. We can’t think about that,” said Alex.

  “Why are you saying things twice?”

  “Because I’m nervous, all right? Because I don’t know if we should even be here. We oughta call someone, or get you to a hospital—”

  “Get me in the bath, first. Here, step out of the way.”

  He stepped away. When she gave him a look, he stepped out of the bathroom altogether. But he didn’t shut the door behind him, and she didn’t shut it in his face. A new cramp came. She caught herself on the edge of the sink and bit her lip. Then quickly she slid out of the jean jacket and oversized T-shirt and leggings, and stepped into the bath. There was blood on her legs now, like first-day period. She grabbed a washcloth from the metal rack over the toilet and slid down. Cramp. One, she counted, two three four five six. Up to twenty-five, then it slacked off. Gingerly she slid the washcloth between her legs, as if she were touching a wound. It felt the same, only the area above it lay heavier and lower than ever, a metal pot between her legs. Cramp. She shut her eyes, leaned back, counted.

  “Brooke? You okay?”

  “Yeah.” She sat up. She was in a sea of dark pink. God, oh God, the blood hadn’t stopped, the way it did when you had your period and took a bath.

  “You want to stay here, or go?”

  “Go where?” She pulled the plug and ran fresh water in.

  “You know. The hospital.”

  “Give me a minute, Lex.”

  “Are you in labor?”

  “A minute, I said.”

  Fresh water, another cramp. He knocked on the door, but her teeth were gritted. Finally she saw his head, poking in. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he said.

  “It’s what happens, Alex. I think.”

  “Don’t you fucking know?”

  “I thought it’d happen at three months, remember? When I’d finished drinking Isadora’s tea? She said it’d be like a big period.”

  “You want a doctor?” He came and knelt by the side of the white tub. He looked so young, his face wide open. Brooke felt the sweetness of the first time his face had hovered so close and she had kissed his mouth, drenched with desire.

  “I don’t know,” Brooke said. She began to weep. Overhead, the ceiling fan whirred; you couldn’t turn it off. She whispered, “Don’t cry, don’t cry,” aloud to herself, the way she did when she was alone.

  “Look, Brooke. This is what I think, okay?”

  “Okay. I’m listening.” She turned off the hot water and drew her knees up: another cramp.

  “Remember what I was saying, in the diner?”

  “Yeah. You wanted to go to your parents.”

  “No, I mean before.”

  “Look, Alex, could we not talk about that right now? I’m only six and a half months. This is a miscarriage I’m having, okay?”

  “Okay. Yeah, I guess okay. But I guess, I’m voting to stay here, you know? Since you’ve waited all this time and now it’s coming out. Only— Only—”

  Putting all her weight on her arms, Brooke lifted herself to standing. Her belly sagged between her hips. She grabbed two dinky towels and wrapped them around her waist and swollen breasts.

  “Only I don’t know what to do,” he finished. “To help.”

  “You can do just one thing,” Brooke said
. She made him meet her eyes. “Don’t get angry with me,” she said. “No matter what happens, or what I do. Don’t get pissed at me.”

  “Right,” said Alex, as if this were a real order that he could follow. He cupped the back of her head and drew her to his chest. Her arms slipped around his waist. For a moment they stood together in the bathroom, synchronizing their breaths.

  Then they stripped the covers off one of the beds. Alex laid the remaining towels on it. Climbing on, Brooke picked up the phone. “It’s not working,” she said, waving the receiver as if Alex could see a broken part.

  “Who cares?”

  “Me, who’s supposed to be home by four, that’s who.”

  “I think we need to give them a twenty-five-dollar deposit. I saw a sign.”

  “That’s a rip!”

  “They’re covering their butts. You get back what you don’t use.”

  “Have you got twenty-five bucks?”

  “I have thirty left over. We can call at four. If we’re still here.”

  With a clatter, Brooke dropped the receiver. She drew her knees up. Alex hung up the phone. “Breathe,” he told Brooke, who was clamping on her lower lip with her teeth. “Don’t hold it in.”

  “I’ve got to hold it in!” she exploded at him. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. There was a little blood on the towels, not much. “Have you any idea,” Brooke hissed, “how loud I could get?”

  “Pretty loud, I figure.” Alex reached a hand out to stroke her hair. Brooke’s face was white, gaunt like an old woman’s. “I don’t know what’s happening to you,” he said. “You have to tell me.”