The Lost Daughter Page 5

  “Thanks for coming in,” Sean began, unlocking it. “Sorry to keep you late.”

  Clyde was Brooke’s age, about four years younger than Sean. Sean knew this fact only because when Clyde first came onto the floor, he tried to get to know him a little and found out he grew up in Windermere, the little town in western Pennsylvania where Brooke came from. Yeah, Clyde had said, he knew Brooke, they graduated the same year. But he didn’t know her that well. It was a big regional high school, he said, and they didn’t run with the same crowd.

  The subject had not come up since. Sean thought of it now, as he flicked on the fluorescent light and moved behind his desk, only because Clyde looked so much older than Brooke. Meth, or whatever he was on, had dried and cracked his skin, so even with a full head of shaggy brown hair he looked like a preview of the old man he’d be. “Cut to the chase, man,” Clyde said. His gaze darted around the office. “If it’s about last Friday, I can explain.”

  “It’s not about Friday.”

  “Okay. Shit. I’m sitting down. Mind?”

  “Please.” Sean motioned to the dinette chair. As soon as he sat, Clyde began picking at a bit of loose vinyl. “How are things on the floor?”

  Clyde narrowed his eyes. He studied Sean. Though he was a much bigger guy than Sean, he looked thin in the arms. Sean wasn’t in the best shape of his life, but he worked out twice a week. What was he thinking? A new shift was coming on. This guy wasn’t going to tackle him. “What’s this about?” Clyde asked.

  Sean sighed. He looked down at the floor. “Can’t be news to you,” he said, “that business isn’t great.”

  “Oh shit. Shit!” Clyde was on his feet. He kicked the dinette chair into the corner, the hollow metal legs clattering. Sean felt his stomach clench. “I knew it,” Clyde said, not looking at him. “I fucking knew I was going to get canned today. I shouldn’t of come in. Fuck.”

  “Clyde, it wouldn’t have mattered if you’d called in sick—”

  “You planned it, didn’t you?” Clyde turned back to the desk, where he planted his fists and leaned on them. “You and stick-up-his-ass Larry.”

  “Clyde, I’m not in charge of staffing or layoffs. You know that. Larry gets together with the accountants and I get my orders.”

  “So you’re just doing your job.”

  Sean reminded himself to breathe. “That’s right.”

  “Heil Hitler!” Clyde put an index finger under his nose and shot out the other arm in a Nazi salute. “But the commandant isn’t getting rid of you, is he?”

  “Not yet.” Sean had known this would be difficult. Counting Seymour and now Clyde, he’d had to lay off eight guys in the past nine months. He’d seen one man go down on his knees, and another bolt out the door and disappear, to collect his paperwork by mail. He knew Clyde would be one of the thornier ones. Yet as far as he knew, the guy didn’t have a wife or kids, and he was young enough to shift fields. Sean couldn’t waste too much pity on a guy who did whatever Clyde did in the bathroom three times a day. “We’re all vulnerable,” he added.

  “Oh yeah, right,” Clyde said. He rolled his eyes. “You got your very own blond shield,” he went on, “so I guess you can talk for now.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Sean wanted to stand up. Clyde was leaning over him, threatening authority with size. But a confrontation wasn’t going to move this along.

  Ostentatiously Clyde shrugged. He pushed away from Sean’s desk. “You’re hitched to a member of the ruling class, man,” he said. “Don’t forget, I’ve seen how that works.”

  “Are you talking about my wife?” Sean did stand now. He went to check through the window. The shift was getting into place. Time to finish up, not get distracted by this loser’s insults. “This is not personal, Clyde. Let’s not bring in personal stuff.”

  “I know Brooke, remember?” Clyde said. “Shit, I tried to date her once. Mostly for my old man’s sake. Not that she wasn’t hot. But when you see what a little influence can do—”

  “You’re blowing steam. Brooke hasn’t even got family in Connecticut.”

  “When they say the apple doesn’t fall far, they don’t mean mileage. This guy she used to be with?”

  “You mean in Windermere? Long ago and far away, Clyde.”

  “You should of seen how his dad made out. You know her family ran the quarry, biggest deal in town—”

  “Brooke’s father is dead. Okay?” Sean returned to his desk. Holding out the manila folder, his hand shook. This guy she used to be with. “And I was part of this outfit before I even met her.”

  “I’m saying she knows how the system works, right?” Clyde smiled strategically. “Easier to go up the ladder with a boost. This guy Alex, he probably thought the same.”

  “There’s no Alex here. Look, Clyde, take this package. If you have any questions—”

  “But you know, she iced him anyhow. They were like the perfect couple. I mean, they were tight.” Clyde pressed his fists together. “Then boom.” The fists flew apart. “After graduation she just breaks up with the guy. Like that. Heart of ice. And Alex was like the soccer star and everything, but he just took off. And his dad—well, you don’t want to know.”

  Larry Dobson was on the interstate by now. Sean could move to the phone and call the local cops, or he could wait Clyde out. Easier to give the guy his hot air for a minute. “What’s this got to do with you, Clyde?” he asked mildly, setting the manila folder on the edge of the desk for Clyde to take. “Or with me?”

  “I’m just saying.” Clyde’s eyes prowled back and forth. “If I could of had her, I would of. Fuck the consequences. But you don’t want to depend on the influence. She drops people, you know?” He pressed thumb and forefinger together, then released them, as if releasing a tiny, clinging hand. “People kill themselves over shit like that.”

  He was jacked up, Sean reminded himself. Getting his digs in. Nothing more. “You don’t know my family,” Sean said. “Now it’s time for you to go.”

  “This guy Alex, I’m telling you. His dad—you know, she looks good, but—”

  Sean had opened the door. He pressed his lips together. Clyde’s voice trailed off. Sean did not look at him. Finally Clyde picked up his folder and marched out through the shop, flipping the bird as he went, whistling a tune that was quickly lost in the hiss of the presses.

  To his surprise, as he shut the door and straightened the dinette chair, Sean found himself in a cold sweat. He sank into his own chair behind the desk; tipped it back; shut his eyes. It was awful, this fucking economy, but he couldn’t be sorry Clyde was gone. He couldn’t remember hiring the guy, except that he’d had some experience and there was the weird coincidence of his knowing Brooke. Now Clyde had done this sad, sick thing, dredging the muddy hole of his brain for something he could use to hurt Sean on his way out. He was going to have to ask Brooke about this coffee thing; he’d have static electricity in his brain until he did. Christ, he should have opened the door and booted the guy as soon as Brooke’s name passed his lips. But there was Larry, always quaking in his wingtips about lawsuits, so Sean tried to ease people out, listen to them, take some of their shit.

  He should go. Meghan would be done with her class, waiting for her daddy. He’d take her for ice cream; they’d sit at the picnic table outside the creamery, licking their cones, and she’d tell him all the travails of summer camp. But he stayed in the chair, his eyes shut. He’d never heard about this Alex guy before. He’d met Brooke when he and Gerry and Danny went on a half-assed camping trip in the Adirondacks, nine years ago, the weekend before Gerry got hitched. There was a big nursery right by the first campsite, and he’d gone there to ask about trees—Kate had grown up by an orchard, and Sean had this idea of giving the newlyweds an apple tree for a wedding present. There had been Brooke, an angel in denim and straw hat. She’d talked him out of the apple and into a lemon that they could grow indoors in the condo. She’d ended up coming back to the campsite with a map, to show them all
the best trails. The next day he’d let Gerry and Danny tackle Old Man Peak alone and taken Brooke out to lunch. She was so calm, he remembered, not like his family with all their loves and hates bubbling over like water in a pot. Her smile had an edge of sadness that he took for wisdom, especially when he learned that she hadn’t gone to some fancy university but only the local community college, so what felt like braininess had to be something else. After the wedding he’d come back for a week, staying in the tent by himself until he talked her into bringing him back to her place, a cheap duplex where she lived alone. There wasn’t any guy named Alex then; she’d never mentioned such a guy. They’d talked about old flames. Hers had been in high school mostly. He’d gotten pretty serious about one of the altos in the chorale, but that had ended six months earlier. The only thing that had ever made him suspicious was the simple fact that this elegant, lovely, smart, kind woman could give a shit about a run-of-the-mill guy like him.

  They’d gone hiking, just the two of them, that week when he came back. On an overlook, he’d launched into “Lonesome Valley,” and she’d said she had never heard such a sweet voice. Later she told him that was the moment she fell in love with him. She said the music lit him like a flame. He believed her. That was how he felt, when he let his voice go—like a flame rose up inside him. But maybe a flame like that flickered out, for a woman like Brooke. Once upon a time she thought this Alex was all lit up, too. Christ, why’d he let a loser like Clyde get inside his head?

  Sean’s cell phone rang. Brooke. Grabbing his keys, he hauled himself out of the chair and left the office. “I’m on my way to get Meghan,” he said when he finally answered. He stood in the bright sunshine outside the building. “I got held up at work. I should be there on time.”

  “I know you will,” she said. “I just wanted to say hi.”

  “Well, hi.” He unlocked his car, an old black Beetle the guys at work teased him about. The parking lot was clear, Clyde’s car gone. “How’s your—your date going?”

  “I’m back at work. It was nice to catch up, though. Meghan says she doesn’t like ballet anymore.” Brooke sighed. As he started the rasping engine, Sean strained for something in his wife’s voice that would either put some legs on his uneasy feelings or dispel them. “I told her she has to stick it out.”

  “Right.” Sean kept the phone to his ear as he pulled onto Homestead Avenue. Brooke didn’t usually call during the day, especially not during the nursery’s high season. Only she’d been with this friend, and was changed.

  “When I get home,” Brooke said, “let’s talk. Okay?”

  “CD Pyg,” Sean said, knowing she’d like it. He tucked the phone away. His heart was racing. Fear, or hope? Either way, a drink would sure help. But he shook off that desire, along with the day’s ugly confrontation, and went to fetch his daughter.

  Chapter 3

  Everyone at the nursery agreed: Lorenzo had a complete crush on Brooke O’Connor. Given what Brooke had managed, no one blamed him. He never acted on it; he just stood by the window in the flower shop, watching her mulch and prune, water and spritz. Brooke was what you called a treasure. If she hadn’t accepted Lorenzo’s lousy minimum-wage offer seven years ago, the nursery would have gone under by now. As it was, they had a half dozen commercial accounts. And the ladies from Simsbury couldn’t get enough of Brooke’s advice, Brooke’s landscaping skills, Brooke’s garden with the elderflower iced tea she made from the plot of herbs she tended behind the potting shed.

  Aside from her gardening skills, the dozen employees at Lorenzo’s knew only two things, really, about Brooke, and they were the same things they came to know within days of meeting her. She was pretty, and she was kind. When they asked her if she grew up in Hartford, she shook her head and said, “But I’ve been here a while.” When they asked if she’d studied horticulture, she said, “It’s just something I fell into.” When talk turned to politics or current events, she used worn phrases like, “It’s a shame” or “What can you do?” As Rob, the guy who oversaw the commercial accounts said, you would think her stupid if you hadn’t seen what a genius she was. This description was passed on to Brooke by Shanita Brown, who worked in the garden shop and was closer to her than anyone else at Lorenzo’s.

  “Which is not,” Shanita had added just a few days ago, “saying much.”

  “You know everything about me worth knowing, Shanita,” Brooke had said, and flashed her a smile.

  “Uh-huh.” Shanita was clipping away at the box hedge around the perennials. Tiny and fierce, her dreadlocks pulled back in a scarf and her skin turned dark coffee by midsummer, she had started at Lorenzo’s when she came out of rehab and her two kids were in foster care. That was four years ago. After a year, Brooke had persuaded Lorenzo to let the kids play in the garden after day care, and Shanita had come full time. She still had boyfriend problems, but she was on birth control and sticking to it. “One thing you do learn from hustling,” Shanita said, her clippers fast as hummingbirds, “is how to read people. The folks that are hiding something? You don’t push them. You let them come to you.” She dropped her right arm and straightened. She wiped a hand across her sweating brow. “Far as anyone round here knows,” she said, gesturing to the five acres of Lorenzo’s south Hartford estate, “Brooke O’Connor got no past before she walked in here first time. I know different, and you know I know different. One of these days, when you need to, you going to trust me with it.”

  “You bet I am. How’s Dillon’s arm?”

  “Oh, he broke it right enough. Damn fool, climbing trees.” Shanita went back to clipping. Brooke’s muscles relaxed. Shanita had seen most of the underbelly of human nature. Nothing Brooke could tell her would cut the tie forged when Brooke found a way to bring her kids to Lorenzo’s. But what was the point of sharing old sins that made no difference now? Sometimes Brooke thought fondly of the woman she might have become—sprightly and funny and smart, oh so smart, with as many kids as she wanted—as if that woman were someone she’d known and hoped wistfully to meet again. Meanwhile the weight of her past kept her steady, moving forward, glad for the light of each day that brought no retribution for what was five years past; then ten; then fifteen. Only recently, with Sean begging incessantly for a second child, had she felt each step like a sinking into quicksand.

  Today, though, she thought maybe she’d found a solution. Late in the morning she was cleaning up the last of the damage done to Lorenzo’s Garden while Shanita’s kids tumbled around the climbing structure. Suddenly there were a couple of new kids, giggling as they swooped down the slide. “Are they okay here for a sec?” a woman asked as Brooke turned away from the dahlias.

  “So long as they don’t leave this area,” Brooke said. She glanced at the children—Asian girls, both of them, looking like twins but also looking nothing like their freckled mother. “Sweet,” she said.

  “Aren’t they? We planned to adopt just one, but these two were inseparable, even as toddlers.”

  “Aren’t they sisters?”

  The woman smiled. “Now they are,” she said. “I’ll be just a sec.”

  Brooke loved children. She loved Meghan past all reason. When Sean asked if she didn’t want a second child, if she didn’t want to jump on that merry-go-round again, she felt her capacity for love like an ache. But she dreaded giving birth. She could not explain to Sean why the idea terrified her. Every time she thought of another pregnancy, she felt a tornado moving straight at her, fast and relentless. Sometimes she had to watch her breathing, to stave off what might be seen as a panic attack. She ought to see someone about it, she counseled herself, and by “someone” she knew she meant a shrink. But she couldn’t see a shrink. Shrinks were like the gardeners of history. They delved into your past with words as their spades. So tell me, the shrinks would say—raking, digging—why you’re meeting this man today? Alex? Any connection to these thoughts of pregnancy?

  Get out of my garden, she would tell them.

  Finishing up her task, she
kept half an eye on the girls, who were quickly bossing Dillon and his brother, Charles. Shooing away the invisible shrinks, she thought: Adoption. Of course. Plenty of people adopted. They didn’t even have to look as far as China. There were babies in Central America looking for a home, babies in eastern Europe. Sean’s family had its share of bigots, but Sean wasn’t among them. It would make sense to anyone who asked. Brooke had had trouble with her first pregnancy; people would understand that she had reason to be concerned.

  But this man you’re meeting, the shrinks would begin. Shoo, she would tell them.

  “The other day,” she said to Shanita over lunch, “I was picking up Meghan, right? And this Jewish dad picked up his daughter who looked—I don’t know, Mayan or something. Straight hair, black eyes. He scooped her into a bear hug. She was his daughter, plain and simple. Shanita?”

  She snapped her fingers in front of her friend’s glazed eyes. Shanita’s head jerked up. “That’s my name.”

  “What do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “Adoption.”

  Shanita gave her a long look. “You mean like Madonna, swooping down on Africa to get her toys?” she said at last. “I think that is disgusting.”

  “No, I mean normal adoption. Like of a Chinese girl, or—or I don’t know, a baby needing a family. You think parents feel the same way toward their adopted kids?”

  “Brooke, baby, you asking the wrong person. Fought tooth and nail to keep my kids from being adopted. Why you ask?”

  “I’m thinking about it. How it might work. For Sean and me.”

  Shanita packed up her sandwich. Her face had darkened to pitch. She leaned across the table and repeated, “You’re thinking about it.”

  “Sure. Lots of people make a family that way, Shanita.”

  “You thinking up here.” Shanita pressed her finger suddenly into Brooke’s temple. Brooke’s eyes teared up with shock. “But ain’t nothing happening here.” She removed the finger and grabbed at Brooke’s rib cage, just under her left breast. Brooke pulled away. A fat tear rolled, uninvited, down her cheek. She felt the imprint of Shanita’s hand on her heart.