by Emily Barr
I get out of the car, and open a can of Calm Iced Tea, lemon flavour. I am developing something of a taste for it. I’m parked at the end of the D’Angelos’ drive. There is nowhere to hide - no handy café over the road, no other houses around, and not even a hedge to screen me from view, and I’m not sure how I’m going to watch the house without everyone in the house looking out of the windows and watching me right back. It might be better if I sat in my hire car.
It’s hard not to be conspicuous when you’re looking at a house which is surrounded by fields. If Elizabeth lived in the middle of Stowe, I would be fine. It is a picture-perfect town, with white wooden houses, like this one, a wooden church, and countless little cafés and bars and restaurants. A harmless-looking woman like me could browse in a book-shop for hours while keeping an eye on the house over the road, and no one would suspect a thing. That’s how it would happen if I was in a film. Here, I have no cover.
I walk down the road a little way, and sit on the grass. Then I stand up and fetch my paper from the car. I sit back down and fold back the New York Times, narrowly avoiding scattering it across the countryside when a gust of wind attempts to seize it. If anyone asks what I’m doing here, I’ll think of something.
Half an hour passes. Five cars have gone by, each of them slowing next to me as the drivers look with concerned faces, wind down their windows and ask if I’m all right. My iced tea is finished, and no one has come or gone from the D’Angelo house. If I had a pretext for going to visit, I would stride up the drive. Perhaps I could pretend my car has broken down. I’m sure they would help me, particularly if they recognised me from the advert. If I knew how to, I could remove or break a component from the engine, but that would be beyond me.
I put the bonnet up anyway. Then I put it back down again. I don’t want to draw attention to myself, and if I’m sitting here with the bonnet up, I am almost asking for help. I’ll feel stupid if someone stops to help me and the car starts first time.
Where is Elizabeth Silverman? Where is Darcey D’Angelo? I look at my watch. It is half past four. School must have finished by now, but she hasn’t come home. I’m not even supposed to talk to her, but my heart is in my mouth. Every time I look at her house, I am petrified, but I know I can’t pull myself away now. This is where my baby lives, and I’m not leaving until I see her.
I think about Kate, and wonder how she is. She scared me, the other day, and I haven’t seen her since. Neither of them has returned my calls to the hotel. I called Megan this morning, from the airport, but although I know she’s staying with her parents in Somerset, her mother said she was out and that I should try again later. I wanted to ask Josie what she was going to do, where she was going to go, but I knew she would hate it if I did. I should ask Mum whether she’s been to see them. If I had a cellphone, I could call her from here. It would be a good way of filling the time. But I haven’t, and I don’t think I could keep my location from her either. I don’t want to tell her about this until something has happened.
This is terrible. I can’t spend the day loitering outside someone’s house. I jump to my feet and, without allowing myself to stop to think, stride up the drive. The lawn on either side of the drive is well kept, with a bench under a tree, rose bushes around the edges, and a wrought-iron table and chairs on a terrace next to the house. This is an idyllic house. If it didn’t say D’Angelo on the mail box, I would think that Ron sent me here just to cheer me up and shut me up. If I hadn’t already called the house looking for Darcey, I wouldn’t believe she actually lived here, and until I see her, I won’t believe she is my daughter.
Two cars are parked to the side of the house. I ring the bell, and hear feet approaching inside. I can’t turn and run, much as I want to.
The red door swings open, and a girl stands in the doorway.
‘Hi?’ she says, looking at me with a question.
I look at her. This is not my daughter. This girl is only about eight, and she has frizzy black hair. She looks like a D’Angelo should look.
‘Hi there,’ I say, and hope something good is about to come from my subconscious. ‘I’m sorry to bother you. Are your parents in?’
She grins. ‘Sure.’ Then she turns and calls, ‘Mom! Someone for you!’
Her mother approaches. She is like she sounded on the phone. She is in her forties, and dark, petite and pretty, with huge black eyes. The girl looks like her natural daughter.
‘Hello,’ she says, assessing me quickly and finding me no threat. ‘Do come in. May we help you?’
I step into the house. The hall is carpeted and an immaculate vase of roses stands on a windowsill. I bet all the beds here have hand-stitched quilts on them. ‘Thank you,’ I say as graciously as I can. ‘I’m so sorry to bother you. I’m on holiday here - well, I’m working in New York, playing the cello, but I’m here in Stowe taking a short break on my own. This is going to sound so stupid, but I’m a huge fan of The Sound of Music and I’ve managed to drive around in circles for the past forty minutes looking for the Trapp Family Lodge. Could you point me in the right direction?’
Mrs D’Angelo laughs. ‘Honey, you could barely be closer! Of course we can show you the way. You go back along this road until you reach a fork, then take a left, and head up. It’s pretty steep, but it’s not far.’
I beam at her. ‘Thank you so much. I have a shocking sense of direction.’
The little girl is looking at me curiously. ‘Are you American?’ she asks suspiciously.
‘No,’ I tell her kindly. This is my opportunity to get a conversation going. ‘I’m British.’
‘Do you speak French?’ she asks, looking at me with saucer eyes.
‘I do, up to a point,’ I reply. I look at her mother, who is smiling indulgently at her younger daughter.
‘Say something in French then,’ demands the girl.
‘OK,’ I tell her. ‘Bonjour, jeune fille. Où se trouve la banque, s’il vous plait?’
‘Wow,’ she breathes, gazing at me. ‘That’s clever. Did you learn English at school?’
‘Ellie, sweetie,’ interjects her mother, laughing. ‘British people speak English, just like we do.’
‘Nearly like you do,’ I interject. ‘I’m actually from England.’
‘And England is where English comes from,’ says her mother.
‘Why do we speak English?’ asks Ellie. ‘Why don’t we speak American?’
Her mother looks at me and laughs again. ‘Do you want to tell her about the colonial days, or shall I?’
I jump in. I have to be as outgoing as I can, so she will invite me to stay for a drink and to meet the other daughter. ‘America used to be the home of the . . .’ I stop myself saying ‘Red Indians’ just in time, ‘Native Americans. Then some white people came, mainly from England, on boats, and decided they wanted to live here too. So they did. Which wasn’t so great for the Native Americans.’ I look to Mrs D’Angelo. ‘Does that cover it, in a nutshell, do you think?’
She laughs. She is, potentially, my friend. ‘I would say that will do for now. I’m sorry to be rude, but have we met you before?’
Bingo. This is exactly what I needed to happen. That’s why I threw my cello into the conversation early on. ‘I don’t think we’ve met, but . . .’ I pause, mainly to show likeable modesty, but also to calm my nerves, ‘I’m in an advert which seems to be on TV quite a lot at the moment. It’s for Calm Iced Tea.’
Ellie jumps up and down. ‘And you play music! And all the cars stop! I love that ad!’
I smile at her. ‘I’m pleased to hear it.’
Mrs D’Angelo grins. ‘I know the one. Fancy you turning up here in Stowe, and at our house. May I offer you a drink? Coffee or something cold?’
I relax slightly. I have tricked my way in. ‘A fruit juice would be wonderful,’ I tell her, with my very best professional smile.
We sit in the spacious pine kitchen, which is immaculate. I don’t feel up to small talk, so I launch straight in with a question. I’m glad my life h
as involved so much insincerity. It allows me to mask my precarious emotional state, and to pretend to be breezy and casual; the charming stranger.
‘Do you have any other children?’ I say, hoping I’m not trembling.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Oh, yes. Ellie is our youngest. She has an older brother, Mitchell, and a sister, Darcey. We always intended to have two, and then she came along, a miracle baby.’
‘Miracle?’
‘Very much so. The older two are adopted. We’d been told our chances of a child of our own were a million to one, for various reasons. We were getting along fine as a family of four, when suddenly, hey, I’m pregnant.’ She shrugs. ‘Just one of those things that come along when you’re not looking for them.’
I look at Ellie. She doesn’t seem to be traumatised at that description of herself. In fact, she’s making a phone call.
‘Darcey,’ I hear her say. ‘You have to come home now. There’s a lady here from TV! She says she’s British, and she speaks French, but she comes from England.’
‘Would you mind?’ asks her mother. ‘Darcey would love to meet you. She’ll be home in ten minutes. Could you stay to say hello to her?’
I don’t have to force this smile. ‘I’d be delighted. I’m Evie, by the way.’
She smiles and holds out a hand. ‘Carla.’
The moment I set eyes on her, I know I have found my baby. She is as tall as I am, far taller than Carla, and she has my hair. She actually has it my length. We both sport a bob cut just above the shoulders, but she doesn’t dye hers. I expect she will, but now she is mousy brown, like I was when I had her. She is fair-skinned and pink-cheeked, and she has hazel eyes. She’s wearing expensive jeans and a tight blue T-shirt which shows off my old skinny figure. I can’t stop looking at her. I must have turned deep, hot red, from my head to the soles of my feet. Darcey is Elizabeth, and both of them are beautiful. I knew my baby would grow up like this. Her skin isn’t teenage and spotty, but clear and creamy. I never suffered from adolescent pimples either. She gets that from me. Not from Frank or Carla, not from Mark, but from me. And she seems to have an aura of confidence that passed me by entirely until I was nineteen. That probably does come from Carla.
I know I’m pink in the face, and I’m breathless. I know I have to appear normal. One day, I don’t know when, but one day, I will need to reveal myself to her. I don’t want her to look back on me now, and to resent anything, or to see me as a liar or a con artist.
‘Hi,’ I tell her, standing up and shaking her hand.
‘This is Evie,’ says Ellie, importantly. ‘Evie advertises Calm Iced Tea.’
Darcey rolls her eyes. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I know.’ Her handshake is firm. Her hands are a good size, like mine. She could be a cellist. She has wide pads on her fingertips, and she could easily stretch to reach extensions. Her nails, however, are long and shapely and painted pale pink. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she tells me, slightly shyly.
‘Nice to meet you too,’ I reply, though nice is not, perhaps, the best word for it. I am getting from one minute to the next on automatic pilot. If I stopped to think about what was happening, I would grab this poor girl, clutch her tight, and cry all over her. I would beg her to come to England with me. Instead I say, formally, ‘I’m sorry to impose myself on your family like this. I just stopped to ask for directions.’
‘We wouldn’t let her leave,’ says Carla with a laugh. Darcey goes to the enormous stainless-steel fridge and pours herself a huge glass of lemonade. She holds the bottle out towards me, and raises her eyebrows.
‘Sure,’ I tell her. Elizabeth wants to give me something. I want to give her everything. ‘Why not?’ I hold my glass out, and will my hand not to shake. ‘Thanks,’ I add, and take a long swig of it. Then I sit back down, as my knees are trembling.
‘Darcey?’ I ask. ‘Do you go to school locally? Only my record company suggested that I could do some musical workshops in schools, and I’d much rather do that in Stowe than in New York. It’s lovely to be out of the city.’
Her eyes light up. ‘Sure! I go to Stowe High School. They’d love to have you in. Will you still be here Monday? I can introduce you to my teacher.’
‘I was going to fly back to New York on Tuesday, so yes. That would be great. Thank you. If they are interested, I’ll maybe come back a week later or something. I don’t even have my cello with me for this trip.’
‘Evie has come to see the Trapp Family Lodge,’ says Carla. Darcey is uninterested.
‘Right. We’ve never had anyone from TV at school before.’
‘I’m not really from TV. It’s only an advert.’
Darcey shrugs. ‘Right. TV is TV.’ She stands up and smiles broadly, a smile I will treasure. I wish I could think of an excuse to take her photograph. ‘I have to go now. Great to meet you. See you again.’
‘Of course. Great to meet you too, Darcey.’
I watch my daughter slouch out of the kitchen. I am proud of every aspect of her, whether or not I have the right to be. Ellie follows her. I stay for another drink with Carla. There are a few things I need to ask her.
‘I hope you don’t mind me asking,’ I say tentatively, once the girls are out of range, ‘but my closest friend has just had some bad luck with fertility treatment. They’ve been trying for three years. She finally became pregnant through IVF here in the States, but then she lost the babies quite early on. They’re thinking of adoption now. I’m interested in how that was for you, if you don’t mind me asking about it. Sorry to be so personal.’
Carla laughs. ‘As you’ve seen, it’s a topic we discuss freely in this house. We were very lucky, you know. We took Darcey as a newborn baby - her mother was very young and had known through the pregnancy that she was giving the child up straight away. That was a kind of dream adoption. When you take them from that age, it really is almost as if you’ve given birth to them. We were so lucky. Everyone wanted Darcey. She was called baby Lizzie then. I’d forgotten that. It was what the nurses called her - I guess it was the name her mother gave her.’ She shakes her head, as if to rouse herself from a daydream. ‘Mitchell we found two years later. He was older - eighteen months - and that was much harder, but we got through the settlement process and he’s done very well. It means there’s only six months between them in age, and you should see people trying to puzzle that one out. They’re often mistaken for twins. For your friend, though, I think you need to be prepared to take an older child. There are going to be issues, it’s completely inevitable. However easily they settle, that child is going to throw out at you that you’re not their real mother, and that’s always going to hurt.’
I look at her. I’ve never thought about Elizabeth’s adoptive parents, other than as an inconvenient barrier between me and her, or, at best, as the inevitable custodians who took care of her while I couldn’t. Carla is a lovely woman, and Elizabeth - Darcey - seems like a well-balanced and happy girl. How differently would she have turned out if she had stayed with me? How different would my life have been? I cannot imagine. All I want is for my baby to be happy. I feel overwhelmingly grateful to Carla, though the gratitude is almost drowned out by the fierce envy.
‘Do yours really say that? That you’re not their mother?’
She shrugs. ‘Sure they do. It’s a gift to a teenager, particularly to a teenage girl. Darcey’s nearly fifteen now, and she knows how to get to me. I usually stay calm, though. I tell her, “to all intents and purposes I am your mother.” I would never remind her that her real mother didn’t want her, but she knows it as well as I do.’
I am stung. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t really that simple, though. I mean, Darcey’s a beautiful girl. If, like you say, her mother was young, it must have been a terrible wrench for her.’
‘Oh,’ says Carla, ‘I know that. I am supremely grateful to her for starting off my family. I’ve often wondered about getting in touch with her, and with Mitchell’s mother, to tell them about the kids and to thank them, but I know it’s Darc
ey and Mitch’s decision really, and that it’s not my place to interfere.’
‘Really? Do you know anything about their mothers? Their birth mothers?’
Carla puts her mug down. ‘I met Mitch’s birth mom. She was mixed up with drugs, and he’d been taken from her as a baby and kept in care, and I met her when she finally agreed to put him up for adoption. She was in a state. Trying to get clean, and handing over her baby permanently. I can’t blame her. I’ve often wondered whether she’s cleaned herself up over the years. I hope so, and I hope if Mitch decides to get in touch with the Adoption Registry when he’s eighteen that she will be able to see him.’
‘How about Darcey’s?’
I put my hands on my lap. I don’t want to betray my nerves. I don’t think Carla has noticed anything strange about my questions yet. She shakes her head.
‘You know, I know next to nothing about that girl. Darcey was born at St Vincent’s Hospital in New York, and I don’t even know what her mother’s name was. I assume the hospital has a record, but to be honest with you, Evie, at the time I kept expecting her to change her mind and take my baby away before I’d even got her, before she’d become my baby. As it was, she was able to make a clean break. No one thought it would do her any good to meet us, though I think today they would probably encourage it.
‘I don’t think the girl was much older than Darcey is now. Frank used to remind me constantly that, even when we went to the hospital to collect her, there was no guarantee that she wasn’t going to look at her baby and change her mind. It was an emotional time. We had all the paraphernalia, far more stuff than we actually needed, everything for a girl and everything for a boy too, and we knew there was at least a fifty-fifty chance that we wouldn’t even get the baby.’
‘That must have been hard.’
‘Hard for everyone. I don’t judge either of their mothers, you know. I’m just grateful for the chance they gave me to nurture their babies. But, Evie, I am so sorry. Here I am spilling it all out to you when all you did was tell me about your friend and ask my advice about adoption.’