by Mary Hogan
CHAPTER 13
Courtesy of the Johnstown Flood Museum Archives, Johnstown Area Heritage Association
SOUTH FORK FISHING AND HUNTING CLUB
Summer 1888
The screened door at the side of our cottage slams on my way out. In the storage space beneath the side stairs are four bicycles. Two for ladies, one for a man, and one for a boy. Grabbing mine, I set off quickly down the dusty access road behind the cottages. Hatless, corsetless, ducking branches, feeling the filtered sun on my face, I roar with delight, as if I’m a lioness let loose from the Philadelphia Zoo. Mother would be horrified. My untethered waistline feels exquisite. Much too free to be proper. Not to mention sun on my face and unruly hair. But it doesn’t matter. Not this once. No one will see me. All of Pittsburgh society is already in the clubhouse dining room by now. Lunch, no doubt, is being served. Through the trees, as I cycle past, I spot no one on the boardwalk. Still, I take no chances. The back road is deserted. I will be safely back at the cottage, in my room, before dessert is set out on the buffet. I only need a moment to satisfy my curiosity. One tiny glimpse. For some inexplicable reason, I must know: Does James Tottinger’s face match his conceit?
The clubhouse draws near.
I hear him before I see him. His accent is unmistakable.
“Do you gents play football?”
Apparently, the boys have yet to enter the clubhouse dining room. I stow my bicycle against a tree several yards back and silently creep up to the rear of the building, hiding myself in a birch thicket. They are gathered on the grass beside the side stairs. What good fortune to be wearing my brown skirt. Though Nettie will have to work her magic on the hem. The dirt behind the clubhouse is wet and muddy.
“Proper football,” James says. “It’s a bit like rugby. And rugby is a bit like your soccer.”
His tone of condescension is unmistakable, too. It takes all my strength not to throw a rock at him.
From my shroud of foliage, I raise my head ever so slightly to examine the lofty Mr. James Tottinger of the London Tottingers, relative of Countess Augusta Reuss of Ebersdorf, grandmother of Queen Victoria herself.
That’s when I see him.
He is tall and trim. Hatless. His mahogany tweed breeches are tailored to perfection. Not a trace of facial hair softens his angular visage. His maple-colored hair sports the slightest wave—ripples bouncing above the upper folds of his delicate ears. Both brows are as expressive as a dancing bear, though one arches more dramatically than the other, creating a fearless expression. His narrow lips seem locked in a playful snicker. Though his complexion is pale, it only magnifies the startling blue of his eyes. Quite simply, James Tottinger is the most exquisite creature I’ve ever seen.
Only when my chest burns do I realize I’ve been holding my breath.
Along with everyone else, I am mesmerized. Even as I realize the strutting Mr. Tottinger is performing for the crowd’s benefit, I can no more pull my gaze away from him than I can move my boots out of the damp muck beneath my feet. Julian, Edmond, Oscar, Roderick—boys I’ve known all my life—stand on the grassy shore in a semicircle. They, too, are smitten. Dressed in their loose-fitting breeches, they look thoughtful with their straw boater’s hats tilted to the backs of their heads.
“I know rugby.” Stout Julian steps out from the crowd, his chest thrust forward. “My father is a Harvard man.”
Roderick scoffs. “Yale is the better team.”
Suddenly feminine sounds flicker through the air. My friends—and others—giggle behind their hands. Descending the side clubhouse steps like a flock of geese, they venture into the clearing, feigning a need to stroll off the curried eggs they’d just eaten. Creeping closer to a prickly hedge at the base of the birch coppice, I burrow ever lower. A thorn nicks my cheek.
“Ach,” I gasp, slapping my hand over my mouth. Thankfully, James Tottinger is too busy enjoying the sound of his own voice to notice mine. In his throaty tone, he says to Julian, “You, my good man, are now captain of Team Blue. I shall front Team Red.”
Julian beams. Standing like Big Ben in the center of the clearing, James Tottinger divides the boys into teams while the girls pretend not to watch.
“Can anyone spot me a soccer ball?”
Captain Julian dispatches Edmond to the sports closet in the clubhouse. “Quickly,” Julian says, as if the commanding Mr. Tottinger might tire of the whole business and leave them flat-footed. In an outbreak of activity, the remaining boys scatter to toss errant bits of lake debris back into the water. They scoop up dead leaves with their bare hands. They remove their jackets and hats and tug at the pointed edges of their vests. Huddling ever deeper into the brush, I stare, unblinking, as the magnificent Mr. Tottinger unbuttons the jacket of his linen sack suit.
“Might I impose upon one of you lovely ladies to keep my jacket out of the dirt?” he says, turning to the flock.
Francine Larkin immediately steps forward with her clapper claw hands fluttering in the air.
“With pleasure, sir,” she says in that sparrow voice of hers. Within my leafy cover, I roll my eyes. Had I not been a lady in hiding, I would have groaned audibly. With Francine clutching James’s jacket to her breast, the arrival of the soccer ball, the peacocking of the man from England, and his accent making every word sound more exotic and important than it is, I finally come to my senses and decide I’ve seen enough. I’ve had my glimpse. Though my heart is pumping warm blood through my entire being, the absurdity of my position suddenly strikes me. Standing in shrubbery to watch grown men scamper through the grass like children? Particularly one man who so clearly believes he’s the desire of everyone? Well, if my inquisitiveness had not gotten the better of me, this is not a position into which I would ever lower myself. James Tottinger may be handsome, he may be the most superb specimen of a man I’ve ever set eyes upon, but he’s not for me. I prefer men with real confidence. Like Mr. Carnegie, who doesn’t need pleasing features to gain respect.
Sweeping the unruly hair out of my eyes, no doubt smearing a bit of blood across my cheek in the process, I quietly gather my skirt and lift my muddy feet out of the soil, one by one. As I pull them from the muck, each boot makes a smacking sound. The noise of a mother’s lips on her baby’s cheeks. Kiss. Kiss. Still crouched low—rotating ever so slowly—I tiptoe in the direction of the tree trunk where my bicycle sits. Already I can feel the heavenly sensation of the hot bath I’ll ask Nettie to draw as soon as she returns from her picnic. I do hope she hasn’t thought I meant she could take the entire day off.
“A forest nymph!”
Midstep, I freeze.
“You there. In the bushes. Real or mythical?”
I don’t need to turn around to know that James Tottinger has spotted me. Besides his melting accent, the raucous laughter of my so-called friends is confirmation.
“Elizabeth Haberlin? Is that possibly you?”
One brow shoots up. I recognize the voice instantly. It’s Francine’s. Of course it is. Her chirpy tone is unmistakable. I want to leap over the hedge and fill Francine Larkin’s avian mouth with mud. But, of course, a lady mustn’t act on every errant thought. Instead, I take a deep breath into the expandable elastic of my bloomers and extend myself to my full height, aligning my spine just so. With the countenance of Queen Victoria herself, I slowly turn around.
“Why, hello, Francine. Hello, everyone. Lovely day.”
I then blow a clump of unruly hair off my bloodied face and turn my back on the laughing group to trudge my muddy shoes to the bicycle waiting in the woods. Only once do I glance over my shoulder to see that James Tottinger is silently mocking me and Francine Larkin is grinning at him with her bird lips.
Summer at South Fork. Let the games begin.
CHAPTER 14
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Present
Shortly after her life imploded, Lee’s laptop crashed, too. Looking back, she viewed its incremental disintegration as a metaphor for all the life signs she�
�d ignored, too. Like that whirring beneath the keyboard. Wasn’t that similar to the distraction she’d heard—but overlooked—in Shelby’s voice as she packed for Malawi?
“Um, yeah, don’t worry, I’ll FaceTime you.”
And Shelby’s last text from Malawi: “There’s this boy. A carpenter for Habitat. Yum!”
Shouldn’t she have seen that coming? The same way all those frozen Web pages foreshadowed the Blue Screen of Death? If she’d been paying attention, she wouldn’t have felt so run over when Shelby changed her relationship status on Facebook. How could her best friend since middle school change her relationship status without telling her?
When Lee spent the night of her eighteenth birthday eating microwave popcorn in front of the TV with her mom, she realized she should have made more friends. You know, as backup. In case her very best friend left the country to have a yummy boyfriend without bothering to mention it. In case her brother decided to vanish into the woods and her dad ran away from home, leaving her mother feeling all clutchy, as if Lee were the only person left in the world.
There were lots of other signs that things were awry, too. Like, for months, Lee’s computer had been super slow. Constantly buffering. An endlessly rotating color wheel in the center of her screen reminding her that she was going nowhere. Wasn’t that spinning symbol of impending disaster just like the foreboding of her dad’s drinking? Its downward spiral? Like the way she noticed, but didn’t fully note, that his glass of wine with dinner became two, then it included a cocktail while her mom was cooking, then scotch in a tumbler the moment he got home from work with his breath already ignitable. Hadn’t he been disappearing in plain sight for years? And taking her future with him?
If her eyes had been open, she would have noticed that her computer was infected by something malicious; she would have begged her dad to get help before he dragged them all down with him. Had she been paying attention to all the ways her father had become little more than a prop around the house, she wouldn’t have been so knocked off her feet when he called several months after he packed up and left.
“It’s me,” he’d said.
“Dad?”
“Yep.”
“Where are you?”
Gil sighed and muttered something about an inability to cope. Life, he said, had gotten the best of him. “I’m a human being, Lee. With flaws.”
His speech was slow. The word “flaws” had two syllables: fill-aws. It was barely four o’clock and he was already drunk.
Lee said, “Lots of fathers have flaws.”
Gil Parker sighed spitily into the phone. In a confessional sort of way, he unburdened himself. “See, that’s the thing, Lee. I’ve never been father material. I realize that now.”
“Um, what?”
“Not all adults are meant to be parents. I’m sorry. Truly.” Tur-ew-lee.
Lee sat there blinking. Like a pulsing blob, she felt her blood ba-blump, ba-blump through her aorta. Had she really heard what she thought she heard? Had her father quit? Were dads allowed to do that? All this time, had he only been faking fatherhood? Pretending to love her? Was it because she wasn’t genetically his? Was he father material to her brother, Scott?
It wasn’t remotely close to the conversation she had imagined having when her father finally called. She’d pictured tears and apologies. His. She’d envisioned herself taking the high road.
“Come home, Dad,” she would say, nonjudgmentally. “We’ll forget about the past. Let’s start over.”
Maturely, she wouldn’t mention how they’d had to cancel cable and the landline because creditors kept calling during dinner—which was now usually beans and rice. Or how her mother had lied to her father’s boss when it became clear that he’d quit his job, too.
“I’m afraid he’s too ill to come to the phone,” she said for as long as she believably could. Finally, she had to come clean.
“Gone?” his boss had asked. “Gone where?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“When will he be back?”
“I’m afraid he’s left us.”
Nothing is more pathetic than silence after you admit something like that. That’s what Valerie said after she hung up. And nothing is more terrifying than the abrupt disappearance of automatic paycheck deposits.
In the gazillion times Lee had rehearsed their phone conversation in her mind, she never told her dad that Shelby’s parents gave them money for a mortgage that was already way past due. Not a word about the bankruptcy lawyer that her mom had to hire even though she had no money. And she certainly never let it slip that there were lots of days when she came home from school to find the curtains drawn, the house dark, and her mother hastily dressed in clothes from the floor—her hair flat on one side, crust in the corners of her eyes, and pillow wrinkles fresh on her face.
Gil had ended the call with a resigned “Okay, then.”
Lee’s cell felt like a brick in her hand. Before her father hung up, she quickly asked, “Have you heard from Scott? Do you, um, know how we might be able to reach him?”
Shouldn’t somebody inform her brother that his family had disintegrated like cotton candy left in the sun?
Snorting a sad laugh, Gil said, “Apparently, he takes after his dad.”
Then the phone went dead.
Nothing but pathetic silence.
Just like the day her laptop crashed for the last time. She felt the same panicked loneliness when she stared at the dead machine that once contained her whole entire life.
So, now, Lee Parker’s eyes were wide open. No longer would she look the other way. Now she noticed the gray shadow that flickered past Valerie’s sunny disposition each time Lee searched her iPhone for any possible information about the woman in the photo. True, in her initial excitement, she’d been a clod. Totally insensitive in the car on the way home from Social Services. All that stuff about her peeps. But now she was keenly attuned.
“Come watch TV with me.” Valerie patted the sofa cushion. “Here. With your mom.”
Now Lee was aware of the way Val kept identifying herself.
“How ’bout a good-night kiss for your mom?”
As if Lee would somehow forget.
Lee noticed. She got it. No way was she going to hurt the only person who hadn’t left her to fend for herself.
Still.
No way could Lee let it go either. As any adoptee knows. The tiny pebble of information she now knew only expanded the ripples of her desire to know more. Where was she born? How had she come to be? Where had her birth mother drowned? Why the name Elizabeth? Did she have siblings? A father? Had he been looking for her all her life? Who made her tall, dark, and broody? And, the most pressing question of all: Who was the woman in the photo? The genetic relative whose blood pumped through Lee’s veins. After eighteen years of wondering, she now had a name and a clue: Clara Barton and a pileful of rubble. Could the woman who founded the American Red Cross lead Lee to the dark-haired woman who stood next to Clara so many years ago? And, in turn, could the dark-haired woman lead Lee to the birth mother who had once pressed her palm onto her distended stomach to feel her child’s stretching arms, her flexing legs, her impatience to get out and meet her? Could the woman in the photo lead Lee to the identity of the woman who gave her life?
For Lee, that simple question was the biggest ache and pain of her life. The mystery of her history. The elephant in the living room she’d been tiptoeing around ever since she saw the photo. Of course she wanted to know. Who wouldn’t? But the distressing truth was: uncovering the identity of her birth mother would bruise the only mother she’d ever known.
There was only one solution: going forward, Lee would secretly search for her mother without her mom finding out.
CHAPTER 15
Courtesy of the Johnstown Flood Museum Archives, Johnstown Area Heritage Association
SOUTH FORK FISHING AND HUNTING CLUB
Summer 1888
Fresh from my mortification in the bushes
behind the clubhouse, I hop on my bicycle and pedal. Past the clubhouse, past our cottage, as far as the dirt path will allow. I search every clearing for Nettie and her picnic. My shoes are caked with mud, as is the hem of my skirt. If not for the breeze caused by my haste, I would scarcely be able to see through the errant fronds of hair that fall onto my face like drooping leaves of a weeping willow. My heart thrashes inside my chest. In part, the pounding is due to the exertion of exercise, but also it’s a result of the wild anticipation of what I’m about to do. If I could only find Nettie.
At the path’s end, I lean my bicycle against a gnarled tree stump and scramble forward on foot. Dead leaves and lake sand crunch beneath my feet. The scent of rich, damp earth envelops me like an opera cloak. I feel like a Scotland Yard sleuth. My eyes are fixed to the occasional footprints in the path. For the next several minutes, I stoop under low-hanging branches, clamber over fallen saplings, extricate myself from mud hollows, and snag my skirt on every jagged twig. I follow any shoe-sized indentation I can find. My own shoes are a fright. Mother will be cross beyond words.
At long last, I hear laughter coming from a clearing in the woods. As I draw myself closer to the familiar sound, I notice a flash of fabric.
“Nettie!” I call out.
Silence.
“Nettie. It’s Elizabeth.”
A great rustling ensues. Rewrapping her picnic fare, I assume. Marching straight toward the sound, I am startled to see Nettie with a horseman I recognize from the clubhouse stable. He scrabbles to his feet. Heaven knows what I might have interrupted.
“Ma’am,” he mumbles, adjusting his grubby cap.
“Miss Elizabeth,” Nettie sputters. Clearly, she is disconcerted to see me outdoors without a corset.
“Forgive my intrusion, Nettie,” I say. “I hope you won’t mind cutting your picnic short. I’ve changed my plan for the day. I now need your help.”
Perhaps there is the faintest flicker of annoyance in Nettie’s expression, but it fades too quickly for me to formally note it. And the gentleman with her stares at his feet. Almost certainly he spotted my natural waistline and unruly hair. To his credit, he doesn’t embarrass me by staring at my state of undress. Not once does he look up.