The Search Angel

by Tish Cohen

  Isabelle’s countenance betrays no change in emotion. She takes the paper in her hand and taps it with a finger. Then crumples it up and stands abruptly. “I’ll thank you one last time to stay out of my affairs, Eleanor Sweet. Have yourself a good day.”

  Eleanor stares out the window long after Isabelle disappears from view.

  Chapter 53

  The lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel has a watery echo. Eleanor shifts her weight. It’s now after 1:30 p.m. She’s been sitting on the ledge of a stone planter box for half an hour and can no longer feel her right leg. There’s a cardiology convention going on in the hotel this weekend, according to the signs directing attendees to this table or that meeting room. Judging from the well-dressed mob in the lobby, people checking in, meeting in small groups and heading into the coffee shop, the convention is a big one.

  She can’t wait much longer. The phone call with Domenique is in an hour.

  As guests and staff wander past, Eleanor is struck by a huge change. She no longer searches crowds for faces. She can stare out at the comings and goings of strangers and not wonder whether or not she has a genetic link to them. There’s a certain peace associated with this new state. A weary peace.

  It’s possible she’s missed her. Ruth’s flight departs around four this afternoon; she could very well have gone early. Or be trolling the city before she flies home.

  Eleanor checks her watch. Fifteen more minutes, then she’ll leave.

  She observes a man in his sixties—thick head of graying hair and long, elegant overcoat—thank the concierge and turn to a woman about the same age, also in a long coat, and kiss the tip of her nose. He hooks his arm into hers and they squeeze through the revolving door in a fit of giggles.

  A familiar voice makes Eleanor turn. There, coming out of the elevator, is Ruth with a woman dressed in yoga gear. Ruth sees Eleanor and stops. Brightens. It’s clear that she’s torn. She wants desperately to hug her daughter openly and ask for forgiveness. And, just as desperately, she wants to keep her secret.

  Eleanor stands, straightens her coat.

  Ruth doesn’t need to ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness, Eleanor has decided, has nothing to do with it. The anger, the love and hate, the resentment, the wonder, the understanding, it’s all too big. It doesn’t fit into one little word, one act. Eleanor has spent her entire life shackled by feelings too big for her. Too big for anyone. All one can hope for, she’s decided, is to come to a place of acceptance. Ruth—like Isabelle did, like she’s about to do—loved her enough to let go. It doesn’t hurt any less or make Eleanor any stronger. But it does give her comfort.

  The truth is Eleanor never considered her mother, not really. She understood that her birth mother would likely have agonized over her choice. Thought about her lost child. Maybe even pined for her. But she hadn’t thought, until Isabelle really, about her mother’s embarrassment. Her shame.

  Moving forward with Ruth, with her birth family, it isn’t going to be the stuff Diane-Keaton-waiting-on-a-private-jet fantasies are made of. This is no fairy tale, this is real life.

  “Ruth,” Eleanor says with a polite nod to Ruth’s friend. “I just came to say a quick goodbye.”

  Ruth’s chest heaves. Her eyes glitter with emotion she doesn’t dare show. She allows herself to give her daughter a quick hug. “I’m so glad you did.”

  Pulling back, Eleanor takes the friend’s hand and introduces herself. “Eleanor Sweet. Ruth is a dear family friend.”

  “Eleanor has a new baby girl,” Ruth tells her friend. “Just adopted from the West Coast. I came in to help her out.”

  The friend, who introduces herself as Marnie, makes all the appropriate sounds of excitement and approval.

  “How is Sylvie today?” Ruth asks.

  Eleanor shrugs. “Beautiful. Maddening. The love of my life.”

  “I can stay,” Ruth says. “If you need some help, I’m happy to change my flight. Let you get some rest.”

  The thought of her upcoming conversation with Domenique makes Eleanor’s stomach flip. “I don’t think it’ll be necessary. But thank you.”

  “I’d better get going, then. I’m running late.”

  Eleanor kisses her mother’s warm cheek. “Call me tomorrow, okay? We’ll have a nice long chat.”

  Chapter 54

  Domenique didn’t call. Eleanor waited all day and never heard a word. Not from the agency, not from Nancy.

  Evening at five brings no surprises. Sylvie had gone down for an hour before dinner and woke up howling. Ate some chicken and banana slices and has been inconsolable ever since. Eleanor tried a bottle, a warm bath, a baby massage, a TV show about panda bears, and a bouncy chair from downstairs. She brought in Angus for amusement only to have him pounce on her pile of stuffed animals and roll around on his back as if he’d found a rotting fish on the beach, then glance at Sylvie slyly to see if she was amused.

  Angus, at least, is having a good time.

  It would have been better to just get it over with, with Domenique. What he thinks of the adoption, whether he approves or not, isn’t the issue anymore. Sylvie isn’t happy. All Eleanor wants is for that little girl to smile.

  With the sobbing Sylvie in her arms, Eleanor walks to the living room window and looks out. Maybe the moon will calm her down. Maybe she’ll recognize it from back home and feel soothed. She bounces Sylvie and looks out to find no moon, but snowflakes glitter in the light from the street lamps. The snow has just started; there’s no sign of it sticking to anything.

  “Look, Sylvie! See the snow?”

  Sylvie does look. She’s fascinated enough by this white stuff that her furious wailing morphs into wet hiccups. If snow is what the child wants, snow is what she shall have.

  Just after seven thirty, Eleanor backs out of the door with Sylvie in one arm and the stroller in the other. With a mighty jolt, the stroller flips open. Eleanor bundles Sylvie into it. The trees, the sidewalk, the parked cars, the street—everything is covered now in a downy layer of snow that deadens the sounds of the city. Angus, unleashed, thunders out onto the sidewalk to bite at the white stuff, grabbing a snow-covered leaf or chip bag and playfully shaking the life out of it.

  Sylvie’s crying has started again.

  Light from Death by Vinyl floods the sidewalk again tonight and music thumps through the door—propped open by a brick left over from the completed renovations. Noel appears, wiping his hands on his jeans.

  “Miss Sylvie came to see Uncle Noel?”

  “Hey, it worked last time.” Eleanor allows him to pick up the baby in her puffy, snowflake-dusted jacket. He bounces her against his chest, only to have her push away and howl louder. “If you get her to sleep this time, you’re hired.”

  Angus has dropped to the ground to roll on his back, legs thrashing in the air. When he rights himself, his back and head are frosted in powder. He woofs.

  “What about the snow?” Noel says, struggling to keep Sylvie in his arms. Snowflakes hitting her face seem to be upsetting her, so he ducks into the doorway. Right away, she stops squirming, stops crying. Her mouth drops open and her teary face tilts up toward the ceiling. “It’s Death by Vinyl you like? The graffiti and the black ceiling? Maybe Eleanor isn’t cool enough for you.”

  Eleanor smiles sadly. “Truer than you know.”

  “What’s happening with the dad?”

  “We were supposed to speak. He never called.”

  “That’s good, right? He’s maybe backed down.”

  Noel moves farther outside again and Sylvie starts to wail. He looks back at the store, frowning.

  “Doesn’t matter, Noel. She doesn’t want to be here. With me. She’s miserable, anyone can see that. I’m going to tell Domenique he needs to take her. She doesn’t want this.”

  He opens the door and steps inside with Sylvie. She stops crying. Looks around. He goes back outside. She wails again and he returns her to Eleanor’s arms.

  “What are you doing?” Eleanor asks as the bab
y arches her back to pull away. “I get it. I get it. She doesn’t like me.”

  He leads Eleanor inside Death by Vinyl. Immediately, Sylvie calms. Babbles and bounces happily in Eleanor’s arms.

  “Don’t you see?” he says. “It’s the silence that she hates. In here, with the loud music, she’s happy. It’s not you she’s rejecting. It’s the terrible quiet. The lack of noise. She’s from a busy foster home, right?”

  “Yes.” Sylvie yawns contentedly in Eleanor’s arms. “Six young kids. The foster dad was a musician.”

  “Do you think there was ever a moment of peace in a house loaded with children?”

  Eleanor thinks back to the night at Ginny’s place. She had to take three Tylenols to cure the headache she left with. “No!”

  “She is most relaxed when surrounded by busyness. Noise.”

  The planes roaring over their heads at Logan. The sound was deafening. And put Sylvie right to sleep. “I think you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right.” He bends down and pulls an old record player from a shelf, then picks out an album. “Let’s go.” He starts out the door.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To set your store up right. Forget your Bach-through-the-iPod-dock nonsense. What this girl wants is some proper sound.”

  Inside Pretty Baby, Noel sets the record player on the counter and bends down to plug it in. “This just may be the single greatest rock band on the face of the earth and you can’t raise this child without them. Britt Daniel, the lead singer, writes lyrics so brilliant that they could be poetry.”

  Sylvie starts to bawl. “Whatever,” says Eleanor. “Just be quick.”

  He turns down the lights and pulls the record, Transference, from its sleeve.

  With great flourish, he sets it on the turntable. “I shouldn’t even risk this album on a record player I haven’t tested. Anything could happen.”

  Angus climbs up onto a big denim chair and stretches out, his great limbs dripping wet now and hanging off the edge like two-by-fours. His mouth falls open in a canine grin as he looks about at his growing family. Ginny was at least partially right. Or perhaps she was bang on. Perhaps Angus views the mighty Sylvie as alpha. She’s certainly the loudest of the pack.

  In the near dark, they listen to the spark and crackle when the needle meets vinyl. Sylvie grows quiet.

  “She gets it. That singular greatest moment of anticipation, that hyper-charged piece of time between the needle touching down and the music starting. Not everyone can appreciate it.”

  “This changes everything,” Eleanor says with wonder. “Sylvie doesn’t hate me at all. I was so convinced.”

  Two sexy drumbeats. Then, together, the pluck of guitar with a slightly throaty voice that could be right there in the store with them.

  “A song is never the same twice when you play it on vinyl. The way the dust lands, the smoothness of the turntable, it brings a song to life any way it pleases. You can’t control it.”

  You can’t control anything, Eleanor doesn’t say. Or anyone. People let you know how much they have to give. All you can do is listen and decide where to position yourself. Some you’ll stay farther away from, some closer. Some you’ll keep right next to you. She squeezes Sylvie.

  “Like it so far?” asks Noel. “It’s called ‘Out Go the Lights.’”

  She nods. “I like it.”

  “The album was Victoria’s. A birthday gift from me. Couple of months before she died.” Noel drops to the floor by Angus’s ankles and bobs his head softly to the beat. “I want Sylvie to have it. You know, so she grows up right.”

  Eleanor watches him. A smile spreads across her face. “I’m glad you moved in next door.”

  He leans forward to adjust a dial on the stereo. Barely perceptibly, he nods.

  Sylvie reaches up to touch Eleanor’s cheek. When she looks down, the child giggles. Takes Eleanor’s jaw in her hands and squeezes it, then drops her head to rest against Eleanor’s shoulder. She holds the child more tightly, feeling her warmth, breathing in her powdery scent. For a moment, the world is perfectly still.

  Noel catches Eleanor’s eye. He nods toward Sylvie.

  She’s fallen asleep.

  As Eleanor places Sylvie in the window display crib, the bell above the door jingles. A black man walks in, tall as the door frame, and takes off a snow-covered cap to reveal short hair. In shades of brown, like Sylvie’s.

  “Eleanor Sweet?” His accent is West Coast. He stomps off his boots and extends an enormous hand. “Domenique Beaudoin. I am Sylvie’s father.”

  She can think only of pushing him out the door and locking it. Grabbing her daughter and bolting out the back. She could do it. She could muster up that kind of strength. Instead she takes his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “I didn’t expect to find you here. I flew in hoping to meet with you in the morning, but couldn’t stay in my hotel room and took a walk.” He shrugs massive shoulders. “Here you are.”

  Noel stands. Tugs Eleanor’s sleeve. To Domenique, he says, “Can you excuse us a moment?” When the man bows his head, Noel pulls her to the side.

  “Tell him I’m Jonathan. Tell him we’ve reconciled and you’re no longer doing this alone.” He cups the back of her neck and shakes his head. “Because, hey, you’re not.”

  She takes in his earnest expression, his kind eyes, almost pleading to let him help. Rising up on tiptoes, she kisses his cheek. “Noel. The flood was my fault. She was in my store, your upstairs neighbor. We were all talking. I should have seen how frustrated she was. I should have known—”

  He pulls her neck closer and kisses her hard, surprising them both. “Shut up and let me lie for you.”

  She steps back, smiles. Finds his hand. “I’m going to do this truthfully. I have to.”

  Once he’s gone, Eleanor drops into a big chair, swirling with too many emotions to count. Her fingers tickle Noel’s until he slides into the chair with her and lays one leg over hers.

  They hadn’t been in the break room long, Domenique and Eleanor. He refused, before leaving, to let her wake the child. Just watched Sylvie sleep in the window display for a while, the snow falling softly behind her. Reached up to dab his eyes. He and Eleanor exchanged contact information. They promised to stay in touch. For now, he said, he didn’t want a relationship with his daughter.

  “Let it be in her hands.” He had put on his cap and stepped out into the snow.

  “What did you say that made him leave so content?” Noel asks.

  She reaches up to swipe lint from his shoulder and he grabs her hand, threads his fingers through hers. “I told him about her crying. How, even if I dropped dead from the pain, I would have let him take her away if I thought it was best for her. But after tonight, after seeing her happy, I would stop a train with my bare hands to keep anyone from taking her away. Including him.”

  Noel’s mouth twitches. “What did he say?”

  “He said he couldn’t live with himself, he couldn’t relinquish his rights, until he came here in person to see for himself what I was made of.”

  “And?”

  “He told me about Sylvie’s mother. Tia. That in all his life he’d never met a woman who knew what she wanted like Tia. She was soft. She was strong. He said that she loved herself enough to make a powerful mother.” Eleanor leans her head back and smiles in the dark. “He said that I was just like her.”

  Epilogue

  Isabelle lies in the dark and claps her hands. When the light goes on, she sits up. Pulls on a robe and pads down to the kitchen to heat the kettle. As soon as it whistles she shuts the burner off and stares at the steam curling up from the spout. With a shake of her head, she climbs the stairs back to her room. She lays the robe over the foot of the bed and climbs under the covers. Honestly, she never should have let Eleanor Sweet into her life. She was managing just fine. With a loud clap, the light goes off.

  “Lunacy,” she says.

  Right away, she claps again. Throws of
f the covers this time and marches into her closet. Pulls on a v-neck sweater and houndstooth trousers. A pair of boots capable of keeping her hips from shattering as she leaves Battersea Road to traipse hither and yon through the snow.

  In the kitchen, she sits at the island, her purse on her lap. Here she waits for the clock to strike nine. When it does, she stands. Makes her way to the front hall, where she pulls on a wool coat. She looks at herself in the mirror, then slips a scarf from the drawer and ties it around her neck.

  It’s like a child raising a child, this Eleanor dousing her baby girl in bubbles, wheeling her about the city in the middle of the night. She has all the sense of an aardvark. Later this morning, Isabelle will stop by the store. She owes it to that poor child to get involved.

  But first, she has a stop to make.

  The Sidecar Diner looks like a San Francisco trolley that was hoisted from its tracks, shipped across the country and fastened to the base of the Channing-Breyers building. Then, in an effort to make it feel less West Coast, less Golden State, it was coated in decidedly non-weather-resistant black paint, as evidenced by coiled strips of alkyd peeling off its body like bark from a dying willow.

  Isabelle steps inside, removes her gloves and jacket. Her scarf she leaves on. Fortification.

  This is no trendy reproduction diner. The black and dingy-white floor is greasy enough that she’s already slipped twice. The air smells of bacon, strong coffee, cigarettes being smoked out the back door, and a mop so sour Isabelle almost volunteers to head to the store to pick up a quart of bleach.

  Her eyes roam the room. There, in the last booth, sits a woman with short hair and a face clear of makeup. From the bench across from her, two freckled boys stare at Isabelle and bounce with excitement.