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God, how that frustrated me. So close! A year earlier, and I could’ve met her. It sounds silly, probably, but I was so sure that if I simplysawher, I would know immediately whether she was in fact my mother. Finding out that she was dead made me almost abandon the whole enterprise altogether.
But then, the very discreet—and even more expensive—detective I’d hired called to inform me that while Helen Darnell had died, her daughter, Claire, was still alive and living in Tallahassee.
Claire.
I remembered seeing the name all those years ago in Daddy’s office, thinking how pretty it was. It was even prettier to me now because Claire might be my salvation.
A side note—one rarely finds salvation in Florida.
Claire was forty-two in 1985, just three years younger than me, but she looked much older when she opened the door of her little apartment in an ugly square building surrounded by other ugly square buildings. I’d tried to dress down for the visit, knowing better than to swan in wearing Chanel, but my Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and Halston blouse were still entirely too much as I saw very clearly on Claire’s face.
She was wearing a T-shirt over cutoffs, her face bare, her hair—the same deep brown as mine, I noted—scraped back into a messy ponytail. Her expression grew wary as she stared at me from her doorway.
“Is this about Linda?” she asked.
I had no idea who Linda was, so I shook my head, sweat already sliding down my lower back, my sunglasses—which, I realized too late,wereChanel, goddamn it—fogging up in the humidity. “No, I… my name is Ruby McTavish.”
Her expression cleared then, lips curving into something that would’ve been a smile if there hadn’t been such a mean edge to it. “No,” she said. “You’re Dora Darnell. I wondered if you’d ever turn up one day.”
With that, she turned to go back into the apartment. I stood there, stunned, and she waved a hand for me to follow her. “Come on in. Sit down.”
The apartment was cool, a window unit rattling in the living room. A little girl sat on the green carpet in front of it, two Barbies in her hands. She looked to be about eight or so, her dark blond hair neatly braided, her pink overalls and clear jelly shoes meticulously clean. The whole apartment was clean, I noticed. Small and shabby, but neat as a pin.
Claire poured me a glass of sweet tea, and we sat down at the kitchen table, studying each other.
“Linda, baby? Go play in your room,” Claire called, and the girl pouted.
“It’s too hot in there.”
“Then go in my room. You can watch TV.”
Magic words, apparently, because Linda happily trotted off toward the small hallway, opening the first of three doors.
After a moment, we heard the muted blare of music, and Claire shook her head. “She’s not supposed to watch MTV, but it’s a special occasion, I guess.”
She turned her head to me. “You have kids?”
“No,” I said, my mouth dry, the tea so sweet it made my teeth ache.
Claire tapped her fingernails on the side of her glass, right over the grinning face of some cartoon character. “I didn’t think I would. Have kids. I was thirty-four when she was born. One of those things, not quite on purpose, not quite an accident.”
She flashed me a smile, and I sucked in a breath, thinking about Andrew’s portrait of me hanging at Ashby House. The smile on Claire’s face was the same as mine. “Her dad ain’t worth shit, but he was good-looking at least. So she’s got that going for her.”
“She’s a very pretty child,” I said, the words prim in my own ears, and Claire smirked, leaning back in her chair.
“When did you figure it out?” she asked, and I didn’t bother pretending to misunderstand.
“I haven’t yet. I’ve always been curious, though. I’d read the stories, and I suppose I––”
“You suppose you started to wonder if my mama wasn’t a liar?” Claire finished, and I wondered how I was already so helplessly on the back foot.
“Something like that.”
She tilted her head, looking at me for a long time before saying, “If it makes you feel better, you were pretty expensive.”
The room had felt too cold earlier, but my skin flushed hot at that, and I took another sip of my tea, my throat so tight that I nearly choked.
“I don’t know how much, exactly. The number changed a lot over the years, but the story stayed the same. Little girl missing, rich family in North Carolina. They saw her picture in the paper, Mama and Daddy, and Mama said it tore her heart up because she looked so much like you. And later she said she wished she’d never said that because if she hadn’t, Daddy might not have ever thought about it.”
