Four Months after the Accident
JULY 1983
Back in our apartment I move with methodical precision, dividing everything by half: the clothes in our closet, the toiletries in our bathroom, the few bills hidden inside the shoebox beneath the bed. I put on my nameplate necklace and empty the curio cabinet of the things Jude claims belonged to our mother: the porcelain vase, the long gloves, the tin box, the dancer figurine, and six framed pictures, including the one of me and Jude at the antique carousel, posing as each other.
I pack everything in three grocery bags and set them by the door. Sab still hasn’t called me back and I am dying to hear his voice and tell him everything I’ve learned: about Wen, about the house in Harmony, about Jude’s lies and my next move. I know he’s at work but I leave another message, keeping it short, telling him it’s too much for the answering machine and we need to talk in person. A panic blooms low in my gut, telling me something’s off, but I convince myself that he’s just busy, working long days, and I will try him again from the road.
I make a list of Jude’s confirmed lies, and my many questions:
We never lived in Harmony, Pennsylvania.
We never went to Europe, and instead were living with Wen—why? And doing what? And for exactly how long?
What were we doing on the night of the accident? Jude said we’d planned on dinner at a restaurant that reminded us of the Cotswolds—but we’ve never been to the Cotswolds.
Is she telling the truth about our parents? Did our father run off and disappear? Did our mother die in a car accident? If so, it couldn’t have been in Harmony—so where?
And the question that sends a chill through every piece of me: Could it be that our parents are still alive?
I replay the conversation with Wen, pausing at the moment when she asked, She hasn’t found you, has she?… Isn’t she still in Norris Ford?
Had Wen been referring to Nancy, the loan shark, as she’d insisted? Or to someone else?
I pick up the phone again and dial information, asking for the address and number of the main library in Norris Ford. Before I head out I write Jude a note and leave it, along with the house records, on our table: I wonk ouy dile. Tond yrt ot dinf em.
I know you lied. Don’t try to find me.
The library in Norris Ford is more elegant than the one in the neighborhood, with ivy creeping down a stone facade and tall windows that, on a brighter day, would lure in the light. At the reference desk, a girl my age has her head down, oblivious, reading a book titled Hollywood Wives.
I clear my throat once, twice, and on the third try she looks up.
“Sorry,” she says. “I was in a juicy part.”
I dig in the backpack for the carousel picture and ask, “This might be a long shot, but do you recognize that carousel?”
She looks it over, squinting, sticking out the tip of her tongue. “No, sorry,” she says, handing it back. “But you might have better luck with some of the older librarians.” She points to the far end of the room and says, “Rose has been here forever and knows everything.”
I see her; she is a small figure in heels with cropped hair and the frenetic energy of a housefly, flitting back and forth down aisles and between shelves. I hold out an arm, stopping her midstep.
“Do you know this carousel?” I ask.
“Good morning to you as well, miss,” she says.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “This is urgent.”
She blinks at me behind her glasses, waiting.
“Good morning,” I say. “Now, the picture. That carousel was a very important part of my childhood, and I think it’s somewhere here in Norris Ford, and I know it is almost impossible, but if you could help me identify it, you will be saving my life.”
There’s a worried look in her eyes; she fears I am unwell or crazy. I want to explain, but tears gather and my throat tightens, and all I can manage is, “Please?”
“Shhh,” she says, rubbing my arm. “We’ll try our best.” She lifts the photograph from my hands, tracing the image of my face with her finger. “Fate has connected us today,” she says, “because I grew up riding this very carousel myself.”
I can barely squeak the words: “Where is it?”
“Well, it used to be on the road and all over the country. It was a featured attraction for the Benzini Brothers Greatest Show on Earth, a popular traveling circus during the Great Depression. But now it has a permanent home at the biggest antique market in the state. It’s the first thing you see when you walk in.”
“Name and address?” My heart ricochets with alarming force.
“It’s called Pied Beauty. And it’s just about ten minutes down the road.”
With shaking hands, I pull out my map; she draws a line from here to there. “Good luck,” she says. “I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.”
And there is the carousel, much grander in person than I’d imagined, with three rows of horses and a mirrored center pole that catches and throws the light; a dozen years earlier that mirror had reflected our faces, innocent and blithe. My face is different now, hardened by my accident and things I can’t name, and it is Jude’s face, hardened in the same way, that stares back at me.
Finding the carousel was only the first part of my mission, and I expect I might fail at part two. I walk toward the market’s entrance, decorated with a large wrought iron trellis draped in riotous flowers and braided vines, like the front door to a fantastic and impossible dream. It leads straight into a field that resembles a long, outdoor garage, filled with furniture and oil paintings and jewels that look ransacked from ancient and exotic castles.
I stop at the first stall, where a table draped in ornate lace showcases rows of rings, all locked behind glass.
“Can I show you something?” a woman asks.
She’s in her late forties, I would guess, about the same age my mother would be, and I stare impolitely at her face, gauging the angle of her cheekbones, the subtle cat-slant of her eyes. I think of the photo of our parents tucked away in my bag; this is not my mother. I don’t dare hope that she’s alive, but maybe someone here knew her—or me.
“This is a strange question,” I say, “but do I look familiar to you?”
“What do you mean?” She steps closer.
“Do you know me? Have you ever met me before?” I want to scream: Can you tell me who I am?
“I’m sorry, I don’t. I’m relatively new here. Do you need help? Are you unwell?”
“No,” I say. “Unfortunately it’s not as simple as that.”
I move on. The space swells with heat and a sort of desperate energy—the banter and bartering, the boasting and fibbing, the exchange of bills from palm to sweaty palm. At the next table, I’m so mesmerized by a ruby ring that I forget to present myself and ask if I am known. I hold the ring up to squint at the stone, and from behind the counter comes a deep, foghorn gasp.
“Katherine?” a woman asks. “Katherine Sheridan? Is it really you? Or are you Judith?”
“I’m Katherine Bird,” I say. “Do you know me?”
She bounds out from behind the table and takes my arm and leads me to the adjacent aisle, all the while shouting, “Verona! Verona!” using her cupped hand to amplify her voice. “Look who I found!”
From the far end of the long stall comes a figure racing toward me, great thumping steps gaining in force and speed, a frantic and solitary stampede. This strange woman reaches me and I feel the hot pant of her breath on my face. She is tall and broad with a lush mane of red hair and thick, rambunctious eyebrows and a fur coat the size of a volcano, absurd in this summer heat, and she whisks me to her chest with such vigor that I bang my forehead against her collarbone. She smells of smoke and sour candy and her voice is a baritone, speaking at me in deep, pleasing notes. “Katherine! My dear, darling Katherine! I have been searching for you for years. Oh, I feared you were dead.”
I pry my forehead from her chest and gaze up at her. She says the words a mother would say, but she doesn’t at all resemble the one in the photo, that dainty, tiny lady with the trim hair and frightened smile.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m not sure who you are?”
At this she laughs, a sound much deeper than her speaking voice, tinged with mischief and cunning. “Of course you do.” Both hands now grip my shoulders, her dagger nails impaling my skin. “I’m your mother.”
This stranger, my mother, awaits my reply, but my first thought is of Jude: even the picture of our parents was a lie.
Even my own last name.