I let Nicky choose the cake. Chocolate with bright frosting flowers.
We lit the candle and said a silent prayer. We didn’t sing “Happy Birthday.” I think Nicky was happy about it. It was one of those things kids do to help us heal.
If you can read this, my dear friend Emily, wherever you are, happy birthday!
We love you.
Stephanie
31
Stephanie
Someone remembered Emily’s birthday. A card arrived for her at Sean’s.
That afternoon, in the mailbox, along with the bills and junk mail and fashion magazines that—now that Emily was gone—no one ever read, was an envelope addressed to Emily Nelson. Same handwriting, same brown ink as the ones in the manila folder I’d found in the vanity table.
It was one of cards that Emily got from her mother every year. The sight of it gave me chills.
Did Emily’s mother still think she was alive? Had her caretaker not gotten around to giving her the bad news? Had she decided that Emily’s mom wasn’t strong enough? Or was there something else? Did some lingering mom intuition tell the old woman that her daughter was still alive?
That same night, I showed the card to Sean. He stared at it, clearly unnerved and upset, trying to look as if he had no idea what it was. He knew what it was.
He said, “The poor old thing is so demented she forgot Em is dead. And Bernice can’t bring herself to keep reminding her. I think she’s letting Mrs. Nelson believe that her daughter is alive . . .”
For just a moment, I wondered if he could be lying. He’d never called Emily “Em” before. Besides, Emily wasn’t dead. Did Sean know that? Were they playing some cruel joke on me? Was I the pawn in some evil plan they’d dreamed up together?
That I didn’t know and couldn’t ask made me conscious of how little trust there was between Sean and me, though that didn’t seem to interfere with there being heat. Not every night, but often enough so that we were both willing to stick around for it. Sean wasn’t the cuddliest guy on the planet. I didn’t expect him to be. He was British. He was right with me when we were having sex, but afterward he’d grunt and turn away, as if he wanted me gone.
Finally I said, “You have to tell me if this isn’t working out for you. If you’re having second thoughts. Tell me. Do you want me to leave?”
He said, “What are you talking about, Stephanie?”
It was worse than his saying yes.
The postmark on the envelope was illegible, but I could make out the letters MI. Michigan. Could Emily have sent the card to herself? Was it part of her scheme to mess with my head? Was she somewhere outside, watching us celebrate her birthday with our candle and cake? Without her. What was she looking for? What was she planning?
I asked Sean, “Can I open the card?”
He said, “Sure. Go ahead.”
In that same spidery brown ink, it said, as always, To Emily, and From Mother.
Unless Emily had done a terrific job of forging her mother’s handwriting, she hadn’t sent it. And why would she send a birthday card to herself from Michigan and make it look as if it came from her mother?
The only explanation was that her mother didn’t know that she was dead. That she was supposed to be dead. Or her mother knew something I didn’t.
I couldn’t get the birthday card out of my mind. It became another obsession.
Call it sixth sense or whatever, but I became convinced that I would understand everything if I could only meet Emily’s mother and ask her a few questions. It was more than the usual curiosity about where a person came from. I was sure that Emily’s mother could solve the mystery of where Emily had gone and why, of how she’d disappeared and why she seemed to have returned from the dead. Even if her mother didn’t know what happened, she might say something useful that would make everything clear. Was she as ill as Sean said? She, or someone, had remembered Emily’s birthday.
I found the phone number on the internet. I felt a little breathless when it came up on my screen: Mr. and Mrs. Wendell Nelson in Bloomfield Hills.
I called the number. Twice. The first time it rang and rang. The second time an old woman with a reedy voice answered.
“Hello?” she said. I couldn’t speak. She said, “Is this those damn kids next door fooling around again? I told you I’m not home.”
I hung up.
The third time I said, “Mrs. Nelson, I’m Stephanie. I’m a friend of your daughter’s. A friend of Emily’s.” Under normal circumstances, I would have told her how sorry I was about Emily. But the circumstances were anything but normal.
“She never mentioned a Stephanie,” the woman said. “I never heard anything about a Stephanie. Who did you say you were?”
I said, “A friend of Emily’s. Your grandson Nicky is my son’s best friend.”
“Oh,” she said wistfully. “That’s right. Nicky.”
So this was one of her good days.
“How old is he now?”
“Five.”
“Oh,” she said. “Dear God.”
My heart went out to her. How long it had been since she’d seen him?
I don’t know what possessed me to ask, “Do you think I could come visit you?”
My whole body tensed as I waited for her to hang up or say no.
“When,” she said.
“Next weekend,” I said.
“What day?” she said. “What time? Let me check my schedule.”
I knew Sean wouldn’t want me to go. I invented an Aunt Kate, desperately ill in Chicago. I asked Sean if he could watch the boys, and he said yes. Neither of us had to mention how much time I’d spent alone with the kids.
That I couldn’t tell Sean the truth reminded me that there was no one I could rely on. I was all alone. Still, I trusted him in the most important way—to take care of my son when I was away overnight.
I was still sleeping with Sean. But I couldn’t tell him that Emily was calling me and taunting me with secrets only she knew. He would say I was making things worse. That I couldn’t face the truth. Maybe I’d lost touch . . .
Was I losing my mind? Imagining things? Maybe I was still in shock from my friend’s disappearance and death. Maybe Sean was right. Maybe I was refusing to acknowledge the reality of Emily’s death and making things worse for everyone.
Especially me.
I flew to Detroit and rented a car. I found Emily’s mother’s house, a mansion with pillars and a portico, like the house from Gone with the Wind transplanted to the Midwest. There was a circular driveway and hummocks of overgrown shrubbery hiding a lawn covered with dead brown weeds.
The old woman who answered was small and bent over, dressed in a cashmere sweater, stylish pleated pants, and expensive shoes with higher heels than I expected. Her white hair was pulled back neatly, her bright red lipstick expertly applied. She looked a little like Emily, but more like Grace Kelly if Grace Kelly had lived to be eighty.
The air smelled of rose potpourri as she showed me into a large, grandmotherly living room full of good old furniture and dark paintings of shadowy figures in heavy frames.
“Remind me who you are,” she said. “I’ve gotten a bit forgetful, I’m afraid.”
“Stephanie,” I said. “Emily’s friend. My son is Nicky’s best friend.”
“I see,” said Emily’s mother. “Do you need to use the bathroom?”
“That’s all right,” I said. “I’m fine, really. I’m fine . . .” I was babbling.
Mrs. Nelson perched on a chair covered in rose-colored velvet, and I sat on the edge of the couch. It was an uncomfortable couch but remarkable, in a way. Old-fashioned, faux French antique, with shiny silk embroidery. Deep pink-and-white candy striped. It was so unlike anything that Emily would ever have allowed in her house.
“My husband is dead,” her mother said.
At least she knew her husband was dead. This must be one of her really good days.
“He worked in public relations for an auto company. Who would think Emily would also go into PR after having seen what the ’88 recall did to her father?”
She pushed her glasses down her nose, leaned forward like a bird pecking at grain, and for the first time actually looked at me.