My most pressing physical complaint, late on that Tuesday afternoon, was that I was ravenous. Five days without a proper meal had proved my limit. I dialed room service and ordered enough food to feed a family of four. Then I sat back to make a few phone calls. First, my mother. I knew instinctively that it would crush her to learn that Sadie Rawson Smith could have passed for my sister. I didn’t think my mother would feel jealous, exactly. More . . . left out. Excluded. So I glossed over my newsroom visit and focused instead on the cemetery, how pretty it had been, how peaceful. I told Mom about laying the flowers and running my fingers over the granite names. She offered, for the hundredth time, to fly down to be with me.
“Just to keep you company,” she pleaded. My sweet mom. It was tempting to say yes. But she would slow me down, and this pilgrimage felt like something I needed to do on my own. I assured her that I was fine. I would wrap up here tomorrow, I told her, and probably fly back to Washington on Thursday morning.
Next I left a message for Martin. Finally, I steeled myself and dialed the number that Leland had produced for Cheral Rooney. Again, no answer. Just a recording of a pleasant-sounding man’s voice, telling me to leave a message for Rick and Cheral. Lord, where to begin? I hung up, thought for a moment, then called back and left a short message stating my name, phone number, and that the matter was in regard to an old friend of hers.
When the room-service trolley arrived, I asked the waiter to set -everything out on the coffee table. He did so, along with two starched napkins and two sets of cutlery, having quite reasonably assumed that I couldn’t be planning to eat all this myself. It was a ridiculous spread: Caesar salad, tomato-and-basil soup, fresh fruit, a basket of warm rolls, a side of fries, a slice of pie. And a cheeseburger. To be precise, a glorious bacon double cheeseburger, dripping with mustard and grease. I wolfed it down and wished I’d ordered a second. Instead I contented myself with polishing off the rest of the food. It was delicious. Not a single bite tasted like cardboard.
Does it sound callous to eat with such gusto given recent events? Given the bleak reason for my mission to Atlanta? It felt that way. As though I were being disrespectful. I pulled out the photograph that Jessica had printed for me and studied it. My birth parents looked so happy, laughing and flipping burgers on the grill. The sun was beating down on them, and she appeared to be batting smoke out of her eyes. On a table behind them you could make out jars of mustard and mayonnaise, a platter of buns. All of a sudden, I broke into a grin. This must have been why I’d been craving a cheeseburger all day. I’d seen the photograph this morning, and the suggestion of flame-grilled beef had insinuated itself somewhere in my subconscious.
It was funny, now that I thought about it, but we Cashions never made burgers when I was growing up. Tony and Martin preferred steak or barbecued chicken, hands down. Mom did, too, and Dad is a casserole man. But Boone and Sadie Rawson Smith had apparently liked a good quarter-pounder, and they’d passed on the taste to their only daughter. It was such a silly thing, but I felt a connection to them, zinging back over the decades and the loss and all the things that might have been. I decided that if they could see me now, licking grease off my fingers, they wouldn’t find it disrespectful. No, they’d want me to eat a burger or two for them.
I was still smiling to myself an hour later when I crawled into bed and fell into a deep sleep, snuggled beneath the high-thread-count sheets.
Fourteen
* * *
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013
It was on Wednesday that things began to happen fast.
Leland Brett showed up for breakfast right on time, and to give him his due, he conducted a detailed and thorough interview. He’d asked me to bring along a copy of my adoption papers, proving that I really had once been Caroline Smith, daughter of Boone and Sadie Rawson. He studied this until he seemed satisfied, then questioned me about my work, my hobbies, my family up in Washington. What sports did I like? (Um, none.) What kind of music did I listen to? (Classical. Hip-hop. Aerosmith. Everything really, except country.) Leland had done his homework, reading up on me on the university website. He wanted to know how I’d learned French and how often I made it to Paris. I got the sense he was warming me up. Pitching softball questions, waiting for me to relax and drop my guard before he broached the real subject at hand. When the food arrived, we hadn’t yet touched on the events of 1979.
Incredibly, I was starving again. I’d ordered the signature sweet--potato pancakes, served with hot bourbon sauce, candied pecans, and a side of sausage.
Leland looked impressed. “I see you’ve got a healthy appetite.” He eyed both me and my pancakes hungrily. “I like that in a woman.”
God, here we went again. I frowned. “Leland, in case I’ve somehow given you the wrong impression, I should make clear . . . this is a business meeting, okay? I’m here to help with the article. Period.”
He feigned innocence. “Well, of course. And I’m just here doing my job, which at the moment includes enjoying breakfast with a fine--looking woman. That’s no crime, is it?”
“No,” I agreed through gritted teeth.
“But that does make a good segue. You married?”
“For God’s sake.”
“For the story, that’s why I’m asking!” I was about to push back my chair and walk out when he chuckled. “Calm down, hon. I don’t bite. Just having a little fun with you. A little bit of fun. Otherwise this whole business is downright morbid, you have to agree.”
“It’s morbid whether I agree or not,” I snapped.
“That is the truth. Now, have yourself a bite of those pancakes, and then I want you to tell me about why you decided to come back to Atlanta now, after all these years.”
I glared at him but complied. He looked surprised to hear that I’d only recently learned my birth parents had been murdered.
“But what did you think had happened to them? Car crash or something?”
“No, you misunderstand. I’d never heard of them. I didn’t know I was adopted.”
“Good Lord in heaven. Your parents—the Cashions, I mean—they never told you?”
“No. They thought it best—how did Dad put it? Best to ‘let sleeping dogs lie.’ I’d never heard of Boone and Sadie Rawson Smith before last Thursday.”
Leland opened his eyes wide in astonishment.
“It’s been . . . something of a shock.”