Part 9

Chapter 27

“You wouldn’t believe the visit I had,” Robin said as Jane pulled away from the train station. “Total drama. I had no idea.”

“And?” Jane asked as she waited to turn down St. Paul Street.

“Andrew told me his life story. Mom put on a little ‘Don’t worry about me’ show. I went with her to see the doctor. She told her to take sleeping pills and stop drinking (Andrew told me that part, certainly not my mother) and find a therapist. And she told me I had to stop all this ‘nonsense’ about Ellen.”

“Who, your mother? I thought she told you that the day before.”

“The doctor told me, too. She said it was too taxing for Mom and to leave her out of it.”

“Then she didn’t really tell you to stop looking.”

“No, actually, she didn’t. But Mom told me to stop looking, as you just said.”

“And you’re going to listen?”

“I don’t know...” Robin said, watching the Inner Harbor come into view. The two friends were quiet as the pulled onto William Street.

“Don’t look now but I think a homeless man has taken up residence on your front step,” Jane said, craning her neck to see over the car in front of hers.

Sitting on her front step was a sun-burned man with wild blonde curls. He smoked a cigarette and seemed to be looking for someone farther down the street. Dressed in a brown corduroy jacket and faded jeans, he didn’t really look homeless. But that Army surplus sack by his feet made Robin wonder.

“Oh, no. What next?” Robin murmured as she got out of the car. “Can I help you?” she asked the man.

“Would you be Robin Browne?”

“Do I know you?”

“No, I’m afraid not; but I believe I know who you are and I was hoping you could help me. Maybe I could help you, too.”

“And you are?”

“Right. My name is Sean Carrington.”

“Yes?” Robin knew she’d heard the name before but couldn’t remember why.

“I believe I’m your brother-in-law.”

Jane reached for Robin who seemed about to stumble but before she knew it both of them were sprawled on the narrow sidewalk.

“Sorry,” the stranger said as he leaned over to pick the women up.

“Please. I’m fine,” Robin said, pulling away from him. She straightened up and grabbed Jane’s hand to pull her up.

With Robin clearly at a loss for words, Jane picked up her friend’s handbag. “Let’s go inside, shall we?”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Jane,” Robin whispered, eying the man. She couldn’t help staring at him. She knew who he was. She was sure of it. And she knew immediately why Eleanor had disappeared to go with him. A slight man, Sean had the most unruly blondish hair she’d ever seen. Yes, she thought, taking in the face. I think it is the man in those photographs.

“You’re safe with me,” he said, hand on his heart. He had a sparkle in his eye – which he obviously knew how to use to great effect. It won her heart immediately. So did the way he talked. It wasn’t a proper BBC accent. No, it was softer; it reminded her more of Scotland than England. “I have a copy of an email from a man you met in London. Maybe that will help.”

“Yes,” she said, unlocking the front door. What did she say first? This man said he was her brother-in-law. But he was a complete stranger. “Call Jim,” she whispered to Jane and handed her her cell phone.

“Be right back,” Jane said and shot the man a nervous smile.

As Jane went into the kitchen, Robin invited the man to sit down. “You have an email?” she asked.

“Ah, yes,” he said, pulling a wrinkled sheet of paper from his jacket pocket. “I had thought you were going to get a copy, too.”

“No, can’t say I did.” Robin scanned it. In it, Donald Graham said he had written to her to tell her he had found Ellen’s husband when he returned from an assignment abroad. “I didn’t get this,”she said.

“No? Hmmm. You can see that this was addressed to both of us. What can I say?”

Robin examined the email address and it was correct. Lost in cyberspace, or in her “junk mail” file, she thought. The letter really didn’t say much. Graham had decided to give Ellen’s file one more try — he hadn’t looked at it again after their meetings in February — and was able to track down Sean Carrington. If he hadn’t returned to Great Britain when he did, who knows if Graham would have found him?

“Where have you been?” Robin asked.

“I was in Tasmania working with a writer on a magazine article on global warming. I’ve been there for three months. I used to live there, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know. Who are you?”

“As I said,” he said, stopping to smile at her, “I’m Eleanor’s husband. At least I was. I’m not sure at the moment. We lost touch some time ago. I was away too long, it seems.”

Jane came bustling in with coffee cups and a plate of Robin’s snickerdoodles. “I hope you don’t mind, Robin. The cookies were there and seemed a good idea. I thought you might like some coffee. I certainly do,” she said and scattered dishes around the coffee table. She turned back to the kitchen for the coffee pot and cream and sugar. She took a good look at the strange man as she walked back in and couldn’t help but see the guarded look on her friend’s face.

“So,” she said, as she poured coffee. “When was the last time you saw Eleanor?”

“It’s been about 10 years. The baby was just a little girl when they moved back here. She told my mum she was going to Annapolis — she said her mother lived there. Well, I had no idea where Annapolis was but I knew I couldn’t stop her either. I was planning to go on the road again and she’d go while I was away. She promised to keep in touch. I don’t think she ever wrote a letter. Or called. Email was a little better But the internet connections were pretty bad back then and every time she wrote she had a new email address. I couldn’t keep track of them. One day, I realized it had been a long time since I heard from her. And then I never heard from her again.”

He stopped to sip the hot black coffee. “This is good, thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Jane responded. “No answer at Jim’s. I left a message,” she whispered to Robin.

“I’m sorry. This is my friend Jane,” Robin said. “We’ve been friends since long before Eleanor die— disappeared. You were saying?”

“Yes, anyway. Graham called my mother’s house. She blew him off as another tele-marketer. Apparently, she’s hung up on him before. When he grew insistent, she handed the phone to me and asked me to take care of him.”

“He asked for Eleanor and I had to listen to him. We met in London two days ago. I had to come to America anyway for another assignment so I booked it right away. My mum wasn’t too happy — until I said I thought I might find Samantha.”

“Samantha?” Jane asked

“Their daughter,” Robin answered.

“Right,” Sean answered. “I arrived last evening but you weren’t home. I decided to come back today and wait for you. I figured you had to come home sometime. I couldn’t wait anymore. I’ve been missing Eleanor, well Samantha, really, for ages.”

“Robin,” he continued. “Eleanor spoke of you so often, I knew what you looked like and I knew how much she missed you.”

“Why then did she leave us to think she was dead?”
“She didn’t mean to, Robin,” he said, leaning forward to put his hand on her arm. He thought better of it and pulled away.

“Then why did she leave?” Robin was surprised at her own anger. The hurt feelings welled up again. She leaned forward, folded her hands to keep them still and looked this stranger in the face. “Tell me, if you really are telling the truth. What happened to her? Where did she go? How can I even trust you?”

“It was my fault,” he said softly. He looked away, as if seeing something out the window. “I was mad about her. We’d met in Salzburg and spent hours together. I only had a few days before I was off to Australia on an assignment I’d wanted my whole life. Then I met this amazing girl. Full of life. With a crazy way of quoting Casablanca. She made me laugh – not something I did very often.”

Yeah, Robin thought. I can understand that.

“You see, she said she was crazy about me, too. She told me I was such an expert photographer – do you know how great it is to have someone think you’re wonderful? And she was so excited about the possibility of going to Australia. I didn’t want to go without her. So on my last day in Austria, I asked her to go with me.

“I made her furious. I told her I had a flight at 10 o’clock the next morning and wanted her to get on the plane with me. She blew up at me. Said she couldn’t just leave her friends – and not tell her family. She stood up and walked away. I went back to her hotel and waited for her but she didn’t come back. I thought I would never see her again. What a way to end what had been a terrific week.”

“But she went with you…” Robin said.

“Yes, she did,” Sean said. “I found her at the train station in Vienna that night. I admit, I followed her after she stormed off. She told me she got on the train to Vienna just so she wouldn’t see me again. I begged her to forgive me — she was still angry — and asked her again to come with me. I’m still amazed she said yes. I promised her she could get in touch with you and your parents when we reached Sydney. I know she wrote to you. I don’t know why the letters never arrived.”

“How long were you in Sydney?” Robin asked.

“Only a few weeks. We had to make all the arrangements to go to the Outback. We spent four years shooting pictures in Australia for an Australian outdoors magazine. Then an editor at Reuters called about trouble in Middle East and asked me to take some pictures. I told Eleanor to go home but you know she’s a stubborn girl. She said she’d waited all her life to come to Australia and she wasn’t going home. She stayed in Australia – I have friends there – and she wanted to continue with her own photography. She hoped to sell a few photographs to the travel magazines. Finally, when we got back together a few weeks later, I found out she was going to have a baby. We went to my mother’s home in England to be married. Eleanor tried to reach your parents but the phone had been disconnected and her letters came back. Even the letters to your granny came back.”

“She didn’t try very hard,” Robin said, growing angrier that her sister could be so insensitive. “First we think she’s dead. Then Dad dies from a heart attack. Then Mom moves away. She’s having the time of her life in Australia and our family is falling apart.”

“She missed you terribly. And she felt so guilty that she’d lost touch with you. Believe me, she wrote to you several times but the mail…. Well, it never was delivered, I suppose.”

“But it’s been 15 years, Sean,” Robin turned away and walked over to the window looking onto the harbor.

“But you have to understand, she tried to reach you – even when we got to England, she sent letters to you. We decided to get married and she wanted to tell you. Her letters all came back as undeliverable. When she couldn’t reach any of you she tried to reach your grandmother. But she couldn’t get through to her either. We even came here — in fact, to this very house — when Samantha was born.”

“Here?!” Jane was astonished.

“She decided that she had to try to find her mother before the baby was born. I couldn’t say no. So we went to Annapolis to your old house and found your mother moved away. None of the neighbors had a new address, though. So Eleanor figured she’d come to her grandmother’s house. But the house appeared to be abandoned. No one living here, newspapers piled at the door and a window broken upstairs.”

Robin remembered how the house looked in the months following her grandmother’s death.

“Yes, our grandmother died just after Eleanor went to Europe. What a summer.” Robin sighed and wondered where all this was leading. “No one lived here until I moved in after college.”

“So where is Eleanor now?” Jane interjected.

“I don’t know,” Sean said, looking a little sheepish. “I lost track of her and Samantha.”

“Samantha’s your daughter.” Jane said, clearly trying to put the pieces together.

“She’s 12 now. I didn’t expect I’d ever have a daughter. You see, Eleanor wasn’t happy with me almost as soon as we reached England. I had to work and my assignments with Reuters took me out of the country again. Samantha was actually born here in America. She came early, while we were looking for you. Eleanor decided to go to someplace across the Chesapeake Bay where she was still pretty sure she had friends. She went into labor and had the baby over there.”

Robin couldn’t believe how they had to have crossed tracks so many times — were they still crossing tracks without knowing it?

Sean continued his story. “After Samantha was born, Eleanor gave up and decided to go home with me. The baby needed so much attention and we realized we couldn’t keep looking. I got another job a few months later. I hated to leave but I had to work. Eleanor couldn’t forgive me. It was hard to get a call through or a letter and email was impossible. She and the baby moved to London. My own Aunt Mary offered to watch the baby while Eleanor went to work at an art gallery. She had a show in London that was quite good; I was able to get home to see it. But when I said I was leaving soon, she said she was returning to America. She told me she planned to go to New York and take a class there. When I finally got back to England, she’d taken the baby and returned to America for good. I had promised her I’d find work closer to home. I know I should have but I didn’t. I’ve been shooting news photos for 20 years. We were together long enough to have Samantha. Then she left again. Took the baby and said she’d never speak to me again.

“I didn’t know she meant it,” he said.

“She’d learned how to live without other people by then,” Robin said, bitterly.

“She never called you once she came back to America?” Sean asked, clearly surprised.

“Not a word,” Robin said. “Not one word.”

“Well,” Sean got up. The spark in his eye had faded and Robin realized she believed his story. It sounded plausible. And the look in his eyes made her sure of him.

“Yes, I’m sorry I don’t have anything more. I’m still looking,” Robin said, trying to look hopeful.

“I will, too.” None of them knew what to say next and the silence grew awkward. Robin looked at Jane. Sean gulped the last bit of coffee and stood up. “All right to keep in touch?” he asked.

“Yes, of course,” Robin answered and added quietly, “You’re family.”

Sean shook her hand, offered his business card and was gone.

Robin realized as he drove away, she didn’t know where Sean was going. The address on the card didn’t mean a thing. He said he was off on another assignment.

Robin looked at her friend.

“What do you think?”

“ ‘You’re family,’” Jane whispered and rolled her eyes. “What a crazy story. You believe him?”

“Why not? It may be the truth.” Robin said, hoping it was.

“What are you going to tell your mother?” Jane said.

“Who knows?” Robin sighed. “She doesn’t want to know any more. For the present, Ellen is dead. I think I’ll tell her later.”

Her mother wouldn’t think she had any hard evidence that Ellen hadn’t died, but for Robin this stranger had given her answers. Robin finally had answers she’d longed for these past 15 years. But why wasn’t she satisfied — even a little?

Because it was really only another dead end, Robin thought when she considered all she had heard. As she walked over to sit down with her friend, she fingered the card Sean had given her, filled with his many phone numbers and email addresses. She said nothing as she replayed the conversation in her head.

No, she decided, this wasn’t a dead end. She held in her hand the business card of her sister’s husband. Proof, perhaps, that she might see Eleanor again. Maybe not proof – Sean wasn’t certain he’d find Eleanor. But Robin felt a bit of hope she really hadn’t felt before. She wondered how many times Eleanor may have tried to contact her. After all, they’d moved out of Annapolis a long time ago. Robin wasn’t even listed in the phone book – she still used her grandfather’s listing. Eleanor may not have looked for it. And her mother lived so far away from Eleanor’s home – and with another married name – no, Eleanor certainly wasn’t going to find family very easily. It was too bad, Robin thought, she didn’t come from a big family. As a child, she had wished for all the cousins other families had; she wished it again. Maybe Eleanor would have found someone who knew where the Browne family had gone. Maybe eventually Eleanor would have found Robin and her mother.

Maybe eventually it would still happen. Maybe, she thought, she needed to call that private investigator and update him about this meeting.

Jane woke her out of her reverie. “Robin, my dear girl,” she said, standing and yawning. “I’m going upstairs and go to sleep in your bed. I can’t take any more of this excitement. Call me for dinner.”

Chapter 28

Robin sat there for a moment longer with the card in her hand. She flung it among the coffee cups and reached for a snickerdoodle. Oh for the comfort of a cookie made from her grandmother’s recipes.

I should weigh three hundred pounds from all the cookies I eat, she thought as she reached for more. She took a handful and ate them slowly as she pondered what she was going to do next.

The story she had just heard was fantastic. Who would believe it? Yet, she knew it could be true. Ellen had always had her impulsive moments. She had decided to go to the public high school after the private school right down the street had given her a scholarship. She made the lacrosse team and then didn’t play. She had said she was going to a college in New York or Chicago and ended up in a small town at a small college. Once her mind was made up, you didn’t argue with Ellen. It didn’t matter whether the issue was as small as whether she’d wear black patent leather shoes or sneakers to her friend’s sixth birthday party or whether she would make it home for Christmas. Mom hadn’t even wanted her to go to Europe — especially with her boyfriend.

The sleepless night before finally got to Robin and she dozed and finally fell sound asleep on the sofa. There she slept until she heard the doorbell. The room was dark without a single light burning.

It rang twice before it woke her. She jumped up, kicked the coffee table in the dark, and turned on the table lamp before running to the door. She struggled to recall the past few hours as she reached for the doorknob.

“Jim,” Robin greeted the man at her door. She ignored the look of worry on his face as she wrapped her arms around him. “You’ve missed all the excitement.”

“I came over as soon as I heard my answering machine. What’s going on?”
“Do you want the long version or a summary?”

“Let’s start with the summary.”

“Ellen’s husband was here today. That’s why Jane called you. We didn’t trust him at first.”

“I think I want the long version now.” Jim sat on the sofa and pulled Robin close.

Before she could finish, Jane came stumbling down the stairs, still sleepy and disheveled.

“Don’t believe a word she says, Jim,” she said as she plopped down in a chair and took a cookie. “Thought you were calling me for dinner,” Jane said to her friend.

“In a minute,” she said. “So he gave me his card and left.”

“Left? Where did he go?”

“I don’t know,” Robin said with a look of despair on her face. “He didn’t say.”

“And you didn’t ask?”

“No. I didn’t ask. I couldn’t think straight. He’ll be back. Here’s his card.”

“Robin, it sounds like you’ve had a hard day.”

“A hard weekend,” Jane said. “I guess you didn’t tell him about yesterday?”

“Not yet...”

“I think we need some dinner,” Jim said. “Go put on your faces and some unwrinkled clothes and we’ll go find you something to eat.”

“I love this man,” Jane said. “He’s a wonderful man.”

She turned and went upstairs. “Mind if I wear your clothes?” she called from the stairs. She didn’t wait for an answer.

“She’s right, you know. I am a wonderful man,” Jim said, and gave Robin a squeeze. They both laughed and Robin had to acknowledge how good it felt to laugh. “Yes, you are,” she said and kissed him.

“I’m starving. Get out of here so we can eat,” Jim said. She rushed upstairs to change quickly and see what Jane had borrowed. Soon, the three of them had found a booth in their favorite restaurant and ordered drinks and appetizers.

“Robin, my dear, I don’t know whether you’re getting closer to the answer you want to hear or closer to the answer you don’t want to hear,” Jim said as he took a glass of beer from the waitress.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said as she put down her drink without taking a sip.

“It could be that you are getting very close to finding out what happened to Eleanor. But it may be that you are going to find out that she stayed away on purpose.”

“I can’t imagine how that could be,” Robin said and then picked up her glass to sip. She needed it, she thought.

Jane passed her the plate of nachos and looked at her. “Really, Robin? C’mon. Ellen didn’t like things the way you did. She always picked out clothes her mother didn’t like. She went to public school. She went to Europe with her boyfriend when —”

“Well, yes, that’s true,” Robin agreed. “I know all that. We’ve talked about it before.”

“Well, maybe it wasn’t as easy as all that for her. Maybe she felt the only way she could be who she wanted to be was to leave. And once she left, she felt the family wouldn’t take her back.”

“You all like things a certain way and you don’t take it lightly when someone strays from the straight and narrow.”

“Do you really think I’m that rigid — or my mother is?”

“Not now but I used to. I think your mother ran a pretty tight ship when we were teenagers.”

“Lots of parents loosen up after they get their kids grown,” Jim said, trying to defuse what looked like an argument beginning to heat up.

“Yeah, Robin. I mean your mother’s great now but when you were in high school, she expected good grades, clean room, neat appearance and boyfriends home by 10:30.”

“I’m glad she’s not checking on you now,” Jim said with a nudge.

“Stop it,” Robin whispered at him.

“You didn’t even question it,” Jane continued. “Eleanor did. And she decided she had to break free. Maybe she thought her life was going to be set for her when she got home. That Bill guy wanted her to marry him, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Robin nodded. She remembered thinking her sister’s life was set. She was going to have the summer in Europe and then a great job — although now that she thought about it she couldn’t remember what kind of a job it was. Was it a job she even really wanted? And what about Bill? Just because Robin and her mother loved him — and Robin remembered the huge crush she had on him — she wasn’t sure how Ellen felt about him. She hadn’t agreed to marry him, had she?

“Robin, did you hear me?” Jim said.

“Sorry,” she said, realizing she had gotten lost in her thoughts. “Oh, dinner’s here. Smells great.”

“You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”

“Mmm, I’m sorry, what were you saying?” she said, picking up her burger.

“I have a bit of news....”

“Oh, no, bad news?” Robin didn’t like the way he hesitated.

“Well, I don’t know. It’s both, I think.”

Jim looked at her as if trying to figure out what to say.

“My father asked me to come home and run his business.”

“For how long?”

“Permanently — or until I decided to sell it. He wants to retire but he’s built the company from a one-man operation to the three-shop empire (really, he calls it that) he has now. He doesn’t want to have to lay all those people off.”

“Really,” Jane said, munching on her salad. “What kind of business?”

“Insurance. I know it’s not glamorous but he’s made a good living in Charleston. He even bought an office in the ‘burbs and another in Jacksonville. He has about 60 people working for him.”

“So what does he want you to do?” Jane asked.

Robin leaned back against the booth. The food just didn’t look appetizing anymore. And the noise was getting a little too loud. She couldn’t hear the conversation around her clearly.

“So you’re moving away?” Robin heard herself say. Jane and Jim stopped and looked at her.

“Yes, I guess I am,” he said. “I want you to come with me but I know that’s asking too much. We really don’t even know each other very well.”

Suddenly, Jane picked up her purse, and slid out of the booth. “Be right back,” she said.

“Good timing, Jane,” Robin said as she watched her friend walk away towards the ladies’ room. But Jane stopped at the bar rather than go to the restroom. Robin laughed at the detour.

“Look,” Jim turned to Robin. His face was serious, much more serious that he ever looked before. “I know we’ve gotten to know each other when things have been really rough for you. But I also think I’m falling in love with you. I don’t want to lose you and I hope you feel the same way about me.”

“I do. I know I do,” Robin said and put her hand on his. She felt herself breathe again. She hadn’t realized it herself until she said it. Yes, she had fallen in love with him. What’s more, she counted on him, more than she even had realized.

“You need to stay here. I know and you know that you have to stay here,” he continued. “You’ve got your mother to think about. You want to find out about your sister. I know. And, although I like it in Baltimore, I have to go. I’m not having fun as a stockbroker and I think I’d like to work with my father before he retires. I worked there the summers I was in college. It was good, even if I didn’t realize it yet.”

“When?” Robin asked.

“Next month. I have to give a two-week notice here and then move down there. I’m going to keep my house for now. I need a place to crash when I come up here to see you.”

“What’s wrong with my house?”

“Not a thing. But the house will need my attention and I’ll just have to keep coming back. It’s only a nine hour drive, much less if I fly. Do you think we can work things out?” he asked her.

“I’d like to,” Robin said, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his neck. She breathed in his warm, clean smell. She stifled a sob.

“What a day,” she said and forced a smile.

“It looked like you needed a few of these,” Jane said. She walked carefully, trying not to spill the crystal liquid in two martini glasses. “Waitress said she’d be right back with the cake.”

“What cake?”

“I don’t know about you two. But I needed cake. So I ordered three pieces.”