Not Her Daughter: A Novel

sarah

during

I grip her hand. Dirt clings to her small palm and makes caked half-moons under her nails. I squeeze her against my side, a shield against the drizzle. Her red bow bobs as we move faster down the road. Even here, I can’t escape the rain.

Don’t stop moving.

My heart pirouettes and shoots a melodic thump to the center of my forehead—usually a precursor to a massive headache—but this, this is all nerves. My legs slice forward uncertainly, both of us moving toward our new destination.

She peers up at me, eyebrows pinched, her left cheek bloated and red. She opens her mouth, closes it. Without thinking, I adjust the umbrella and scoop her up, wrapping her spindly legs around my waist. Her shins dangle around my middle, which makes it difficult to walk.

A few more steps and we will be there. A few more steps and I can figure out what I’m doing, where I’m going, what I’ve just done.

We cross the threshold into the small, sparse, barren lobby. I lower the umbrella and tug her higher on my hip. I walk across the slick marble entryway, my shoes squeaking on the checked floor. My fingers hover over her red bow and her swollen cheek, concealing both in case anyone is bothering to look. I move to the bank of elevators, pressing a scratched, gold button. I tap my foot. I pull the girl higher. Her sour breath sweeps across my neck. With caution, I glance over my shoulder. My stomach roils—a warning.

The doors open. An elderly couple file out before we step in. I hit 4—the top floor of this boutique hotel—and finally, carefully, ease the girl down.

It is only then that she looks at me—really looks at me—before shuffling back against the shiny, mirrored wall. I resist the urge to tell her to be careful against the glass.

Where’s my mommy? She whispers, so that I have to lean in to hear.

She’s… I hear the question and consider my answers. Her mother is at home. Her mother is searching. Her mother had her chance. I straighten. She’s at your house, remember? I can see the question on Emma’s face—shouldn’t I be with her, then?—but we reach the floor and exit. I fish my key card from my wallet, my eyes on Emma, who has the pace of a child who’s in no rush.

I tap the key to the lock, see the green light, and hear the soft click as I push the heavy door back on its hinges. We slip into darkness. It is humid, the air thick with the stench of cleaning products. I flip on the light and assess the tidy room. She stands a few feet from me, her breath punching the silence.

Are you okay? Are you hungry?

She turns. Her red bow quivers on top of her brown hair. She shakes her head no. Her eyes fill with tears. I need to shut this down, but I’m not sure what to say or how to handle this. We are practically strangers.

Is Mommy looking for me? She speaks louder than before, with more conviction.

I want to tell her to forget about her mother—that wherever that wretched woman looks, she won’t find us. I’m not sure, sweetheart.

I move past her and shove my clothes back into my bag, fighting the urge to run out of here as fast as I can. I probably have an hour, maybe more, before this town is turned upside down.

I walk over to her, unclip the red bow from her hair, and drop it into my bag.

The first piece of evidence.

We have to go now, I say. Will you come with me?

She nods and swipes the edge of her palm up and across her nostrils, wincing as her fingertips flick against her tender cheek. I already paid for the night—in cash—but we are leaving. The room will sit here, empty, hot, and scrubbed clean by housekeeping.

I grab her hand as we head for the door again. Emma walks a few steps behind and kicks at the carpet, dragging the fingers of her left hand across the floral wallpaper, as though she is combing through water. I press the elevator button and scan the hallway. A few doors open and close, but no one joins us. The elevator opens. Empty. A sign? A small gift? I call to her—easy now—and she steps on again.

Do you want to push the button? I motion to the 1, but she shakes her head and shies away from me. I stab the button and wait for the doors to close. We lower, floor by floor, one step closer to freedom.

I drown the panic, tamp it down as best as I can. I don’t know what I’m doing or what I’ve done, but I have to keep moving. I have to get home. And I have to take Emma—sweet, unsuspecting Emma—with me. She is my responsibility now, and I will do everything I can to protect her. I am rewriting her story, altering her memories, shifting her shitty childhood into clean chunks: before, during, after. Then, now, someday.

I take a quaking breath and wait. The elevator bumps to the first floor. A beat. The doors slide open. We step through.

We move on.

before

I opened my eyes.

It was a full minute before I registered Ethan was not beside me, his arms scooped under my ribs, as if preparing to roll me onto the floor. He never had morning breath—a lucky trait that left him brazen with a.m. kisses. Every morning, I would self-consciously extricate myself from his tangle of limbs to brush my teeth and slap on deodorant.

I had to get out of this condo before the daily reminders started: the lack of coffee, the stillness of the bedroom, the quiet, solo dressing, the crisp sheets on the right side of the bed. He was in our favorite café. He was on the muddy, green trails. He was on the TriMet, the MAX Light Rail, waiting outside the NW patisserie with a scone and a smile. The memory of him was everywhere.

People broke up every day. People lost people. People went through actual tragedies beyond the sad girl-meets-boy-boy-breaks-girl’s-heart tale. I had to get on with it already.

Despite the millions of things I missed about him, what I missed the most, at the moment, was his coffee. He’d bought me a Chemex for my birthday, and despite never drinking coffee himself, he’d researched, bloomed, and whittled the brewing time to a swift science.

Would you look at this?

I’d scoot beside him, our elbows bumping, as I inhaled the rich dark chocolate and woodsy smells of whatever local brew he’d bought. What?

There are like three bubbles in this. This coffee is shit. He’d palm the bag, poring over every detail, as if he’d missed something the $17.99 price tag had disguised. When he got a good bag and the bubbles exploded like soapsuds, he’d slap the countertop as if he’d won some sort of coffee competition. I loved this about him, loved that he had a personal investment in perfecting something that mattered to me, not him. I felt so lucky then, wrapped firmly in what I believed to be It. The One. Forever. There wasn’t a world in which we didn’t exist together.

Now that there was, I didn’t know if I wanted to be a part of it.

*   *   *

I pulled up to the loft at 9:00 A.M. and rode the elevator to the seventh floor, running my eyes over the company logo: TACK, Teach. Activate. Create. Know. Ethan had carved the sign from walnut and helped bolt it to the wall almost three years ago.

Morning, boss lady. Madison greeted me at the front desk.

Morning. Busy yet?

Oh, you know. She walked around the desk to take my things. Always. Do you want coffee first?

I nodded, entered my office, and walked straight to the windows—my favorite feature—and pressed my fingers against the cool glass. It was raining, something I hardly ever noticed anymore, mostly because it was always raining.

When I moved to Portland, I used to think it was just something people said—it rains all the time!—but it did rain as much as they said. Misty, ropy rain that saturated your hair and clothes just enough to be annoying. My hair was perpetually in a state of frizz, which meant I kept it knotted high on my head, in a bun, rammed with endless bobby pins. Ethan used to find the pins everywhere: in the couch cushions, on the floor, in the sheets. He’d open them up and create little uses for them, like scraping earwax from his ear—much to my horror—and pitting a whole bowlful of cherries, thanks to a video he saw on YouTube.

I fingered my skeleton-key necklace and flicked the metal around and around, thinking of all I had on the docket over the next few weeks. I was rolling out to Ethiopia and Senegal—two places I hadn’t yet been for TACK. We had new products to implement in each country, and who better than the CEO to bring the children their educational kits?

TACK had started small, like most things: digital activity books personalized to children’s interests. Kids or parents filled out questionnaires of their ages, favorite toys, subjects, and activities, and I crafted personalized stories to help them learn. Their parents would send photos of their children’s beloved toys, pets, and a headshot, so they could become the stars in their own adventures. The activity books had gone viral in a matter of months; I’d been urged to make actual kits, though I wanted to stay in the digital space to keep costs down. Eventually, I’d tinkered with the idea of personalized kits specified to cultural interests, instead of age group. It had caught on so strongly internationally that I had three buyers desperate to purchase my business. They called once a week with offers that made my mind twitch with the possibility of complete financial freedom, but I wasn’t there yet. I was still obsessed with my business and wanted to stay focused on both global and domestic growth.

Madison interrupted my train of thought with a giant mug of coffee. Got the last of Travis’s homemade almond milk.

Perfect. Thank you. I gripped the hot mug and took a long sip.

Madison brought up her iPad and divulged all the recent orders, my travel itinerary, and what products had a few issues we were tweaking. Brad and team have already started working out the kinks, so don’t panic. Seriously. They’re handling it. Madison gnawed at her bottom lip. She knew me well; if there were issues, I liked to take care of them myself. I’d been called a control freak, even panic-prone when problems flared, but I was learning to delegate.

Fine. I gave her a reassuring smile. I trust them. Next on the agenda? I straightened in my chair and spun around to face the floor-to-ceiling windows. The wheels squealed in protest, and I flinched. The drizzle had already ceased and a slice of sun was threatening to spill through the clouds.

That’s really all in terms of the next forty-eight hours or so. Madison pulled a can of WD-40 out of my bottom desk drawer and sprayed the wheels. She wiped her hands and glanced at her watch, a nervous tic, because I was so obsessed with being punctual. You have a meeting with Travis at eleven, which gives you almost two hours. Her Prada heels clacked toward the door. Open or closed?

Closed, please.

The next two hours evaporated over a sea of unanswered emails and preparations for my trip. On my third coffee refill, I took a break and pulled up a new browser. I had removed Facebook from my phone, but it still taunted me on my computer. What was he doing? Was he seeing someone? What new pieces was he selling in the shop? The not knowing ran its sharp fingernail underneath my skin.

Don’t do it, Walker. Don’t. My stomach clenched. Who was I kidding? Every time I went online, I thought of him first. Every scroll through my news feed, I hoped to see him. Every time my phone dinged, I secretly prayed he was texting, calling, or sending me an email.

I perused my own page first and then my friends’ news feeds, noticing one of the latest quizzes: What Celebrity Do You Look Most Like? I clicked it, let Facebook pull my personal photos and details, and then, voilà! There it was: Congratulations! You are a classic, timeless beauty. Your celebrity lookalike is Anne Hathaway! I scrutinized the photo of Anne and the one of me. There was a strong resemblance. We were both tall, pale with dark hair, and had large doe eyes. Ethan used to tell me I had bedroom eyes. That I looked the most beautiful just in from a run or when I had scrubbed my face free of makeup. Anne and I also had the same pouty, full lips. But where she was thin, I was athletic, more of a runner’s body to her natural willowy frame. I closed the window, opting not to post it for all my digital audience to see.

I’d eaten up Ethan’s compliments, hanging my entire life on them. What did that say about me, even now, crunching numbers, pushing objects into factories to be made for children, when I knew so little about my own life without a man in it? Ethan had filled a void for me, obviously, and so did my career. Now, it was as though all my hopes of a normal life—marriage, babies, a traditional home, family vacations—had been extinguished.

Sarah? Madison stuffed her head into the sliver of space from the cracked door. Travis is ready.

Be right there. I hovered over the small x to close the window. I wished he’d blocked me the moment we broke up, but Ethan wasn’t that type of guy. He also wouldn’t want to flaunt anything in my face if he were in a new relationship, but it wouldn’t even dawn on him that I would be looking at his page. I’d gotten better—checking just once a week at most—but still. We were approaching the six-month mark post-breakup without even a casual run-in at any of our favorite places.

I took a breath and typed in Ethan’s name. A photo of him popped up on his timeline—posted three days ago—his face pink from sun, his smile genuine, his arms wrapped around the shoulders of a woman.

I leaned closer, ripping her features apart. The way her bottom lip sagged slightly to the left. The curve of her petite nostrils. Her insanely arched eyebrows, which looked overly plucked. Her beautiful blond hair, piled in a topknot that caught the light of the sun. Her smile, and his, which revealed a relationship I didn’t want to know about.

I closed my laptop and brought it to my meeting with Travis, slipping back into work mode. I finished the rest of the day in a blaze of tasks, meetings, and preparations, as though not thinking of Ethan would somehow ease the knot in my stomach and bring him back to me.

*   *   *

When I looked up again, it was dark. I blinked from my computer haze, stared at the twinkling lights, and soaked in the city sounds that gathered outside the glass in a blast of horns, sirens, and the occasional screech of tires on wet pavement. I gathered my things and locked up, taking the elevator back to the ground floor.

I knew why I couldn’t shake the thought of Ethan today—it was our anniversary. It pained me to think what we might have planned; how we would spend the night trying to outdo each other with gestures and gifts. Even when we weren’t celebrating, Ethan and I would meet near his furniture shop after work, pick a brewery at random, and talk about our successes and failures for the day. Sometimes, we’d slip into Powell’s, making out in random book stalls, before picking one book to purchase for each other. No matter how long we’d been together, it was still a thrill to see him after a long day at the office. It felt like dating. It always felt like dating. Now, the city gave me comfort as I walked toward home and smiled at the people just beginning their night.

In my condo, after I changed into pajamas, ordered takeout, and drank too many glasses of wine, my cell rang.

Hi, Dad. Right on time.

Am I that predictable?

Yes. You’re like the news. Except less depressing.

He chuckled, which reminded me of sandpaper against gritty wood. All the years of crying had left his voice weaker than it should have been.

So, what’s up?

Just want to see what my favorite daughter is doing.

That joke never gets old. I stretched and stifled a yawn. Just traveling the world, working myself toward an early retirement. You?

Oh, you know… A shuffle of papers filled the silence, perhaps the collection of bills he kept neatly stacked by the telephone, or the daily newspaper, folded into thirds. Busy too.

We both knew that busy meant spending nights on the couch or occasionally taking a walk around his neighborhood. My father no longer worked long hours, or very much. His zest for sales had waned with his zest for life. He lived the simplest way one could, his mortgage wiped clean from a Christmas present after my second year in business. The only real expenses in his life were utilities, the upkeep for his beloved Mustang, and whiskey. I checked the time, knowing he was probably a third of a handle in.

I want to come see you soon, okay? I’ve just got a big trip coming up, but then I can come visit for a few days. How does that sound? Or you can always come here… It was the same suggestion I made every time he called. Come to Portland. Get out of your comfort zone.

I can’t get away anytime soon, but I’d love it if you could make it here. His tone shifted. I thought since you and Ethan broke up, you’d visit a bit more.

Well, you know, I’ve got a business to run, Dad. The defensiveness sliced across the line, and I immediately retracted it. Sorry. You know what I mean. It’s just filling all my time.

He didn’t respond, but I could feel him nodding on the other end. Filling time had been his entire life’s work after my mother. He was an expert at it. We both were.

Well, kiddo, I hope to see you soon.

Me too, Dad. Love you.

Love you too. Be safe.

I hung up, no more satisfied than before he’d called. Every time the phone rang, I expected something to be different: for him to go overboard with his last drink, to have a wild night out and get arrested, to commit sloppy suicide, to tell me he’d met someone. But the years passed in the same linear pattern, only my successes dictating the difference between yesterday and today. Despite all of my efforts to improve his life, nothing ever changed.

*   *   *

My flight for Ethiopia left Thursday. I’d told Madison to book the cheapest flight, not realizing that cheap meant indirect. I was flying from PDX to Calgary. Then from Calgary, I’d head to Toronto, and after an interminable layover, I’d finally descend into Addis Ababa after a twenty-eight-hour flight. It wasn’t the first time I’d done it, but as I looked at my ticket, I realized it would be the first time I wasn’t in first class.

I edged through the security line and plucked a gray bin from the pile, shoving my shoes and computer into separate containers. I hated this part, how cumbersome travel had become, how invasive. I organized my bag on the belt, mentally running through my to-do list when I touched down in Ethiopia.

Once, Ethan and I had talked about adopting a girl from Ethiopia due to the extreme local sex trafficking—how our daughter would wear her heritage like a badge, how we’d visit her native country, make authentic Ethiopian cuisine, and expose her to all sorts of cultures and customs. Was he ever serious about any of it, about me? Did I somehow miss some giant, obvious sign?

I shook my head. I was always looking for signs. A bit superstitious, I made constant deals with myself, as though these deals would culminate in some life-changing event: If there are five babies on the plane, it won’t crash. If I just say yes to this client, I’ll get into Forbes. If the light turns green when I count to three, I won’t complain for the rest of the day. If I don’t eat dessert today, I can have Mexican tomorrow.

I yawned and waited for the people beside me to get situated and keep the line going by pushing their bins into the machine. My mind was already somewhere else—on a huge, generic coffee and the gossipy magazine I’d buy—when I saw her.

Something inside me wrenched. A little girl, not more than five or six, stood in a red dress with shiny sequins attached to a full skirt that swished when she moved. A red bow perched on her mousy brown ponytail. Slippers that could have been a match for Dorothy’s in The Wizard of Oz hugged compact, white feet. She looked like Christmas. I watched her with a smile on my lips and felt, foolishly, like I recognized her; she was so familiar, she could have been my very own.

"Emma, stop! What are you doing? I said stop it!"

To my right, a short, overweight woman in a navy shirt and tight jeans was yelling at her daughter. Her face bloomed with angry red sores (acne? eczema? rosacea?), and she exhaled as she adjusted an exhausted-looking toddler on her hip. Behind her stood the girl in red. She stepped forward, shoes sparkling, but her mother shoved her out of the way, as if she were an attacker on the street and not her own flesh and blood. The girl stumbled back, and I instinctively reached out to catch her.

The father stood beside them, lean and pasty, oblivious to what his wife had just done. He was busy shooting off a text, then pocketed his phone. Their bags spilled around their feet. The mother struggled to lift a suitcase onto the conveyor belt while still holding the toddler, and the dad grabbed the same bag in an attempt to help.

That’s my arm! What are you doing?

I was just helping you. Jesus.

Let go of my arm, Richard. The woman stared accusingly at my bins. We don’t have any bins. Now we’re not going to make our flight because we have no bins.

Well, what do you want me to do about the bins, Amy? Invent more bins?

"I don’t know. Just stop talking. Stop saying bins like that! For the love of God, just please, please, please, stop talking. Amy turned, her pocked jaw pulsing as she clenched her teeth. Emma, I said stop it. What is wrong with you?" The girl was rocking back and forth on her heels, reaching for her mother’s fingers. Every time the mother knocked her fingers away, Emma would come back and touch a different part of her mother’s body: her waist, her elbow, her hips. Her small cuticles were chewed and bloody, and I noticed a faded bruise on the girl’s left wrist.

Do you even want to try and make this flight, Richard?

Oh, stop right there. Don’t even try and blame me. This is your fault and you know it.

What’s my fault? The line? Not having bins? Not getting the kids out the door on time? This is an important day for me—

Yes, all of that. Your fault. Not mine.

You’re an asshole.

"You’re an asshole."

Excuse me?

He lifted his flimsy arms in surrender. I’m just saying.

They slopped the rest of their luggage on the belt and snatched a fresh stack of bins brought over by a worker. Emma, go! Emma was busy adjusting her parents’ gray bin, her brain having made the connection that they had turned it a different way from everyone else’s. Stop touching that and go! The mother reached one thick palm, fingers flexed, and pushed into the thin crease between the girl’s shoulder blades, forcing her arms to flap like wings. She continued to shove the little girl through the X-ray machine, where an airport guard motioned them over to have the mother’s hands swiped.

I stepped through the full-body scanner, my arms held above my head as they searched my body for hidden weapons. While I waited for confirmation that I wasn’t smuggling anything illegal, I saw Emma reach for her brother’s toes. Her mother wrenched her fingers backward, prying them free. She turned her back to the girl, but Emma clutched her sore hand and jumped up and down in an attempt to get her mother’s attention. The woman fussed with the toddler and snapped at the dad. And the girl, truly unable to get her mother to notice, finally gave up and stared off into space, disconnected, her hand folded protectively in the skirt of her red dress.

On the other side, I collected my belongings and looked at the guards, who were too busy directing, swiping, and yawning to notice. I waited for someone to acknowledge the mother’s aggressive behavior, while my boots and laptop sagged in my fingers.

I remembered so much about my mother then, the way she always walked ahead of me in parking lots, at the grocery store, or even crossing the street. I never knew if she was embarrassed by me or if she simply didn’t care. I always trailed behind her as an afterthought, trying to pepper her with compliments: Mama, you look so beautiful today. Mama, I love your hair. Mama, I love that skirt.

She would sigh in disgust and insist the only reason I was saying those things was because I was afraid of getting in trouble and not because I meant them. I could never do anything right, and it’s something I recognized in this little girl now, as she dragged her feet, kicked at the airport carpet, and waited for someone to just pay her some attention.

Having worked with children for years, I knew parents had off days. I knew the airport was the definition of family stress. I knew how little beings could take hold of your psyche and ravage you. I knew there were rare breaks and little explanation as to how they could suddenly, without warning, push you to the edge and shift you from pleasant to monstrous. I knew all of that, but seeing this outright act of cruelty for no apparent reason made me want to punch this woman in the face.

I moved out of the way, zipped my boots, and replaced my computer in my bag. I walked past the foursome, the dad busy pulling their bags from the conveyor belt. I slowed even more as I passed, my fingers so close I could touch the girl’s head. I like your red bow, I said. The three of them turned, the baby’s reflexes not yet up to par with his family’s. In that moment, Emma’s face relaxed back into a little girl’s, and she began to smile. It’s so pretty, I said. I kept walking, not looking back, trying to shake these people from my conscience.

After waiting in a line that snaked around the Starbucks kiosk, the brain fog disappeared as I took my first hurried sip. I bought a few magazines to go along with my novel, checked to make sure the flight wasn’t delayed, and let myself sink into ridiculous celebrity gossip. Halfway through my coffee and an article about Hollywood women caught on camera without makeup, I looked up. There, at the gate to the left of mine, stood the couple. Arguing.

Go! Amy pushed Emma. She snagged her red shoe on the carpet and pitched forward, skidding to a stop on her knees and elbows.

The mother, rolling her eyes, hoisted the baby higher and jerked Emma up by her elbow. I watched the red splotches erupt on her arm, splotches that would later bruise and turn purple. Emma pulled herself up and rubbed her sore elbow and carpet-burned knees.

The couple harrumphed about and sat in chairs on the other side of the gate. They moved around each other with such agitation, it was as though someone were on the verge of detonating. Only Emma, the victim in all of this, seemed unruffled, humming and playing with her shoes, while her mother sighed so loudly, you could hear it across the terminal. She bounced the baby up and down until he looked sick.

I flipped through the glossy magazine pages, my mind fixated on the girl. I checked my phone. Still thirty minutes to board. As though on cue, the mother grabbed Emma by the wrist and started yanking her to the bathroom. Emma half-walked, half-ran behind her as the woman balanced the baby on one side and her daughter on the other. I waited a few beats, shouldered my carry-on bag, and followed.

Emma’s red shoes swung back and forth under one stall, her mother and brother at the end of the shotgun space, a dirty diaper being ripped off and shoved to the side of the fold-out changing table.

Emma, hurry up.

Okay, Mama.

I eyed the stalls—mostly empty—and ducked into one. The tops of the girl’s shoes strained to touch the ground. She kicked the front of the toilet with her dainty heels and hummed, which made me smile. After some maneuvering with the toilet paper dispenser, Emma