Chapter Twenty-Five Rory

Ginevra’s office isn’t anything special, mostly in line with the rest of her apartment. A bit more playful—a hunter-green table with myriad drawers and blond wood legs; a coral lampshade on a twisted gold base. The vibe is, as the rest of the place, decidedly 1960s, with the sole concession to modernity a massive Apple computer and keyboard.

On the table is something I recognize: a bound manuscript of The Cabin on the Lake! I contemplate what to do. Reading it over again will take hours, time I don’t currently have. I need to get out rather quickly, in case Ginevra returns. But I can’t take the book, can I?

I hesitate but then grab it, stuff it in my bag, my mind already conjuring explanations—You weren’t answering, so I wanted to check that you were okay. I went inside, heard rumbling in the office. You weren’t there, but I saw the book, and ours were all stolen. So…

Oh, scratch it all. If it comes down to it, I’ll deny I was ever here. The Mystery of the Disappearing Bound Manuscript is the least of my problems.

I bend over the computer monitor and wiggle the mouse. A password prompt illuminates on the screen. Am I going to break into Ginevra’s computer? My fingers tremble as I type in Rory.

Nope. I grimace, then change it to RORY, all caps.

Doesn’t work. My fingers hover over the keyboard. Not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed.

I sift through my brain for anything else relevant to Ginevra, any dates, her birthday. Nothing. Oh! Then I remember her sister. Orsola.

I try Orsola, both lowercase and then all caps, but nope.

Okay. Need to move on. I begin opening drawers, rifling through items, trying to move quickly and keep everything in its allotted spot. Ginevra is a pack rat, clearly. Her house is stuffed, but not quite hoarder status—her furniture like crowded teeth that still somehow fit into a person’s mouth. Her drawers, on the other hand, are packed to the brim: a jumble of pens and yellow legal pads with their margins jammed with her now-familiar scrawl, her unique swirly signature that I’ve seen her doodle countless times. I identify several notepads as constituting rough drafts of books published decades before. One drawer boasts only purple pens, probably thousands of them. Purple: her favorite color. Ginevra told me that once and it stuck, probably because it is one of the few things she has ever told me about herself in full transparency, in all our years knowing and interviewing each other.

I kneel as I get to the bottom row. It strikes me that nothing I find is of a personal nature. Office supplies, old drafts—but no pictures of family or friends. No mementos, accolades, awards. It’s like Staples in here. Sterile.

Until I get to the last drawer, on the bottom right. I pull and am completely unprepared for what I find: a mass of newspaper clippings and yellowed newsletters, old pictures. Stupid announcements—kindergarten graduations; bar and bat mitzvahs; high school senior blurbs in the Detroit Jewish News.

Every last clipping and photo spotlighting Papa, Max, and me.

I sift further through the drawer, staggered by what I find. A school photo from when I was six, clinging to the chair back like I was terrified of the photographer. Max on the pontoon, reading a hefty science book, while beside him I’m rubbing Coppertone sunscreen onto my stomach. Papa at the wheel, his ankle sock tan lines visible even in muted nineties instant camera film, his smile boisterous, sucking the marrow out of life. Photos I’ve never seen, capturing not only people but mementos. Reams of science fair ribbons awarded to Max. A ceramics certificate that bears my name. I vaguely recognize a photo of a neighbor’s basement where I took the lessons; we ate graham crackers and emerged with strange lumpy clay figures that Papa proudly displayed on our secondhand credenza.

So many questions skewer my brain. Synapses begin to fire; disparate threads connect. The original interview—how I was chosen to spearhead the feature on the renowned Ginevra Ex. It’s beyond clear now: She knew me. She must have asked for me. Because why? She knows Papa. She’s my mother?

If she’s my mother, then why did she give me away? Why did she follow me my entire life, all the dumb milestones, but stay away? Why did she so innocuously drop my adoption into my lap, but not tell me it was she who gave me up? Why is she back now, and sending me on a trip like one of her twisty book plots?

She’s made a game of my life, and I must be near the climax. Fury bubbles in my throat. What does she think—that a storybook resolution awaits a few chapters away? That I’ll be grateful to her? Fall at her feet in delight?

Call her fucking mom?

I am still kneeling, the parquet beneath my knees nudging at my bones, as my fingertips continue to dig through the detritus of my life. The room starts spinning, the light blazing in from the piazza attacking my pupils, little black sparks fuzzing in my vision. I realize I am panting, almost gasping for breath, so I swivel around, shifting onto my butt, letting the desk prop up my back.

As I shift, my eyes catch on the sherbet-orange stuffed chair across the room, winged by a gold stool. On the stool is a silver picture frame, and I feel myself rising, lunging—grabbing it in my hands.

Staring in complete disbelief. Inside the frame is a picture of two girls, both with long dark hair. They are twins—that fact is immediately evident, as is the relative time period in which the photo was taken. The seventies or eighties, by the vintage quality of the shot, the swingy floral dress adorning the girl on the right, and the violet pussy-bow top and flared jeans sported by the one on the left. The girls aren’t embracing, just standing beside each other, arms rigid at their sides. The one on the right isn’t conventionally beautiful—she has an aquiline nose and slender limbs, but her eyes are almost bulging, outsizing her face. When I peer closer, bring the photo right up to my eyes, I can discern that makeup has been artfully spackled to her skin, partially concealing craters and acne. It’s her smile, though—cold, thin. Strange to see a smile in someone so young so devoid of warmth, of joy.

Smiles tell stories. Deep ones.

I am reminded of how, during COVID, Caro went out with a guy she met in a Rite Aid, who was wearing a mask when they got to talking in line. She was excited for the date—he was tall, had dazzling blue eyes. A total ten. But when they got to the restaurant, and he took off his mask, Caro was stunned. She called the moment of truth the “Mask Reveal,” a close cousin to the “Penis Reveal,” whose results Caro always reported upon whenever she started dating someone new. The Mask Reveal was a more palatable letdown, but nonetheless disappointing for Caro that day. Rite Aid guy had a weak mouth. His front teeth were pronounced, like Chiclets. She was immediately repulsed. And the few-second impression Caro got of the guy was immediately transformed—not just by the bottom half of his face, now visible, but by his energy, his brash treatment of the waitstaff, how he only left a 10 percent tip.

The girl on the right in the photo isn’t ugly so much as plain. The acne-riddled skin, the slightly bulging eyes—I recognize it all. I’ve spent endless hours with the woman the girl grew into. Ginevra.

The girl on the left, on the other hand, is stunning—she’s slender, too, but with kind eyes and a warm smile, giving the feeling that if you cut her open, you’d find sunshine inside.

I can’t see all her features, though, the girl on the left. Because her pretty face, her wide, friendly smile, is marred by a black Sharpie X slashed over her face.

Even more shocking, the reason breath still feels elusive: The girl on the left is familiar. I know her—or I know of her. About her. Zero doubt lingers in my mind.

The girl on the left, the beautiful one, with a giant permanent-marker X singed on her face, is the woman I know as Sandra Lowenstein. As the love of Papa’s life. The woman who left us far too soon.

As Mom—to both Max and me.