Page 79 of Nobody's Fool

I say nothing.

“I imagined seeing Victoria. For real. Did Archie mention that to you?”

He had, briefly, but I didn’t want to stop her, so I gave a small headshake.

“You know those scenes in TV shows where some guy is searching for a missing girl, maybe his girlfriend or something, and the guy thinks he sees her in a bar or a club and so he runs up to her and taps her on the shoulder and then she turns around and it’s not her?”

“Sure.”

“That was my life for a while. Once every, I don’t know, three or four months I’d be in New York City and I would swear—swear—that Victoria was across the street and I could never get there in time. Or she was in a crowd at a concert at Madison Square Garden, but she would vanish before I could get to her. Once I was convinced that Victoria was a barista at a Starbucks. I ran home and dragged poor Archie back to the Starbucks with me. I made him check out every barista. He even paid the manager to show us photos of every barista who was off duty. Archie was so good to me. He tried to help me find an outlet. We started Vic’s Place. Do you know what that is?”

I nod. “A charity for girls in trouble?”

“Yes. If we could help other girls, if something good could come out of what happened to our daughter, well, isn’t there some kind of cosmic balance in that? We set up Vic’s Place. I started volunteering there. A lot. And every once in a while—you could probably guess where I’m going with this—I would see a girl there and I’d be so sure that it was Victoria. I started seeing a therapist twice a week because of this.” She stops, shakes her head. “I’m not making my point, am I?”

“I think you’re doing fine.”

“My point is, the therapist would want to dig into past trauma. That’s what psychiatrists do, of course. What were my parents like? Was I ever sexually abused when I was a kid? How about that uncle who was a bit of a letch? That kind of thing. But it was none of that. I wasn’t having mental issues—it’s just that I wanted to know where my daughter was. Was she dead? Was she buried somewhere? Did she get dumped in the sea? Was she being held in someone’s basement—or did she get hit on the head and lose her memory? Maybe she was just fine, just right around the corner, working at a Starbucks as a barista. The not-knowing was torture. So of course,of course, I imagined seeing her. And then one day, after eleven years”—tears fill her eyes now—“your baby finally comes home.”

I try to handle this as gently as possible. “Can you tell me about that?”

“I didn’t believe it. Ironic, I guess. I was always the one who imagined seeing her, but when they told me about finding a woman with her head shaven at that diner, I was too afraid to believe it. And when I first met her, I wasn’t sure she was my baby. She didn’t talk. The police asked her a ton of questions, but she wouldn’t speak. For days. We took her home. Archie insisted. Got her around-the-clock care. We ran a DNA test right away. I gave blood for it. Archie’s idea. It confirmed that she was Victoria. I sat with her twenty-four seven. I wouldn’t leave. Not for a minute. I was afraid she’d vanish if I did. Or I’d wake up and it would have been a dream, like in the past. Then on the fourth day, she spoke to me for the first time.”

“Do you remember what she said?”

“Of course. Victoria had a king-size bed in her room. She let me lie next to her. We were watching TV.The Price Is Rightwas on. I was holding her hand, and she said, ‘Are you my mother?’”

I tilt my head. “That’s the first thing she said?”

Talia Belmond nods. The tears come now. “It’s not what you think. She wasn’t asking me, like she didn’t know. It wasn’t a question.”

“What then?”

Talia swallows. “It was her favorite book. When she was three. I used to read it to her every night. An old picture book calledAre You My Mother?by P. D. Eastman. Do you remember it?”

“I do,” I say.

“And when Victoria was little and I would tuck her in at night, she would never say, ‘Read to me,’ she would just say…”

“… ‘Are you my mother.’”

Talia blinks. “It’s when I knew. More than any blood test. Anyway, that was the start. She slowly started talking. It took some time, but she came back to us. It was the most beautiful thing I will ever know in my lifetime. There is an old expression: A parent is only as happy as their saddest child.”

I think about that. “Profound,” I say, and I mean it.

“Yes. And so I want to know what happened to Victoria, Mr. Kierce. But the thing is, my daughter is indeed happy. Happiness is always fragile. For all of us. Like a bubble.”

“And you’re afraid I’ll burst that bubble.”

“I am, yes.”

“I’ll do my best not to.”

My phone rang then. As I mentioned, I keep it on silent except for certain people. I look down and see the call is from Molly. I excuse myself and move toward the corner as I put the phone up to my ear.

“Molly?”

“Where are you?”