The Life List (10 page)

“You, too.”

I dash from the train, but not before a wave of melancholy catches me. Brad Midar is going away, and I don’t like it one bit. I wonder where he’s going. Is he traveling alone, or with a girlfriend? So far, the time has never felt quite right to ask him about his relationship status, and he’s never offered. And why should he? I’m his client, for God’s sake! But he’s also my only link to my mother. I fear I’ve developed an unnaturally strong bond with him, as her messenger. Like a motherless baby duckling, I’ve imprinted on the first kind face I’ve found.

CHAPTER EIGHT

W
hen my mother was alive and healthy, Thursday night was traditionally family night for the Bohlingers. We’d gather around her dining room table, where the conversation flowed as easily as the Sauvignon Blanc. With Mom seated at the head, topics shifted seamlessly from current events to politics to personal interests. Tonight, for the first time since her death, Joad and Catherine are boldly attempting to re-create the magic.

Joad kisses me on the cheek when I arrive. “Thanks for coming,” he says, his suede blazer sheltered beneath a black-and-white-striped apron.

I slip off my shoes and sink into the sumptuous white carpet. Though Joad’s taste in décor leans traditional, Catherine adores contemporary. The result is an immaculate, sparsely decorated condo in shades of whites and beiges, punctuated with fabulous original paintings and modern sculptures. The rather sterile place is definitely cool, if not inviting.

“Something smells delicious,” I say.

“Rack of lamb, and it’s just about ready. C’mon, Jay and Shelley are already on their second glass of Pinot.”

As we should have anticipated, Mom’s absence is as pronounced as a southern drawl. The five of us sit in Joad and Catherine’s formal dining room overlooking the Chicago River, pretending not to notice the missing energy that was our mother. Instead, we cloak the awkward silence with idle chatter. After Catherine’s twenty-minute riff about BC’s third-quarter earnings and her plans for future expansion, the topic turns to me. She wants to know why Andrew isn’t with me. Jay wonders if I’ve found a teaching job. Each question rocks me, like the aftershock following an earthquake. In need of a breather, I excuse myself the minute Joad heads to the kitchen to caramelize his famous crème brûlée.

As I travel down the hall toward the bathroom, I glance in at Joad’s den. The small, cherry-paneled room is my brother’s home office as well as his sanctuary, and I’d never enter uninvited. Behind locked cabinets he hides his collection of singlemalt scotches and, though Catherine abhors smoking in the house, a humidor filled with Cuban cigars. As I pass, something on his desk catches my eye. I backtrack.

It takes a second for my eyes to adjust to the shadowed hue. I blink several times. There, atop a file folder on Joad’s mahogany desk, sits the red leather journal.

What the hell? I step into the room. When I asked about the missing book, everyone, including Joad, denied having seen it. I pick it up, the cover no longer hidden by my mom’s note. Her handwriting greets me and my chest tightens.
Summer of 1978—
the summer before I was born. No wonder Joad wanted it. This book is priceless. But surely he knows I’d share it with him and Jay.

Before I have time to open it, I hear footsteps coming down the hall. It’s Joad. I freeze. I want to tell him I found my book
and I’m taking it back, but something tells me to keep quiet. He obviously doesn’t want me to have it. He passes the office without so much as a glance and I breathe a sigh of relief. Stuffing the book beneath my sweater, I leave the room as soundlessly as I’d entered.

I’m buttoning my coat when I step into the dining room.

“I’m sorry, Catherine. I’m going to skip dessert. I’m not feeling well.”

“Wait, we’ll drive you,” Shelley says.

I shake my head. “No, thanks. I’ll catch a cab. Tell Joad good-bye for me.”

I’m out the door before Joad knows I’ve left.

The elevator doors slam shut and I let out a breath. God help me, I’m a thief! But a righteous thief. I pull my treasure from beneath my sweater and hug the little book to my chest, as if it’s my mother I’m clinging to. I miss her so much right now. How like her to know exactly when I’d need her.

The elevator jerks to life. Against my better judgment telling me to wait until I’m under covers with my bedside lamp aglow, I open the cover for a quick peek.

By the time the elevator doors slide open, I’m transfixed. I stagger to a chair in the corner of the lobby, stunned and bewildered, and unravel the mystery that has puzzled me all my life.

I
t could have been minutes. It could have been hours. Just how long I’d been sitting here when I hear my brother’s voice, I couldn’t say.

“Brett,” Joad says, keeping his voice low as he trots toward me. “Don’t open that book!”

I can’t respond. I can’t move. I’m numb.

“Jesus.” He squats down beside me and takes the open journal from my lap. “I was hoping to reach you before you read it.”

“Why?” I ask through a blurry haze. “Why would you keep this from me?”

“For just this reason,” he says, brushing back my tear-soaked hair. “Look at you. You just lost Mom. The last thing you needed was another shock.”

“I had a right to know, damn it!”

The marble floor amplifies my voice. Joad looks around, nodding sheepishly to the concierge at the front desk. “Let’s go upstairs.”

“No.” I sit up, speaking to him through clenched teeth. “You should have told me. Mom should have told me! I struggled with that relationship my entire life. And this,
this
is how she tells me?”

“You don’t know for sure, Brett. This journal tells us nothing. In all likelihood, you were Charles’s daughter.”

I jab a finger at him. “I was never that bastard’s daughter. Never. And he knew it. That’s why he never loved me. And Mom didn’t have the guts to tell me!”

“Okay, okay. But maybe this Johnny Manns was an asshole. Maybe she didn’t want you to find him.”

“No. It’s perfectly clear. She left me the journal. She left goal nineteen on my list. She wants me to find my real father, to have a relationship with him. Mom may have been a coward while she was alive, but at least she had the decency to leave me her story—
my
story—when she died.” My eyes bore into his. “And you, you were going to keep it from me! Just how long have you known?”

He looks away and rubs a hand over his shiny scalp. Finally, he drops into a chair beside mine and stares down at the journal. “I found this years ago, when I was helping Mom move into Astor Street. It made me sick. She never knew I saw it. I was shocked when it surfaced again the day of the funeral.”

“It made you sick? Don’t you see how happy she was in these pages?” I take the book and open to the first entry.

“ ‘May third. After twenty-seven years of slumber, love has arrived and awakened me from my sleep. The old me would say it’s wrong, it’s immoral. But the woman I’ve become feels helpless to stop it. For the first time, my heart has found its rhythm.’ ”

Joad holds out a hand, as if he can’t bear to hear any more. My heart softens. It can’t be easy finding out your mother had a lover.

“Who else knows?” I ask.

“Only Catherine. And she’s probably telling Jay and Shelley now.”

I let out a deep breath. My brother was doing what he thought was best. He wanted to protect me. “I can handle this, Joad.” I blot my eyes with my shirtsleeve. “I’m furious with Mom for not telling me years ago, but I’m glad she finally did. I’m going to find him.”

He shakes his head. “I figured you would. I suppose I can’t talk you out of it.”

“No way.” I smile up at him. “You really were going to give this back to me, weren’t you?”

He smooths my hair. “Of course. Once we figured out how to deal with it.”

“Deal with it?”

“Yeah, you know, we can’t just spring this on the public. Mom was a brand. The last thing the company needs is to have her spotless reputation tarnished by an illegitimate daughter.”

The breath is knocked out of me. My brother’s intentions weren’t so noble after all. To him, I’m the illegitimate daughter who might just tarnish the Bohlinger Brand.

T
hat night while Andrew sleeps, I creep from our bed, grab my laptop and my robe, and head for the sofa. Before I have time to Google Johnny Manns, I find a Facebook message from my old friend Carrie Newsome. I stare at the picture of the
earthy-looking woman in the sweatshirt who was once my best friend.

Brett Bohlinger? My long-lost friend from Rogers Park? I can’t believe you remembered me—let alone found me on Facebook! I have so many fond memories of you. Believe it or not, I’m going to be in Chicago next month. The National Association of Social Workers conference is at McCormick Place on November 14. Would you have time to meet for lunch, or better yet, dinner? Oh, Bretel, I’m so glad you found me! I’ve missed you!

Bretel. The old nickname she’d given me when we were kids. She’d compiled a list of possibilities after I’d complained for a week straight about having a boy’s name. “How about Bretchen? Bretta? Brettany?” she asked. We finally settled on Bretel, a name that conjured images of candy houses and quick-witted children. And it stuck. To everyone else I was Brett. But to my dearest friend, I was Bretel.

It was a gilded autumn morning when Carrie announced her mother was taking a job at the University of Wisconsin. Dressed in plaid kilts and white blouses, we strolled down the sidewalk toward Loyola Academy, our new high school. I can almost hear the leaves crunching beneath our feet and see the canopy of reds and golds overhead. But the pain I feel over losing Carrie isn’t imagined. I really do feel an ache in my heart, as if, after all these years, it’s still bruised.

“My dad’s taking me to dinner tonight,” I told Carrie.

“That’s great,” she said, always my biggest ally. “I bet he misses you.”

I kicked a pile of leaves. “Yeah, maybe.”

We walked on in silence for half a block before she turned to me. “We’re moving, Brett.”

She didn’t use my nickname then. Alarmed, I looked into eyes
flooded with tears. Still, I refused to understand. “We are?” I asked, in all sincerity.

“No!” Through her tears, she laughed, sending a missile of snot blasting from her nose.

“Gross!” I cried. We doubled over with laughter, pushing each other into the leaves, not wanting the merriment to end. Because when it finally did, we were left staring into each other’s empty faces. “Please, tell me you’re not.”

“I’m sorry, Bretel. We are.”

My world ended that day. Or so I thought. The girl who could read my thoughts, challenge my thinking, laugh at my dim-witted jokes was leaving me. Madison seemed as far from Rogers Park as Uzbekistan. Five weeks later I stood on her porch stoop and waved good-bye as the moving van pulled away. For that first year, we wrote to each other like faithful lovers. Until one weekend she came back to visit, and we never spoke again. For all the atoning I’ve done, I’ve never forgiven myself. And for all the new friends I’ve made, I’ve never loved another like I loved Carrie Newsome.

Her message stares at me like a hungry puppy beside the dinner table. Doesn’t she remember how I treated her the last time I saw her? I bury my head in my hands. When I finally lift my head, I type as fast as I can.

I miss you, too, Care Bear, and I’m so sorry. I’d love to see you on the 14th. Your hotel?

I push
ENTER
.

Next, I type
JOHNNY MANNS
.

CHAPTER NINE

B
rad and I sit in the matching leather chairs. I sip a cup of tea while he drinks from a water bottle and tells me about his trip. I can smell his cologne, and up close I notice he once had a pierced ear.

“San Francisco’s awesome,” he says. “Ever been there?”

“Twice. It’s one of my favorite cities.” I hide my face in my teacup and ask, “Was it business or pleasure?”

“Pleasure. My girlfriend Jenna moved out there last summer. She got a job with the
San Francisco Chronicle
.”