The Life List Read online

  Megan has found my Achilles’ heel. I park my elbows on the table and pinch the bridge of my nose. “I’ve got to tell Andrew about this damn list. But he’ll go ballistic. He wants to buy a plane someday, not a horse! Kids aren’t part of his plan. He made that perfectly clear early on.”

  “And that was okay with you?”

  I look out the window, my mind stretching back to another time, a time when I was bold and fearless, and certain my dreams really would come true. But then it happened, as it must, and I learned that the world didn’t revolve around me.

  “I convinced myself it was okay. Things were different back then. We traveled a lot … he’d join me on business trips. Our lives were so full it was hard to imagine having a child.”

  “And now?”

  She’s asking for the updated version of my life. The version where I eat alone most nights in front of the television and the last trip we took was to his sister’s wedding in Boston two years ago. “I’ve just lost my mother and my job. I can’t deal with more loss. Not yet.”

  She dabs her mouth with the napkin, and I notice her eyelashes are spiked with tears. I grab her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to unload on you.”

  Her face crumples. “I can’t go on like this.”

  Oh. She’s not crying for me. She’s crying for herself. But I’m a fine one to talk. I’ve been so self-absorbed lately I make Megan look like a guidance counselor. I take her hand.

  “More text messages on Jimmy’s phone?”

  “Worse. They were having sex in our bed when I got home yesterday. Our goddamn bed! Thank God I was able to get the hell out before they saw me.”

  “That jackass! Why would he bring her home, of all places? He knows you don’t keep a regular schedule.”

  “He wants me to catch him. He doesn’t have the balls to break it off, so he’s hoping I will.” She tugs her left wrist and heaves a sigh. “It’s these damn arms. I’m deformed.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You’re beautiful and you need to dump his ass.”

  “I can’t. What would I do for money?”

  “You’d start selling houses.”

  She waves me off. “Phssh. I’m telling you, Brett, I must have been royalty in my past life, because I just can’t get used to this idea of working for a living.”

  “Well, you can’t just sit there and take it. Maybe if you confront him—”

  “No!” she says, nearly shouting. “I can’t confront him until I have another option.”

  At first I don’t understand, but then it dawns on me. Megan wants a replacement before she gives up the original. She’s like a terrified child, hoping to find a new family to take her in before she becomes an orphan.

  “You don’t need someone to take care of you. You’re a smart woman. You can make it on your own.” I hear my own words, and wonder if I’m speaking to Megan now, or to myself. I soften my tone. “I know it’s hard, Meggie, but you can do it.”

  “Not happening.”

  I sigh. “Then you need to put yourself out there. Maybe go online to one of those match sites.”

  She rolls her eyes and pulls a tube of lip gloss from her purple bag. “Seeking gorgeous millionaire. Must like short arms.”

  “I’m serious, Megan, you’ll have somebody new in no time. Someone much better.” A thought occurs to me and I snap my fingers. “Hey, what about Brad?”

  “Your mom’s attorney?”

  “Yeah. He’s really nice. And cute, too, don’t you think?”

  She dabs her lips with gloss. “Uh-huh. There’s just one teensy problem.”

  My nostrils flare. “What? He’s not rich enough?”

  “Nope.” She smacks her lips together. “He’s already in love with you.”

  My head snaps back as if I’ve been hit. Oh, my God! Could he be? But I’ve got Andrew. Sort of.

  “Why do you think that?” I ask when I finally find my voice.

  She shrugs. “Why else would he be so hell-bent on helping you?”

  I should be relieved. What I need from Brad is friendship, not romance. But strangely, I deflate. “Nope. He’s on Team Elizabeth. He’s only helping me because he promised my mother he would. Trust me. I’m just his charity case.”

  Instead of arguing with me, as I hoped she would, she nods. “Ah, got it.”

  I hang my head. Am I no different than Megan, searching for a replacement before I lose the original?

  My hands tremble when I open the letter. I read her words one more time. Push yourself to do those things that scare you, darling. Why, Mother? Why are you making me do this? I tuck the letter into my pocket and enter the gate.

  It’s been seven years since I’ve been to Saint Boniface Cemetery. That last time was with my mom. We were going somewhere—Christmas shopping, I think—but she insisted we make a quick detour first. It was a frigid afternoon. I remember watching the wind whip across the street, changing what little snow we had into angry, whirling eddies of ice. My mother and I fought the gales, and together we fastened an evergreen wreath to my father’s headstone. I returned to the car then and turned the key in the ignition. Clouds of heat billowed from the vents. I warmed my hands and watched my mom standing silent, her head bowed. Then she dabbed her eyes with her glove and made the sign of the cross. When she turned back to the car, I pretended to fiddle with the car radio, hoping to spare her dignity. I was embarrassed for her, a woman who still harbored devotion to the husband who’d abandoned her.

  Unlike that day seven years ago, it is a glorious autumn day, the sky so pure and blue that winter’s threat seems laughable. Leaves play tag with the soft breeze, and other than the squirrels searching for nuts beneath walnut trees, I’m alone in the beautiful hillside cemetery.

  “You probably wonder why I’m here, after all these years,” I whisper to the headstone. “Do you think I’m just like Mother? Unable to hate you?”

  I brush dried leaves from the base of his headstone and perch on the marble slab. Reaching into my purse, I search out his picture from my wallet, wriggling it from between my library card and gym membership. It’s dog-eared and faded, but the only picture I’ve kept of the two of us. Mother snapped the photo Christmas morning when I was six years old. Dressed in red flannel pajamas, I’m propped at the edge of his knee, my hands folded, as though praying I could leave the precarious spot. He rests one pale hand on my shoulder; the other hangs limply at his side. An uncertain smile hovers at his lips, but his eyes are flat and empty.

  “What was it about me, Dad? Why couldn’t I make you smile? Why was it so hard to put your arms around me?”

  My eyes sting and I lift my head to the sky, hoping for that rush of peace my mother must have envisioned when she left this item on my list. But all I feel is the warm sun on my face and an open wound in my chest. I stare down at the picture. A teardrop lands on my pixie face, magnifying my injured eyes. I blot it with my shirtsleeve, leaving a warped ripple in its wake.

  “Do you know what hurts most, Dad? It’s feeling that I was never good enough for you. I was just a little girl. Why couldn’t you tell me, even once, that I was good, or smart, or pretty?” I bite my lip until I taste blood. “I tried so hard to make you love me. I really did.”

  Tears stream down my cheeks. Pulling myself from the slab, I stare at the headstone as if it were my father’s face. “This was Mother’s idea, you know. She’s the one who wants me to establish a relationship with you. I’d given up on that dream years ago.” I run my fingertips over the engraved CHARLES JACOB BOHLINGER. “I wish you peace, Dad.”

  I turn and walk away, then break into a run.

  It’s five o’clock by time I reach Argyle Station, and I’m still shaken. But I’ll be damned if I’ll let that bastard get to me. The El is packed and I’m sandwiched between a teenage girl whose iPod blares so loudly I can hear the lyrical obscenities through her earbuds, and a man wearing a baseball cap that says godhearsu.com. I want to ask him whether God uses a Mac or a PC, but something te
lls me he wouldn’t find it amusing. I lock eyes with a tall, dark-haired man in a khaki Burberry trench coat. His eyes are laughing, too, and there’s something familiar about him. He leans in, both of us towering over the two young girls between us. “Technology’s amazing, huh?”

  I laugh. “No kidding. Confessional booths may soon be a thing of the past.”

  He grins, and I can’t decide whether to focus on the golden flecks in his brown eyes or his soft, sensuous mouth. I spy a black thread on his tan coat and it hits me. Could this be the Burberry man I used to watch from the window of the loft, coming into the building every evening at seven? I dubbed him the Burberry man because he always wore a Burberry trench coat—just like the one he’s wearing now. Though I never actually met him, I harbored a secret crush on him for a month or two—before he disappeared as quickly as he came.

  I’m about to introduce myself when my phone rings. I see Brad’s office number and pick up.

  “Hello, Brett. It’s Claire Cole. I got your message. Mr. Midar could see you October twenty-seventh at—”

  “The twenty-seventh? That’s three weeks away. I need …” My voice trails off. I need to see him sounds too impassioned, too desperate. But after today’s cemetery visit, I’m on an emotional ledge, and I know Brad would talk me down. “I’d like to see him sooner, like tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry. He’s completely booked for the next week, and then he’s going on vacation. He could see you on the twenty-seventh,” she repeats. “He’s got an eight o’clock opening.”

  I sigh. “If that’s the first he’s got, I’ll take it. But if anyone cancels before then, call me. Please.”

  My stop is announced. I tuck my phone into my coat pocket and make my way toward the door.

  “Have a good one,” Burberry says to me as I squeeze past him.

  “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

  When 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.

  It 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 r
eal 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.