“Girl?—”
“The girl,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Amaryllis. The woman gave me her e-mail, if you want to write.”
CHAPTER 45. Termination of Parental Rights
Tull added lanimottCASA@hotmail.com to his computer’s address book but went no further. He didn’t even tell the cousins. His birthday was at the end of the month, and he toyed with the idea of inviting her, as a surprise. The appearance of his father in his life had only heightened his desire to “do right” by Amaryllis; it seemed capricious and immoral to leave her behind like so much memory roadkill. He was glad he had set her rediscovery into motion. But words and courage would not come, and he let a week pass before sending the following:
From: “Toulouse Trotter” <harlequinboy@home.com
To: “Amaryllis” <lanimottCASA@hotmail.com
Subject: No Subject
to whom it may concern,
is this the home of amaryllis kornfeld? i was given this e-address by my mother, katrina trotter. i believe she spoke personally to whoever is on the other end. my name is toulouse trotter and amaryllis is a friend.
is she currently living there? thank you
Lani was charmed but a little nervous about passing the message on.
Not long ago, Detective Dowling, in his steadfast role of liaison, had called to give the most amazing account of her foster daughter’s high-end layover in the Westside world. Lani, needless to say, was thunderstruck by Amaryllis’s society connections. But the new mother, still very much finding her way with her fragile, complicated ward, was initially hesitant to help the children connect the dots.†
But how, one may wonder, did the orphan effect her transition to the Motts’ comfy Franklin Hills home? Here, for once, the author will make a long story short.
It has already been noted that the idea of adoption formed early in the head of the baker’s wife, as a consequence of her dressing-down by the man who once went by the name of William; she had begun the three-month foster-care-licensing process forthwith. As a CASA, Lani already had an inside track, and her supervisor helped her through the rough patches. Soon after accreditation, a “walk-on hearing” was arranged whereby notice was given to the Department regarding the request for immediate placement of the child, Amaryllis Kornfeld, with foster parents, namely Gilles and Lani Karoubian-Mott, who were, as interested parties both formally and informally attested, loving and caring professionals, not to mention college grads. The court agreed to release the child to the Mott household pending the longer process of adoption, which would likely remain uncontested and be expedited by public counsel.
With a doctor’s close supervision, Lani weaned Amaryllis off the residual drugs prescribed during her final stint at MacLaren and reestablished regular visits with the girl’s brother and sister, who lived in a modest home overshadowed by tall electrical towers (the kind favored in fifties alien-invasion flicks) in the city of Lawndale. Amaryllis was enrolled in a progressive district school and in short time won kudos for her special project on saints, with its gold-flecked illuminated text, laminated articles on Sister Benedicta née Edith Stein and an ingeniously imagined diorama of the inner sanctum of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints. She made new friends and, aside from the occasional tantrum and teacher-bidden time-out, her recovery was remarkably swift. After school, Amaryllis liked to sit on a stone pillar of the Shakespeare Bridge, overlooking a gully filled with quaint houses. (A generously proportioned lady hanging clothes on the line invariably reminded her of Jane Scull.)
As it happened, Lani and Gilles had tried for several months to stage a reunion between themselves and Marcus Weiner but were stonewalled by his attorneys. Said counsel, protective of their client’s recovery, to say the least, could not have cared less about personal relationships formed during that particular era of Mr. Weiner’s troubled life. Phone calls to Detective Dowling went unreturned in kind, though in all fairness Samson was swamped by cases old and new, and found nothing pressing about the resolute couple’s nostalgic urges. At Montecito, Marcus had asked after the baker (and Amaryllis too), but the detective was chary about starting an egg hunt; there was enough omelette on his old friend’s plate as it was. He did go so far as to discuss the matter with Mr. Trotter, who thoughtfully turned things over to the crack psychotherapeutic team. It was their continued and vaunted opinion that the patient should remain focused on reconstructing his life via insights attained through examination of childhood events — the memories of which were now surfacing nicely — and that it would be premature and counterproductive to revisit street bonds formed while in full delusion.
After a series of long talks with her husband, Lani finally caved. When she handed over Toulouse’s e-mail address, Amaryllis nearly fainted. The child instantly set to composing a trial response in longhand but found the composition as difficult as her suitor had, and as torturous too, for both possessed an elastic sense of time and keenly believed that every minute that passed without them somehow communicating exponentially decreased the chance they would ever see each other again. (So it goes with the very young.) Fortunately, girls are bolder; Amaryllis wrote everything out by suppertime, and her foster mother agreed to let her sit before the keyboard in privacy — though not before a forthright discussion about Master Trotter and his cousins, whose rescue efforts, she reminded, certainly helped in the short term but had had more dubious results as her respite stretched on. For Lani, the bottom line was that Bel-Air was a seductive place, but “you’ve got to keep it real.” She borrowed that phrase from Trinnie, who had dropped it during their chat.
We will not divulge the content of that first e-mail offering or summarize Toulouse’s reply, nor hers after that, nor his that followed — what soon became a deliriously ungrammatical outpouring of gossip, jokes and sweet nothings. But all those nothings added up, and Lani soon curfewed her use of the iMac.
The sudden death of Edward Trotter obliterated upcoming birthday festivities and cast an apocalyptic pall over both Bel-Air houses.
The body was found by a gardener on a far-side Stradella path, leaning on the seat of the buggy that, without fanfare, had lumbered into a stand of hawthorn. Doctor and nurse reached him within minutes but were of no use. Dodd was 45,000 feet in the air when informed; Joyce had to be hospitalized for two days, for she could not catch her breath. Trinnie was at her best during such adversity and would not allow herself to feel the loss, because there were myriad details to which no one else possessed the sobriety to attend. Assured by her steeliness, the old man retreated to the Withdrawing Room in private grief. Bluey, of course, would not be told.
When Toulouse first saw Lucy after the event, she embraced him, then broke away and screamed. She ran off, and he took after her — they fell to the ground and locked on to each other, breath fetid, as if the caverns of their mouths held Edward’s beating heart. Pullman yelped and groaned and for two days was seen near the Boar’s Head Inn retching like a drunk.
The two cousins would not leave each other’s side, and grew giddy with the endless looping catharsis of horror and tears: they kissed hotly and deeply, laughing and sobbing in between, plumbing each other’s depths for their beloved boy. Adults came and went. Lucy and Toulouse hid awhile in the coolness of the Majestyk — they could not yet bear to enter the workshop, with its masks and cowls and bolts of fabric, let alone Edward’s apartments, which they felt should be decreed sacred ground and fenced in like La Colonne. Who would ever have the courage to go up there? Trinnie would, of course (and found a sheaf of papers in the bedroom whose striking contents will shortly be disclosed).