Didn’t she?
Perhaps more would be revealed.
“So did you talk to him?” asked Dusty.
“I would never do that. But I have an address and a home phone. He’s married, with three children.”
“Where does he live?”
“Provo.”
“Is he Mormon?”
She was making conversation, to take the edge off her impatience.
“No idea.”
“But what does it mean that you found him, Liv?” she asked, with a hard smile now, unable to restrain her contempt. She’d already shared the strong opinion that Ronny would have been clueless about their daughter’s existence, because Dusty never told a soul—none of her girlfriends knew she was expecting, not even faraway Miranda. Especially not Miranda. So there was no way that he knew.
“How does finding him help?”
“He’s a resource!” said Livia excitably. The declaration sounded hollow and straw-grabby, like the spin a wild-eyed publicist puts on a doomed project. “I’ve been doing this long enough to have seen some pretty strange things. The truth is always so much further out than we can even imagine. One scenario — and it’s just a scenario—is that Ronny’s parents stayed in touch with Reina. That wouldn’t be unusual because in cases like yours, both sets of parents can become ‘co-conspirators.’ They bond over ‘saving the day.’ Reputations and futures. Maybe Reina told them exactly what happened—”
“I doubt that, Liv. But I’m still not following!”
“—then over time, everyone moves away, loses touch. Everyone gets on with their lives. And maybe, after however many years, Ronny’s parents — or maybe just one of them, because the other one died, which would heighten the urgency — let’s just say the mom finally talked to her son. To Ronny. Now this could have happened years ago or this could have happened last month. Maybe even triggered by Reina’s death, by someone seeing that in the paper or on the computer, who knows? But what we do know is that there would be guilt from all those years of keeping secrets. So Ronny’s mom or dad tells all. Blabs the truth. Maybe it’s as simple as them just wanting to be grandparents …”
“O-kayyy…” Dusty felt like she was listening to a psychotic writer’s pitch.
“So now Ronny knows. The big secret. Again, this could have happened thirty years ago. Because wanting to see your grandchild is compelling. And let’s say he was able to find her, find Aurora, using the information given. The information Mom or Dad got from Reina. From the horse’s mouth. Unlikely, yes, but anything’s possible. It’s a scenario. Remember, we’re dealing with a giant puzzle right now.”
“Let’s go with the scenario,” said Dusty, disheartened and unconvinced. “For argument’s sake. Let’s say he found her. Found Aurora. If he did, why wouldn’t he have found me? Why wouldn’t he have come to me. Why wouldn’t he have told me?”
“Maybe he holds a resentment—”
“A resentment—Livia, this is crazy!”
“—it would have come as an enormous shock to him — that he had a daughter — and he may have been so angry that you never told him. Not to tell you he found her would be a way of retaliating. I once worked with a couple where the mom was reunited with the son and told him in no uncertain terms that his father was dead, when he was alive and well. It’s more common than you’d think. Here’s another scenario: that he found Aurora and did tell her about you—”
“Oh Lord,” she said, exasperated. “Lord, lord, lord.”
“—and Aurora wasn’t ready, was still angry, wanted nothing to do with you — Dusty, I’ve seen it happen! Where children feel that when their parents give them up, they forfeit that right. They go through all kinds of emotions. Maybe Aurora knows but doesn’t want to — didn’t want to give you that pleasure.” The flurry of hypotheticals made the use of tense problematic. “She might have thought — might still be thinking — that if you wanted to see her so much, you could just come look for her like her dad did.”
“Livia…” she said hopelessly, unable to account for her old friend and advocate’s delirium. “We’re not talking about some… flustered teenager anymore. We’re talking about a woman!”
“Who may still be that flustered teenager inside, we can’t know what wounds she’s carrying.”
“It’s like castles in the sand! It’s less than castles in the sand — it’s like castles in the clouds …”
“I know,” said Livia sympathetically. “I know. But we’re just beginning. And we’re not dealing with the rational, it’s fraught. And if Ronny found her — remember, there’ve been far stranger things — if he found her — years ago — and she didn’t want to contact you, didn’t want to know anything about you, then he probably would have honored that because he wouldn’t want to risk losing her again.” Dusty tuned out Livia’s ramblings; she’d already made an executive decision to diplomatically cut her losses and go another way. “He may even have decided not to tell her that Mom was a famous person, because it had — has — the potential of making things worse. For Aurora. That she had a rich and famous movie-star mom who never tried to find her. Or — depending on her self-esteem issues, Ronny might have decided to withhold that information because it would be too overwhelming — you know, Mom’s an overachiever and she’s an underachiever—or thinks of herself that way, even if she isn’t. Ronny might have been — might be trying to ‘protect,’ whether that’s wise or not. There are so many ways to go with this, Dusty, and believe me, I’ve seen every variation. But the truth is out there. Somewhere. We just have to find it.”
But who? thought Dusty. Who can help me, who can I trust? How the fuck am I going to pull this off, where do I even begin? And I don’t want to hurt Livia—I know she means well. But this is my life! I know she’ll understand… she has to—
“There is something else I needed to talk about.”
“Okay,” said Dusty, heartbroken, and spent.
“There’s someone I’d like to bring in.”
That took the actress by surprise — at least it sounded like a cry for help. “What do you mean, ‘bring in’?”