Therese opened the envelope.
Dear Mom and Dad,
I’m sure you two are pissed like never before, and I’m sorry. You are great parents and I understand why you didn’t want me to go. But I had to chase this feeling because it’s the best feeling I’ve ever had. You two love each other, think of life without that and you’ll understand why I left. I’ll call to let you know I’m okay, but don’t come after me because it will be an impossible search. I love you both and I’m sure you think leaving is easy for me, but trust me, it isn’t.
Love, Cecily
Therese scanned Cecily’s bookshelves for her yearbook, and when she brought it down, the book fell right open to Gabriel’s picture. Gabriel da Silva: He was filed under S. Therese studied his picture with a dissonant, high-pitched whine in her ears, like something caught in a vacuum cleaner. Gabriel was astonishingly handsome. Toasty brown skin, black hair, a diamond stud in his left ear. Perfect straight white teeth in the kind of smile that singed the page. He’d signed the yearbook next to his picture-something in another language, Portuguese?-and then: “I love every inch of you. Gabriel da Silva.” Therese stared at the words. I love every inch of you. The words of a lover, forcing Therese to imagine the secret, soft inches of Cecily that Gabriel loved. But then, after that intimacy, he signed his full name. Therese held the book open and put the words and the picture together. I love every inch of you. Gabriel da Silva.
Therese didn’t tell Bill where she was going-he was in the kitchen eating his cereal. She left the house with a wave, and said, “I have to run a quick errand. Back soon.” Mrs. Hassiter hadn’t stirred and Therese was relived; she didn’t feel like explaining anything yet.
Outside, the air was thick as chowder. Therese cranked the air-conditioner in her car and opened all the windows on the way to the airport. She couldn’t remember the last time she had left the property on a summer morning; always, her first concerns were the rooms, the chambermaids, and guests with problems more pressing than her own. But now Therese appreciated the morning, even though it was hot, and the lawns were turning brown and the hydrangeas had dried up into crisp little heads. It was nice to be off property. A lone jogger dripping with sweat plodded down North Beach Road. It was Maribel. Therese wanted to stop and ask, “Have you seen Cecily?”-but she flipped down the eye shade and accelerated.
At the airport, Therese searched for Cecily in the ladies’ room, the gift shop, the restaurant. Not there. Then Therese surveyed the local carriers. When she asked at Colgan-Any young redheads on a plane to New York this morning?-the perky attendant bit as though Therese was holding out an apple. “You must be her mother, you two are, like, identical twins! I mean, gosh, you have the same hair. I guess people tell you that all the time.”
“So she made her plane then?” Therese said. “Good. What time did it leave?”
The girl checked the board behind her. “She was on the first plane. The six-oh-five. It was early, I remember that!”
“And that was to New York?”
The girl bobbed her head. “La Guardia. I think she had a transfer to JFK, though.”
“Thanks for your help,” Therese said.
“Where was she headed, anyway?” the girl asked. “In the end, her final destination?”
Her final destination? Therese swallowed. “Brazil,” she said.
Therese ordered breakfast in the restaurant. As she ate her eggs, she considered taking a poll of other mothers. Do I get on a plane and go after her, or do I let her go? Therese thought back to all the guests she had advised with their personal problems, guests like Leo Hearn. No, Leo, she thought, there is no instruction manual for parents. I made it all up. She bit off the corner of her toast and saw Cecily at a year and a half, toddling by herself through the sand, falling over onto her hands. Cecily at thirteen, the night of her first kiss, climbing into bed with Therese to tell her all about it. They were so close, identical twins, motherdaughter. And yet in only a couple of hours, so much distance between them. Where was Cecily? In another country, sleeping with the dark prince.
Out the window, a small propeller plane got ready for take-off. The props spun, there was a lurch, and then the plane rolled forward, picked up speed, until just barely lifting its nose and soaring, soaring. There were a million metaphors for childhood, and here was one of them right outside the window. What could Therese do but hope that somewhere, Cecily was soaring?
“Are you kidding me?” Bill shouted. They were upstairs in the living room, and as far as Therese could tell, Mrs. Hassiter hadn’t stirred. Bill waved the letter in the air. His face was bright red and his hair glittered from silver to white; he was aging in front of her eyes.
“Your heart,” Therese said. “Bill, please. I can’t lose you, too.”
“Why do you look so calm?” he said. Suspicion flickered across his face. “You knew, didn’t you? She’s your daughter, Therese. She’s always been your daughter. She confided in you and you let her go.”
“Not true,” Therese said. But she did feel preternaturally calm, as though someone had drugged her. I love every inch of you. Therese never kept secrets from Bill, but she didn’t show him the yearbook. “I had no idea! I just went to the airport to see if I could catch her.”
Bill checked his watch. “We’re going back right now. There’s no way she’s made it out of New York yet. International flights leave at night. We have all day to turn JFK upside down.”
“You’re thinking of west-east flights,” Therese said. “Those leave in the evening. North-south flights leave in the morning.” She had no idea if this were true; she didn’t even know where the thought had come from.
“We’ll go anyway,” he said. “We’re irresponsible parents if we don’t. I’m sure she wants us to come after her.”
“Bill, come here and sit down.” Therese led him to the couch and he sat down despondently, his hands in his lap. Then, with a sudden burst of energy, he bounced up again.
“There isn’t time to sit down,” he said.
“We’re not going to New York,” Therese said.
“Cecily is expecting us,” Bill said. “She’s probably lingering at her gate, waiting for us to march down the concourse. This isn’t the kind of thing you hope to get away with at the age of eighteen.”
“There’s only one person she wants to see,” Therese said sadly. “And it’s not you, and it’s not me.”
“I can’t even think about that boy,” Bill said. “If I think about that boy, I’m going to lose my mind.”
“She’s living her life, Bill.”
“You’re in cahoots with her,” he said.
“No, it’s just…” How to explain this feeling? Therese was worried, but seeing the picture of Gabriel da Silva excited her, too. And she hadn’t expected to feel excited. Her daughter was alive and living. When Therese left home, wonderful things happened. She ended up here. “I thought Cecily leaving would kill me. But I feel okay. It’s like anticipating her leaving was ten times worse than her actual leaving. She’s gone, Bill. We’re through worrying about how to keep her here. We’re liberated, in a way.”