Someone Like Her

“Yes?”

She cleared her throat. “Mr. Rutledge, there’s a woman here who doesn’t have an appointment.”

His eyebrows rose. People without appointments rarely bothered a partner in a rarified Seattle law firm. If they did, Carol was quite capable of sending them on their way.

“She says it’s about your mother.”

“My mother,” he repeated. He felt as if he were sounding out a word in Farsi or Mandarin, a language utterly foreign to him. Yeah, he knew what a mother was; yeah, he’d had one, but at this moment he couldn’t picture her face.

“Yes, sir.” Carol’s generally crisp tones were hesitant.

“What about my mother?” he asked.

She cleared her throat again. “This woman…ah, Ms. Peterson, says she’s in the hospital and needs you.”

In the hospital? That meant…she was alive? His heart did a peculiar stutter. Adrian had assumed she was dead. Maybe preferred thinking she was.

Oh, hell, he thought in disgust, this was probably some kind of hoax. Still, he didn’t seem to have any choice but to hear her out. “Send her in,” he ordered, and hung up.

The wait seemed long. When the door did open, he saw Carol first, elegant in a sleek black suit and heels that made the most of her legs. He quit noticing his administrative assistant the moment the other woman walked in. Nor was he aware of Carol quietly closing the door behind her. He couldn’t take his eyes from this unexpected visitor.

He guessed her age as late twenties. Lacking the style of an average urban high schooler, she was as out of place as a girl from small-town Iowa wandering into the big city for the first time. Of middle height and slender, she wore a dress, something flowery that came nearly to her knees. Bare legs, flat shoes. Her hair, a soft, mousy brown, was parted in the middle and partially clipped back. He doubted she wore any makeup at all, which was too bad; she might be beautiful after a few hours at a good salon. It was her eyes that he reacted to, despite himself. Huge and blue, they devoured his face as she crossed the room, the intensity enough to make him shift in his seat.

Adrian had never seen her in his life, and couldn’t imagine how she’d found him.

Showing no emotion, he held out a hand. “I’m Adrian Rutledge.”

She shook with utter composure. “My name’s Lucy Peterson.”

“Ms. Peterson.” He gestured at a chair. “Please. Have a seat.”

“Thank you.” She sat, smoothing her skirt over her knees.

She didn’t look like his mother. He realized that had been his first fear; that he had an unknown half sister. Not that children always did look like their parents, he reminded himself. The possibility was still on the table.

“What can I do for you?”

“I assume you know nothing of your mother’s whereabouts.”

Dark anger rose in him at this blunt beginning. Who the hell was she to sit in judgment on him? And she was, he could tell, despite her careful tone.

“And you know this because…?”

“I live over on the peninsula. Your mother has been homeless in my town for the past ten years. I’m reasonably certain no family has visited her or offered any support.”

What in hell?

Adrian sat back in his leather desk chair. After a moment, he said, “You’re correct in thinking I have no contact with my mother. But tell me just why it is that you believe some homeless woman is my mother? Did she give you my name?”

This Lucy Peterson shook her head. “No. After she was in the accident, I searched her things. It wasn’t easy.” She seemed to assume he’d care. “She had a shopping cart, but she also had several stashes around town. She liked clothes. And hats. Especially hats. We called her the hat lady.” She paused, as if embarrassed.

Between one blink and the next, Adrian saw a park, maybe—lots of lawn, flowering trees in the background. His mother barefoot and twirling, a cotton skirt swirling bell-like, her arms flung out in exuberance. She was laughing; he could almost hear the laugh, openly joyous. And see the hat, broad-brimmed and encircled with flowers. The image seemed skewed, as if he’d been dizzy, and he suspected he might have been twirling, too.

He stamped down on the memory. Unclenching his jaw, he asked hoarsely, “What did you find?”

In answer, she bent to open the purse she’d set at her feet and removed a white envelope. “A very old driver’s license,” she said, and handed it to him.

In shock, he stared at his mother’s face. She was so pretty. He’d forgotten. Department of Motor Vehicles photos were usually god-awful, the equivalent of mug shots, but hers was the exception. A soft smile curved her mouth, although her eyes looked sad. Honey-blond, wavy hair was cut, flapper style, at chin length. She’d had beautiful cheekbones, a small, straight nose and that mouth, a cupid’s bow.

He forced himself to read the information: Elizabeth H. Rutledge, the expiration date—one year after she disappeared from his life—and the basic stats, hair blond, height five foot five, weight 118, eyes blue.

Not as blue as Lucy Peterson’s, he thought involuntarily, looking up.

He had no idea what his face showed, but those eyes were filled with compassion as she handed him something else. As he accepted it involuntarily he looked down, and experienced a spasm of agony. The photograph had faded and cracked, but he remembered the moment. They had dressed for church, and his grandmother had snapped it. His father was tall and stern, but his arm wrapped his wife protectively. She wore a pretty, navy-blue dress with a wide red belt, and on her head was a hat, this one a small red cloche with only a feather decorating it. And he…he stood beside her, his arm about her waist, her hand resting on his shoulder. He remembered feeling proud and mature and yet filled with some anxiety, as though there had been a family quarrel earlier. He might have been seven or eight, his dark hair slicked firmly into place, the suit and white shirt and tie a near match to his father’s. He could just make out the house behind them, the one in Edmonds where they’d lived, painted sunny yellow with white trim, the yard brimming with flowers.

He was speechless. His mother had left him, and never once in all the intervening years made contact, yet she’d kept and treasured this photo?

Not just the photo—Lucy was handing over yet one more memento, this one made of red construction paper. On the front was a drawing, the next best thing to stick figures, an adult and a child seemingly holding hands. A woman, because she wore a skirt. His mother, because she also wore a hat festooned with…God. Those had to be flowers. And beneath, in big, uneven letters that suggested he might have been in kindergarten or first grade, it said “Mom and me.”

As if through a time warp, he heard his own voice say, “Mom and me are going to the park.” And don’t try to stop us, the defiance in the words suggested. As if he had an eye pressed to a kaleidoscope that spun dizzily, he saw scene after scene, all accompanied by his voice, younger, older, in between, saying, “Mom and me are gonna…” She was his playmate, his best friend, his charge. He stayed close to her. He took care of her.

Until she disappeared, the summer he wasn’t home to take care of her.

“God,” he whispered, and let the card fall to the desk. He bowed his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Lucy Peterson sat silent, letting him process all of this.

He felt as if he’d just been in a car accident. No warning; another vehicle running a red light, maybe, slamming into his. This was the moment of silence afterward, when he sat stunned, trying to decide if he was injured, knowing he’d start hurting any minute.

He lifted his head and said fiercely, “And you know this…homeless person is her? Elizabeth Rutledge.”

Lucy bit her lip and nodded. “I had no idea, until I found the driver’s license. I guessed her name was Elizabeth. She always went by some variant of it. But that’s all any of us knew.”

“She didn’t tell you her name?”

“She…took on different names. All famous people, or fictional ones. I think she believed she was them, for a while. I never saw the moment of transition. One day she’d be Elizabeth Bennett, from Pride and Prejudice, you know, and then Queen Elizabeth. Not the first,” she added hastily. “She said Queen Bess was bloodthirsty. Elizabeth the second.”

“I’m surprised she wasn’t the Queen Mother,” he said involuntarily.

“Because of the hats? But she wasn’t an Elizabeth, and your mother didn’t take on any persona that wasn’t.”

Abruptly he heard the verb tense she was using. Took on. She believed. Not takes on, or believes.

“I thought you said she was in the hospital.”

She looked startled. “I did.”

“You’re talking about her as if she’s dead.”