Sylvia couldn’t believe how conniving and thorough Ruth had been. She’d thought of
everything.
Forged signatures, called Grace’s schoolteacher, imitating Sylvia’s voice. How anyone like Ruth could operate was an enigma to her, but that Sylvia had trusted her so wholeheartedly? That was the worst of all.
Was Sylvia in no doubt, the authorities grilled, that the woman traveling with Grace Garland wasn’t Sylvia, herself? Because using someone else’s passport was a felony, major fraud, and with security as tight as it was, how could anybody pull that off?
Was she sure that she wasn’t just a stressed-out parent having problems?
Problems with her husband who had left her to go to Los Angeles, because he was seeing someone else, perhaps? Maybe the fact that her husband had gone off, leaving Sylvia all alone with her daughter—a woman alone who couldn’t cope anymore—had pushed her over the edge? Perhaps, they said, Sylvia felt a need to rid herself of her own child? Because who
was
Ruth Steel? She didn’t exist. No Ruth Steel had gone to Yale, nor Harvard Law School. They checked records. Ruth Steel, they said, wasn’t a real person. At least, not the same Ruth Steel that Sylvia described.
It was Ruth’s Facebook page that finally convinced the authorities, and the e-mails she had sent Sylvia the year before. That was before they realized that the bank balance on Sylvia’s joint account with her late father showed a credit of $5. Cleaned out in one fell swoop, like an eagle diving down on a field mouse. Two hundred and forty-seven thousand dollars swallowed in one single withdrawal, done the very same afternoon Ruth and Grace arrived in Guatemala.
Ruth’s Facebook page was the only one Sylvia had ever come across where the list of friends couldn’t be viewed. She hoped she might find a clue about who Ruth was, but not one single friend could be clicked on because
there was no list of friends in the first place
! She looked at the trickster’s page again, tears streaming down her face. The page she helped Ruth set up earlier that week! There they all were: the lies of Ruth Steel: Yale, Harvard Business School.
And her updates—stopping the day she took Grace away.
They made Sylvia sick:
Ruth Steel
16 May
We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz . . . (sadly without Dorothy’s red shoes)
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Ruth Steel
16 May
Oh Happy, happy, happy days!
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Ruth Steel
15 May
Finally realized my purpose in life
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Ruth Steel
15 May
Loving my role as Mom
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Ruth Steel
15 May
Falling in love with a child is beguiling but beautiful
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Ruth Steel
14 May
“Baking” mud pies with my little angel
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Ruth Steel
14 May
Grace is 42” of Heaven
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Ruth Steel
13 May
Getting a ton of writing done
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Ruth Steel
12 May
Just love being in the countryside
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Sylvia conjured up images of saints and gurus who were said to radiate an aura of light around them. Sylvia’s own aura was Guilt, dark like a mud-cloud, wrapped about her like a second skin. She could smell it. She could taste it. She wore Guilt to bed, breathed through it, feeling it tighten around her throat, letting her off for snatches of moments. Minutes, seconds, here or there. Beautiful flashes of Grace; laughing, playing on a swing, painting a picture, eating apple pie. And then Sylvia would wake again—back into the black void, the abyss—falling, falling, with nobody to catch her.
Tommy had stopped by their house in Crowheart before he hopped on a plane to Saginaw. Everything that mattered had been taken from the filing cabinet. Grace’s adoption and medical papers, passwords, bank statements, birth certificates (both British and American). The lot.
On top of her skin-crawling guilt, Sylvia wore an invisible cloak that was embroidered all over, with the words,
STUPID FOOL.
How had she been such an idiot, so trusting of a virtual stranger? As if Grace were a chip to gamble with in a game of roulette. She did not know Ruth and never had. All those Skype calls and e-mails, and even hanging out together, told her nothing. If only she’d paid more attention to each conversation! How could a woman date a man who had shot a tiger? How could
she
, Sylvia, not have taken that clue as evidence as to the kind of person Ruth was?
She gleaned through the e-mails again, the only ones she had left—the ones she had never erased. For the sixth time that day, she reread for clues. Who
was
this woman?
Hi Sylvia,
Like a teenager at school waiting for my exam results and wondering if I’ve passed, I’m awaiting the results of my latest blood test at the clinic. I’m shaking with anticipation waiting to see if my three follicles are mature enough for collection. The Doctor is confident that collection will be later this afternoon but needs to double-check my hormone levels: LH, E2, and P4. So, I’m feeling extremely nervous as you can well imagine!
The risk lies in waiting until full maturity in case I ovulate spontaneously and then all those precious eggs could be lost. Help!!
Collection is really uncomfortable and I’ll be pooped afterwards.
There are all sorts of characters here. As you can imagine, at forty-six, I am the oldest woman in our little coterie. Nobody can believe my age, they all think I look so much younger. There is a lovely lesbian couple, both with donors, and a Mexican socialite whose father owns half of Mexico and is very powerful! We have become great friends. We all take care of each other when we can.
My relationship with Jeff is going through the wringer – he is threatening to break up with me because he found my morning pages and read stuff I’d written about his kids. Well, his children are, I have to be honest, not my cup of tea – to put it politely! He believed it was my diary . . . . why couldn’t he see the difference? Morning pages are a stream of consciousness – how can I be held responsible for my first thoughts of the day?
He’s extremely wounded and angry. Being quite cruel to me.
I’ve decided that I’ll have my baby, with or without Jeff. I can get a donor. Maybe I’ll even stay on in Mexico, after all, I speak fluent Spanish – it feels like home. Or maybe I can go to Brazil and bring up my baby there. I grew up there. Write, live an inexpensive existence. We’ll see. I’m feeling very emotional, crying a lot, but that’s to be expected with the drugs et cetera.
How are things with you? Still busy with your script?
I send you and Tommy a big hug. Let’s Skype soon.
Xoxo, R
P.S If you were to describe me in one sentence what would you say?
Sylvia reread the clues. Fluent Spanish. Lived in Brazil, which meant she was also fluent in Portuguese.
Mexico, Brazil.
Would Ruth return to Mexico? Assume the police would imagine that she wouldn’t be foolish enough to do so? She obviously had an influential contact there—the socialite with the rich father.
The FBI had already contacted the clinic in Guadalajara. But there was the problem of patient confidentiality. Another country outside US jurisdiction. It wasn’t easy to force them to hand over information. They had never treated a Ruth Steel, they said. What were they meant to do? they protested. Hand over information for every single one of their patients? Finally, they did comply. They had a Ruth Vargas, forty-six years old, but even when they did forward her contact information, it didn’t do much good. A bogus New York address and phone number. An e-mail address. The same e-mail address that Sylvia had, anyway. No match to a Ruth Vargas of her description in the USA. There was no information about her boyfriend, Jeff. None whatsoever. Her eggs were still there. Frozen. Waiting for a rainy day. But she hadn’t contacted the clinic for six months.
Why would Ruth even bother? She had Grace now.
Sylvia read another e-mail sent two days after the first.
Hi Sylvia,
I told you, didn’t I, that Jeff found my notebook and read a whole lot of my morning pages? He wants to split from me. Temporarily anyway. I believe his daughter is jealous of me – she’s sixteen – and it’s causing problems. But that’s life, huh?
But I’m sad today – missing him. Like Dracula without his fangs. I’ll be alright, though. I can already see that we’ve each given the other the most precious of gifts. He has given me the gift of motherhood – I would never have taken this step if it hadn’t been for Jeff. And now I’m here in Mexico
actually
going through with it! Can you believe it, Sylvia? I’m going to be a mother! And I’m forever grateful to Jeff for this.
And I gave him the gift of sobriety – he would never have had the strength to get sober and stay straight if it hadn’t been for me. We are both conscious of this and I’m sure he will truly acknowledge all the wonderful things about me in the future. Time is a great healer. So, if we’re only meant to be in each other’s lives for these reasons only it has been worth the agony, the heartache.
He never did give sperm – like I told you, the vasectomy would have brought a slew of complications. But I did keep my hopes up about that. I really did.
Keep your fingers crossed for me! I’m waiting for my eggs to be collected today at 2pm. The doctor says my ovaries are responding to stimulation like the ovaries of a 24-year-old. I’m SO excited! I’ve been up since the crack of dawn; blood-work, ultrasound, and . . . praying!
Oh Sylvia, isn’t life just amazing? Why don’t you come and join me?
I send you a huge hug, R x
“Going to be a mother?” The confidence! Ruth wasn’t even pregnant! Why, oh why, hadn’t Sylvia seen the signs? She couldn’t believe how dumb she’d been. Blind and trusting, the wool pulled tightly over her eyes. Ruth’s fantasy, the against-all-odds risk-taking at any cost. The woman was convinced pregnancy was just going to pop into her life like a magic wand being waved! Using her own eggs at
forty-six
years old? Even for a twenty-five-year-old there was only a fifteen percent chance of success.
Kidnapping Grace was simply another route on her twisted journey for her prize:
The prize of motherhood.
Underneath was Sylvia’s own reply to the “how would you describe me” question. Sylvia had written:
I would describe you, Ruth, as an international, multi-lingual, cultured hybrid whose residence is the world. A woman who is unpredictable, open for adventure and change yet organized in her diversity. A person who could mix with royalty or blue collar – someone who has inner confidence yet is vulnerable and with a sharp sense of humor and an appreciation for the absurd.
Sylvia had got her right on many counts but hadn’t thought to add:
And a ruthless (Ruth, what a perfect name) callous, cold-blooded witch who will stop at nothing to achieve her objective.
She clicked on another e-mail:
Hi Sylvia!
Things are back to normal with Jeff so I’m back on track as before. He promises to attend AA meetings and has agreed to go to therapy. I’m trying to find him a shrink. He’s looking after himself taking a million vitamins and will be coming out next month for the sperm thing.
Guess what? I’ve had my 3rd collection and got 3 eggs. Total frozen: 7. Can you imagine how fantastic! My ovaries are the superstars of the clinic! It’s painful, though. I am sore but it’s worth it when I know what the pay-off will be . . . . a beautiful, hazel-eyed baby! Motherhood, here I come!
Next month will be the next step: fertilization, blastocyst culturing, and transfer into the womb. Then I’ll know if I’m pregnant. Isn’t that amazing?!
Then I can live somewhere warm. Key West? Brazil? And you can come for a long visit to escape the winter. I’ll be pregnant, wolfing down ice cream and pickles, deliriously happy, and furiously editing my novel!
R xxx
P.S Just realized you may not know what blastocyst culturing means – it’s a way of reducing multiple pregnancy rates. The way they used to do it was that embryos were transferred to the uterus on day 3 (called Day 3 transfer) after fertilization, and it is still not uncommon to transfer three or four embryos. But now, it is possible to
grow
embryos in the laboratory to the blastocyst stage of development which happens on day 5 after fertilization when the embryo has between 50 to 200 cells. Usually, the strongest, healthiest embryos make it to blastocyst stage as they have survived the biggest part, growth and division processes, and have a better chance of implanting once transferred.
Just think, my baby will be a little modern miracle!!
The last e-mail spelled another story: