On Thanksgiving morning, Daniel wakes earlier than Raj and Ruby. It’s six forty-five, milky pink light and the rustling of squirrels, a deer nibbling at the brown lawn. He makes a pot of strong coffee and sits in the rocking chair beside the living room window with Mira’s laptop.
When he Googles Bruna Costello’s name, the first link that appears is the FBI’s Most Wanted website. Protect your family, your local community, and the nation by helping the FBI catch wanted terrorists and fugitives, the webpage reads. Rewards are offered in some cases. She is categorized under ‘Seeking Information,’ a black-and-white thumbnail in the fourth row. It’s fuzzy, a close-up from security footage. When Daniel clicks on her name, the photo enlarges, and he sees it’s the same one Eddie showed him at the Hoffman House.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is seeking the public’s assistance to identify the alleged victims of Bruna Costello, suspected for fraud in connection with a fortune-telling ring in Florida. Other members of the Costello family have been convicted of federal crimes including grand larceny, false income returns, mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. To date, Costello remains the only suspect who has evaded questioning.
Costello travels in a 1989 Gulf Stream Regatta motor home (see More Photos). She has previously lived in Coral Springs and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and is known to have traveled extensively throughout the continental United States. Currently, she is thought to be based outside of Dayton, Ohio, in the village of West Milton.
Daniel clicks on More Photos. There’s a picture of the trailer, wide and blunt-nosed, painted a dingy cream – or perhaps it was originally white – with a thick stripe of brown. Below More Photos is another link titled Aliases.
Drina Demeter
Cora Wheeler
Nuri Gargano
Bruna Galletti
A half dozen more. Abruptly, Daniel closes the computer. Eddie must have known her location. So why didn’t he say so? He must think Daniel is unsteady, intent on revenge.
Is he? It’s true that Daniel feels motivated for the first time since his suspension. He feels the woman’s presence like a song sung in the next room or a hair-raising waft of wind, daring him to come closer.
Mira and Raj work on the vegetables while Gertie makes her famous stuffing. Daniel and Ruby tend to the bird, an eighteen-pound beast slathered in butter and garlic and thyme. In early afternoon, while most of the food is roasting or waiting to roast and Mira is wiping the counters down, Raj takes a business call in the guest room. Gertie naps. Ruby and Daniel sit in the living room: Daniel in the rocking chair with the laptop, Ruby on the couch with a book of sudoku puzzles. Snow drifts outside the window, melting as soon as it touches the glass.
Daniel is researching the Rom: how they originated in India, how they left to escape religious persecution and slavery. They traveled west, into Europe and the Balkans, and began to tell fortunes as refugees. Half a million were killed in the Holocaust. It reminds him of the story of the Jews. Exodus and wandering, resilience and adaptation. Even the famous Romani proverb, Amari cˇhib s’amari zor – ‘Our language is our strength’ – sounds like something his father would have said. Daniel takes a dry-cleaning receipt from his pocket and writes the phrase down, along with a second proverb: Thoughts have wings.
Lately, he has struggled to sustain a connection with God. One year ago, he decided to explore Jewish theology. He thought of it as a tribute to Saul, and he hoped for solace about the deaths of his siblings. But he found little: on the topics of death and immortality, Judaism has little to say. While other religions are concerned with dying, Jews are most concerned with living. The Torah focuses on olam ha-ze: ‘this world.’
‘Are you working?’ Ruby asks.
Daniel looks up. The sun is nestled just above the Catskills, the mountains a mellow wash of periwinkle and peach. Ruby is curled against the arm of the couch.
‘Not really.’ Daniel shuts the lid of the laptop. ‘You?’
Ruby shrugs. ‘Not really.’ She closes her sudoku book.
‘I don’t know how you do those puzzles,’ Daniel says. ‘They look like Greek to me.’
‘You have a lot of downtime, doing a show. If you don’t find something else you’re good at, you’ll go crazy. I like solving things.’
Ruby tucks her legs to one side, clad today in a different pair of Juicy sweatpants. Her hair is a bulbous bird’s nest of a bun. Daniel realizes that he’ll miss her when she goes.
‘You’d be a good doctor,’ he says.
‘I hope so.’ When she lifts her head to look at him, her face is vulnerable. A surprise: she cares what he thinks. ‘I want to be one.’
‘You do? What about your show?’
‘I won’t do that forever.’
She speaks in a flat, matter-of-fact tone that Daniel can’t quite parse. Does Raj know about this? He would never be able to have a relationship with another assistant like the one he has with Ruby. Daniel thinks of the conversation they had the previous morning, the tension when Ruby and Raj discussed their schedule. Raj claimed it was simple. Rubina, he said, on the other hand –
Ruby flicks her hair over one shoulder. She isn’t matter-of-fact, he sees. She’s annoyed.
‘I mean, Jesus,’ she says, ‘I want to go to college, I want to be a real person. I want to do something that matters.’
‘Your mother didn’t want to be a real person.’
The words are out before Daniel can stop them. His voice is low and he’s smiling, for somehow, when he thinks of Klara, this is what comes to mind first: her gall, her daring. Not what happened later.
‘So?’ Ruby’s cheeks flush. There’s a sheen to her eyes that flashes in the light from the living room lamp. ‘So what about my mom?’
‘I’m so sorry.’ Daniel feels ill. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
Ruby opens her mouth, closes it. He’s losing her already, she’s leaving for that foreign, teenage-girl place: mountains of resentment, potholes he can’t see.
‘Your mother. She was special,’ Daniel says. It feels urgent, that he convince her of this. ‘That doesn’t mean you have to be like her. I just want you to know.’
‘I know that,’ says Ruby dully. ‘Everyone tells me that.’
She leaves to take a walk in the snow. Daniel watches her clomp through the slush in her Ugg boots and hooded sweatshirt, dark tendrils of hair floating next to her face, before she disappears into the trees.