“Was Rebekah very hard on her? As a parent?”
He bristled, stepped away from me.
“I only ask because I am trying to figure out how . . . to be a friend to her, help her, you know?”
“She wanted the best for Dani, if that’s what you’re asking. Like all mothers do.”
“And she and Max, were they happy?”
He looked shocked. “I’m sorry,” he said, and opened the door to leave. “I really wouldn’t know about that.”
He shut the door behind him and left me alone next to Winter’s Girl, looming above her slip, black water gently lapping below.
* * *
• • •
By the time Max met me a half hour later, the fire was fading and the boathouse was chillier, but I was no calmer. I had almost finished the first coat of paint on Dani’s Luck, centering the stencil by eye. When he walked in he didn’t say anything at first, and neither did I, still rattled by my dismissal in the kitchen and my awkward episode with Gus. Max crept over to where I was concentrating on making steady business out of the last letter.
“Mind if I watch?”
“Not at all.”
He fetched two stools and placed them near me, sat on one, and propped a brown bag with my breakfast on the other. Those few minutes of silence were a palliative, reminding me of the afternoons and evenings we had spent in the Caymans on those rented boats, each our own little island, where we made the rules and no one lived there except for us. How naive I was to think that could be duplicated here.
“I don’t like to be sent away like that. Makes me feel like a child,” I said, bent over my work.
“I’m sorry.”
“This isn’t a gift for Dani, by the way. It’s more of a gesture.”
“It’s a very nice one. She’ll be pleased.”
“What did you need to discuss with Louisa, without me?”
“Dani, mostly. Rebekah a little. My need to move on from the past.”
I lowered the brush and faced him. “Have you?”
“Have I what?”
“Moved on from the past?”
“Yes.”
“Because it feels to me every time I turn a corner here I get smacked in the face with things I never knew about you.”
We looked at each other for a few moments. Dani’s story was unhinging me and I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer.
“If this is about the greenhouse, I—”
“I never meant to make a big deal about the greenhouse. I understand you have memories in there. But so does Dani, it turns out.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She told me about the night Rebekah died. She remembers a lot more than she lets on, Max. She told me a woman came to Asherley, and that Rebekah was angry about her visit. There was a big fight in the greenhouse, and Rebekah took off in her car.”
Max sunk his chin into his chest for a moment, thinking.
“Who was that woman, Max?”
He looked up at me. “When did she tell you this?”
His voice was soft but his temple twitched.
“Yesterday. Over dinner.”
“I always suspected she was awake that night.”
“So she’s telling the truth? There was a woman?”
“Yes,” he said, after some hesitation.
“Was she your girlfriend, Max? Were you cheating on Rebekah? Because that’s what Dani thinks.”
“That’s what Dani thinks? That’s who Dani thinks that was?”
His body now emptied of all tension, his relief palpable.
“No . . . No, that woman was not my girlfriend.”
“Who was she, then?”
He looked at my face for what felt like a long time. “That woman . . . she was Dani’s birth mother.”
“You knew her mother? Who was she?”
“Just this messed-up girl from Bethpage. A drug addict. Painkillers and the like. Used to come around for money. I never wanted to give her any, but Rebekah would always panic and give her something just to make her go away. Dani doesn’t know about her. She can’t know. I think subconsciously that’s why I didn’t tell you at first that Dani was adopted, to avoid any questions about her mother.”
“Right. Of course.” I felt that satisfying click in my head, of puzzle pieces snugly fitting.
“She never came to see her daughter. We might have allowed it were she not so . . . dangerous. She just wanted money. What else did Dani say about that night? Tell me everything.” His face was etched with worry.
“Just that she came to the door. There was an argument in the greenhouse. Rebekah left the house. You told Dani she went to town to get a fan, and that’s when she crashed her car. Dani thought she might have been driving fast because she was angry at you, at that woman.”
“Well, that’s partially true. I didn’t want her to give her any money. In fact, I . . . I took the cash Rebekah was going to give her. A thousand times I wish I could relive that moment. Give it back.”
He looked on the verge of tears. So was I.
“Rebekah grabbed the car keys, said she was going to an ATM. And they left. Together.”
“But, Max, if they left together, where is she now, Dani’s mother?”
“It’s the craziest thing,” Max said, shaking his head. “When they found Rebekah, I expected they’d find the mother’s body, too, and for everything to come out. But there was no other body. There was no evidence that anyone else was in the car with Rebekah. So . . . I didn’t say anything. I hired a detective to find out what happened to her. He eventually discovered she overdosed not long after the crash, near Tompkins Square Park. And I’m ashamed to say that all I felt was relief. So I made the decision to just . . . put it away. Selfish, I know, and quite illegal. But I was desperate to avoid a scandal, desperate to protect Dani. Losing one mother is bad enough. Two would kill her.”
I took a deep breath. It felt like the first one I’d taken in an hour.
“I know,” he said. “It’s a lot to process. But I didn’t want any kind of doubt to hang over your head, that I would have a lover, that I would cheat on you. By now you must know that I trust you with my life, and with Dani’s life, too. Can I rely on you to keep this secret from her?”
“Of course,” I said, taking him by the upper arms. I felt shock, yes, but also relief.
I stood up from my stool and wedged myself between his thighs and wrapped my arms around him until I could feel some of his awful burden shift over into my body. He must have felt it, too, because he began to return the embrace, most ardently, repeating, “Thank you. Thank you,” over and over.
When I finally released him there were tears in both of our eyes.
“I came down here to tell you something,” he said, wiping them away. “I have a past to contend with, one you now know all about. There are no more secrets between us. But I came to say my past is not located in any one place at Asherley, any one room. I brought you here because I love you and I want to marry you. My home is your home, and my stubbornness about the greenhouse was just born from stupid habit. Louisa helped me see that. And so did Dani.”
“Dani?”
“Yes,” he said, smiling. “She came back into the kitchen just after you left. The two of them really ganged up on me.”
“Poor Max.”
“I always thought Dani would be angrier than me if we reopened the greenhouse, because she grew up in there, at her mother’s feet. Now I know that it also might have been where she last saw her mother. But she seems keen for us to have the reception there. And I think it’s a good idea. That it’s time for us to make new memories.”
“I don’t know what to say. I’m . . . amazed,” I said. “At Dani, I mean.”
“Me, too,” he said. “She surprises me at every turn.”
“I’ll make you a deal.” He reached over to grab my ring off the nearby shelf. “In exchange for being the lovely keeper of all my dark secrets, I’ll open the greenhouse for your wedding.”
I snatched the ring from his hand and put it back on my stained finger.
“Deal.”
TWENTY-TWO
After Max told me the truth about Dani’s mother, something inside me lifted. Fear, I think, of Dani in particular and our future in general. In return for helping change Max’s mind about the greenhouse, I decided to let Dani assert herself in the last-minute wedding decisions. So it was white peonies for the centerpieces, a bow for Maggie, and a three-piece jazz band greeting guests in the foyer. I treated them all as genius ideas, each one perfect and welcome. As she walked through Asherley making her final checks, I found myself in the familiar position of running behind a bossy woman taking notes, this time with a smile on my face. We were forming some semblance of a team. It was a happy time.
“Flowers for these side tables. Posies.”
“Check.”
“White ribbons on the sconces.”
“Lovely.”
“Candles for the powder rooms.”
“Great idea.”
“Oh, get Gus to lay down the runners. And tell him to give the herringbone a coat of tung oil. It’s about time.”
When I told her I could do that job myself, being well schooled in wood preservation, she looked at me squarely.
“Why the fuck would you want to do that a week before your wedding? Go get a pedicure or something normal.”
That was Dani, one minute angrily scolding me, the next, on the phone with the bakers, amiably telling them we wanted vanilla so I wouldn’t get chocolate crumbs on my pretty dress. She couldn’t have alleviated my wedding stress more thoroughly were she to have slapped on gloves and surgically removed it. And Katya followed her lead, dealing with the caterers herself, and I grew accustomed to starting my days with her yelling on the phone at them, usually about the cost of an ingredient for a dish she could find cheaper elsewhere.
Asherley, too, seemed to cooperate, its grounds beginning to green up a bit, the skeletons of wintering ivy unfurling pale buds across the cold gray stones, coating the meaner-looking garden gargoyles with a warm, leafy blanket. I began to note the position of the house. Once spring arrived, the morning sun was calibrated to slash through all its east-facing windows just so, lending a dramatic light to each room. The greenhouse also became hotter as the sun cut higher across the sky, the glass positioned like perfect magnifiers, creating bright pockets along certain walls and dark ones elsewhere. This place wasn’t just for show. Once the rickety tables and broken shelves had been removed and the ground was leveled for the new floor, the greenhouse felt like a living and breathing entity that wanted to be put to work again.
Before we did any major repairs, Max brought out an engineer who assured him the structure was sound. Nothing was wrong, he said, that couldn’t be addressed in time for the wedding. A few glass panels needed to be cut and installed, a new belt for the fan, the hinges on the upper vents oiled. Other than that, it was a lovely place for a wedding. And, he added, once the temporary floor was removed, we could even grow things in here, the soil still viable.
“We’re not reopening the greenhouse,” Max told him. “This is just for a special occasion.”
I didn’t press the issue. I began to realize I could get my way in increments, not great leaps. Once the wedding guests gushed about how beautiful it was in there, how lucky we were to have this space, there was no way Max could lock it back up again.
One day, after the workers had cleared out for a break, Dani walked in on me standing alone in the center of the glass expanse, counting my blessings, which now included her.
“Why do rooms feel so much smaller when they’re empty?” she asked, looking around. “It’s weird.”
We both stood bathing in the noonday sun, amplified through the dusty glass. I understood then what really drew me here. It was the way the heat, tropical and familiar, traveled through my skin and into my bones, warming up my joints and deeply relaxing me. It was the only place at Asherley where I was never cold, where it felt, to me, like home.
“Thank you, Dani.”
“For what?”
“For knowing how much it means to me to have the wedding in here.”
She shrugged. “I wanted to be in here, too. Plus I like pissing him off.”
“He’s not angry. He just needed a little prodding.”
She walked over to the highest wall and tented her fingers on the glass. She looked to her left, took a few steps until she landed on a particular spot and looked over at the door. “Ever think you remember something that you thought was from a dream, but it might have been real?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
She took a few steps to the right, murmuring to invisible actors on an imaginary stage. She seemed to have entered the same fugue state she was in when she told me what she remembered about Rebekah’s last night in the greenhouse, and the other woman, a story I once resented, but now cherished, because I knew the truth, and it grounded me. It tied me to Asherley and to Max in a profoundly new way.
Just then Louisa walked in, wearing chic overalls and carrying a takeout coffee.
“Katya makes an excellent pot,” I said.
“And it shouldn’t be wasted on me when this swill will do,” she replied. “So, where are we thinking for the head table?”
“Right . . . over here,” I said, walking to where Dani was standing by the high spire. “After the ceremony, the chairs will be moved over to the round tables for the reception.”
Louisa became wistful. “There used to be rosebushes up to the ceiling here. God-awful color but such long stems, heads as big as apples.”
Dani, her head now down in her phone, excused herself.
“She all right?” Louisa asked.
“I think so.” She did seem off. But she also had a lot to keep on top of these past busy days.
Louisa was still looking around. “You know, maybe I’ve been a bit too hard on this place. It really is something.”
Max came in to say goodbye before heading to the office. He glanced about with a stern eye, noting what had been done, what still needed to be done. It was heartening, his interest in the wedding planning.
“It looks different with all that junk cleared out. Have you seen Dani? Adele’s here.”
“She just left,” I said.
“I keep missing her.”
Louisa asked him what he was wearing to the wedding, something I hadn’t thought to ask myself.
“Not a monkey suit this time, thank Christ. I will wear shorts and a baseball cap if I feel like it. And thankfully I’m marrying someone who wouldn’t give a damn.” He turned to me. “Sweetheart, I have a late dinner in New York, so I might crash there.”
“That’s all right,” I said, trying to sound more disappointed than angry. I knew I was marrying a busy politician, but this would be the third time in two weeks he’d spent the night in New York instead of coming home late. Albany I understood; it was farther.
“Next time I’ll get Broadway tickets and we’ll make a night of it,” he said, as if reading my mind.
“Feel free to stay at the flat,” Louisa said.
“I prefer the hotel,” he said, putting his arm around me and kissing the side of my head. “I’ve been a shitty fiancé. But unlike you, these Wall Street types seem to need a ridiculously long courtship before they’ll donate a dime to my campaign.”
“Go. Really. I’m in good hands here,” I said, indicating Louisa.
“I won’t let her out of my sight,” she told him.
What a difference the truth
makes. How violently my confidence would have ebbed had Max left again and I still thought him capable of cheating. I would have been scouring for telltale signs: averted eyes, a fixation with the phone, fidgeting, constant excuses. Finding nothing, I would have assumed he was particularly adept at hiding it. I would have driven us both insane. As for Dani, considering how lovely and generous she was behaving towards me now, I let go of the idea that she had deliberately tried to plant doubts about Max in my mind. Sadly, she believed this about her father, and if, for her sake, Max was willing to let her, I had to as well.
* * *
• • •
Max not only stayed the night in New York, he was summoned to Albany for an emergency vote the next morning, which kept him away two more nights. But now it was Dani’s absences that preoccupied me. She had skipped her lessons the day she’d drifted off in the greenhouse and ended them early the day after, leaving her room only to get a snack or to warm up some kitten food. There was a time I’d have been grateful for the reprieve, but she’d been so helpful, such good company, that now I missed her.
On day three I found Adele in the den, her feet propped up on Max’s desk, video-chatting on her phone. When she saw me, she swept her feet off the desk and slapped her phone down on the mahogany.
“It’s okay, Adele, I’m looking for Dani.”
“She’s not here yet. I texted her. I’ll wait around a bit longer, but then I don’t know . . .”
“She’s been a bit distracted lately, I know. My fault, with the wedding and everything.”
Adele stood, lowering her voice a little. “She’s more than just normal distracted, though. Yesterday she couldn’t stop checking her phone, then she got all anxious and said she wasn’t feeling well and left early. I asked her what was wrong, she said nothing. I’ve been meaning to talk to you guys.”
“Okay. That’s good to know, thanks. I’ll see if I can get to the bottom of it.”
I headed straight to Dani’s bedroom. I knocked and waited, then knocked again. I put my ear to the door. Nothing. I tried the handle and the door opened. The room was neat, her bed made. The cleaning staff wasn’t due until noon, which meant she likely hadn’t slept in her bed, since she never made it herself. And there was that smell. On the dresser by the door was an enormous stand of those red-black roses, this one with a card: For my only girl, always. There was no name, but it was from Max, clearly. Of course this warmed me, knowing how much these flowers meant to Dani. But I also felt that buckle of envy. That he had never sent me flowers, not even after I almost left him, wasn’t what irked me. It was that he sent these flowers, Rebekah’s roses, which I had come to loathe. They felt obvious, garish, their scent smothering and ubiquitous.
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