“Quentin, how dare you speak to me like that? I can explain…”
“No, Mother. You can’t.”
Annette snapped her mouth shut. She could see it was useless. He’d spent too much time already with his cousin and Rebecca. They’d never understand.
Suddenly she couldn’t stand the way Quentin was looking at her—the way Rebecca, the little snot, was trying not to look at her. Hanging on to her pouches of jewels, she began to run.
She didn’t stop until she came to the spectacular cliff above the Mediterranean where she used to take Quentin to watch the boats. The salty, fishy smells of the sea mixed oddly with the tangy scent of lemons, and she collapsed onto her knees in the tall grass, her packets spilling out of her arms. What was she going to do now? Where would she go? She couldn’t imagine sticking it out with the French police. Calling in lawyers, making denials, thinking up new ways to explain the past thirty years.
“It’s over,” a voice said behind her, and she wondered if it were her own—her conscience. Then the voice went on, “You can’t win this time, ma belle.”
Annette rolled back onto her heels and watched Jean-Paul limp to her. He was using a cane; she could see where his thigh was bandaged. She thought perhaps they’d both gone to hell, but far be it from Jean-Paul Gerard ever to die.
“Come on,” he said, “I’ll take you back to the mas.”
“I killed Gisela, you know,” she said, feeling the warm breeze in her hair.
“Yes.”
“She told me you knew I was Le Chat from the beginning—that you only took up with me to get her Jupiter Stones back.” She blinked at him in the bright sun, remembering how they’d made love here on this spot. “Is that true?”
“Partly. I never expected to love you as much as I did.”
“Were you Gisela’s lover, as well?”
Jean-Paul shook his head sadly, moving closer. “No, Annette.” His warm eyes locked with hers. “Gisela was my mother.”
Annette fell back onto the grass and stared up at the sky, laughing. “Of course!” She giggled now as it all made sense. “Hungarian baroness—she was nothing but a French whore with a bastard child. To think of all the regrets I’ve wasted on her over the years—it’s ridiculous.”
“She tried to help you.”
“She tried to blackmail me. She offered a ‘deal’ in which I’d return the Jupiter Stones, drop you, and promise not to steal anymore. In return, she wouldn’t blab to the police about me. Can you imagine? Gisela ‘Majlath’ trying to wring me dry.”
Jean-Paul’s face reddened, the only indication that her words disturbed him. “She only wanted you to give back what was hers—”
“And what poor slob did she steal them from?” Annette sat up, feeling gloriously free. She picked bits of grass from her hair and looked out at the ocean. “You can imagine how furious I was, having someone like that interfering with my life, making threats. I gave her a good shove—just out of anger, really. Well, she slipped. She tried to hang on, but she knew better than to ask me to help her. I thought about it, though, but there was no way I was going to risk toppling over the edge myself. After all, I had a little boy at home.” Annette brushed the flat of her hand over the very top of the grass, letting it tickle her palm. “Finally she just let go.”
Jean-Paul shut his eyes and said quietly, to himself, “Aah, Maman…I should have been there to help you.”
Annette climbed wearily to her feet. “You know, I’ve always thought that if it came to it, I’d be able to do the same—just drop silently into the sea.”
Instantly alert, Jean-Paul put out a hand to stop her.
But she had already made up her mind, and he couldn’t move fast enough on his injured leg. He threw down his cane and lunged for her, but she was running, laughing as she came to the edge of the cliff.
She didn’t make a sound as she disappeared into the wind.
Forty
Mai was sitting up in her bed in a guest room at the Eliza Blackburn House. Despite her bruises and stitches, she looked mischievous and every bit the kid Jared couldn’t live without. His mother, horrified by what had happened, had come down from Nova Scotia and insisted on spelling him, although he’d refused to leave Mai’s bedside in those first crucial, terrifying hours after Rebecca had pulled her from the water. Now, ten days later, the doctors had told him Mai could travel soon, and he could take her home.
Home…was that still San Francisco for her?
“You’ve got to tell Granddad to cut it out,” she said. “He’s sent me flowers, balloons, a singing telegram—and now the nurses say he’s sending them flowers and balloons to make sure they’re taking good care of me. It’s so embarrassing.”
“Has he told you that you don’t have to pay back the money you swiped?”
“No…”
“Then I wouldn’t complain if I were you.”
Mai decided a prudent change of subject was in order. “Have you heard from Rebecca Blackburn?”
Jared shook his head. He’d gotten used to single parenthood and knew he couldn’t leave Mai, but he’d have gone to France with Rebecca and Quentin if he could have. R.J.—he thought about her all the time. She hadn’t come back to Boston after Annette’s death. Shattered by the events of the past days, Quentin had brought his mother’s body home and buried her in a quiet ceremony. His wife was sticking by him. Jared had offered to provide moral support for his cousin in any way he could, short of giving up Mai, but that, Jane assured him, wasn’t on the docket.
With the guidance of a psychologist, as soon as she was well enough, Jared had told Mai everything. She took it all in stride. The therapist explained that given Mai’s interest in Amerasians and the Vietnam War—the fall of Saigon, in particular—she knew more about what went on there than most. “It’s been in the back of her mind for a long time that your name on her papers doesn’t mean a lot,” the therapist had said. “She’s aware you’re uncomfortable about talking about her mother or what really happened in Vietnam. Jared, she knows people got out with false papers. She knows what life was like for so many beautiful young Vietnamese women like Tam. She’s not a baby you need to shelter. Give her some credit.”
He was trying.
Mai took her box of Godiva chocolates—courtesy of Maureen Sloan—off her night table and picked out the fattest one she could find. “You’re still in love with Rebecca, aren’t you?”
Jared grabbed the box of chocolates from her. Naturally she’d taken all the semisweet ones. “Stay out of my love life, kid.”
“Why? You meddle in mine.”
“You’re fourteen and I’m pushing forty.”
She popped the chocolate in her mouth. “Time you got married, Dad.”
It was the first time she’d called him Dad since he’d told her about Quentin and Tam.
She caught his expression. Chocolaty saliva dribbled out of the corners of her mouth, and she suddenly looked very frightened. “You’re still my dad, right? No matter what?”
“Mai…yes. I’m your dad. Forever.”
He swept her into his arms and held her.
For the first time since her husband’s death twenty-six years earlier, Jenny O’Keefe Blackburn came to Boston. First she visited her husband’s grave at Mt. Auburn Cemetery. Then she visited her father-in-law in his “hidden” Beacon Hill garden. His head was still bandaged, but he was doing just fine, sitting at a small wrought-iron table.
“Someone should have knocked you on the head a long time ago,” Jenny said, smiling as she set a pot of pink geraniums on the brick courtyard. “I remember you consider cut flowers a waste. You can plant these in your garden and see what becomes of them. Thomas—” She began to cry; she’d promised herself she wouldn’t. “Can you forgive me?”
He waved a bony hand in dismissal. “There’s nothing to forgive.”
“I wanted someone to blame—”
“You didn’t do or say anything I wouldn’t have. Jenny, there hasn’t bee
n a day I haven’t wished I’d gone on that trip instead of Stephen.”
“I know.” She pulled up a chair and sat beside him, taking his hand. “It’s been so long, Thomas, and I don’t mind saying I’ve missed you, in my own way.”
He squeezed her hand. “How are the children?”
“They’re fine. I brought pictures. And my father sends his best. He says you’re invited to come down and sit on the front porch with him and drink iced tea anytime you want.”
“Is it warm this time of year?”
“Quite.”
“Good. Never mind my concussion, we’ll leave this afternoon—”
Jenny laughed. “You’re as impossible as ever. As it so happens, Father and I are planning a family reunion for Memorial Day weekend. With all the daughters-in-law and grandchildren, we’ve gotten to be quite a horde.”
“I considered you a horde in 1961.”
“You can’t get to me anymore, you know. I’ve come too far. I’ve raised six children on my own, I own a damned citrus grove, and I’ve lived within spitting distance of my father for twenty-six years. I’ve toughened up.”
“You’ve never remarried,” Thomas said.
She shrugged without apology or regret, then smiled. “I’m only fifty-four. You never know.” Her pale blue eyes never leaving him, she said, “What about Memorial Day? I’m not going to beg, but you’ve got great-grandchildren you’ve never seen…and grandchildren who need to get to know you.”
His eyes misted. “Jenny…”
“And if you’re worried about paying for your ticket, please don’t.”
That brought him up straight. “I have no intention of accepting charity—”
“What about a share in Junk Mind?”
Thomas sat back and gave her an appraising look. “Go on.”
“When Sofi and Rebecca were starting out, they got anyone and everyone they could to invest in their crazy scheme. I did, the kids did—and so did you.”
“I didn’t give a penny toward that game.”
Jenny cleared her throat. “Um, do you remember that Chinese porcelain vase?”
“The one that came over on one of Eliza’s ships in 1797?”
“The ugly one with the screaming eagles painted all over it.”
“Eagles were a tremendously popular motif in the new republic—”
“Thomas, the vase was ugly.”
His incisive gaze fastened on her. “Was?”
“Well, I’m sure it still is, it’s just not mine any longer. And I did say mine, Thomas, because as I recall you did give it to me—probably because you knew I thought it was ugly. Anyway, I sold it to a very rich old woman in Palm Beach and invested the proceeds to Junk Mind in your name. The money’s in some kind of trust. I worked it all out. I know you’d probably rather have the vase back. If you’d like, I’ll give you the woman’s number and you can badger her until she relents. You’ll have enough money to buy ten more like it if you want.”
“There’s only one like it.”
“Thank God for small favors.”
“How much am I worth?”
She grinned at him. “That’s a loaded question, but if you want a dollar amount, you’ll have to talk to Sofi.”
“Why not Rebecca?”
“This one was between just Sofi and me. Being a Blackburn, Rebecca would have insisted on telling you, and I didn’t want to deal with you. I wanted the girls to have the money, but I didn’t want to profit myself from selling anything that had meant something to you—so I just did what I did.”
Thomas smiled and leaned forward, kissing her on the cheek. “I don’t know who to call first, Sofi or a travel agent.”
“Then you’ll make it?”
“I think I can live another week or two.”
“The kids’ll be thrilled. Oh, Thomas.” Her voice cracked, and she couldn’t believe she was crying again. “I’m not sure Rebecca will make it, but you’ve probably seen enough of her to last you a while. If she has any sense, she’ll be in San Francisco. Jared’s taking Mai home tomorrow, and I picked him out as my one-and-only son-in-law thirty years ago.”
“Where is Rebecca now?”
Jenny sighed. “France.”
To the disgust of the purists at the next table over in the sidewalk cafe, Rebecca sipped on a tall glass of iced café au lait and tried to decipher an article in the morning edition of the Paris Le Monde. Finally she pushed the paper across to Jean-Paul Gerard. “My French rots. Does this say what I think it says?”
He glanced at the headline and smiled. “Probably.”
The last ten days had transformed him. Springtime in Paris was just as gorgeous as everyone said, and he’d hobbled on his cane, dragging Rebecca from one sight to another. He’d told her about Gisela and how he was her “whim,” the child she’d wanted. She hadn’t wanted any of her regular lovers for the father: she’d wanted an honorable, intelligent, good man…a friend. In late 1934, Gisela found herself in French colonial Saigon on a lark, and she discovered that Emily Blackburn had died the previous year and Thomas was totally bereft. Emily had been her friend, as well, and Gisela and Thomas fell into each other’s arms for comfort. And she’d decided…him. He’d be the father of her baby.
And so it was.
An honest and open person, she’d told her son everything, but explained that Thomas had never had an inkling he’d gotten her pregnant. And she’d made Jean-Paul promise he would leave it that way.
“Then he never knew?” Rebecca had asked.
“No—but I resented him for it. I thought he should have recognized me…seen himself in me. But I favor Gisela, and what can I say? It just never happened.”
Now he folded up the newspaper and drank some of his espresso. “It seems,” he said, looking at her over the rim of his cup, “the Louvre has received an anonymous donation of the Empress Elisabeth’s Jupiter Stones.”
“That’s what I thought it said.”
“They came with a typed note explaining that the empress—an eccentric woman given to whims—had, at one time, taken to wandering through the gardens of Riviera cottages. One night in the early 1890s, she came upon a girl who wasn’t frightened of this strange, wealthy, powerful woman, and they talked until dawn, at which point the empress gave the girl a bag of ‘pretty colored stones’ in gratitude for those moments of peace and friendship.”
“Gisela’s mother?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca drank some of her café au lait and let an ice cube melt on her tongue. “You got the stones from David Rubin?”
Jean-Paul grinned. “You’d graciously put me on the list of people to whom Sofi could relinquish them.”
“And you smuggled them into France.”
“The least of my difficulties getting here.”
“You know, I’d have given you the stones. You could have sold them if you’d wanted. They’re worth an incredible fortune.”
He shook his head sadly, his eyes distant. “That’s never been why I wanted them. They were Gisela’s, her prize possession—not even a possession. A gift. Her mother had never sold them, and neither had she.”
“So neither would you. The Louvre’s probably got a staff of hounds on your trail by now. They’ll get the whole story.”
“Good,” he said with satisfaction.
“You know,” Rebecca said, sitting back. “You could do me a favor.”
“Anything.”
She laughed. “I should hold you to that, but you’d better hear me out first. Grandfather’s been threatening to leave the Eliza Blackburn house to me—just what I need. I already own enough decrepit buildings. It needs new wiring, new plumbing, painting, fixtures…. You could take me off the hook.”
“You’re not going to stay in Boston?”
“Nope. I haven’t paid my rent in two months—Grandfather’s probably drawing up papers to evict me now. I’m wrecking his cash flow.”
“Rebecca…”
“Don’t say no yet. Think a
bout it.”
“You don’t understand. I’ve never had a father. And I promised Gisela—”
“There’s one thing you’re forgetting, and that’s Thomas. My grandfather. Your father. Think about him, Jean-Paul. Then make up your mind.” And she smiled suddenly, and jumped up, hugging him and ignoring all the peculiar looks they got, her the rich chestnut-haired young woman, him the battered, white-haired man who looked twenty years older than he was. “I’m glad you’re my uncle.”
Jared turned off his computer and gave up on trying to get any work done. He couldn’t concentrate. Back two days from Boston and all he’d managed to do was make a mess of every project he started. Mai was catching up on her homework and doing famously; she’d even started delivering papers and washing windows to earn the money to pay back her grandfather. Rebecca had sent them a postcard of the Eiffel Tower and scrawled on the back some nonsense about tumbleweeds coming to rest. Jared couldn’t see the correlation between Paris and tumbleweeds.
All he knew was that he missed her.
Feeling restless and out of sorts, he walked across his small yard and started fiddling with the pots of geraniums on the rail of his deck. He and Thomas Blackburn made a pair when it came to gardening. He pinched off a few yellowed leaves before he gave himself up to the spectacular view. San Francisco wasn’t Boston, but it was where he belonged. He couldn’t take Mai away from her friends, the only life she’d known—not now. If that meant losing R.J….
He couldn’t. He had to think of a way not to lose her.
Behind him, the wooden gate creaked open, but it was too early for Mai to be getting home from school.
“Don’t you ever worry about earthquakes?” Rebecca asked as she walked up onto the deck. “I’ve been in San Francisco two hours and keep waiting for the ground to start moving under me. Of course, Grandfather says he wouldn’t live in Florida because of the poisonous snakes and the alligators, but Papa O’Keefe says he wouldn’t live in Boston because of the blizzards. I guess it depends on your perspective.”
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