He tried to get some sleep, but he tossed and turned, and finally, for lack of something better to do, he turned on the light and called Sasha in Denver. She was in her room, she had just gotten in from the concert hall and her feet were killing her.
“I'm glad nothing's changed.” He laughed as he lay on his back, thinking of her. He wondered if he'd been too hard on her when he talked about her at lunch. She still excited him in some ways, and that night he missed her. “Want to meet me in San Francisco?”
“When?” she sounded noncommittal.
“I'm going tomorrow. I should be through in a couple of days. When do you finish in Denver?”
“Tomorrow. We go to Los Angeles. San Francisco canceled.”
“I'll meet you in L.A.”
“I don't think you should.” There was a long silence, and he frowned.
“What's up?”
“It might upset some of the other dancers,” she said vaguely and he sat up slowly in bed. He was no fool, and he had played this game before. But it was not a game he liked playing.
“Would it upset anyone in particular, Sasha?”
“Oh I don't know. It's too late to talk about it tonight.” And as she said it, he heard a male voice in the background.
“Is that Dominique, or Pierre, or Petrov?”
“It's Ivan,” she said petulantly. “He pulled a hamstring tonight, and he was very upset.”
“Tell him I'm sorry. But tell him after you explain to me what the hell's going on. Sash, I'm too old for this kind of bullshit.”
“You don't understand the pressures of being a dancer,” she whined into the phone, and he sank back against his pillows.
“Well, I've tried for chrissake. What is it that I don't understand exactly?”
“Dancers need other dancers.”
“Ah … now we get to the root of the problem. You mean like Ivan?”
“No, no … well … yes … but it's not what you think.”
“How the hell do you know what I think, Sasha? You're so busy worrying about yourself and your feet and your ass and your tendons you wouldn't notice what anyone thought if they wrote it out in neon.”
“That's not fair!” She was suddenly crying, and for the first time in months he found he didn't care. Suddenly, in the space of one phone call, it was over. He had had it.
“It may not be fair, baby,” he spoke in his deep, gentle voice, “but it happens to be true. I think maybe you and I had better take our bows, and step back gracefully while the curtain comes down. If I read the program correctly, the fourth act just ended.”
“Why don't we talk when I get back?”
“About what? Your feet … or about how dancers need other dancers? I'm not a dancer, Sash. I'm a man. I have a very demanding job, I have a full life I want to share with a woman I love and who loves me. I even want to have children. Can you see yourself doing that?”
“No.” At least she was honest. The thought of it horrified her. She had no intention of giving up dancing for a year at any point in her life, and then fighting to get back all her muscles. “Why is that so important?”
“Because it just is, and I'm forty-two years old. I can't waste my time with games like this anymore. I gave to the artistic community once. I made my contribution. Now I want something different.”
“That's what I mean … you don't understand the pressures of being a dancer. John, babies aren't important.”
“They are to me, little one. And so are a lot of other things you don't have room for. You don't need me. You don't need anyone. Be honest with yourself.” There was a long empty silence as she listened, and suddenly he wanted to get off the phone. There was nothing left to say. They had said it all, and run out of words a long time since. They just hadn't noticed. “Good-bye, Sash … take it easy. I'll see you when you get back. Maybe well have lunch or a drink.” He knew she'd want the things she'd left in his apartment, but the truth was that he wasn't even anxious to see her.
“Are you really telling me it's over?” She sounded shocked and he could hear the male voice in the background again. He wondered if they were sharing a room, not that it really mattered.
“I guess I am.”
“Is that why you called me?”
“No. I guess it just happened. It was time.”
“Is there someone else?” He smiled at the question.
“Not really.” In a funny way there were three of them, the three women he was searching for day and night who filled his thoughts and his heart now, but not in the way Sasha had meant it.
“No one important … take it easy, Sash.” And with that, he quietly hung up and turned out the light. And he smiled to himself as he went back to sleep. He felt free for the first time in months, and he was glad he had called her. It was finally over.
PART FOUR
Megan
Chapter 24
The flight to San Francisco was easy and he arrived at two in the afternoon, local time, which gave him plenty of time to get to Rebecca's office at four o'clock. When he got there, it was an old Victorian in a rundown neighborhood. But he was surprised when he stepped inside, to find the house well maintained, pleasantly decorated, and filled with plants, and Rebecca Abrams herself was an attractive woman. She was in her early sixties and wore her gray hair in a single braid down her back. She wore clean blue jeans and a starched white shirt, red espadrilles and a red flower in her hair, and she looked like a very attractive, very intelligent, well-kept elderly hippie. She smiled warmly at John, and ushered him into her office. She had no idea what he wanted, and didn't look perturbed when he left his suitcase in her outer office.
“You don't look like most of our clients, Mr. Chapman.” She smiled warmly at him and pointed to a sunny little kitchen off her office. “Would you like some coffee or tea? We have about a dozen different kinds of herb tea.” She smiled at him again and he shook his head. He hated to upset her, but he suspected that he was going to.
“I'm here on a personal matter, Mrs. Abrams. I've been looking for you and your husband for quite some time, and I had a little trouble finding you. My last address for you was in New York, in 1957.”
Rebecca Abrams smiled again, and sat back peacefully in her chair. She had been doing yoga for years, and it showed in her tranquil manner. “We've moved around quite a bit over the years. We spent a lot of time in the South, and then we came back here when my husband got ill. He had a quadruple bypass six and a half years ago, and we both decided that it was time for him to take it easy and enjoy life. So now I'm practicing solo, or rather with a group of women I enjoy very much. But it's a different kind of practice than I had with David, although some of the concepts aren't so different. We deal with a lot of cases that involve discrimination and civil rights. We've been doing this for many years.”
“And your husband?”
“He teaches twice a week, at Boalt. He gardens. He's busy doing a thousand things he enjoys.”
“And your daughter?” Chapman held his breath.
“She's fine. She's still in Kentucky. How do you know our family, Mr. Chapman?” She frowned slightly but the smile still didn't leave her eyes.
“I don't. I'm afraid I come to you rather indirectly. I'm an attorney too, and I run a firm called Chapman Associates in New York. Unlike you, I've never been terribly in love with the law, and I got hooked on investigations years ago, so that's what I do. And my client, in this case, is Arthur Patterson. I don't know if the name rings a bell, but he was instrumental in bringing Megan to you in 1958. I'm sure that now you remember.”
She nodded, the smile had faded now in earnest. “Is something wrong? Why would Mr. Patterson wish to contact us now?” She looked frightened, as though he could still take her away from them. That was what she had always been afraid of.
“Simply put, Mrs. Abrams, he's dying. And he wants to know that the girls are all right, that they're happy and well, and not in any kind of need. And he hopes to bring them together once befor
e he dies, so that they have the benefit of knowing their sisters.”
“Now?” She looked horrified. “After thirty years? Why would they possibly want to meet their sisters?” She looked as though she were about to throw him out of her office.
“He felt it might mean something to them, and I can appreciate your feelings. Thirty years is a long time to wait before having any contact.”
She shook her head as though in disbelief. “We told him at the time of the adoption that we wanted no continued contact with him or the other girls. That was the main reason why we left New York and went to L.A. I don't think it would be fair to Megan to drag her past out now.”
“Maybe she should make that choice. You mentioned that she is still in Kentucky.”
“She's finishing her residency there, in Appalachia. She's a doctor. She's specialized in obstetrics.” Rebecca said it with deep pride, but she looked at John with open hostility.
“May I contact her there?” To him it was a formality, but to her it was an offense and she half rose in her seat as she answered.
“No, you may not, Mr. Chapman.” She sat back down again and glared at him in outrage. “I can't believe you'd come to us after all these years and expect us to expose Megan to that pain and confusion. Are you aware of the cause of her parents' death?”
“I am. Is Megan?”
“Of course not. In fact, I will tell you very bluntly, Mr. Chapman, this whole thing is totally out of the question. My daughter doesn't know she's adopted.” She looked him straight in the eye and he felt his heart stop. How could they not tell her? As liberal as they were, and as freethinking, they had never told her she was adopted. It certainly complicated the matter for them.
“Do you have other children, Mrs. Abrams?”
“No we don't. And my husband and I felt she had no need to know. She is our only child, and she came to us when she was a baby. There was absolutely no reason to tell her as she got older.”
“Would you be willing to tell her now?” He looked deep into her eyes and was frightened of what he saw there. Rebecca Abrams was not going to make this any easier for him. But at least he knew where Megan was now. If he had to, he would find her in Kentucky. It seemed a cruel thing to do, but she had a right to know about her sisters.
Rebecca hesitated for a long time. “I don't know, Mr. Chapman. Honestly, I don't think so. I'm going to have to discuss this with my husband, and with his doctor first. He's not well, and I don't want to upset him.”
“I understand. Will you get back to me in a day or two? I'm staying at the Mark Hopkins.”
“I'll get back to you when I can.” She stood up to indicate that the interview was over, and she might as well have been wearing a navy blue pinstripe suit. She looked as formidable as if she'd been wearing one. “Will you be going back to New York in the meantime?”
“I'd rather wait for the answer here, in case your husband would like to see me.”
“I'll let you know.” She shook his hand, but the look in her eyes was not warm as she led him to the door and closed it behind him. And when she went back to her desk after he was gone, she put her head down on her arms and cried. It was thirty years later, but they were still going to try to take away her baby. They were going to awake a curiosity she had never had, and bonds she never knew, and introduce her to blood relatives she had never longed for. It wasn't fair after all they had done for her, and given how much they loved her.
She went to see David's doctor that afternoon, and he felt that David was strong enough to hear the news. But it took her two days to get up the courage to tell him, and when she did she sobbed in his arms, and poured out all her fears and he stroked the long gray hair and held her close and told her how much he loved her.
“No one's going to take Meg away from us, sweetheart. How could they?” He was touched by her reaction. When Megan had been a little girl, she had worried about the same things. She had wanted Megan to be theirs, and no one else's.
“All of a sudden, she'll want to know everything about her biological parents.”
“So we'll tell her.”
“But what if she feels different about us after that?”
“You know better than that, Becky. Why should she? She loves us too. In all the important senses of the word, we're her parents. She knows what that means as well as we do. But that doesn't mean she won't want to see her sisters. If someone told me tomorrow I had two sisters I'd never known, I'd want to see them too, but it wouldn't make me love you any less, or Megan.” But Rebecca was still frightened and they talked about it long into the night. Rebecca wanted to keep their pact of silence, and David felt that they owed it to Megan to tell her. It took them another full day to resolve it. And when they finally called, John felt relief sweep over him, he had been going crazy in his hotel room. But he didn't want to leave until he knew where things stood, and he didn't want to press them.
She invited him to come to their house in Tiburon that night, and the three of them talked for a long time about the difficulties of telling Megan after so many years that she was adopted, and it was obvious that Rebecca was still fearful, but David was both adamant and supportive. He told John that his only request was that they wanted to tell Megan themselves, and in person. She was due home in two weeks for a brief vacation, and they would tell her then. They would call him as soon as she knew, and he was welcome to speak to her after that and set up the meeting that Arthur Patterson wanted so badly. And John had no recourse but to accept. They had all the cards in their hands and he wanted to do the right thing for them, and for Megan.
He went home that weekend, and called Arthur Patterson at home. It was obvious that he was not doing well, and John knew he had given up going to the office. He explained that he had found the Abramses, and that they wanted to tell Megan themselves. It meant waiting two weeks, but Chapman felt there was no choice. It was the only decent thing to do, and Arthur reluctantly agreed, and hoped he lived long enough to complete his mission.
“What's left to do now?” he asked John.
“Wait to hear from them. Then I'll set up the meeting with Megan and the others. Alexandra is ready to come when I call her, and I still have to deal with Hilary. But I don't want to do that until the last minute.” He instinctively sensed that the later he did it, the more likely she might be to come to the meeting. “That gives us another two weeks to cool our heels. I'll let you know if I hear anything sooner.”
“Thank you, John.” And then, unexpectedly, “You've done a fine job. I'm amazed that you've found them.”
“So am I.” John smiled at his end. He had never really thought he would, and he had … and in a few weeks they would be back together, and his job would be over. Part of him felt bereft at the thought, and another part felt relieved and he thought of what Eloise had said when they had lunch. He would be free when it was over.
Chapter 25
The call came from the Abramses in two and a half weeks, as promised, and John could tell from the strain in David's voice that telling Megan hadn't been easy for them.
“She took it very well.” His voice broke, “We were very proud of her … we always have been….” and then he went on, sounding stronger. “She said she'd call you herself when she gets back to Kentucky, if you'd like to talk to her.”
“Would it be possible for me to talk to her now?” John asked carefully, and David had conferred with someone at the other end and then handed the phone to someone, whose voice John recognized within moments. Without the French accent, she sounded just like Alexandra, she had the same intonations, the same voice, the same laughter.
“Mr. Chapman?”
“Yes.”
“This is all something of a surprise.” She sounded matter-of-fact, and young, but very pleasant.
“I'm sorry about that. I truly am.”
“It couldn't be helped. I understand you wanted to speak to me.”
“I did. I was hoping to meet you in Kentucky briefly before I set up
the meeting. When do you suppose you could come to Connecticut to meet with the others?”
“I won't know that till I get back. My schedule won't be set until the day I return. But I could call you then, if you like.”
“I'd appreciate it very much.” And she did. She called punctually the day she arrived, and John wondered if that meant she was anxious to meet the others or if she was just that kind of person.
She told him that she would be free to see him, in Kentucky, that Sunday afternoon, between one and five. And she would be able to come to Connecticut for two days three weeks later, but no sooner.
Chapman frowned as he listened to her, wondering if Arthur would live that long, and he shared his concerns with her.
“I can try and trade with one of the other docs, but it won't change things by more than a few days. We're terribly understaffed, and you'll see what we're up against when you come down here.”
“You could make it in three weeks though?”
“I could. Unless there were a major emergency, but I can never predict that.”
“I understand.” She was businesslike and very firm for a young woman of thirty-one, and while she had the same voice, she seemed very different from the others. She was intent on a single purpose, and she had been brought up with values and traditions much different from those of Hilary or Alexandra. She was hell-bent on helping unfortunates and fighting the war on poverty. It was something Alexandra had certainly never thought of, and Hilary had been far too busy surviving to concern herself with the more esoteric problems of the masses. It was intriguing how different they were. And John remembered something Alexandra had said to him in Paris.
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