She wanted to be home, first a cold shower, then naked with Max under the lazily spinning ceiling fan in the bedroom they now shared. She thought of how he would make love to her, slowly, with infinite tenderness. She felt herself go soft in the knees, and between her legs, just imagining.
All at once, though, she felt afraid, confused.
How? How can I want Max that way? Isn’t it Brian I love?
And Max, what does he want from me?
A little warmth, she supposed, after so many years of a cold marriage. A friendly face to wake up next to in the morning, someone to encourage him, reassure him that there was, indeed, life after divorce.
And afterwards, when he moved on, what then? Would they be just friends again? Could they really go back to what they’d had? Rose felt a surge of loneliness.
She reached for his hand, and felt reassured. His fingers wrapped tightly about hers.
“We’re here,” he said.
“Where?” She hadn’t been watching the street signs, just following him in a sort of daze. Now she looked up, saw a limitless expanse of gray granite with mammoth Art Deco trimmings. The Empire State Building.
[431] “Come on,” Max said, “I’ll take you to the top. There’s a nice breeze up there.”
“Isn’t it too late? The Observation Deck will be closed.”
Max winked. “Don’t worry, I have my connections.”
Minutes later they were in an elevator, rocketing up.
“Old friend of my father’s,” Max explained, telling her about the elderly janitor who’d unlocked this elevator for them. “Pop got Moe his job here. And the guy’s been here on the same night shift practically since the place was built. He knows it probably better than he knows his own wife and kids.”
The elevator doors slid open, and they stepped out. The King Kong T-shirts, Big Apple mugs, and Yankee pennants opposite them in the window of the darkened souvenir shop looked forlorn.
He led her down a short flight of stairs, through a glass door, and then they were outside, a cool breeze whipping past the high plexiglass shield, tugging at her hair, her skirt. Rose felt as if she’d been plunged into an invisible river and was being caught up in the cool momentum of its current.
She leaned out as far as she could, breathless at the sight of Manhattan strung out below like a great jeweled web. She had been up here only once before, on a school field trip, but never at night. The gritty city was transformed into something magical. Gone were the hot, dirty sidewalks, the angry pushing crowds, the jangling traffic sounds. She felt as if she were being given a gift, an exquisite Carder necklace presented to her in an equally splendid velvet box.
She turned, and caught Max’s gaze. He was watching her, not the view. His clear blue eyes were fixed on her, a small smile on his lips. Rose thought, You wonderful man. You knew. You wanted to surprise me.
“Thank you,” she told him.
“My father used to take me up here at night,” Max said, slipping an arm about her shoulders, his bulk a warm cove she slipped into easily. “He’d hold me up, and I’d feel as big as King Kong. And he’d say, ‘See that, Maxie. You’re on top of the world! And it’s all yours. All you gotta do is grab on to it.’ ”
“Well, in a way you did, didn’t you?”
Max dropped his head slightly and was silent, his face in shadow. [432] She felt as if he had slipped away somehow, and she touched his arm, wanting to follow wherever it was he had gone.
Was he thinking about his daughter? The divorce papers had been drawn up, so Mandy had to know he wasn’t ever coming home. That had to have been tough for Max to explain.
Max looked up, smiled, his expression so sad she wanted to hug him, tell him everything would be all right. But she couldn’t promise that. Who knew better than she how mercurial life could be?
“It’s funny,” he said. “I used to think Pop had it figured right. That’s what life really was all about, success and making lots of money. He thought so, because he never had either. And what you don’t have is always more important to you than what you do have. But I know better now. I don’t have to be on top of the Empire State to grab on to life. No, not when it’s here. Right next to me.”
He turned, staring straight at her, and the lights from below caught his face, stunning her, as if she had been groping through a tunnel, and had emerged suddenly into blinding daylight.
She understood. It all became clear. What he was saying, the way he was looking at her.
Dear sweet Jesus, he’s in love with me.
How long? she wondered. How long had he loved her, and she too deaf, dumb, and blind to see it?
Looking at him now, at the clear love shining from his face, the sad knowing look in his eyes, she realized with an exquisite, nearly heart-stopping pang that probably it had been a long time. Longer than they’d been lovers. Maybe for years.
Rose saw it all now. His many kindnesses, each one like a tiny pearl, small and inconsequential by itself, but strung together, one after another, they had multiplied into a beautiful and precious necklace wound about her throat. He had given her the greatest gift of all, the kind that asked nothing in return.
Tears filled her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Wrong thing to say, all wrong. But it was all she could think of.
“Don’t be.” He brushed her cheek with his knuckle, his touch so light it might have been the wind.
“I didn’t realize.”
“I know.”
[433] “Oh, Max ... I wish ...” she broke off, not knowing what to say, only what she felt. That it was hopeless.
He stroked her hair, gently, rhythmically, as if she were a child in need of comforting. She thought she could hear his heart beating, pounding like a hammer.
“I know,” he said. “You’re in love with Brian.”
“Yes.”
“Even though he’s married.”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you’re handling his wife’s case? Because of Brian?”
“Partly.” She shrugged. “Yes.” But there was more, too, and she wanted to tell him. “This might sound strange, but ... I like her. She’s straight, and so incredibly dedicated.”
“And Brian? Is he still in love with you?”
“Brian? I don’t think it’s as simple as yes or no. I’ve known him forever. We’re part of each other, in a way. So there’s a piece of Brian that’s always belonged to me, and always will. But he’s confused right now. He has to sort things out for himself. When he has, I’ll know.”
“And you’re prepared to wait?”
“Yes.”
She hated hurting Max, but she told him the truth. “As long as I have to. As long as it takes.”
“I see,” he said softly.
Rose had watched a ten-story apartment building being demolished once, and she still remembered the sight of it collapsing, not exploding like a bomb, but folding in on itself, floor by floor, with an odd sort of grace, like an ancient dowager attempting a curtsey. Max reminded her of that now. Folding in on himself, the planes of his face shifting, caving like sections of wall. She wanted to reach out, stop him from hurting.
But all she could do was put her arms around him, while a strong wind tore at her as if it meant to carry her away. The only thing that seemed to anchor her to the concrete floor was the huge, aching weight of her heart.
“Max,” she murmured. “Oh, Max, I wish it could be you. More than anything in the world.”
Max wanted her. She could feel it as she held him.
[434] And the funny thing was, she wanted him, too. She longed to give him what she could, even if it wasn’t enough. Wasn’t a little love better than none at all?
Suddenly, Max was kissing her, and she was kissing him back. Hard, bruising kisses, not like the gentle lovemaking those other times. Desperate kisses that spoke of endings rather than beginnings. With a groan, Max sank to his knees, pressing his face into the furrow where the wind molded her ski
rt to her thighs. His fingers digging into her buttocks, his breath heating her through the thin fabric.
Rose arched against him, her head back, letting the wind ride over her face and stream through her hair.
Max was reaching under her skirt, tugging at her panties, his nails scraping her thighs. And dear God, she was helping him.
Now her panties were balled in her fist, a scrap of lace, a whisper of silk—she’d bought them at Lord & Taylor’s after that first night they had spent together—and she tossed them into the wind, watching a strong gust catch at the silvery slip of fabric, sending it up over the partition in a long swooping arc. Then sailing out over the dark canyons and glittering avenues below like some fantastic bird.
She turned back to Max, riding her skirt up over her naked thighs, and whispered, “Yes, take me.”
Chapter 31
Sylvie lay beside Nikos in the dark, aching, exhausted. It was the first time they had made love in her bed. The bed she had shared with Gerald.
He’d been a little rough, not like the other times. And so quick, hardly caressing her, as if he wanted it to be over, get it out of the way.
Was he angry with her?
She listened to the labored flow of his breathing, feeling her own heart wind down little by little. The hot darkness felt almost smothering. She groped for Nikos’s hand across the tangle of sheets, and felt a flood of relief as his fingers closed about hers.
Sylvie went back over the evening in her mind. A superb dinner at Caravelle with a spectacular bottle of Chateau Ausone to celebrate the house, finished at last. She’d wanted tonight to be special, each detail perfect, exquisite, down to her dress, soft green Burmese silk, the leaves of a Monet water lily. It matched her eyes, and the emeralds in her ears. Yet Nikos hardly seemed to notice. He had been polite, but distracted, his mind on other things. And now this heavy silence. What was he thinking?
She squeezed his hand, hoping for a response.
Yet she already knew. In her heart she dreaded his words. It had been building between them for three weeks, since she had told him about Rose. Nikos had been quieter, more pensive, but she’d sensed his turmoil.
“I saw her,” Nikos said. “Rose.”
Sylvie felt her chest grow tight, her lungs constrict, as if she were sipping air through a straw.
I should never have told him, she thought. I should have kept the secret. What good could I ever have thought would come of my telling him?
“She is beautiful. And smart,” Nikos went on, his voice ragged. [436] “If you only knew ... if you could see her, Sylvie, my God, our daughter.”
Sylvie, unable to bear the huge pressing weight on her chest, pulled herself up. She kicked off the sheets that clung to her ankles, and swung her legs over the side of the mattress.
Her legs were rubbery as she crossed the carpet, snatching her dressing gown from the needlepoint bench in front of the vanity. She pulled it on too quickly, hearing something rip in one sleeve. As if it mattered, as if anything mattered now.
She sank down on the Recamier daybed, its worn velvet cushions folding about her, seeming to hide her, bury her.
The tall French windows were open, a lukewarm breeze lifting the skirts of the parted lace curtains. In the moonlight, Sylvie could make out the shapes of her roses, but no colors, as if she were looking at a black and white photograph. The Shot Silk that had climbed up past the wrought-iron balcony railing, its huge blossoms peeking through the harp-shaped balustrades. And the Blue Nile, pale against the ivy blanketing the south wall.
Oh, keep them safe, she prayed. My daughters. Keep them from harm. Punish me, not them.
“For thirty-two years I’ve wanted nothing more than to know my real daughter,” she said softly into the perfumed night. “Oh, Nikos, you don’t know, you can’t imagine! Your own little girl—to know she’s out there somewhere, in trouble perhaps, or unhappy, and you can’t help her. You can’t hold her in your arms and make everything all right. I’ve dreamed so often of that ... dear God, to hold her ... just for a moment. To ask her forgiveness. What I would give for that!” She held her arms out. “All this, everything ...”
She turned toward the dark silhouette sitting up in bed, the pain in her heart so great she thought she might die. “Even you, my darling Nikos.”
Now he was rising, shadowy, now stepping into the silver light, solid and glowing as he crossed to where she sat. He crouched at her side, taking her cold hands in his.
“I am sorry, my Sylvie. For all you have suffered. I do not blame you. You must never think that. I only wish ...” His voice broke, and his eyes glinted in the moonstruck darkness. “I wish I had known, years ago. Our child, my child, raised by strangers ... [437] it hurts to think of it ... and if I had known, things would have been so different. Sylvie, Sylvie—why didn’t you tell me before?”
He did blame her. And he had a right to. Could she really have expected him to feel any differently?
Tears slid down her cheeks and splashed on her clenched knuckles. “There was never a time,” she said, “when ... when it seemed ... possible to tell you. First, there was Gerald to think of. I would not have hurt him for the world. And you ... well, you were part of the past then. I didn’t know where you were, what had happened to you. And then when we met again ...” She took a deep shuddery breath. “I only told you because it didn’t seem fair ... your not knowing ... even if it was too late.”
“Too late?” His eyes were fixed on her, only she couldn’t see his eyes at all, just the pinpoints of light reflected in them like distant stars. “No. I do not believe it is too late.”
Sylvie’s heart thundered in her ears. Dear God, what did he mean? What could he be thinking?
Then Nikos said, “I have watched her. Followed her like a spy. I know where she works, where she lives. I even pretended to run into her so I could speak to her. She is like you in some ways, I think. Clever and proud. And such fire! But she seldom smiles. I wonder if she is happy.”
“And you think it’s me who’s caused her unhappiness? Us? Oh, Nikos, don’t you see? It would be so much worse for her if she knew! She would hate me. I abandoned her, gave her away to strangers. Took another child in her place.”
“But you didn’t forget her. You made sure she was taken care of. That she had money.”
“Money,” she spat. “How easy for me, and how cowardly, a phony bank account. As if any amount of money could have compensated for what I did!”
A cloud slipped over the moon, and the garden full of roses suddenly was eclipsed in shadow.
How many times can a heart break? she wondered.
“I saw her once,” she told him. “When she was a little girl. I waited for her outside her school. I wanted ... as you did ... merely to see her, know that she was well. At least that was what I told myself. And then when I finally saw her ... well, it was that precise [438] moment when I realized what a terrible mistake I had made. I was overwhelmed. I had to touch her, to be near her. My own baby. The child I had carried inside me. Oh, don’t mistake me. I could never regret Rachel, loving her, raising her as my own. And if I hadn’t made that terrible choice in the beginning I would never have known Rachel. I wouldn’t have loved her.”
Nikos gripped her shoulders. She could feel his calloused fingertips digging into her, bruising her through the silk of her dressing gown.
“It’s not too late, Sylvie. Rose has a right to the truth. Then to decide for herself how she feels.”
Sylvie felt as if the room were coming apart in great jagged pieces, falling on her, cutting her.
“NO!”
She pushed him away, struggled to her feet.
“I can’t!” she cried. “Don’t you see? However wrong the choice was, I cannot turn back now. I have Rachel to think of now, and she’s so much more mine after all these years than Rose. I love her just as if she were my own flesh and blood. Think what it would be like for her. To learn I had stolen her from her real family, pretended to be
her mother. Oh, Nikos, think.”
He rose, and stood beside her. The black stars of his eyes were hot on her face, but she couldn’t seem to pull away from his gaze. Rose’s eyes, she observed with a little shock. Those same eyes—huge and sad and somehow hungry—had looked up at her that day in the schoolyard when she had placed her earring in her startled child’s small hand.
“I meant what I said,” Nikos replied, sounding sad and far away. “I do not blame you. I think you have punished yourself enough. We each have our choices, and who but God can truly say what is right and what is wrong? Perhaps it is selfish of me, wanting a grown woman, a stranger, to be the little girl I never had. But the wish is so strong. It is stronger than I am. You say you have made this choice. I don’t know. Often we just find ourselves walking in a certain direction. We don’t know why. And then we look up one day, and we are there.” He was silent a moment, as if struggling for control, then his voice broke free. “I need her, Sylvie.” Each word rang out like a gunshot. “You have a daughter. I have nothing. Give me Rose. Give me back my daughter.”
[439] She felt half-dead, some part of her surely killed, but she knew she had to answer. “And if I refuse?” she asked in a ragged whisper.
Nikos stared at her, not moving, naked in the moonlight, his muscular arms hanging limply at his sides. Then he said, “Then I will do what I must.”
Sylvie felt as if a crack had opened in the pit of her stomach, and a great coldness were welling up from it, seeping through her, numbing her.
She saw everything in her mind as if looking into a shattered mirror. Her life, her daughters’ lives coming apart, crumbling into tiny sharp splinters.
Oh dear God, what had she done?
Sylvie threw her arm up over her face, as if to ward off a blow. She’d thought nothing could be more terrible than the lie she had carried inside her all these years. But there was something worse, far worse.
The truth.
Chapter 32
Rachel watched her mother set the cake down on the table. Three layers high, glazed with black chocolate, it perched on a froth of white doilies atop Grandmother Rosenthal’s Wedgwood cake plate with the sterling rim.
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