“This was my husband’s study,” Sylvie’s voice fluted behind her. She sounded anxious, flustered. “All his books, his record collection ... he loved opera, you see. ...”
Rose forced herself to turn and face Sylvie, who stood near the doorway. Bunched in her arms was Rose’s coat. There was something odd, Rose observed, about the way she was holding it, clutching it to herself, almost as if it were a child.
[505] “It was you.” Rose barely managed to squeeze out the words; all the air seemed to have been sucked out of her.
She had known it, of course ... but this ... actually seeing it ... that earring. A perfect match. God, what was happening?
She felt the blood rise inside her head like a great wave, crashing, roaring in her ears.
She watched Sylvie. take a step backward, then wobble, her delicate ankle turning under her so that she stumbled, and had to catch hold of a side table to steady herself. Rose’s coat fell from her arms, splaying out on the Oriental carpet.
Then Sylvie was straightening herself, slowly, cautiously, like someone very aged, or very ill. Perfectly still, erect, she looked like a marble statue, illuminated by the hazy gray light that glowed between the heavy drapes.
Rose took a step forward, feeling chilled, as if she had been treading water in a lake and now had swum into a cold spot. She felt her skin shrink with gooseflesh, and a vein in her neck begin to pulse wildly.
Rose, not aware of what she was doing, suddenly realized that she had brought her hand up, and was fingering her ruby earring.
She saw Sylvie flinch, as if she’d been struck.
“Who are you?” Rose whispered.
Sylvie stared at her for a long time. She stood as if frozen, her eyes unblinking, like a wild animal caught in the headlights of an onrushing car.
Then she said: “I am your mother.”
Her voice seemed to carry an echo, as if she were speaking inside a tunnel.
What did she mean? Rose felt stupid. Sylvie seemed to be saying something to her, something important, but it was as if she were speaking Chinese. Mother? How could this woman be her mother? No. Impossible. She must have heard wrong.
“I don’t understand,” Rose said. It was hard to speak. Her lips felt frozen, her face too. “I don’t ... my mother ... my mother is dead. …”
“Yes. Angie, she died. But not your real mother. Me, I carried you, here.” She pressed a pale hand to her belly. “I gave birth to you. You, so dark ... all that black hair, eyes like jet buttons ... [506] but I wanted you ... oh yes, I wanted you. But Gerald, he would have known then that I’d loved another man ... and I knew he would hate me, divorce me.” Sylvie was trembling, her words spinning out wildly, disconnected from the pale contorted oval of her face. “Then the fire ... there was a fire that night ... and, God forgive me, I took Angie’s baby instead of my own. Instead of you.” She covered her face with her hands, her thin shoulders hunched beneath her red cardigan.
“Rachel,” Rose breathed.
Then in a flash, it came to her ... that nagging feeling she always had around Rachel. ... Rachel always reminding her of someone, but who? Who? And now, oh sweet baby Jesus ... right there in front of my eyes all along, only I just couldn’t see it. ...
Marie. God, yes.
Rachel, golden-brown hair, hot blue eyes, petite, just like Marie. A younger, prettier Marie.
Rose felt a strange lightness, as if someone were lifting her up, and she was weightless, floating in the air. This wasn’t real ... this couldn’t be happening. ...
This woman, Sylvie Rosenthal. My real mother. No, that couldn’t be.
And yet ... at the same time she felt it must somehow be true. Somewhere, in some hidden part of her, she must always have known it. The way in dreams you know things, things that otherwise you have no way of knowing.
Then she felt as if she were coming apart inside, like fragments of colored glass in a kaleidoscope, whirling and scattering. But her center remained still and cold. A rime of fury settled like frost around her heart.
My mother is not dead. She didn’t die in that fire ... she just walked away ... left me to strangers ... oh God ... she LEFT ME. ...
“I regretted it,” Sylvie said, dropping her hands and showing her drawn, tortured face. “As soon as I did it, I was sorry ... I wanted to go back, tell them it was a mistake. But I couldn’t. I didn’t see any other way.”
“And my father? Who is my father?”
“Nikos Alexandros. He was my lover. I didn’t tell him ... but he knows now. And he wants you ... more than anything. He would have wanted you then too. But ... I was so confused, you see, and [507] so afraid. Wrong. I know that now. So wrong to give you up. There hasn’t been a single day all these years that I haven’t hated myself for this.”
“But you could have come back for me ... when I was one, or five, or seven.” The coldness gripping her heart was spreading, numbing her fingers, her toes. Outside, she could see, the snow falling faster, harder, swirling against the windowpanes with a sizzling sound. “And when you came to my school. Why? Why didn’t you tell me then?”
“I just wanted to see you. Just once ... see how you were. What you looked like.” Sylvie’s voice cracked a little, and she brought a trembling hand to her ear, remembering. “And then I couldn’t let you go without ... without something of me.”
“But what about me?” Rose cried, taking another step forward, her knees buckling a little. “You had Rachel, you didn’t need anything from me.”
“No ... no, you don’t understand ... I wanted you. But it was too late by then. Far too late.” Reflections of the falling snow flitted across Sylvie’s thin white face. “How could I have told you then? You would have run away. You wouldn’t have believed me. You wouldn’t have wanted me.”
“But you’re wrong. I did want you. I needed you ... or someone ... anyone to love me.” Rose stared at Sylvie, watching her grow even paler. She remembered that day, the cold wind whipping at her thin coat, the shock of her unexpected gift—a ruby earring, like a drop of sacred blood in her palm, like the scourge of Jesus. Oh yes, how she remembered. “What if you had claimed me then? Was it Rachel that stopped you? What would have happened to her?”
Sylvie jerked upright, as if there were invisible wires attached to her, pulling her spine erect, lifting her head high. Her face worked with the tears she was holding back.
“I won’t lie to you,” Sylvie said. “I’ve lied enough. I love Rachel as if she were my own. I could no more have given her up than if ...”
Rose felt something within her snap. She sprang forward—in her new weightlessness she seemed to clear the room in a single giant step—gripping Sylvie’s shoulders, her thumbs digging into the [508] soft flesh below the delicate bow of Sylvie’s collarbone. She could smell Sylvie’s perfume, a light flowery scent, sweet, filling her with equal measures of desperate longing and rage.
“If what? Than if she were your own child? Is that what you were going to say? Is it?”
Sylvie made no attempt to pull away. She stood there, arms limp, her huge green eyes burning.
Slowly, Sylvie shook her head, and the movement dislodged a tear. It rolled down her cheek, dropping off her chin, splashing hot onto Rose’s wrist.
Then it was Sylvie holding her, cradling her face between her hands ... her fingers cold, shocking Rose with their coldness. For an eternal moment they stood that way, joined, silent. The only sound was the thundering of Rose’s heart.
“All these years ...” Sylvie’s tremulous voice shattered the stillness. “To touch you ... oh, just to touch you ... like this ... my child ... my daughter ...”
Rose wrenched away, a wave of fury rolling up from her gut, dull red blossoming inside her skull.
“No!” she screamed. “No! You didn’t want me then ... you never wanted me ... you left me there like ... like I was a dog or a kitten. All my life, I’ve felt like I wasn’t a part of my family. Or anybody’s. My own grandmother, she hated me. She s
aw how different I was ... she thought it was my mother, Angie, who’d been sleeping around. She blamed me for her son’s death. And you thought a lousy bank account could make up for that? Oh yes, I know about that, too. It had to be you. But even then you didn’t have the guts to show your name.”
“I couldn’t. But I wanted you to have something. ...”
“You gave me nothing! No, less than nothing. That day at my school, you were like some beautiful dream, you gave me hope. But it was a false hope. Useless. Like this earring. Did you ever stop to think how useless a single earring is? Worse than that ... it’s a reminder of what isn’t there.”
Sylvie pressed a hand to her heart, grimacing as if she were in terrible pain. Her face was wet. “I am sorry ... so sorry,” she choked. “I didn’t mean ... I never wanted to hurt you. ...”
“How could you hurt me? I didn’t know you.” Rose felt a salty [509] taste on the back of her tongue; any minute now, she might start to cry.
Rose stooped to snatch her coat from the floor. Blood rushed to her face. Pinpricks of light danced before her eyes, blinding her for a moment. Then her vision cleared, and she started toward the door.
“Good-bye ... Mother.”
“Wait! You can’t go. Not now ... not until ... wait, oh please!”
Sylvie’s voice, calling her back, was like an echo inside Rose’s head. An echo of another time. She could feel, as she had on that long-ago day, her arms and legs growing heavier, slowing her until she couldn’t move. And like that winter day in the schoolyard, she found herself turning, hopelessly snared by the urgency of that voice.
Stupid. Get out of here! But she stood there, hating her own weakness. Even now she was longing for what she could never have. A mother’s love. It was too late for that. If only Sylvie had told her sooner ... if only she had loved her more than Rachel.
“I have something for you,” Sylvie said. “Wait.”
Rose wanted to run ... but something held her fast, the sight of Sylvie, so pale and silvery she seemed to shimmer, the look of absolute torment in her face.
Now it was Sylvie who was running ... dashing across the room, then suddenly, shockingly, flinging open the French doors behind the heavy drapes. Rose felt a gust of icy air, and saw snow-flakes swirling, catching in the velvet folds of the drapes.
Rose, shivering, stared into the swirling whiteness beyond the open windows. A garden, she saw. A garden under all that whiteness. Skeletal bushes. Trees, with snow pillowing in the crooks of their limbs. A tangle of vines on the far brick wall.
Sylvie was plunging into that whiteness now, mindless of the cold, not bothering to grab a coat, or even an extra sweater. Rose watched Sylvie struggling, half-slipping on the steps leading down, her high heels gouging deep holes in the snow that covered the patio.
Holy Mother of God ... what is she doing?
“Sylvie!” Rose called.
But the wind seemed to snatch up her voice, and toss it away.
Throwing her coat around her, she started after Sylvie, the cold [510] closing around her, biting, snowflakes pelting her cheeks, her lips, like cold grains of sand.
“Sylvie!” she screamed, forging across the slippery patio. “What are you doing? You’ll freeze!”
But Sylvie didn’t seem to hear her ... or didn’t care. Squinting against the swirl of snow, she was feeling her way along the brick wall. And now, with her bare hands, clawing at one of the bricks.
Rose, drawing near, saw that Sylvie’s hands were blue with cold, her fingernails broken, clotted with snow and crumbled mortar. Her thin back heaved as she frantically scraped and tugged. Scarlet patches stood out against the blue-white of her face.
“Sylvie, for God’s sake!” Rose dropped to her knees in the snow beside her mother, half-sobbing, desperate to make her stop. She could not bear another moment of this ... seeing Sylvie like this ... blue with cold, broken and weeping ... clawing at the wall.
Rose pulled her coat more tightly about her, the cold like sharp pins pricking her legs, her hands. What was Sylvie searching for here?
The brick Sylvie was tugging gave suddenly in a small burst of red chips and dirt. Then Sylvie was reaching into the gaping hole, pulling out something folded inside a dirty piece of plastic. “See! It’s here!” she sobbed in triumph.
She tore off the plastic, and there, nested inside a scrap of rotting velvet, lay the earring. The ruby earring that matched the one in Rose’s ear. Sparkling, unblemished, as if Sylvie had unfastened it from her own ear just moments before.
“Here.” Sylvie held it out to her, just as she had so many years before. But now her hand was thin and dirty, and it wore no elegant glove.
Rose felt her heart tumble, over and over, as if down a sleep slope.
Mother ...
She could feel herself reaching out ... reaching to take the earring.
No guardian angel now, this woman kneeling before her was someone real ... and someone who wanted something from her as well. ...
Did she have something to offer? And could she let herself forgive?
[511] Before she knew the answer, Rose was taking Sylvie’s hand. She felt Sylvie’s stiff fingers curling about hers, tightening, the ruby earring like a sharp thorn gouging into her palm.
I don’t know you, Rose thought, but I want to. I want to try.
“Let’s go inside,” she said softly.
Chapter 41
Rose sat at her window, staring out. She realized she must have been that way for some time, and now noticed that it was dark and still snowing hard; under each yellow cone of street-lamp light a small blizzard offtakes. Below, the sidewalk was carpeted with white, and furrowed down the center with footsteps. This new snow, covering up the dirt and rubbish, seemed to transform the city into a fresh white canvas, a new surface on which a wonderful painting might appear. And me? Will my life be different now? Better maybe?
How stiff she felt. How long had she been sitting here? Hours maybe. Since leaving Sylvie’s, she seemed to have lost all track of time.
She thought of that whole long afternoon she had spent in the big house on Riverside Drive, thawing out under a soft mohair blanket, curled on the sofa in front of a flickering fire. Sipping smooth port wine, and talking ... talking, telling Sylvie everything she could remember about her whole life. Remembering aloud how Nonnie, year after year, had taunted and belittled her, Rose had felt more anger burst forth than she had thought she harbored. But what also came out strongly was her love for Marie, and yes, even for Clare. And she’d told Sylvie all about Brian, how for so long she had both loved and hated him, and hated Rachel too.
Sylvie had been relentless, no, almost hungry, with her questions; and Rose had gradually felt herself let go of the last vestiges of her resentment as she talked and talked, feeling lighter, freer, until her voice began to give out. And then she had sagged back into the sofa cushions, too tired to say more.
For a long time, they’d both remained silent. Rose heard only the crackling of the fire, the sound of snow hissing against the windows. For a wonderful moment, she let herself fantasize about what it would have been like to grow up in this house. In her mind, [513] she made herself small, small enough to crawl into Sylvie’s warm lap, and lean against her soft bosom.
Then Sylvie leaned across to her, and took her hand. “There is something I must say, my dear.” The solemnity of Sylvie’s tone caused Rose to stiffen—whatever it was, she didn’t want to hear. “I don’t expect you to understand, but I hope you’ll at least try.” Sylvie paused, but now the silence was somehow threatening. What is it? What do you want from me?
“It’s about Rachel,” Sylvie continued, averting her eyes, staring into the fire.
Rose felt her resentment once again flare. Dammit, this was her day! Rachel had had her mother all her life, plus every other luxury imaginable. Why was Sylvie ruining her one day of the life Rachel had enjoyed forever?
“What about Rachel?” she asked, hearing the anger that had c
rept into her voice.
“Oh, Rose, don’t you see! How all this could only hurt her, if she were to find out that I wasn’t her real mother?” Sylvie sighed deeply, closing her eyes for an moment, as if she were in pain. “Yet how can I ask you to lie for me? I have no right to, I know. I’ve already forced you to make such terrible sacrifices. But please, I beg you, before you do or say anything, you must think carefully, weigh the consequences. So you ... don’t end up punishing Rachel for my crime against you, for what I’ve done.”
“So then we never tell Rachel. She goes on living her myth, and where do I fit in?” Rose had demanded, feeling cheated, like a child who had just been handed a gift, exquisitely wrapped, then had it snatched away before she even could open it.
Sylvie squeezed her hand. “Oh, Rose. Not God, not anyone can give back what I’ve taken from you. Certainly Rachel can’t. So you and I ... we have to try and start from here. From now, this minute, this day. As friends. And what we feel, what we know, will not change if we refrain from saying everything out loud.”
Lies, lies, and more lies, she felt tempted to snap at her. But something—she wasn’t sure what—held Rose back. She hadn’t said no, or yes, just that she’d think about it. Wearily, she had embraced Sylvie, memorizing the feel of Sylvie’s delicate bones under the soft cashmere sweater, the faint, sweet scent of her perfume. Then Rose [514] had left, a part of her wondering if she would see Sylvie again, if all this had really happened.
But now ... sitting here, going over and over it in her mind, Rose could see the Tightness in Sylvie’s plea. What crime had Rachel committed? And hadn’t she already suffered enough, with the trial? No, it wouldn’t be right.
Still, part of her—the hurt child crouching deep in her heart—wanted to hurt Rachel too, punish her somehow for all the good things she’d had, for the love that should have belonged to her. And that same part of her, Rose knew, would go on resenting Rachel for the rest of her life.
But Rose wanted Sylvie too, what she was offering—her friendship, perhaps one day real closeness, even love. And she could not drag all this into the open, wound Rachel terribly, and then expect Sylvie’s unqualified love. They could not begin that way.
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