Almost before I knew what I was doing, I found myself in Paris, hunting ghosts as I traced and retraced each street and bridge and café Roland and I had visited together. It was foolish, I know, but I couldn’t help myself. I was drawn to the memories like sharp, shiny objects, knowing full well they would cut and tear, unable to resist their pull. I deluded myself almost happily, clinging to the lie that it might help me forget, like the tolerance one builds to slow, steady doses of poison. Instead, it was like probing a wound with a red-hot needle so that it was never allowed to heal.
I saw Roland everywhere. In every bistro and patisserie, in every park and shop, on every crowded sidewalk, a set of broad shoulders moving through a crowd, a profile glimpsed fleetingly through a café window. My heart would catch, then plummet sickeningly when I realized I’d been mistaken. And what if it had been him? What could that mean to me? He was married again, out of reach.
What a fool I was. Instead of looking forward, I was looking back. As if that ever worked for anyone. And so I came home—or rather, I came here. The apartment is to be packed up, most of the contents placed in storage. I don’t want any of it but can’t bring myself to dispose of it, either. I find I’m more careful these days about what I throw away.
All that remains are a few loose ends to tie up, which is why I went to see Jasper this morning. I broke the news as gently as I could and invited him down to the cottage anytime he was free to get away. He said he would come, but I’m not sure he will. Things have been different between us since that uncomfortable night at the Gardiners’, though he remains my dearest friend. He didn’t like my leaving, and tried to change my mind, but I told him my plans were fixed. I leave for Florida the day after tomorrow. I fear it will be a long time before we see each other again.
I was still a little teary when I left his office, and in no hurry to return to the apartment. Instead, I crossed the street and wandered into the park, keeping to the shady side of the walk. With school out for the summer, the park was full of children, playing tag and tossing balls. The sight always makes my heart ache a little, but I smiled when I spotted a little girl in a straw hat and blue gingham dress poised on top of the slide. She squealed with delight as she careened to the bottom, where her father waited with outstretched arms. I watched as he scooped her up into his arms.
Suddenly, I went stock-still. It was Paris all over again, my heart in my mouth at the sight of those familiar shoulders. Only this time it wasn’t my imagination playing tricks. The shoulders didn’t just look like Roland’s—they were Roland’s.
The child was still laughing as he swung her up onto his shoulders, her little fingers clasping his ears like a pair of handles as they trotted back to the ladder and he helped her climb back to the top of the slide. I watched from behind a tree as they repeated the process again and again.
It was a physical pain, watching them together, and yet I couldn’t turn away. She was beautiful, with Caroline’s deep red curls and Roland’s easy laugh. Somehow, it had never occurred to me that Caroline would bear Roland a child, that she had it in her to be a mother. But that was absurd. It was what married people did. They made love. They had children. And they took them to the park.
I told myself to go and speak to him, to say hello to his little girl. It was the sporting thing to do, after all: the loser congratulating the winner, putting on a good face, and then departing the field. Only I didn’t feel like a good sport. I felt like dying. I don’t know how long I stayed there watching, but finally they finished their play. Roland scooped the girl up into his arms, both of them laughing. He seemed happy. I was glad. And heartbroken, too. I watched them go, the pang of loss so keen as they vanished from sight that my eyes filmed with tears.
They’re a family now, Roland and Caroline, and their sweet little girl, stitched together not just by law but by the sweet, warm laughter of a child. I must learn to live with that, and with the knowledge that all I ever wanted—all I have been denied—now belongs to my sister. I can’t think how I will ever manage it.
July 13, 1962
New York, New York
I woke with a start just before dawn, shivering in a clammy sweat. I thought at first that I must be ill, to be shaking so violently. Then I remembered the dream. It came back to me in snatches, a dizzying jumble of images with no beginning and no end, and yet so vivid I could not push them out of my head no matter how hard I tried.
The scenes kept shifting, as they often do in dreams. One moment I was in the infirmary at Mt. Zion, bound hand and foot to a reeking, stripped-down cot; the next, I was propped on a bank of crisp white pillows in the green-walled surgery at Saratoga Pines. Sister Doyle would appear with her needle, and then the screaming would start, only to turn to laughter a moment later as Sister Doyle melted into Caroline, wearing too much lipstick and the peach sweater Zell had given me.
She was holding a baby in her arms, a look of something I now realize must have been triumph in her eyes. I tried in vain to catch a glimpse of the child’s face, but could make nothing out through all the blankets. Aching to hold the child, I stretched out my arms, but Caroline began backing away, her laughter ringing louder and louder as she carried the child farther and farther away, until they both were gone, and only the echo of her laughter remained.
I have never been one to set store by dreams, especially those that come in times of anguish, but as I pushed back the covers and rose to dress I was filled with a terrible knowing. I told myself again and again that my own sister could not—would not—have devised something so despicable. But even as I formed the thought, Jasper’s words drifted into my head.
She’s always had an eye for anything that belonged to you.
Was it possible Caroline’s eye had strayed as far as my child—Roland’s child?
It was a preposterous notion, the stuff of Bette Davis movies, but the thought continued to gnaw until I picked up the phone and dialed Roland’s office. His secretary answered. She sounded flustered at first, when she heard my voice, but recovered soon enough, managing a bit of chitchat about how lovely Florida must be at this time of year. She assumed I was still at the cottage, and I didn’t bother to correct her. I knew I stood a better chance of getting what I wanted if she thought me miles away.
I told her I had found some papers of Roland’s and wanted to send them along if she’d be good enough to give me his home address. When she suggested I send them to the office, I told her they were of rather a personal nature, and that I wouldn’t feel comfortable sending them to his office, and felt certain Roland wouldn’t, either. I’m not sure what she thought these fictitious papers might contain, but finally she rattled off the address to his new apartment. I should have felt bad about lying, but my conscience was clear as I hung up the phone.
I took a cab to the address on East Fifty-second Street. I’ve grown used to lavish surroundings, to swanky addresses with poshy doormen in hats and brass-buttoned uniforms, but even I was startled by the fortress-like luxury of the Campanile. I craned my neck, staring up at row upon row of windows, counting up to the twelfth floor, where Roland and Caroline’s apartment was.
I made sure to go early in the day, when Roland would be working, or perhaps even out of town. I had no wish to run into him. I needed only to prove my suspicions, one way or the other. The doorman eyed me up and down, a flash of recognition in his small dark eyes, followed by another of confusion. Finally, he pulled back the door, tipped his hat, and wished me a good day. I think he must have mistaken me for Caroline.
I counted along with the numbers over the elevator door as I was swept up to the twelfth floor, holding my breath all the way. The St. Claires’ apartment was the second door on the right. I was still holding my breath as I drew back my hand and knocked. And then Caroline was standing there as the door swung open, her mouth sagging slightly, a glass in her hand.
“Well, well,” Caroline said in a voice sticky-s
weet with the old Tennessee drawl. “Look who’s come all the way up from Florida to see her baby sister. Really, Lily-Mae, a call would have done.”
I stared at her framed in the doorway, a beautiful stranger in her pearls and heels and sleek white suit, her hair pulled up in a neat little chignon. “Roland’s money suits you,” I said flatly, not caring that I sounded like a spurned woman. “But then, I suppose it always did.”
Caroline chose to ignore the remark. She pulled back the door instead, stepping aside, an invitation I was suddenly afraid to accept. My legs wouldn’t move, my stomach knotting at the thought of confronting my sister with such a ludicrous possibility. I wasn’t sure which scared me most, the prospect of being wrong or of being right. I stood there, mute, wishing to God I had rehearsed what I was going to say. I had no idea how to broach such a subject, how to ask such a question.
It was Caroline who finally broke the silence. “You’ve been down at that little shack of yours, haven’t you, somewhere down in Florida? You certainly don’t look very tan. Or very rested, poor thing.” She paused, giving me a little pout. “Oh no, that’s right, we heard you were in Italy or somewhere . . . getting over things. Did it work?”
I was stunned by the contempt in her voice, by the hatred glittering back from those bright green eyes. I had seen it before, I realized with a shock, but had never grasped its depth. Now there was no mistaking it. She turned and walked away, leaving me to follow, or to leave if I chose. Perhaps I should have left, but by then I was past leaving. I had come for an answer, and wasn’t leaving until I had it.
I said nothing as I followed her into the living room, feeling almost dizzy as I surveyed my surroundings. The apartment had been decorated to the point of garishness, the windows draped in heavy gold brocade, the walls papered in gold and white stripes, each article of furniture clearly chosen not for its beauty but for its cost. I could feel Caroline’s eyes on me as I took it all in, waiting for a look of envy to flicker across my face, but all I could think was that there was nothing of Roland there, nothing at all of the man I knew.
And what of the child? There was no sign of the little girl I’d seen in the park, no toys scattered about, no dolls or coloring books.
“He isn’t here, you know,” Caroline said, as she crossed to the bar to refill her glass. “So if you were hoping—”
“I didn’t come to see Roland,” I said coldly.
Caroline paused, a cube of ice dangling over her glass. “Then why did you come, Lily-Mae? To talk over old times? To be friends again?” She let the ice clatter into the glass, then picked up a bottle of Beefeater. “As if we were ever friends.”
“We were once, a long time ago. Before . . .”
She whirled around to face me then, sloshing some of her freshly poured gin onto the carpet. “Is that how you remember it? Because what I remember is a sister who thought she was better than everyone else, who always got the pick of everything, and lied without batting an eye if it meant getting her way.”
“Caroline, how can you say that, when I—”
I let the words trail off, knowing nothing I said would change her mind. Jasper was right. I never had seen Caroline clearly. If I had, I would have seen the hatred and resentment that had been burning quietly all these years. My vision blurred. I blinked then looked away.
But Caroline wasn’t finished. Her eyes kindled almost madly as she waved her glass in the air. “You thought you were such a big deal, such a great big star because people wanted to take your picture, when all you were was poor white trash from Mims, Tennessee—just like me. Well, sister dear, it seems we’ve traded places. It’s my picture they want now. Because for the first time in my life I’m the one with everything. Roland belongs to me now. After years of coming in second, of making do with your hand-me-downs, I finally took something from you.”
“Roland isn’t all you took, though, is he? There was something else.”
For a moment Caroline looked almost frightened, then she swallowed what was left in her glass and squared her shoulders. “That’s right. I took the baby, too, your baby. It was a girl, by the way.”
“I’ve seen her. She and Roland were playing in the park yesterday. I wasn’t certain at first, but I am now. That’s why I came. Where is she?”
Another look of fear flickered across Caroline’s face. Turning back to the bar, she splashed more gin in her glass, not bothering with the ice this time. “She’s with a sitter, not that it’s any of your business. And there’s nothing you can do, Lily-Mae. You can’t take her. She’s mine now, all nice and legal. Roland’s attorney made sure.”
She was so cold and matter-of-fact, so utterly unrepentant. “Don’t you have a conscience, or at least a heart? You took my husband, and then you took my child, and that’s all you have to say to me? After everything I did to keep you safe? After Zell, after—” My voice broke, and I had to look away. “Please help me understand how you could do this, Caroline.”
“How could I not, when you made it so easy? You were never going to hold on to a man like Roland. You’re too noble, too pure and self-sacrificing. So I took him. As for Zell and the rest of it, those were your choices, Lily-Mae, not mine. I never asked you to make them.”
“Is that what you’ve been telling yourself all these years? Yes, they were my choices, and I’d make them again. Because they kept you safe. But it wasn’t enough. You wanted more. You wanted what belonged to me—my husband and my child.”
Caroline met my gaze without blinking.
“The baby,” I went on, scarcely believing what I was about to say. “That’s how you got Roland to marry you, isn’t it? You dangled her in front of him, played on his emotions?”
She smiled then, a flicker of triumph in her eyes as they held mine. “Roland is an honorable man, Lily-Mae. He’ll always do the right thing. I knew he’d never turn his back on the child when he learned what you meant to do.”
“How could you?” I asked again, because I still couldn’t fathom it. “You swore you’d never breathe a word to anyone.”
Caroline shrugged, her conscience obviously unscathed. “I thought the man had a right to know the mother of his child was about to hand the poor thing over to strangers. You can imagine how he reacted when I broke the news. He was afraid it might be Jasper’s, at first, but I assured him that wasn’t the case. I made him see that the child—his child—deserved all the advantages of the St. Claire name.”
“And that you did, too?”
She flashed another smile, this one almost gleeful. “Naturally, the child was going to need a mother, someone who’d love her like her own flesh and blood—which I just happened to be. It cost a pretty penny to arrange it all so quickly, to fix the dates on the birth certificate and rush the paperwork through. Luckily, Roland just happens to have a pretty penny, and he wasn’t afraid to spend whatever it took. He wanted to make absolutely certain that there was no way you could ever come back for her after giving her up.”
I gaped at her, incredulous. “It was you who suggested giving up the child in the first place; did you tell him that? That you made all the arrangements, and stood over me when it was time to sign the papers?”
She pretended to search her memory a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t recall those things ever coming up, no. But really, Lily-Mae, it’s for the best. She has real parents now, who can give her everything: a real home, a proper upbringing, and security. You should remember that if you ever think about trying to get her back. The courts don’t look very favorably on women who give up their own children, nor do they make a habit of handing them out to divorcées who have affairs with their business managers.”
“But that wasn’t true! You know why I had to make up that story. Roland would never have let me go if I hadn’t. He would have fought for our marriage.”
“You think so?” Caroline almost purred. “You’re so sure you were the
love of his life, Lily-Mae, the only one who could ever make him happy. But did you ever stop to consider how easy it was to get him to agree to the divorce? Or for that matter, how long he waited before replacing you?”
I felt the room lurch and wobble. She was right. Roland had never questioned my confession about Jasper, had never bothered to put up a fight of any kind. He had simply washed his hands of me and, at the first opportunity, had married my sister and taken my child.
Caroline sneered as she saw her words hit home. “It’s over, Lily-Mae. I’ve won.”
“Why?” I asked numbly. “Why have you done this?”
“Because it was my turn. All those years, I took your hand-me-downs—your clothes, your books, your ratty old rag doll—but not anymore.”
“This is about . . . Chessie?”
“It’s about always coming in second, Lily-Mae. About being invisible because you’re not the oldest, or the smartest, or the prettiest. But now, for the first time in your life, you get to know what it’s like to be the lesser sister.”
I shook my head slowly, trying to understand. “How is this different? Roland, the baby—they were mine; now they’re yours. How is that not taking my hand-me-downs?”
Caroline’s glass came down on the end table so sharply I flinched, her eyes suddenly glittering with a kind of bloodlust. “Because, my dear sister, this time you didn’t give me anything. I took it. Because I could, and because it was my turn. Have you any idea what it’s like to be your sister, Lily-Mae? To only ever be seen as a kind of shadow?” She paused, smiling bitterly, then shook her head. “No, of course you don’t. You were always too busy fending off the men, or smiling for the cameras. Well, now you’re getting a taste of it. It’s you who’s the shadow, you no one sees.”
Summer at Hideaway Key Page 32