Rose shook her head. “I thought you were my mother. But no mother would do what you’ve done and tried to do.”
“You’re missing the point, dear. Everything I’ve done just proves how much I love you.”
“That’s not love. I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t love. Even if you were my mother, I wouldn’t go with you now.”
“But Miss Townsend is not your mother!” Jozefa’s breath sawed in and out. “And you gave her thirteen years!”
“Magdalena Dabrowski is my mother,” Rose said, and it seemed to Sylvie that she drew strength, grew taller, just naming her. “Nikolai Dabrowski is my father. And Mimi is my family. Nothing you can say will change that.”
Sylvie’s vision wavered and blurred. If Kristof’s arm had not come around her, she might have sunk into the chair beside her.
Jozefa opened her mouth, then closed it. She clutched at her chest, where the locket lay hidden against her skin. “Rozalia,” she wheezed, “my Rozalia.” Then her face went vacant, her hand dropped. She listed, unmoored, against the railing at her elbow. The searchlight rolled over her as she swooned.
Rose screamed, pebbles sprayed, and Ivan and Kristof lunged, catching Jozefa before she capsized over the edge of the roof.
The night exploded again. Rose flung her arms around Sylvie’s neck, shoulders shaking in a sob that could not be heard. Her own cheeks wet, Sylvie returned the fierce embrace. “It’s all right,” she told her. “You’re safe. I’m still here.”
Rose shuddered on a muffled cry. “So am I.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1893
Sylvie shielded her eyes from the light bouncing off Lake Michigan. Leaves turned and fell against a cerulean sky. The air was apple-crisp. Three-quarters of a million people had been at the World’s Fair on Monday, but here in a quiet stretch of Lincoln Park, the biggest crowd was the one she’d brought with her.
Meg and Sylvie packed up the picnic basket with the scant leftovers from lunch while Hazel and Rose strolled down to the shore, Olive chasing after them. Walter, already ankle-deep in the water despite the cold, held out a shell or fossil he’d found as they approached.
When Karl and Anna stiffly rose from the nearby bench, Nate and Kristof steadied them. “Ready to stretch those legs?” Nate asked.
“Go on, Anna. We’ll take care of this.” Sylvie waved her away and smiled when she took Kristof’s arm. Nate walked at Karl’s side, ready to support him if needed.
Latching the basket closed, Meg sat back on the plaid blanket they’d brought and unfolded her legs, the tips of her shoes poking out from beneath her grey wool skirt. “How is she, Sylvie? I still can’t believe all that poor girl has been through. All you have been through, for that matter.”
Sylvie shifted to sit beside her. “We’ve had our share of tears this past week, that’s for sure.” The Hoffmans had added their own, Karl’s few just as moving as Anna’s many. Then they’d showered Rose with pastries and hugs that smelled of yeast and coffee. “Dr. Janik stopped by on Tuesday afternoon,” she added.
“Did he come for his sock?” Meg teased.
“Quite.” Sylvie chuckled. “Kristof came down right away to help translate. Dr. Janik spent another hour with Rose, maybe longer, telling her more about Magdalena and Nikolai, restoring memories she’d recently discarded. He reminded her that her parents cherished her, always. She had never been unwanted. You should have seen how tender he was with her, how pleased that she had learned some Polish and practiced it with him. It was good for her. This”—she nodded toward the cousins on the shore—“this is good for her.” This outing after church had been Rose’s idea. Instead of breaking her connections with all those who loved her, she was strengthening them, daring to believe they’d hold.
Blond tendrils of hair twirled by Meg’s jaw. “Any word from Jozefa since then?”
“None.” Kristof and Ivan had taken her to the hospital on the fairgrounds after catching her. Rose had gone to the police this week, filing for a restraining order she hoped would be rendered unnecessary by Jozefa’s departure. “I understand from the authorities that she’s sailing, right now, for Poland.”
At the lake’s edge, Walter handed the shell to Olive, then bent as though to pick up another. Instead, he splashed water up at his sisters and Rose. All three shrieked, to his apparent satisfaction. Their laughter somersaulted across the beach.
“So it’s over now,” Meg said.
But Sylvie wondered.
Meg’s natural bent was to paint with a broad brush of optimism. Though life experience had tempered this tendency, Sylvie still felt a gap in how they viewed the world. In the same autumn sky, Meg would see dazzling blue, and Sylvie the clouds bringing rain.
But not all rain was bad. Twenty-two years ago last week, right here in Lincoln Park, Meg, Sylvie, and Nate had praised God for it when the heavens dumped their cargo over the Great Fire. Rain stopped the burning. Rain cleansed. But first, it made a mess of the ashes.
Sylvie bent her knees, clasping her hands atop them, watching Rose. She would be all right. But when? Sylvie’s imagination could not plumb the depths to which Rose had been hurt, nor how long it would take for her to recover.
“I mean, the wounding is over.” Meg laid her disfigured hand on Sylvie’s. “The healing has just begun.”
Sylvie held her sister’s scars—at least, the ones that were visible. “Have you?” she dared to ask. “Healed from losing Louise?”
Meg’s gaze rested on her children, and Sylvie wondered if she saw not just three but four. A sad smile tipped her lips. “There will always be a spot in my heart contracting over her absence,” she said. “The sharp edges have dulled to a chronic ache that is easier some days to bear than others. But that doesn’t mean I can’t hold on to joy at the same time, too. Healing doesn’t mean forgetting the loss, nor does it mean enshrining it. Healing, at least for me, has meant holding both the blessings I once had and the blessings I still do, but holding them loosely in open hands.” She turned palms to the sky in a gesture that appeared remarkably like surrender.
Sylvie’s throat tightened as she nodded. They hadn’t always seen eye to eye on things, but at forty-three years old, she still looked up to her older sister.
Meg stood, helped Sylvie do the same, then captured her in a sideways hug as Olive scrambled toward them, kicking up sand behind her.
“Come on, you have to see this!” the child lisped through her missing front teeth and pulled at Meg’s arm. “See what I found. I couldn’t bring it up here to show you. It was too wiggly.”
Laughing, Meg followed her daughter just as Rose arrived. She looked pink from the sun and windblown, and something approaching happy.
“Do you have something wiggly to show me, too?” Sylvie teased, opening a parasol against the light.
“Lucky for you, no.” Rose looped her arm in Sylvie’s and guided her on a path that followed Kristof, Nate, and the Hoffmans. “Hazel was asking me what I plan to do now, and I’m sure you’ve been wondering, too. There’s a lot I’m still thinking about, but I’d like to resume my violin lessons with Kristof.” Kristof had invited Rose to use his Christian name after Monday, and she’d warmed to it immediately.
“I think that’s a fine idea,” Sylvie affirmed.
“But I want to pay for them myself. And I’d like to keep learning Polish, but Kristof is going to be busy with the symphony soon. If he doesn’t have time, I’ll see about hiring a different tutor, or maybe there are classes I could take. But I insist on paying for these out of my salary.”
Sylvie quietly considered this. She could only afford to pay Rose for part-time hours at Corner Books & More. That wasn’t going to add up very fast compared to the cost of formal education. “I want you to have those classes,” she said. “If that’s what you want.”
“I do, Mimi. Which is why I don’t think I’ll be working for you anymore.” Rose bit her lower lip and pushed a strand of hair away behind
her ear. “Hazel says they’re hiring at Marshall Field’s. Business there hasn’t slowed down, even with the recession. I can get plenty of hours there. Please don’t be upset, Mimi. I’ve loved working at the bookshop, but it’s time I start earning my own way without it costing you.”
Sylvie’s steps slowed, her boots sinking a little in the sand. “Sweetheart, you work wherever you want. I never meant to trap you in a life that was not of your own making.” She adjusted the parasol to shade Rose, too.
“Good. I thought so. Even if I get the job, though, I won’t try to move into one of the Jane Club apartments.”
Sylvie waited for her to explain. Overhead, a formation of Canada geese honked as they winged southward.
“Those apartments are for young working ladies who have no other place to go. They’d be turned out and adrift if they lost their jobs and they weren’t in the club. I don’t want to take one of those spots from someone who needs it more. After all, I have a home still. With you. Even though I’ll be eighteen next month, I’d still—” She paused, gaze settling on Meg, who was bending over Olive’s treasure, while Hazel laughed a few feet away. Walter skipped a stone across the water, then joined the men and Anna.
When a strong gust nearly blew the parasol out of Sylvie’s hands, she closed it.
“I’m saying, Mimi, that I’d still like to live with you.”
Sylvie smiled. “I would like that very much. You have your own life, I understand that. But you don’t have to worry about outgrowing your home, no matter how old you are.” Wind swirled between them, tugging at their hair. “Now I need to apologize to you, Rose, for all those times I called you my daughter without first making sure you were comfortable with it. It was insensitive of me, and I don’t want to be careless of your feelings like that again.”
“Oh, Mimi. You’ve cared for mine far better than I’ve cared for yours lately.”
“But if it bothered you, I’m sorry for that.”
She tilted her head. “It wouldn’t bother me now. I realize I’ve been doubly blessed. I had a mother by birth, and a mother by choice. I know I’ve said before that I had no role in that decision, but I have one now, and I choose you. I choose both of you.”
Sylvie inhaled. “Thank you.” Those two small words buckled beneath the weight of all she felt.
“I choose to be yours,” Rose said again, “even if that means sharing you with someone else.” She turned Sylvie around. Kristof walked toward them, his jacket flapping in the breeze. Rose gave her a little shove. “A very worthy someone else. He’s been waiting long enough.”
Kristof’s smile brought the warmth of the October sun to full blaze in Sylvie’s cheeks. Had it been confident or carefree, it would not have affected her so. But this one hinted at hope.
Hope was catching.
She reached for his hand as soon as they met on the shore of the lapping lake. A glance over his shoulder showed that Nate and Walter were helping Karl and Anna toward a bench. Behind her, Meg and Rose had gathered Hazel and Olive and were strolling in the opposite direction. My, but her family knew how to make themselves scarce.
Kristof cleared his throat. “I’ve been meaning to ask—has Ivan tried making contact with Rose since Monday?”
“Oh.” It was not what she’d expected him to say. “He sent a message through Lottie—verbally this time. He said, ‘I finally figured out what Mr. Bartok meant about Sydney. Good-bye, Rose. I wish you well.’” She raised an eyebrow. “Care to explain?”
A satisfied grin stole over his face. “Just a little chat we had about A Tale of Two Cities.”
She could guess the rest. “Ah. The unlikely hero who loved by letting go.” It was brilliant.
So was the glare off the water. Braving the wind once more, she opened the parasol so she could talk to Kristof without squinting. A pair of sandpipers raced by.
“Thankfully, there are other ways to love.” His fingers—those magnificent fingers that could make a violin sing and draw a symphony from the air—twined with hers, their gentle pressure a resounding chord inside her. “A man might love by hanging on, for example. By waiting for a heroine who needed time and space. A heroine worth waiting for.” His expression was stamped with an earnestness that made her heartbeat stutter.
Of all the ironies. While she had feared being hemmed in by marriage laws, and while Jozefa and Ivan had literally locked Rose away and called it love, Kristof wanted to give Sylvie room to do as she pleased. After the confines of caring for an aging parent, and on the heels of raising a child, it was what she’d thought she wanted. But the space she’d fancied as freedom would be empty without him.
“Oh, Kristof.” Her eyes shimmered. “I love my life. But I love life most when you are in it. I love you.”
“Sylvie . . .” His throat contracted around a swallow. “You’ve held my heart since before I even understood that I’d given it up. But I’ve never once wanted it back. I love you more than words can say. More than music can express.” Smiling, he settled his hands on her waist and bowed his head toward her. “I’d really like to kiss you now. May I?”
Every nerve awakened, every sense heightened. Longings she hadn’t dared to name came rushing into recognition. It wasn’t romance she craved, but love, belonging, knowing and being known. It was Kristof.
Drawing closer to him, she positioned the parasol to shield their moment from family and friends. Still he remained unwilling to take from her what she wouldn’t freely give. At last she was ready for him to be the first—and, God willing, the only—man she ever kissed.
His hand curved behind her neck. She lifted her chin, and his mouth met hers, warm and sweet and certain. Sylvie pressed herself closer, melting into his embrace. This was not the tentative kiss of an unsure suitor, but the kiss of a man who knew what he wanted and had found it at last.
The parasol slipped from her grip. Shadows rolled away as she let it drop to the sand, and she felt the light of the sun on her face.
Epilogue
NOVEMBER 1895
“More tea?” Sylvie topped off Beth’s cup and then her own, then slid the plate of shortbread cookies toward her friend. “Don’t let me eat all these by myself.”
Beth eagerly obliged. “Happy to help.” She sank back in her chair with a contented sigh. “I thought that husband of yours would be home by now.”
Sylvie checked a laugh while replacing the kettle on the warm stove. Beth would never admit it, but she’d grown fond of Kristof and likely hoped she’d see him tonight. “Any minute now. There’s a vacancy in the violin section at the symphony, and he’s one of the jurors for the auditions. They’re running late, I guess.” She drew curtains against the night before returning to the table.
Beth took another cookie. “Well, it’s a good thing I came, then.”
“A very good thing,” Sylvie agreed, though she knew how to spend an evening alone. Two newly released books had arrived today and remained unopened on the parlor tea table: The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane and The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. She’d been itching to read them all day. Still, after almost losing Beth’s friendship over Sylvie’s marriage to Kristof, she welcomed her visit, grateful for the connection that stretched back decades.
Footfalls sounded in the hall before the door opened and Kristof stepped inside. While Sylvie poured him a steaming cup of tea, he kissed her cheek, then hung up his hat and coat and joined them at the table.
“Beth!” he said. “Glad you stopped by. Work doesn’t normally keep me this late.” He wrapped his long fingers around the cup, warming them.
“It was fine, really,” Sylvie told him. “I had dinner with Rose.” And if she hadn’t, she would have been happily reading.
“Is she staying out of trouble?”
Sylvie told him she was, adding the regards Rose sent for him.
Nodding, Kristof helped himself to a shortbread cookie. “You wouldn’t believe it, Beth. Rose moved out a year ago, and she doesn’t call, she doesn�
�t write.”
Beth pushed a russet curl from her forehead and stared down her nose at him. “She lives right above you.”
“Ah. That must be it.” He winked at Sylvie. Overhead, floorboards creaked, a door opened and closed. Water rushed through the pipes. “She seems so far away.”
Sylvie rolled her eyes and chuckled as Kristof reached for the Tribune and browsed the headlines.
Taking one more cookie, Beth layered a spoonful of strawberry jam onto it. “Your niece Hazel rooms with her, doesn’t she? Spreading the ol’ wings just a bit?”
“She does.” More footsteps sounded, more hinges squeaked, along with muffled feminine voices. “Along with two other friends of theirs who recently moved in. Twins named Holly and Ivy. Yes, they were born on Christmas.”
Beth brushed the crumbs from her shirtfront. “Is that the Holly who works for you now that Tessa has married and moved away?”
“The same. Ivy is a clerk at the courthouse, where Rose serves as a court observer and translator.” Rose had worked so hard these last two years, full-time at Marshall Field’s during the day, then taking night classes from the language school. Now she worked part-time at the department store, using the rest of her time to help Polish immigrants at the courthouse. She helped them complete legal documents and translated for them in court. It was a testament to her unfailing energy that she’d had time to make friends, too. She no longer took violin lessons, but she often played duets with Kristof after they shared a meal together.
“It’s like a regular Jane Club up there, then,” Beth said.
“It is. But they’re calling themselves the Garden Club. Can you beat that?”
“Ha!” Beth snorted, wrinkling her nose. “Rose, Holly, Ivy—and Hazel? What is she, an honorary member?”
“Her middle name is Eden,” Sylvie told her, “so she fits right in. Though the personalities up there are . . . diverse.”
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