Nicola shuddered. “So, he’s been watching me. This is beyond creepy.”
“It’s not creepy at all,” Carol said forcefully. “Alex cares. He always has.”
Nicola got up from her seat again and began to stalk around the living room. “And he wants to talk to me? Why would I want anything to do with a guy who gave up his child for money?” she asked.
“Our agreement wasn’t like that,” Carol said. “No money changed hands.”
Nicola came to a halt and turned to her mother. “I can’t . . . I can’t get my head around this. If you two were such good friends, why didn’t you just get married?”
“Our relationship wasn’t romantic,” Carol said. “At least, not on my part. How could I have married your father and withheld physical love?”
“But why couldn’t he have stuck around?” Nicola asked. “Stayed in New York? Said he was my godfather or something, though that, too, would have been a lie. Why go off to South America? Did you tell him he wasn’t allowed to have a part in my life?”
“He had already accepted the transfer when I approached him with my request for . . .” Carol rubbed her forehead. She felt sick with regret. “How can I possibly make you understand what seemed right all those years ago when now it seems even to me to be so very wrong?”
“You can’t.” Once again, Nicola returned to the couch. Carol thought she suddenly looked terribly weary. “If you wanted a child so badly that you went through with that absurd agreement, how could you have sent me away when things got tough?”
This was the moment, more than any, that Carol had been dreading. “It wasn’t like that,” she said softly.
“Really?” Nicola laughed harshly. “Then what was it like? Help me to understand.”
“I was . . . This is very difficult to tell you, Nicola. Until now I haven’t spoken of it to anyone.”
Something in Carol’s tone of voice or expression must have demonstrated to Nicola that her mother was about to impart a very sensitive and personal piece of information. In a gentler voice, Nicola said, “Mom, what do you mean?”
Carol told Nicola about the addiction to opioids. She admitted to obtaining the pills illegally once her own prescription had run out. She admitted to the terrible shame she felt and the fear that her secret would out and that she would be ruined, the respect with which she was regarded in the design community shattered, the people who held her in personal esteem sickened by her weakness. She admitted she never expected she would find anyone sympathetic to her plight.
When Carol had finished talking she felt hollowed out, as if something heavy and viscous had been scraped from the inside of her bones. Nicola’s face was ashen.
“No one knew?” she asked finally. “Not even Aunt Bonnie?”
“No one. There were times when I thought Ana might have suspected something. But she never said so I chose to believe she was ignorant.”
“How are you now? I mean . . .”
“I’ve been healthy for a long time. But . . .” Carol swallowed hard. “But by the time I was free, things between us seemed so broken down. I felt I couldn’t ask you to . . . to come home again.”
Nicola sighed tremblingly. “I wish you had asked. I probably would have said no, but I wish you had asked.”
“I’m so sorry, Nicola. I truly am. And you need to believe that the primary reason I came back to Yorktide was to rediscover my family before it’s too late for any of us to make amends.” And now, Carol thought, I’m losing Alex. Nicola is losing the father I never let her have. What have I done?
“Then why the fight for Ferndean?” Nicola asked. “Why not be conciliatory?”
Carol smiled ruefully. “Don’t worry about that. I have no intention of making my sister miserable.”
“Do you mean you’ve changed your mind?”
“We’ll talk about it some other time,” Carol said. “Now I need to ask if you can ever forgive me for what I’ve done. For what I deprived you of.”
“Yes,” Nicola said readily. “I can forgive you and I do, though I’ll probably never understand the choices you made. But none of that matters now. What matters is that you’ve finally told me the truth. The truth about my family. Our family.”
Carol smiled. “You’ll let me know what you decide about your father? If you’re okay with his contacting you?”
“I’m okay with it,” Nicola said. “But maybe he could write to me first. E-mail is fine. From there . . . we’ll see.”
“Thank you, Nicola. I’ll tell him right away.” But first, Carol thought, as she sank wearily against the back of the armchair, she needed to rest.
Chapter 111
“Mom? Are you okay? Your hands are shaking.”
“Are they?” her mother asked. Carol Ascher looked pale and small, sunk into the big, old armchair. “I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing for which to be sorry,” Nicola replied briskly. “You need something to eat. Sit here. I’ll be right back.”
Nicola dashed to the kitchen and after a few minutes returned to the living room with a tray on which sat the rudiments of a meal: fruit, a chunk of good cheddar cheese, thick slices of whole wheat bread, and two cups of strong tea.
Carol smiled. “Thank you,” she said, sitting forward again and accepting the tea from Nicola. “You should know that I met with Bonnie and Judith yesterday and told them everything. I wanted their advice. I wanted to be sure I was doing the right thing in telling you the truth.”
“So that’s what was distracting Judith,” Nicola said. “I saw her drive by yesterday afternoon. I waved, but she didn’t see me. I’d never seen her look so far away.”
“I’m afraid it was a lot for both Bonnie and Judith to take in. But they were wonderful. They both urged that I tell you everything.”
Nicola smiled. “They must be a nervous wreck, wondering what’s happening right now.”
“We don’t have to say anything to them other than . . .” Carol shook her head. “Well, that’s your decision, what to tell them and what to keep to ourselves. I’ll be guided by you.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Nicola said feelingly. This afternoon with her mother had been—and continued to be—monumental. Life changing. It didn’t feel like an experience to be chatted about, even to other loved ones. “You can simply tell them that I’ve agreed to hear from my father.”
Carol nodded and reached for a bit of cheese and bread.
“Why wouldn’t you let me visit you in the hospital?” Nicola asked after a moment.
“I thought it might be too upsetting for you,” her mother replied. “You were already going through such a difficult time.”
Nicola shook her head. “I thought you were keeping me away because you were even sicker than you had let on, maybe even that you were dying. Or that you were keeping me from seeing you because you didn’t love me.”
“How stupid I was,” Carol said. “I’m so sorry, Nicola. I guess my maternal instincts weren’t always very good.”
“That’s all right,” Nicola said. “I believe you meant well.”
For a while mother and daughter sat in a silence that was surprisingly comfortable, nibbling on slices of apple and pear, and drinking the strong tea Nicola had prepared. Finally, after Nicola had brought the remains of the meal to the kitchen, she felt it was time she left. She needed to retreat to her own home—humble as it was—and think about what had taken place that afternoon at Ferndean.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right, Mom?” she asked, just before going.
Her mother smiled. “Yes, I’m sure. I’m going to let your father know that we’ve spoken and that he can write to you.”
Nicola leaned down and kissed her mother on the cheek. “Call me if you need anything,” she said.
Her mother promised that she would.
Nicola felt strangely at peace. She wondered if she could be in shock. Shouldn’t she be feeling angry and cheated, furious that she had been duped by the two people who had given her lif
e? Well, she had felt those emotions when her mother had first begun her story. But they had soon been replaced by . . . by tenderness.
As she steered her car toward Gilbert Way, Nicola recalled Hermione Wilcott assuring her that answers to the big questions came when you were ready to receive them. And she thought about her recent premonitions of something momentous about to happen, of something important hovering just out of reach.
She had never, ever imagined it would be the emergence of her father.
Kin keeping.
Suddenly, Nicola remembered a moment earlier in the summer when she had complimented her mother’s vibrant yellow blouse, and had commented that the bright shade would not suit her. “Yes,” her mother had said. “You have your . . .”
What she had been about to say was: “You have your father’s coloring.”
Nicola had a father and his name was Alex Peters.
Chapter 112
Julie was sitting at the round redwood table on the patio. Not once this summer had the family shared a meal there. Scott had never fired up the grill; Julie had never set the table with the colorful plastic plates they used for outdoor dining; Sophie had never gathered a bouquet from the wildflowers that grew by the garage. What a terrible waste, Julie thought now. And most of it was her fault. Or, if not her fault, then her doing.
The sliding door that led to the kitchen opened and Sophie stepped onto the patio. So many encounters between mother and daughter this summer had devolved into a fight or angry silence. But not all of them.
Julie smiled. “Hi.”
“It’s nice out here,” Sophie said, taking a seat at the table.
“Yes,” Julie agreed. “It is.”
Sophie was silent, frowning down at her hands. Her nails were painted a shimmery pink. There were four woven bracelets on her left wrist.
“I feel terrible for saying all those things I said to you this summer,” Sophie suddenly blurted. “I love you, Mom, really.”
Julie’s heart expanded. “I know you do.”
“The thing is I didn’t want to feel so bad for you because you were already feeling so bad for yourself and not paying any attention to me and what I was going through. Maybe I’m just not a very nice person.”
Julie shook her head. “Don’t say that. You were—you are—experiencing a situation that’s entirely new and unexpected. There’s no script for how to feel or what to do. We’re all just making it up as we go along.”
“Is this what life is always going to be like?” Sophie asked. Her voice shook, just a little. “I mean, never knowing what weird stuff is going to happen when, and what you’re going to have to do to get through it?”
Julie wanted to reach for her daughter’s hand but expected Sophie to pull away. So, she didn’t. “The best way to prepare yourself for the craziness that’s life,” she said carefully, thinking about the lessons she had learned that summer, “is to cultivate your inner resources and to know when to reach out to others for help.”
“What does Agnes have to say about what’s been going on?” Sophie asked.
It couldn’t hurt to be honest, Julie thought. Not now. “A few days before I confronted your father,” she began, “Aggie told me she’d heard a rumor that he was seeing someone. But she didn’t tell me until I’d developed my own suspicions and had gone to her for advice.”
“That’s so wrong,” Sophie declared. “She’s your friend. She’s supposed to have your back.”
“She said she didn’t want to believe that your father was cheating on me. Besides, the person who told her is known for telling tall tales.” Julie shrugged. “She apologized over and over, but I couldn’t forgive her.”
“So, you’re not friends anymore?” Sophie asked.
“I don’t know,” Julie admitted. “She wants to be. And I have finally forgiven her for holding her tongue. I believe she had no intention of hurting me.”
“I’d definitely tell my friend if someone was cheating on her,” Sophie stated.
Julie refrained from smiling. Everything was black and white for the young and in a way, that was lovely, that certainty about moral issues, that absolute conviction of rightness when it came to delicate situations, a blithe ignorance of the negative consequences that might follow upon a well-meaning action.
“Well,” Julie said after a moment, “I hope you never find yourself in such an uncomfortable situation.”
“Too bad we haven’t had dinner out here in a while,” Sophie said abruptly.
“Would you like to?” Julie asked.
Sophie shifted in her seat. When she spoke, she looked out over the yard, not at her mother. “We’d have to ask Dad.”
“I’m sure he would be happy to grill us some burgers.”
“Maybe.” Suddenly, Sophie got up from her chair. “I gotta go.”
“Are you meeting friends?”
Sophie shrugged. “Some people from camp.”
“Okay,” Julie said. “Have a nice time.”
Sophie was considering doing something together as a family. That was progress. Julie felt a tiny glimmer of... Maybe not something as big as hope. But what she felt was also not despair.
I should have taken her hand, Julie thought. Next time, I will.
Chapter 113
The small cemetery where Ken had been laid to rest alongside the Elgorts who had gone before was always beautifully kept. Even the oldest graves, those dating from the seventeenth century, were nicely groomed. If those oldest headstones were largely broken, tilted, or even lying flat on the ground, and if the carvings were virtually illegible, smoothed over by time and dotted with lichen, there were still there, tangible reminders of the people who were now at eternal rest.
“You can imagine how I felt,” Bonnie said. She was sitting on a collapsible traveling stool she had bought for just such visits to her husband’s grave. “Poor Carol. If only I had known.”
Bonnie knew that Ken had heard her. She leaned down and readjusted the fresh flowers she had brought with her. KENNETH ALBERT ELGORT. BELOVED SON, HUSBAND, AND FATHER. If only . . .
No, Bonnie told herself. It was time to stop wishing for what could never be. Ken was gone, at least from this physical world, and she would have to accept that and keep of him what she could. Memories. A presence. Love.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen now,” she said to her husband. “I mean, with Nicola. Will she ever forgive Carol for keeping her father a secret all these years? Will she want to meet her father?” Bonnie sighed. “I just pray it all goes well.”
Bonnie leaned over again and laid her hand on the grass that covered Ken’s grave. She thought that she could feel his heart beating through the all the layers that separated them. A heart never really stopped beating.
Chapter 114
The big, old white pine. Bonnie’s special tree.
Until today, Carol had done nothing more than observe it from a distance. It was majestic and beautiful, as all monumental trees were. But this afternoon, Carol found herself compelled to duck beneath its lowest branches and seat herself against the trunk, the bark thick, dark, and fissured with age. Almost immediately, Carol felt the tree’s magic. She felt protected by the endless bluish-green needles that allowed only dancing flickers of sunlight to penetrate, as well as by the sheer bulk of the tree that might very well have witnessed Ferndean House rising from its foundations.
Permanence.
Carol recalled the feel of Bonnie’s hand in hers the other day. Her sister’s touch had been tender, loving.
This tree had been her sister’s sanctuary as a child.
Carol wished she could rest under her sister’s tree forever.
Under her sister’s care.
That was a strange thought.
Carol put her hand to her head. She felt a bit dizzy. So much had been happening, changing, speeding along . . .
She must have dozed off because suddenly, Carol was aware that the air felt markedly cooler; she was aware of a vague, wi
shful hint of autumn, her favorite time of the year.
She looked at her watch. She had been under the white pine for almost an hour. Using the trunk for support, Carol slowly got to her feet and made her way back to the house.
She was so very tired.
Chapter 115
Nicola sighed deeply before releasing the seat belt and climbing out from behind the wheel. It had been a particularly trying day at Pine Hill. A favorite resident was near death, and his son had been resisting the staff’s professional opinion that he be moved to the hospice care unit. Mr. Richardson had made peace with his dying, but his child had not. Nicola had spent over an hour with father and son. In the end, the younger man had finally, tearfully, agreed that in this case his father did indeed know best, and papers were signed to that effect.
Now, Nicola was looking forward to watching for the third time an episode of the first season of Game of Thrones and eating the leftover pizza in the fridge.
The front door creaked its usual creak and Nicola stepped into the dreary front hall. Mail had been tossed on a small, wooden table under a badly faded tour poster of The Rolling Stones. Nicola sorted through the stack for anything addressed to her. A bill. A packet of coupons.
A letter.
Nicola knew immediately from whom the letter had come. She didn’t need to notice the foreign postmark.
All thoughts of television and pizza vanished as Nicola raced up the stairs to her apartment, intensely eager to read her father’s letter. She had not expected to feel this way, almost desperate to make a connection.
Once inside, her bag and keys went flying in the general direction of the kitchen while she dropped onto the couch. Carefully, she slit open the envelope and withdrew the pages inside. It was unusual to receive a handwritten letter; in fact, Nicola didn’t think she ever had received one until now. Cards, yes, but not a genuine letter.
The paper was cream colored and thick. The ink was black; the pen must have been a fine-tipped one. With a deep breath, Nicola began to read.
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