She wore a simple black Dior wool pantsuit, with a very chic jacket, and a simple white sweater. She wore high heels, which made her seem even taller, and she had her long chestnut hair loose in waves on her shoulders. She was able to wear eye makeup now, which made her eyes stand out above the mask. Her mother had always said that she looked like her father, and she knew it was somewhat true from the photographs, but he was an old man now, and maybe he looked very different.
He had an apartment on Fifth Avenue. It took them half an hour to get there in heavy traffic. A liveried doorman let her into the building, and announced her on a house phone, and an elevator man in uniform took her to the top floor. She had announced herself only as Miss Vincent. Her French accent was slight but detectable. Her mother had seen to it that her English was fluent. She had a distinctly French style about her. Four years as a top model had polished her appearance, and she looked very fashionable, as a butler answered the door, and led her into a small, handsomely decorated sitting room, with a view of Central Park. It was easy to note that her father lived well, and her mother had commented that he came from a wealthy family. She knew that he had gone to Harvard and little else about him, except what she had recently learned in her mother’s letter and on the Internet. He had been a successful attorney and gone into politics, and the Internet informed her that he had had a distinguished career, so her mother’s sacrifices hadn’t been for nothing.
She was gazing out the window, thinking of her mother, when a nurse pushed an elderly man in a wheelchair into the room. He was wearing a dark gray suit, white shirt, and navy tie, with well-polished shoes, and impeccably groomed white hair. He stood up to greet her with warm eyes, and the smile she recognized instantly. He looked startled when he saw the mask. He held out a hand to her, and clung to hers, and then sat down in a large comfortable chair. He didn’t look ill, but he seemed old and very frail. He was much taller than she was, and she tried to imagine her mother with him. He was so much older, and looked like an elder statesman. Her mother had been vital, almost twenty years younger, and looked young for her age. Véronique had never thought of her as old, even though she’d been forty-two when Véronique was born. Bill had been in his sixties, and looked his age now.
He waited until the nurse left the room, leaned toward Véronique, and spoke to her warmly.
“I’ve wanted to meet you for so long. I think your mother sent me every clipping from your modeling, and all your school photos before that. I have them all locked in a big box in a safe,” he said with a wistful expression. He was studying her face then, and was puzzled by the mask. “I always thought that you look a great deal like my sister, Delia. She died in her twenties in a plane crash. We were very close.” He was still holding her hand, which seemed like a surprisingly affectionate gesture for a first meeting, but there was no one else in the room to see it. “Are you ill?” he asked her gently, pointing to the surgical mask. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’m not afraid of germs. I have a bad heart, but other people’s germs don’t make much difference.”
“I was injured in the blast at the airport,” she said simply, still holding hands with him. “It’s upsetting to see, the scars are still very fresh. We were very close to the bomb when it went off, and I was filled with shrapnel afterward. They got quite a lot out, but not all, and it damaged my face,” she said, and he looked pained hearing it.
“You don’t need to hide it from me,” he said gently. He seemed like a kind person. But if so, how could he have left them? That just didn’t compute for her, and hadn’t since she’d known. “I’ve been to a lot of natural disasters as a senator, and seen a lot of wounded people.” She hesitated and then undid both loops, and put the mask in her lap. He saw both sides of her face at once. The perfect, untouched left side, and the fiercely damaged, scarred right. It allowed him to see what her face was like before, in person now, and what the bomb that had killed her mother had done. “Oh, my dear,” he said sadly. He saw it as a tragedy, but Véronique gazed at him bravely, and then she bowed her head and spoke softly.
“I would give both sides of my face, and all my limbs, if my mother were still alive. She was so wonderful.” He nodded, unable to speak for a moment with tears in his eyes.
“So would I,” he said quietly. “She was much too young to die, and such a good person. She was the love of my life.” He said it without embarrassment and Véronique was surprised that he was so open about it, after hiding it for so long. “I did you both a great injustice. Politics are a powerful aphrodisiac, and a dangerous drug. I wanted to make a bid for the presidency, and your mother knew that. But the right opportunity and the right time never came. Looking back, it wouldn’t have been worth it. I stayed in a loveless marriage, and I gave up the woman I loved, and our child. I stayed in touch with your mother, but we were very careful. We couldn’t see each other. It would have been too dangerous. I gave up a reality for a hope, and your mother never blamed me for it.”