She drops her head, nodding. “But first I went to Newport. Thia told me how to get in touch with him.”
Newport. The word sends a shiver through me. And Thia. The name is strange after so many years. But my mind is too crowded with questions. I trip over them, teetering on the brink of panic. My world has been upended, and I don’t understand anything.
“I found out by accident,” Rory says, as if that makes a difference. “I asked a reporter friend of mine to look for an old photo of Anson as a surprise for you. Except I was the one who ended up surprised. One of the photos he dug up was only two years old. That’s why I went to Newport, to find out if it was the right Anson. Then I went to San Francisco to talk to him. I needed to understand what happened after the war, why he never came looking for you. I thought I could convince him to come to Boston to talk to you, but he wouldn’t budge. When I told Thia, she asked me to wait a little before telling you, and I agreed. We thought he might change his mind. We never dreamed he would just show up like that.”
I close my eyes, as if that will erase what has happened. The tears I wasn’t able to cry a moment ago are suddenly flowing as the truth slams into me. Anson—my Anson—has been alive these forty years but wanted no part of me . . . and still wants no part of me.
“There’s more,” Camilla says gently from the bottom of the stairs. “You need to know the rest.”
“I don’t want to know the rest,” I say, pushing to my feet. “I want to go home. Please call me a taxi.”
“I’ll take you home,” Camilla protests. “But first we need to talk. There are things—”
“I don’t want to talk.” My voice is strangely flat, hollow and unfamiliar. “I want to be alone.” I blink to clear my vision, but the tears keep spilling down my face. “Please. The taxi.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Camilla throw Rory an imploring look. She’s determined to keep talking, to explain away the secret they’ve kept, to somehow make it all better. But it will never be better. Rory sees it, too, and answers her mother with a faint shake of her head. She knows nothing they say now will make a difference.
The staircase tilts precariously as I move down the steps. I hold tight to the railing, afraid my legs won’t hold me. I brush past Camilla and then Rory, then stoop down to retrieve my handbag and make my way to the door.
“I’ll wait outside.”
I feel their eyes on me, waiting for me to break into a million tiny pieces. But I can’t. Not yet. Because this time when I break, I will break forever.
FORTY-FIVE
SOLINE
Always be mindful of the Rule of Three. Three times your deed return to thee. Work ill and thrice ill winds shall come. Work love and thrice love finds a home.
—Esmée Roussel, the Dress Witch
30 October 1985—Boston
Four days.
That’s how long I’ve been hibernating, living on coffee and toast because I haven’t the energy to do more, wandering bleary-eyed from room to room or curled like a fetal thing, with Anson’s shaving kit clasped to my chest.
I’ve taken the phone off the hook again. I don’t want to hear it ring. Don’t want to wonder who it is or what they want. I already know, and I want no part of their placations. I don’t doubt that Rory meant well in keeping the truth from me. It’s not in her to be cruel. But she sees me as fragile, a brittle old woman unable to endure one more blow. And so I am. Perhaps she had good reason to worry about whether I’ll recover from this. I’m not certain I will.
I keep telling myself it doesn’t matter, that the fact that Anson is alive somewhere in the world changes nothing. But it isn’t true. Everything has changed. Because I’ve lost him all over again. Except this time, it wasn’t the boche who took him from me. It was his choice to stay away.
His proposal had come out of nowhere, at a time when our emotions were running high. Had he come to regret it once we were apart and been secretly relieved to return home and find me gone? Did he know about our daughter? That she left the world the same day she came into it? That I never even got to hold her?
My Assia.
All this time, I’ve imagined her with him, that somehow, somewhere, they were together. But she’s been alone all this time. He probably has children of his own, perhaps grandchildren—and a wife. Even now, all these years later, the thought doubles me over, and yet my eyes are dry. It seems I’m out of tears at last.
I’ve lost all sense of time, and the clock on the stove hasn’t been right in two years. I lift the kitchen blinds and peer out. The sky is the color of lead, and a steady rain spatters the panes. I give up caring and go to the refrigerator, pulling out eggs and butter and mushrooms. The spinach in the crisper has gone slimy at the edges, but there’s a tomato on the sill that isn’t too far gone. I don’t actually want food, but my head aches, and my insides feel hollowed out. I need to eat, and an omelet requires little skill.