I shake my head, confused. “Are we talking about Maddy?”
“Was there more than one?”
My nerves are taut, like an over-tuned violin string. He’s not making sense. “More than one what, Anson? What pictures?”
“The ones Mr. Vale took.”
I go still. “Of me?”
“Of both of you, actually. One of you in the kitchen, making breakfast together in your robes. Very domestic. Another of him feeding you some sort of pastry at a café. You were practically in his lap in that one. But I think the two of you dancing was my favorite. His arms draped all over you, your cheek against his. I certainly got my money’s worth. I’m guessing he did too.”
I’m so stunned, and so furious, that I don’t know what to respond to first. “You paid someone to find me? To spy on me? With a camera?”
“It’s not like finding you was hard. Took less than a week, as I recall. But when he told me you were in Boston, shacked up with a man old enough to be your father, I told him he’d made a mistake. The woman I was looking for was in love with me. So he brought me proof.”
I throw back my head and laugh. The events of the day have made me a little hysterical, I think, or perhaps it’s the cognac, but suddenly I find the whole thing very funny. “You think I was shacked up . . . with Maddy? That he and I . . .” Another snort of laughter. “So much for your proof!”
His face darkens. He’s angry that I’m amused. “I’m not blind, Soline.”
“I’m afraid you are, Anson. Quite blind. Myles Madison was my boss and my friend. He was also gay. He gave me a job when . . . after Assia was born. And a place to live. I was at the end of my tether, as they say, and he came to my rescue. We fought like cats and dogs and we loved each other madly. But we were never lovers. And even if he had been straight, there could never have been anything between us. I was still in love with you.”
“Except, as far as you knew, I was dead.”
I stare at him, stung by the absurdity of his remark. “Do you think that’s all it takes? Dying? There was only ever one man in my life, Anson. The fact that you don’t know that stuns me. But the fact that you would take your father’s word against mine, that you were so quick to think the worst of me, stuns me more. He took my daughter—my baby girl—and let me believe she was dead. When I had already lost you, he took her from me, and paid someone to give her to strangers. He took her from you, too, Anson. But instead of asking about her, you’ve come to throw Maddy in my face. And you sounded just like your father when you did it.”
I go quiet, waiting for him to say something, but he just stands there staring with his hands fisted at his sides. His silence makes my throat ache. “Back then, it seemed impossible that you could be his son. Now I see that there’s more of him in you than I realized.” I swallow my tears, determined to keep my voice even. “Perhaps fate did us both a favor.”
I see his shoulders tighten and realize I’ve struck a nerve. I’m glad. We eye each other silently, the quiet brittle. It seems there’s nothing left for either of us to say.
He pushes to his feet slowly, as if his legs have stiffened. “I’ll go.”
I nod, not trusting my voice. I want him gone so very badly, and yet the thought of him walking back out of my life fills me with a grief I’m not sure I can bear.
He moves toward the door, then turns back. “I nearly forgot,” he says, reaching into his pocket. “The reason I came.”
After a moment of fumbling, he holds out his fist and pulls my hand from my pocket. I resist briefly, then look down at the puddle of garnet beads he’s left in my gloved palm—Maman’s rosary.
A sound catches in my throat, the beginnings of a sob, as I remember the moment I gave it to him. A pledge made the night our daughter was conceived. I look up, searching his face. “You kept them?”
“I promised I would bring them back. Now I have. The end.”
The finality of his words hits me like a dousing of cold water, and I suddenly understand what he meant when he said he’d come to end this thing. He meant he’d come to fulfill his part of our bargain. Before I can stop myself, I’m weeping. It’s as if he’s spent forty years planning the best way to cut out my heart. On this day of all days, when I’ve just learned our daughter is alive, he’s come to reopen a different wound. So be it.
“Wait here,” I say thickly. “I have something for you too.”