Ashlyn registered this with some surprise. “I didn’t realize Marian was Jewish.”
“She wasn’t. But her children were, so she converted. I know the papers made a big deal out of it.” He went still suddenly. “Come to think of it . . .” He pushed back from the counter abruptly and stood. “Come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“To my father’s study.”
Ashlyn followed him up a carpeted staircase to the second floor, then down a long open gallery hung with softly hued watercolors. The last door on the left was open. She hesitated when Ethan entered, opting to linger in the doorway. It was a gentleman’s room with dark carpeting, heavy furniture, and crowded bookshelves. At the center of the room, facing a large bay window, was an ornately carved desk littered with legal pads and several crumpled pages. An old IBM Selectric had been pushed to one side, a blank sheet of foolscap wilting over the keyboard.
“This is where you write?”
“Where I attempt to write, yes. It’s also where my father wrote.”
“Your father was a writer too?” Like Hemi and his father. “How wonderful.”
He was rooting around in a closet now, hauling out a series of white office boxes. “He was a professor, actually, but his real gift was words. He had a way of shining a light on the things people didn’t want to look at. How our government had sold its soul in the name of profit. How our humanity was slipping away. How prevalent bigotry still is in modern America and the need to guard against it.”
“Sounds like he and Goldie Spencer would have been fast friends.”
Ethan glanced up from the boxes and smiled. “Maybe.”
Ashlyn ventured a little farther into the room. “What are you looking for?”
“Nothing, probably. But my father was an incurable pack rat—to my mother’s dismay. I’ve purged a lot of it, but I haven’t had a chance to go through this closet. I’ve been dreading it, actually. But maybe that’s a good thing.”
“Why good?”
“Before, when I was telling you about Marian’s son, I remembered my parents standing in the kitchen, talking about a newspaper article she’d sent them, and how Corinne had been chapped at learning from a newspaper that her sister had adopted two Jewish kids.”
Ashlyn’s pulse ticked up. “You think you might have the actual article?”
“Probably not.” He lifted the lid off one box, closed it, and set it aside. “My mother probably tossed it during the remodel—she threw out a ton of stuff—but it’s worth a look. She obviously let him keep some of his hoard.”
Ashlyn eyed the stack of boxes dubiously. “Do you even know what you’re looking for?”
“A scrapbook. I only saw the thing a couple of times. My parents weren’t terribly nostalgic when it came to my father’s side of the family, but I remember it coming out every now and then. It was green leather. Or blue, maybe. Had those metal things on the corners. It would be a miracle if it was still here.”
“Can I help?”
“Grab a box and start rooting. We could be here all night, though.”
Ashlyn didn’t care. She had all night. Grabbing a box from the stack, she dropped down onto her knees and lifted the lid. Inside, she found a stack of dog-eared legal pads, a half dozen financial ledgers in red and black, but no scrapbook. The contents of the next box yielded similar results. She was about to reach for a third when Ethan suddenly yelled, “Aha!”
“You found it?”
“I found it.” He waved the scrapbook at her, dark green with corner tabs, exactly as he’d described it. “If the article’s anywhere, it’ll be in here.”
Ashlyn held her breath as he laid the book on his knees and began paging through. He was close to the last page when he abruptly stopped.
“There,” he said triumphantly, pointing to a small newspaper clipping at the bottom of the page. The clipping was creased down the middle and yellowed with age, affixed with tape that had gone a sticky brown.
Ethan read aloud. “February 7, 1950. Manning Heiress Returns to US with War Orphans.” He pointed, then handed Ashlyn the scrapbook. “That’s her.”
Ashlyn’s heart skittered as she came face-to-face with Marian Manning. It was a black-and-white headshot, the kind taken by a professional. Three-quarter profile, head and shoulders. She’d seen similar shots from around the same time. Demure. Fresh-faced. Posed just so. But Marian Manning was none of those things. She met the camera lens as if it were a pair of eyes, challenging, unapologetic, fascinating.
No wonder Hemi had fallen head over heels that first night at the St. Regis.
Ashlyn traced her fingers over the photograph, feeling an instant connection. As if they’d met in another life—which, in a way, they had. “I feel like I know her.”
She looked at the photo again. Belle . . . Marian . . . had a face now. A startlingly beautiful face. And an entirely new layer to her story. A mother and a Jewish convert. Choices she had made after losing Hemi. Perhaps to fill the empty place left by his loss. She returned her attention to the article itself, reading aloud.
February 7, 1950 （New York）—Miss Manning surprised all of New York this week, returning unannounced to the States with a pair of newly adopted war orphans in tow: a brother and sister, ages approximately 7 and 5, whose names are not currently known. According to one source who declined to be named, that surprise extended to her own family, who were not made privy to her plans. Miss Manning left the US after the war and has spent the last three years in France, where she became active in the cause of displaced children throughout Europe, many of whom lost entire families in the Nazi death camps. When asked about her decision to adopt despite being unmarried, she replied that she hopes to bring attention to the thousands of children still awaiting placement around the world and hopes to set an example for other American families. She asks for privacy as she resettles her children in the US and pledges to continue her work on behalf of war orphans around the world.
“She led by example,” Ashlyn said when she finished reading. “What a wonderful and selfless thing to do.”
“It was, though I’m guessing it was the last straw for Martin. He couldn’t have been happy about getting blindsided this way. Which I’m beginning to suspect delighted Marian no end. I’m also guessing it’s why she ended up being cut out of the will and forbidden to set foot in the house, though she had to know she was burning her bridges.”
“That makes it even more amazing. She defied him, knowing what the repercussions would be. She was brave.”
“I think that’s why she and my father hit it off. They were the only ones to ever buck the system.” Ethan took the scrapbook back then, flipping to the first page. “Let’s see what else might be in here.”
There were several photos lying loose between the pages, the tape that once held them in place no longer viable. Ethan studied them one at a time, turning each photo facedown when he finished with it. “I don’t know any of these people,” he said finally. “Aunts and uncles, I suppose, and cousins. My father was one of four.”