Kaleidoscope

“What's for dinner?” Jack appeared in the kitchen with a beer can in his hand and a cigarette. He seemed to be eyeing her with greater interest these days, and she didn't like it. It made her uncomfortable, and made her feel as though he was taking her clothes off with his eyes.

“Hamburgers.”

“That's nice.” But he was staring at her firm young breasts as he said it. She had long, shapely legs and a tiny waist, and the thick black hair she had inherited from Sam hung in a black sheet to her waist. She was a beautiful girl, and it was becoming difficult to hide it. She looked years older than she was, and her eyes held the pain of a lifetime.

Jack patted her on the behind, and brushed past her without needing to, and for the first time he stood by her side the entire time while she was making dinner for him. He made her so uncomfortable that she was unable to eat once the hamburgers were ready. She pushed the food around on her plate, and left the kitchen as quickly as she could, after washing the dishes. She heard him go out then, a little while after that, and she was asleep in her bed in her room off the kitchen long before he came home around midnight. There was a pouring tropical rain, and there had been lightning and thunder, and he staggered into the house, extremely drunk, but with the intention of doing something … if he could just remember what it was … dammit … it had slipped his mind … he was still cursing when he passed her room, and then suddenly he remembered, and gave a laugh as he stood outside her door for a long moment.

He didn't bother to knock, instead he just turned the knob and walked into her room, his wet shoes squeezing water onto the linoleum floor and his breathing heavy, from years of cigarettes, but she didn't hear him. The sheet of black hair was fanned out across her face, and one arm was tossed over her head, as she slept on top of the covers in a childish cotton nightgown.

“Purrrrtyyyy …” He purred to himself and coughed, which almost woke her. She stirred and turned over, revealing a graceful hip and one long leg as she slept only inches away from him. And slowly he began unbuttoning his shirt until it dropped on the floor and lay there in a wet heap. He unzipped his pants and slipped them off with his shoes, and he stood next to her in his shorts and socks, and a moment later, they lay with the rest of his clothes next to her bed. And only the vast amount of liquor he had drunk kept him from getting a bigger erection. He came to life slowly, watching her, aching with desire, and the secret lust he had hidden for years, but now she was old enough … hell, he could have years of her, his very own piece right at home … before she grew up and moved out, and maybe after this she'd never want to. He groaned as he lay down on the bed beside her, and the cloud of boozy fumes he exhaled along with the stench of unwashed perspiration woke her.

“Hmm …” She opened one eye, not sure where she was and then gave a gasp and leapt out of bed. But he was quicker than that and had taken a firm grasp of her nightgown. It tore right off her tall frame as he held it, and she stood naked and trembling before him, as he lay in her bed and watched her.

“My, my … ain't that a purty sight, little Hillie?” She tried to cover her nakedness and she wanted to cry, or run, but she wasn't sure what to do. She just stood there, terrified. She knew that if she tried to run away, he'd catch her. “Come on back to bed, it's not time to get up yet. First Uncle Jack's got a few things to show you.” She could see him long and hard and ominous where she'd been lying, and she was old enough to know what he intended to do to her, and she would die before she'd let him.

“Don't touch me!” She ran through the open doorway to the kitchen, and he followed her in the dark, stumbling and naked and slipping on the wet patches he had left on the floor moments earlier.

“Come on, ya little tramp … you know what you want. And I'm going to give it to you.” As he said it, he lunged for her arm, and tried to drag her back to her bedroom. But she fought like a cat, and scratched his face and his arm, trying to kick him as he dragged her.

“Let go of me!” She pulled herself free and almost made it to the back door before he caught her again, but for an instant she had time to reach out for something she suddenly remembered on the drainboard. She hid it carefully from him, and seemingly docile finally, she let him lead her back to her bedroom. It was a daring thing to do, but she would rather kill him than let him rape her.

“That's a good girl … now you want ole Uncle Jack, don't ya, little Hillie …” She said nothing in answer and he didn't seem to notice as he pushed her roughly back onto her bed and prepared to mount her, but with a sudden flash of silver he felt something cold and sharp and ugly pointing at his belly.

“If you touch me, I'll cut your balls off … and I mean it …” Everything about her tone of voice said she did, and he believed her. He backed off just a fraction of an inch, and she followed him with the knife point. “Get out of my room.”

“Fine, fine … Christ …” He muttered as he backed out of the room and almost fell over the threshold. “Put that thing away for chrissake, will you dammit?”

“Not till you're out of here.” She was following him with the knife still pointed at his testicles, which seemed to worry him greatly.

“Little bitch … that what they teach you in school these days? In my day, the girls were a hell of a lot nicer.” She didn't answer him and he backed away, and then suddenly he had slapped the knife out of her hand and slapped her so hard across the face that she fell against the opposite wall and she wasn't sure which hurt her most, her nose bleeding profusely all over her face, or the back of her head, which felt as though he had crushed it. “There you little bitch, how does that feel?”

She grunted and struggled to her feet, still hellbent on protecting her virtue, but he wasn't interested in it anymore, he just wanted to punish her for humiliating him. He knew he could always get the rest of her later. Hell, there was nowhere for her to go. She was his now. He practically owned her.

“Now, you gonna behave yourself for Uncle Jack next time?” He backhanded her again, his eyes glinting evilly, and this time she fell against a chair and it caught against her ribs, cutting deep into one breast, and she could feel herself bleeding there too. Her ears were ringing, and her lip was split, she thought her jaw might be broken, and she had a huge gash on one breast before it was all over and she crawled away from him. He had passed out on the couch by then, still naked, totally drunk, and pleased with his night's work. She wouldn't resist him next time. He was sure of it. He had taught her a good lesson. So good, she dragged herself, naked in the pouring rain, until she passed out cold on their neighbor's doorstep. She lay there for hours, unconscious in the rain, bleeding from her various wounds, until Mrs. Archer found her there the next day when she opened her front door to get her paper.

“Oh my God! … oh my God” she screamed, backing into the house, and running to find her husband. “My God … Bert, there's a dead woman on our doorstep and she's naked!” He ran to the door and found her there, half in and half out of the door, still bleeding and still unconscious.

“Christ … it's that kid from next door, the one whose aunt died … the one you never see … we've got to call the police.” But Mollie was already dialing. The police came almost immediately, and the ambulance was there even before that. They took her to Brewster Hospital and half an hour later she came around, and saw the Archers staring at her in the emergency room. Mrs. Archer started to cry, she reminded her so much of her daughter. And it was obvious she had been beaten and raped and deposited on their doorstep. But the examination showed later on that she hadn't been raped at all, just beaten to within an inch of her life. She had stitches in various places, and the gash on her breast was bad, but the worst was the concussion he'd given her when he threw her against the wall the first time. She threw up almost as soon as she woke up and she lost consciousness several times, but the doctors assured Mrs. Archer she'd be all right, and they left her there several hours later. She was unwilling to talk about who had beaten her up, but the police weren't through with their investigation.

“Who do you think would do such a thing to her?” Mrs. Archer asked her husband on the way home, but it was days before the truth came to light, and Hilary didn't tell them. Jack gave it away himself the third time the police went to see him, and they brought charges against him, which Hilary begged them to drop.

“He'll kill me if you do that.” She was terrified now. He would kill her now, for sure, or worse.

But the police changed everything. “Hilary, you don't have to go back, you know. You could go to a foster home.”

“What's that?” Her eyes were wide with fear, but what could be worse than the hell she'd been living?

“It's a temporary home, even a long-term one sometimes where kids can live who don't have anywhere else to go.”

“You mean like an institution?”

The officer shook his head. “No, like real folks who take kids like you into their homes. What do you think?”

“I think I'd like to do that.” In order to set it up, she had to be processed through the Florida courts as a homeless minor. And it turned out to be much easier than anyone had thought when she explained that she was an orphan and had never been adopted by her aunt and uncle. She went back to see him only once, and Mollie Archer came with her and stood uneasily in the doorway. Hilary had wanted to get her things and she was afraid of confronting Jack. It was the first time she'd seen him since the night he beat her, and she was terrified of what he'd do to her for setting the police on him. But he only stared at her in venomous fury and dared to say very little with Mrs. Archer standing by her.

She packed her few belongings in the only suitcase she owned, and tucked the little cloth pouch carefully into the lining. She knew she had to take good care of it now, it was the only friend she had in the world … her escape money to find her sisters … her ten thousand dollars. If Jack had known it existed and that she had it, he would surely have killed her for it.

Jack slammed the door behind her and locked it loudly, and she walked quietly across the backyard to Mrs. Archer's house and waited for the juvenile authorities to pick her up again. They had a foster home for her and the people were coming for her in the morning. It was all so effortless, and for a moment, she allowed herself to think that it was going to be easy now. Smooth sailing, and then back to New York in a few years, to find Megan and Axie, and one day, they'd be living with her and she'd take care of them again. She'd be able to do that, with the windfall she'd found hidden among Eileen's nylons. It was the only nice thing her aunt had ever done for her, and even that she hadn't meant to do. But it didn't matter now. The money was in Hilary's suitcase and she intended to guard it with her life. To her, it was an absolute fortune.

The social worker came for her, as promised, in the morning, and after a brief appearance in court took her to a family in a battered-looking house in a poor suburb of Jacksonville. The woman opened the door wearing a warm smile and an apron, there were five other kids inside varying from about ten to fourteen from what Hilary could see, and the place instantly reminded her of the house Eileen and Jack had lived in in Boston. It had the same fetid smell, worn-out furniture, and battered look. But with half a dozen kids living there, it was hardly surprising.

The woman's name was Louise and she showed Hilary to her room, a room she was to share with three other girls, all of them living on narrow army cots Louise had bought from army surplus. There was a black girl sitting on one of them, she was tall and thin, with big black eyes, and she glanced over at Hilary with curiosity as she walked into the room and put down her things as the social worker introduced them.

“Hilary, this is Maida. She's been here for nine months.” The social worker smiled and disappeared, back to Louise and the mob of children in the kitchen. The house looked busy and full but wasn't welcoming somehow, and it gave Hilary the feeling that she had just been dropped off at a work camp.

“Hilary … what kinda name is dat?” Maida stared at her with hostility now that the social worker was gone and looked her over from the collar of her ugly dress to the cheap shoes Eileen had bought her. It was not a pretty outfit, and it was a far cry from the organdies and velvets of her childhood, forgotten luxuries by now. And with her serious green eyes, she looked at the black girl and wondered what life would be like here. “Where you from, girl?”

“New York … Boston … I've been here for two years.”

The black girl nodded, she was reed thin and Hilary could see she bit her nails to the quick. She was tall and angry and nervous. “Yeah? So why you come here? Your ma and pa in jail?” Hers were. Her mother was a prostitute and her father was a pimp and a pusher.

“My parents are dead.” Hilary's voice was dead too as she said it, and her eyes were guarded as she stood just inside the doorway.

“You got brothers and sisters?” She didn't see what difference it made and she was about to say yes, and then decided against it and merely shook her head. Maida seemed satisfied with her answer. “You gonna work hard for Louise, sweetheart. She a bitch to work for.” It was not entirely welcome information, but somehow Hilary had suspected as she walked in the door that this was not going to be as easy as they'd told her.

“What do you have to do?”

“Clean the house, take care of her kids, the yard, the vegetable garden out back … laundry … any thing she tells you to do. Kinda like slavery, except you get to sleep in the main house and she lets you eat here.” There was an evil smile in Maida's eyes and Hilary wasn't sure whether to laugh or not. “But it still beats juvie.”

“What's that?” She was a neophyte to all this, to foster homes and juvenile halls and parents who had gone to jail, even though her own father had died there. It was difficult to absorb the changes he had wrought in her life with one night of unbridled fury. Hilary often thought late at night, when she allowed herself to think about it, that he might as well have killed her along with her mother. It would have been a great deal simpler, instead of this slow death he had condemned her to, far from home and those she loved, abandoned among strangers.

“Where you been, girl?” Maida looked annoyed. “You know, juvie … juvenile hall …” She made a big deal of mouthing it, as Hilary nodded. “That's jail, for kids. If they don't find you a foster home, you go there, and they lock you up and treat you like shit. I'd rather work my ass off for Louise until my Ma gets out again. She'll be out next month and I can go home then.” This time she'd been caught in a drug bust with her “husband.” “What 'bout you? How long you think you gonna be here? You got relatives to go to?” She figured Hilary's parents had just died and maybe this was only a temporary arrangement. There was something different about Hilary, the way she spoke, the way she moved, the silent way she stared at everything, as though she didn't really belong here. But she shook her head in answer to Maida's question, just as the social worker walked back into the doorway.

“You girls getting acquainted?” The woman smiled, as though totally unaware of the jungle she worked in. To her, these were all nice kids, and she was finding them lovely homes, and everyone was happy.

Both girls looked at her as though she were crazy, but Maida was the first to speak. “Yeah. That's what we doin' … gettin' quainted. Right, Hilary?” Hilary nodded, wondering what she was supposed to say and relieved when the social worker took her back to the kitchen. There was something about Maida that scared her.

“Maida's done very well here,” the social worker confided as they walked down a dreary hall to the kitchen.

The children had gone back outside, and Louise was waiting for them, but all signs of any food they'd been eating were gone, and Hilary felt her stomach growl as she wondered if they'd give her something to eat, or if she'd have to wait until dinner.

“Ready to get to work?” Louise asked, and Hilary nodded, having gotten the answer to her question. The social worker seemed to disappear, and Louise directed her outside to a shovel and some rakes. She was told to dig a trench, and promised that some of the boys would help her, but they never showed. The boys were smoking cigarettes behind the barn, and Hilary was left to wield the shovel by herself, grunting and perspiring. She had worked hard in the last four years, but never at manual labor. She had cleaned Eileen and Jack's house, done their laundry, cooked their meals, and nursed Eileen until she died, but this was harder than anything she'd done before, and there were tears of exhaustion in her eyes when Louise finally called them in out of the torrid heat and told them to come to dinner.

She found Maida there, looking victorious as she stood by the stove. To her had fallen the ladylike task of cooking dinner, if one could call it that. It was a few pieces of meat and gristle floating in a sea of watery grease, which Louise cheerfully called stew as she ladled out small portions to each of them and sat down to say grace. And despite the pangs of hunger that she felt, and the dizziness from being in the hot sun all day, Hilary was unable to make herself eat it.

“Come on, eat up, you gotta keep up your strength.” Louise grinned horribly at her, it was all like some awful fairy tale, about a witch who was going to eat the children. Hilary remembered tales like that from her childhood, but they never seemed quite as real as this, and the witch always died and the children went back to being princesses and princes.

“I'm sorry … I'm not very hungry …” Hilary apologized weakly as the boys laughed at her.

“You sick?” Louise looked annoyed. “They didn't tell me you was sick….” She looked as though she were about to send her back to some unknown fate and Hilary remembered Maida's unpleasant description of “juvie.” Jail for kids. That was all she needed. But she had nowhere else to go now. She couldn't go back to Jack. She knew what he'd do to her this time. So it was Louise or juvie.

“No, no, I'm not sick … it's just the sun … it was hot outside …”

“Aww …” The other kids were quick to make fun of her and Maida gave her a vicious pinch as she helped wash the dishes. It was an odd arrangement, Hilary realized again. They weren't like friends or family, Louise didn't pretend to mother them, they were just like a hired work force she'd brought in to do her work, and that was how they treated her as well. It all seemed very temporary and very distant. Louise's husband seemed to come and go. He had lost one leg in the war and the other was severely crippled. He was unable to work as a result, and Louise took these kids in to do his share of the work, and her own, and for the money it brought her. The State paid her for each child she took in, and she didn't get rich on it, but it gave her decent money. The maximum she could take in was seven, and they knew there would be another one coming soon, because with Hilary there were only six. There was a pale blond fifteen-year-old girl named Georgine, as well as Maida, and three rowdy boys in their early teens. Two of them had been leering at Hilary since dinner. None of them were handsome kids, and few of them even looked healthy. It would have been hard to on the diet they were given. Louise cut all the corners she could, but Hilary was used to that from living with Eileen and Jack, although Louise seemed to have perfected the art even further.

At seven-thirty she shouted at the kids to get ready for bed. They had been sitting in their rooms, talking, complaining, exchanging stories about parents in jail, and their own experiences in juvie. It was all totally foreign to Hilary, who sat on her bed in frightened silence. The boys had their own room next door, and Georgine and Maida talked as though Hilary wasn't there. They shoved their way past her in their nightgowns eventually, and slammed the door in her face when they went to the bathroom.

I can take it, she told herself … it's better than Jack … this isn't so awful … she remembered the money hidden in her suitcase and prayed no one would find it. She only had to live through five more years of this … five years of foster homes or juvie … or Jack … she felt tears sting her eyes as she finally closed the door to the bathroom, and she sat down and sobbed silently into the torn scratchy towel Louise had given her that morning. It was impossible to believe that this was what her life had come to. And within minutes, the boys were pounding on the door, and she had to give up the bathroom, as a trail of cockroaches ran across the bathtub.

“What you doin' in there, mama? Want a hand?” one of the black boys asked, and the others laughed at his delightful sense of humor. Hilary only brushed past them and went back to her own room, just in time for Maida to turn the light out. And a moment later, Hilary was stunned when Louise appeared in the doorway, with a ring of keys in one hand. She looked as though she were going to lock them in, but Hilary knew that was impossible, or so she thought. She could hear raucous laughter from the boys' room.

“Lockup time,” Maida supplied the information and with that Louise slammed the door, and they could hear the key turn in the lock. The other two girls looked as though it was perfectly normal, and Hilary stared at them in the dim light from outside their windows.

“Why did she do that?”

“So we don't meet up with the boys. She likes everything nice and clean and wholesome.” And then suddenly Maida laughed as though it were a very funny joke and so did Georgine. They seemed to laugh endlessly as Hilary watched them.

“What if we have to go to the bathroom?”

“You piss in your bed,” Georgine supplied.

“But you dean it up tomorrow mornin'” Maida added, and then they snickered again.

“What if there's a fire?” Hilary was terrified, but Maida only laughed again.

“Then you fry, baby. Like a little potato chip with your lily-white skin turnin' all brown like mine.” In truth they could have broken the window and escaped, but Hilary didn't think of that as she felt rising waves of panic. She lay down in her bed and pulled up the sheets, trying not to think of all the terrible things that could happen. No one had ever locked her in a room before, and the experience was frightening beyond anything she'd ever thought of.

She lay silently, staring at the ceiling, her breathing shallow and quick. She felt as though someone were smothering her with a pillow, and she could hear the other two girls whispering, and then she heard sheets rustling and a series of giggles. She turned just to see what was going on and was in no way prepared for what she saw when she did so. Maida was naked in Georgine's bed, and Georgine had thrown her tattered nightgown to the floor, and they were caressing each other's bodies in the moonlight, kissing and fondling each other, as Maida moaned and rolled her eyes. Hilary wanted to turn away, but she was so horrified, she didn't move and the older girl saw her and snapped at her.

“What's the matter honey, you never seen two girls making it before?” Hilary shook her head silently, and as Maida nestled her head down between Georgine's legs she laughed hoarsely and then pushed her away with another crack of laughter. “Wait a minute.” She turned to Hilary. “Want to try it?” Hilary shook her head again, terrified, and there was no escape from them. The door was locked, and she had to lie there listening, even if she didn't watch them. “You might like it.”

“No … no …” In effect this was what had brought her here … except that it had been Jack and not two girls, and she couldn't even imagine what they would do to her, but they forgot her quickly as they went on with their nightly pleasure. They moaned and writhed and Maida screamed once, so loudly that Hilary was afraid Louise would come and beat them all, but there were no sounds in the silence except Maida's and Georgine's, the sound of hard breathing and panting and moaning, and then finally, as Hilary cried softly in her bed, they lay spent and fell asleep in each other's arms, and Hilary lay awake until morning.

The next day they worked hard again. Hilary went back to digging in the garden, and was told to scrub down the inside of a shed. The boys hassled her as they had before, and she was told to cook lunch this time. She tried to make something decent for all of them, but it was impossible with the meager supplies Louise left out. They had thin slices of Spam and leftover frozen french fries. It was barely enough to stay alive on, working in the hot summer sun, and that night she had to listen to Maida and Georgine go through their moaning and panting. This time she turned her back, pulled the covers over her head and tried to pretend she couldn't hear them. But it was two days later when Georgine slipped into her bed, and began gently stroking her back beneath her nightgown. It was the first gentle touch she had known since her mother died, but this was different, Hilary knew, and it was not welcome.

“Don't, please …” Hilary pulled away from her, half falling out of bed, but the girl took a strong grip on her, running an arm like steel around her waist and holding her close to her as she lay behind her. Hilary could feel the older girl's breasts on her back, and then her free hand stroking her nipples.

“Come on, honey, doesn't that feel nice … yeah … ain't that fine … Maida and I are tired of just having fun with each other, we want to share it with you too … you could be our friend now.” And with that the hand that had stroked Hilary's firm young breasts drifted down toward her thighs so tightly clenched in terror.

“Oh please … please … don't!” She was whimpering and crying, in some ways this was worse than Jack. And she had no escape, no butcher knife, nowhere to run. She couldn't escape these girls, locked into a room with them, and Georgine had a grip on her that Hilary could not pry away from, and as she held her down, her legs wrapped around Hilary's like steel snakes, Maida came stealthily from the other bed and began to stroke her, as Georgine forced her legs as far apart as Hilary's struggles would let her.

“Like this … you see….” Maida showed her things she didn't want to know, and reached into places Hilary had never touched herself as she began to scream in terror. But Georgine put one hand firmly on her mouth and let Maida do the stroking. They seemed to fondle her endlessly and softly only at first, then harder and rougher, as she sobbed and sobbed in their arms, and finally they tired of her, but when Georgine climbed out of her bed, Hilary was bleeding profusely. “Shit, you got your period?” She looked annoyed as she saw the mess in the bed and on her legs. You could see it even in the moonlight. But Maida knew better, she had done everything she liked to do. She grinned at Georgine and down at the stricken girl.

“Nah … she was a virgin.”

Georgine grinned evilly. She'd come around, she knew. They always did. After the first time. And if she didn't, they'd rough her up a little, and she'd be scared not to.

The next day, Hilary washed her sheets as soon as Louise unlocked the door and apologized when she screamed at her for making a mess. The boys even laughed at her when they saw her scrubbing. It was as though all the pain and humiliation in the world was heaped on her head, as though someone somewhere wanted to destroy her. She wondered where her sisters were, and prayed that nothing like this happened to them. But she knew it wouldn't. They were going to the homes of friends of Arthur Patterson's, and people like that didn't know about things like this … they didn't know of the tortures people like Eileen and Jack and Louise and Maida and Georgine could conjure, and as she washed her sheets, and dug the ditch Louise wanted deeper, Hilary prayed that her own torture would be enough, that Axie and Megan would be safe from lives like this. She promised God that He could do anything He wanted to her, as long as He kept them safe … please, God … please … she muttered in the broiling sun as Georgine came up behind her.

“Hi baby, you talkin' to yourself?”

“I … no …” She turned away rapidly so Georgine couldn't see her blushing crimson.

“That was nice last night … you're gonna like it better next time.”

But Hilary wheeled on her, and although she didn't know it, she looked just like her mother. “No! I'm not! Don't ever touch me again, you hear me?” She clutched the shovel ominously, and Georgine laughed as she walked away. She knew Hilary would have no weapons in her room that night, and of course she didn't. They did the same thing to her again, and the next day Hilary looked glazed. There was no escaping them, and when the social worker came back in a week she looked at Hilary and asked her if she was working too hard. Hilary hesitated and then shook her head. Georgine told her that if she complained she'd wind up in juvie, and everyone did it there, sometimes they even used lead pipes and soda bottles … “not like me and Maida.” And Hilary believed them. Anything was possible now. Any anguish. Any torture. She only nodded and told the social worker everything was fine, and went on living her silent nightmare.

It went on for seven months, until Georgine turned sixteen and was released as an emancipated minor, and Maida's mother was paroled from jail, and Maida went back to her, which left Hilary the only girl with three boys, while they waited for two new girls to replace the others. But for several days, Hilary was alone with the boys next door, but Louise figured one girl and three boys was not a dangerous combination, so she didn't bother locking Hilary's door, which left her no protection. The boys came stealthily one night, and Hilary lay wide awake, terrified, as she saw them enter her room and silently close the door behind them. She fought them like a cat, but she lost to their strength and they did exactly what they'd come for, and the next morning, Hilary called the social worker and asked to be transferred to juvenile hall. She offered no explanation, and Louise seemed not to care when they took her two days later. Hilary had stolen a knife and fork from the dinner table and the second time she was well prepared for her midnight callers. One boy almost lost a hand, and they retreated in terror. But she was still glad when she left Louise's care, and she said nothing to the social worker of what had happened.

At juvenile hall, they put her in solitary, because all she did was mope and wouldn't answer anyone's questions. It took them two weeks to decide she wasn't sick. She was rail thin, and weak from refusing to get up, but they thought that once she was put in with the other kids she might cheer up again. Her “illness” was labeled “teenage psychosis.”

She was assigned work in the laundry room, and put in a dorm with fifteen girls, and at night she heard the same moans and screams that she had learned from Maida. But this time no one bothered her, no one talked to her, no one touched her. And a month later they put her in another foster home with three other girls. The woman in charge was pleasant this time, not warm but polite, religious in a serious, joyless way, and talked frequently of a God who would punish them if they did not embrace Him. They tried hard to break through her shell, and they knew she was a bright girl but eventually her icy silences discouraged them. She was able to reach out to no one. And after two months they sent her back to juvenile hall and “exchanged” her for another girl, a friendly eleven-year-old who chatted and smiled and did all the things Hilary wouldn't.

Hilary went back to juvenile hall for good this time, and made no friends there. She went to school, did her work, and read everything she could lay her hands on. She had figured one thing out. She was going to get out, and get an education, and the harder she worked, the more she knew it would be her only salvation. She poured herself into her school work, and graduated at seventeen with honors, and the day afterward her caseworker called her into her office.

“Congratulations, Hilary, we heard how well you did.” But no one had been there. No one had ever been there for Hilary, not in nine years, and now she knew there was never going to be. That was her destiny, and she accepted that. Except if she could find Megan and Alexandra … but even that hope was dim now. She still had the ten thousand dollars, hidden in the lining of her suitcase, but her hope of finding them now was slim … unless she went to Arthur … but would they even remember her? Alexandra would be thirteen, and Megan only nine … to them, she would be a stranger. All she had left really was herself. She knew that now, as she looked at the caseworker without any trace of emotion.

“Thank you.”

“You have a choice to make now.”

“I do?” Surely nothing pleasant. Hilary had learned that much, and she was always ready to defend herself against the miseries someone else wanted to inflict upon her. She had learned a lot since her first foster home, and her first days in juvie.

“Normally, our wards remain here until they reach eighteen, as you know, but in a case such as yours, when you graduate from high school before that date, you have the option of leaving as an emancipated minor.”

“Which means what?” Hilary gazed at her suspiciously from behind walls of steel. Her brilliant green eyes were her only peepholes.

“It means you're free, Hilary, if you want to be. Or you can stay here until you decide what you want to do after you leave here. Have you given it any thought?” Only four years' worth.

“Some.”

“And?” Talking to her was like pulling teeth but a lot of them were like that, too bruised by life to trust anyone. It was a tragedy, but there was no way to change that. “Want to tell me your plans?”

“Do I have to in order to get out?” like the parole she'd heard so much about. Everyone she knew in juvie had parents in jail, waiting to get out on parole. This was no different. But the caseworker shook her head.

“No, you don't, Hilary. But I'd like to help if I can.”

“I'll be all right.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“New York probably. It's where I'm from. It's what I know.” Although she had been gone from there for more than half her life, it still seemed like home to her. And, of course, there were her sisters….

“It's a big city. Do you have friends there?”

She shook her head. If she did, would she have spent four years in the Jacksonville juvenile hall? It was a stupid question. And at least she still had her ten thousand dollars. That was going to be her salvation. She didn't need friends. All she needed was a job and a place to stay. But one thing was for sure, she wasn't staying here. “I guess I'll be going pretty soon. How soon can I go?” Her eyes lit up for the first time at the prospect of leaving.

“We can have your release papers in order by next week. Soon enough for you?” The caseworker smiled with regret. They had failed dismally with her. It happened that way sometimes, it was rotten luck when it did, but it was hard to say who would survive the system and who wouldn't. She stood up and held out a hand which Hilary shook cautiously. She trusted nothing and no one. “We'll let you know as soon as you can go.”

“Thank you.” She left the room quietly and went to the single room she lived in. She no longer had to sleep in a dorm or share with anyone. She had long-term seniority, and in a few days she'd be leaving. She lay on her bed with a smile and stared up at the ceiling. It was all over, the agony, the pain, the humiliation, the horror of her life for the last eight years. She was going to be on her own now. She lay there smiling as she hadn't in years. And a week later, to the day, she was on a bus, no regrets, no sorrow, no friends to leave behind. Her eyes were cold and hard and green, dreaming of a world she did not know yet. And the past was a nightmare left behind her.

Chapter 9

The bus stopped in Savannah, Raleigh, Richmond, Washington, and Baltimore, and took two days to reach New York, as Hilary sat staring soundlessly out the window. Other passengers had said a word or two when they stopped for lunch, or when they stretched at night, two sailors had even tried to pick her up, but she dealt with them in no uncertain terms, and after that, no one came near her. She was a solitary figure as she stepped down from the bus in New York, and in her heart she felt a terrifying trembling. She was home … after nine years … she had left here as a little girl, three days after her father committed suicide, to go to stay with her aunt in Boston. And it had taken all these years to come home, but she had done it.

The juvenile authorities of Florida had given her two hundred and eighty-seven dollars to start her life, and she had the ten thousand from Eileen. The first thing she did was go to a bank on Forty-second Street. The second thing she did was go to a hotel room. She took a room in a small, seedy hotel in the Thirties on the East Side, but her room was simple and spare and no one bothered her when she went in or out. She ate at a coffee shop on the corner, and read the want ads for jobs. She had taken a typing class in high school, but she had no other skills and she had no delusions about what lay ahead. She had to start at the bottom. But she had other plans as well. She wasn't going to stop there. The specters of the women she'd seen in the past nine years had left their mark. She was never going to be like them. She was going to work and go to college at night, and do everything she had to. And one day she was going to be important, she promised herself. One day she was going to be Someone.

On her second day in New York, she went to Alexander's department store on Lexington Avenue and spent five hundred dollars on clothes. It seemed like a terrifying portion of her fortune, but she knew she would have to look right if she was going to get a job. She selected dark colors, simple styles, a few skirts and blouses, and patent leather pumps and a matching bag. She looked like a pretty young girl as she tried her things on in her room downtown, and no one would have suspected the horrors she had endured since her parents died.

She went on her first job interview and was told she was too young, and then three more which required stenography skills she didn't have, and finally a job in an accountant's office where she was interviewed by a bald, obese man, perspiring profusely with a damp handkerchief clutched in one hand.

“You type?” He leered at her, as she sat watching him. She had dealt with worse than that and he didn't frighten her. And she also needed the job. She couldn't go on living forever on her dwindling funds. She had to find work pretty soon, and she would even have been willing to work for him, if he would behave himself. “Steno too?” She shook her head and he didn't seem to care. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen,” she lied. She had learned that much in the first interview. No one wanted to hire a seventeen-year-old girl. So she lied to them.

“Have you been to secretarial school?” She shook her head again and he shrugged, and then stood up, with a small stack of papers in one hand, and moved around the desk, as though to show them to her, but when he reached her side, he caressed her breast instead, and she was on her feet with lightning speed, the back of her hand across his face before she had thought of it, and they both gasped simultaneously as he stared at her.

“If you touch me again, I'll scream so loud I'll have the police up here,” she warned, her green eyes flashing at him, her whole body tense, her hands trembling as she looked at him. “How dare you do that?” Why did they all do things like that to her? … her uncle Jack … and the girls at the foster home … and the boys at Louise's place … it kept happening to her. She didn't understand that it was because she was beautiful. She thought of it as some kind of punishment, something she must have done as a child that she was being tortured for now. It didn't seem fair that it happened to her all the time, and she backed slowly toward the door, never taking her eyes off his face.

“Look, I'm sorry … no big deal … Miss … what's your name? … come on …” He waddled toward her hurriedly and she slammed the door in his face and ran down the stairs as fast as she could go. She walked all the way back to her hotel after that, feeling dirty and depressed, and wondering if she'd ever find a job.

But she finally did, at an employment agency, as a receptionist. They liked the way she looked, suspected she was younger than she said, but she was intelligent, neat and clean, typed halfway decently and could answer the phone, and that was enough for them. They offered her ninety-five dollars a week and it seemed like a windfall to her. She took the job and went flying back to her hotel to get ready for work the next day. She had her first job! And it would be a quick climb up from there. She didn't know what she wanted to do yet, but she already knew where she wanted to go to school. She'd been reading all the newspaper ads, and she made some calls. She had already applied, and she was waiting to hear from them, and then she'd really be on her way.

Now there was only one thing left to do, and she decided to tackle it that afternoon. After that, she didn't know when she'd have the time, and she didn't want to call him. She wanted to see him personally. Only once. She'd get the information from him and then all she had to do was call … the thought of it made her tremble as she changed her clothes again. She wore a simple navy blue dress, dark stockings, and her patent leather shoes. The dress was short, as was the style, but it was respectable. And she tied her hair in a simple knot that made her look older than she was. She washed her face, dried it on one of the hotel's little rough towels, and went downstairs again. And this time she didn't take a bus. She didn't want to waste time. She took a cab instead, and stood outside looking up when she arrived at Forty-eighth and Park Avenue. It was a glass building trimmed with chrome, and it seemed to stretch all the way to the sky as she looked up at it.

The elevator shuddered as it rose to the thirty-eighth floor, and she held her breath wondering if it would get stuck. She had never been anywhere like this before, not that she remembered anyway … there were other things she did remember, though … a trip with her parents to France on the Liberté … the apartment on Sutton Place … tea at the Plaza with Solange, with little cakes and hot chocolate with tons of whipped cream … and she remembered the night her mother died and the things she and Sam had said….

The elevator doors opened easily and she found herself in a reception area with thick green carpeting, and a young girl at a desk. She wore a pink linen suit and had short blond hair, and she had the pert look all receptionists were supposed to have. It reminded Hilary of the job she was starting the next day. But she knew she would never look like that. Her looks weren't “cute,” her hair wasn't blond, and she didn't look as though she'd bounce out of her seat if someone asked her to. Instead, Hilary looked quiet and serious as she approached, and looked straight into the girl's eyes.

“I'm here to see Mr. Patterson.”

“Is he expecting you?” She beamed, and Hilary did not smile in reply. She shook her head honestly, and spoke in a restrained voice. Inwardly, she was intimidated by the surroundings, but outwardly nothing showed. She looked perfectly at ease and totally in control.

“No, he's not. But I'd like to see him now.”

“Your name?” Little Miss Smile went into high beam.

“Hilary Walker.” And then she added, as though it would make a difference, “He's my godfather.”

“Oh. Of course,” the little blonde said, and then hit a series of buttons and picked up a phone, speaking inaudibly into it. That was another part of the job, speaking into phones so no one else could hear … Mr. So and So is here to see you, sir … oh, you're out? … tell him what? … it was an art Hilary would have to perfect at the employment agency. And then the girl astonished Hilary. She looked up at her with her perfect smile and waved to a door on her right. “You may go right in. Mr. Patterson's secretary will meet you to show you to his office.” She looked impressed. It wasn't easy to get in to see Arthur Patterson, but the girl was his goddaughter after all.

Hilary stepped inside and looked down a long carpeted corridor. The firm occupied the entire floor and she could see all the way down the hall up a corner office a block away from her. It was an impressive hallway lined with leather-bound legal books, and populated by secretaries at their desks outside the attorneys' offices. She had never been there before, even as a child, and they had moved since then anyway.

“Miss Walker?” An elderly woman with short gray hair and a kindly smile stepped up to her and pointed into the distance down the hall.

“Yes.”

“Mr. Patterson is waiting for you.” As though it had been planned, as though he had known she would come, as though he had been waiting for nine years. But what could he possibly know, sitting here? What could he know of lives like Eileen and Jack's, of caring for her as she died, or fighting him off with a butcher knife, of nearly starving in their home for all those years, and the foster home in Jacksonville, and Maida and Georgine … and juvenile hall … and even the sweaty little man who had “interviewed” her only days ago. What did he know of any of it? And all she knew was that he had killed her mother, as surely as if he had done it with his own hands, and her father, too, eventually. And now here he sat, and she only wanted one thing from him, and then she would leave and never see him again. She never wanted to lay eyes on him again after today.

The secretary stopped at the doorway and knocked. A discreet brass and leather sign on the door said ARTHUR PATTERSON, and then she heard his voice. It was still familiar to her. She could still remember him lying to her eight years before … I'm just going to take them away for a little while, Hilary … I'll come back for you. He never did, and she didn't care, she hated him anyway. She could remember kneeling in the street after he drove off, calling her sisters' names and she had to fight back tears again, but it was almost over now … almost. It was almost exactly eight years since she had last seen them.

“You may come in.” The secretary smiled and stepped aside as she opened the door, and Hilary walked in quietly. She didn't see the desk at first, and then she saw it, a simple slab of glass and chrome, in front of a window offering a full view of New York, and there he sat, incongruous in the modern decor. He was fifty years old and he looked at least ten years older than that, tall, thin, balding, with sad eyes and a pale face. But he was even paler than usual now as he stood up and looked at her. It was as though he had seen a ghost, as she stood in front of him. She was beautiful and tall, with Sam's shiny black hair, but there the resemblance to him stopped … she had Solange's eyes … and the same way of moving her head … and she stood in front of him just as proudly now as Solange had once walked on the rue d'Arcole in Paris twenty-one years before. It was like seeing a ghost … if you changed the black hair to red … it was Solange again … but with angry, bitter eyes, with something fierce in her face that Solange had never had, something that said if you come near me I will kill you before I let you lay a hand on me, and Arthur instantly feared what might have happened to her, what could possibly have made her look like that? And yet she was safe and sound, obviously, and standing in front of him in his office, fully grown and very beautiful. It was a miracle, and he walked slowly toward her, holding out a hand, with dreams of recapturing the past. It was a way of having Sam and Solange back, of sharing once more in their magic. Hilary was going to bring it all back to him. But as he approached, he could sense the wall built around the girl, and she began to back away when he got close to her, and instinctively he stopped approaching.

“Hilary, are you all right?” It was a little late to ask, and she hated the weakness she saw in his eyes. She never understood till then how totally without courage he was. He had no balls, she realized now, that was why he had abandoned her, after betraying them … no guts … it was something Solange had accused him of a lifetime ago, although Hilary didn't know it.

“I'm fine.” She wasted no time with him. She had not come for a warm reunion with a family friend, she had come to ask him the only thing she cared about, the only thing she had cared about for eight years. “I want to know where my sisters are.” Her eyes were icy hard and neither of them moved as she watched his face, not sure of what she saw, terror or grief, and she waited with bated breath for what he would say next.

But whereas he was pale before, he looked ghostly now. He realized that he could not fob her off, that she wanted nothing to do with him. She only wanted them, and he could not give them to her, no matter how much he would have wanted to do so. “Hilary … why don't we sit down …” He waved toward a chair and she shook her head, her eyes riveted to his.

“I'm not interested in sitting down with you. You killed my parents, you destroyed my family. I have nothing to say to you. But I want to know where Alexandra and Megan are. That's all I want. When you tell me that, I'll go.” She waited patiently, the same proud tilt of her head that had made Solange so unique … so extraordinary … he stared at her, seeing someone else, but there was no escaping Hilary. She was a force to be reckoned with, and he understood that fully now. He also sensed that she knew more than he had thought so long ago, but he didn't question her now. He told her the truth, his eyes filled with regret, and damp with tears for what had been and was no more. A family had died at his hands. She was right. And he had never gotten over it. He had started, no family of his own, and Marjorie had left him years before. The woman he loved was gone, her children cast to the winds. And he held himself responsible for what had happened to all of them, even Sam. But there was no way to explain that to this girl, or to excuse himself, least of all to her. God only knew what she had been through in the past eight years.

“I don't know where they are, Hilary. I don't even know where you've been. When I went to Boston to see you seven years ago, you were all gone … the Joneses had left no forwarding address with anyone. I was unable to find you …” His voice trailed off, filled with regret, because his own guilt had been so great, he had been secretly relieved not to have to face her again, and he suspected now that she knew that about him. She had all-seeing eyes, and she looked as though she had an unforgiving heart. There was nothing warm about this girl, nothing gentle, or kind. She was entirely made of granite and barbed wire, shafts of steel and broken glass. There were ugly things inside this girl, he could see it in her eyes, and for an instant he was afraid of her, as though, given the opportunity, she might harm him. And under the circumstances, he wasn't sure that he blamed her.

“You couldn't have tried very hard to find me.” Her voice sounded hard. She wasn't interested in his explanations or apologies. “We went to Florida.”

“And then?” He needed to know what had happened to her, why she looked like that. He had to know … had to … he felt a sob catch in his throat and prayed he wouldn't cry in front of her. “What happened to you?” He wished she would sit down … that they could talk … that she would listen to him … he could talk to her now. He could explain about Marjorie, who was now a Superior Court judge. He could tell her why he couldn't take them to live with him … why nobody wanted all three of them … why he had done what he did. “Are Jack and Eileen still … were they good to you?”

She laughed bitterly, sounding very old, and her eyes looked very green. She was thinking of Jack and that night … and the pathetic wraith Eileen had become before she died. “Eileen died, and I've been a ward of the Jacksonville juvenile courts for the last four years. I've been in foster homes, and juvenile hall, and now I'm free, Mr. Patterson. I don't owe anyone anything, and most of all not you. All I want now are my sisters.” Her heart was pounding as she realized he had lost them.

“Why didn't you call me when she died?” He sounded horrified. “Surely you didn't have to go to foster homes … juvenile hall …” Those were places he never thought about, couldn't bear to think of now. “Hilary, I'm so sorry …”

But her eyes flashed green fire again, and she waved a hand at him. “Don't give me that shit. You never gave a damn about us, and you don't now. It's easy for you to sound pious and tell me how sorry you are. To tell you the truth, I don't give a damn. It doesn't change anything that happened to me. All I want from you are the addresses of where my sisters live, and don't tell me you don't know. You have to know. You took them there.” It had never occurred to her that he would lose track of them as he had of her. That was impossible. He had to know, and she searched his eyes now, but what she saw there was frightening. She saw remorse and guilt, and a man who was actually frightened of her.

He sat down in a chair and shook his head in despair, and then he looked up at her with sad, empty eyes. “Alexandra went to one of my partners here in the firm. He had a lovely young wife, from a good family. And she was much younger than he. They didn't have children, and they were desperate to adopt Alexandra when I told them about her. And they did … they worshiped her.” He looked at Hilary as though hoping to mollify her somewhat but it was no use, her eyes were like green ice, and her hands trembled as she silently sat down in a chair and listened to what he had to say. “They took her to Europe, they went everywhere with her … but six months later, George died of a heart attack. Margaret was in shock and she took Alexandra away with her. The last I heard was that they were in the south of France … we sent papers on the estate to her in Paris years ago … and I don't know anything after that. I think she stayed over there, but I'm really not sure. We've had no reason to stay in touch with her, and …” His voice trailed away, as two tears rolled down his cheeks.

“So you don't know where Alexandra is.” Hilary sounded numb. “And the woman's name?”

“Gorham. Margaret Gorham. But she could have remarried by now … any number of things could have happened. She could be back in the States somewhere. I don't think she's back in New York, I think I'd have heard of it if she were.” He looked lamely at her.

“And Megan?”

“She was adopted by David and Rebecca Abrams, right after I … after she …” He could barely control himself, and Hilary was trembling from head to foot. “… after I brought her back to New York. He was not a partner of the firm, he merely worked for us, and several months later they left. She was an attorney too, and they had had an offer from a law firm in Los Angeles that wanted both of them. They were anxious to start a new life anyway, and they made a point of telling me that they did not want to stay in touch. They wanted to give Megan a new life, far away from all that had happened to her. I haven't heard from them since they left. If he's a member of the California bar, I could possibly locate him, if he's still there … I don't know …”

“You son of a bitch.” She glared at him with hatred on her face. “You let us all drift away. You set us adrift, as though getting rid of us would rid you of your own guilt, but it didn't, did it?” She had read him perfectly. “It destroyed your life too, and you deserve that. You deserve everything that's happened to you. May you rot in hell, Arthur Patterson. You'll live with this for the rest of your life. You killed two people, and destroyed three more lives. That's five people on your soul. Can you live with that?” She walked to where he sat and looked down on him with contempt far beyond her years. “Can you sleep at night? I don't think you can … and God only knows what happened to the other two. God only knows what lives you've condemned them to. I know what mine was like. But it's not over yet. I won't let you spoil my life. I'm going to make something of myself … and maybe one day I'll find my sisters … maybe … But in the meantime”—she walked slowly to the door, with tears pouring slowly down her face, she had expected so much from him, and her disappointment was so great now—“I never want to see you again, Arthur Patterson. Never. You won't soothe your conscience with me. We won't be 'friends' again, dear godfather.” She stood and looked at him for a long long time, before her final words, and she spoke them in a whisper that haunted him for the rest of his life. “I will never forgive what you did to us … never … and I will hate you for the rest of my life. Remember that … remember what you did and how much I hate you.” And then, like the ghost of Christmas past, she closed its office door, and slipped away, and he did not have the courage to follow her. He sat slumped in his chair, like an old man, remembering Solange, and crying for what he had done to her. Hilary was right, he would never be absolved of what he had done to them all. He couldn't forgive himself, and like Hilary, he wondered now where the other two girls were.

But there were no answers to that. Hilary went from the office on Park Avenue to the public library and did the only thing she knew how to do. She opened the Manhattan phone book and found no George or Margaret Gorham there. She found only five in all, and when she called, none of them knew anything about Margaret or Alexandra, and it was obvious they had never heard of them. And a listing of the attorneys of the California bar was equally discouraging. There was no David Abrams listed there, which meant he had left California long before, and God only knew where he had gone. She didn't have the resources to do more than that, she couldn't hunt them down. She couldn't do anything. She had counted on Arthur to know, and he knew nothing at all. Her sisters were gone. Forever this time. And the dream that had kept her alive slipped quietly from her heart, like a rock falling to her feet. She walked slowly back to her hotel, tears streaming down her cheeks. It was as though they had died finally, as she remembered the white roses at her mother's funeral. They no longer existed in her life, hadn't for years … and seeing him again reminded her of that terrible day when they'd been taken from her … Axie, I love you! … she could still remember screaming the words as the car drove away, and falling to her knees in the dirt. It seemed as though she had never gotten up since. But she would now … she had to … she would make it alone, as she had for all these years … but she would always remember them. Always.

She felt them slip away from her as she walked into her hotel, like people she had loved, who had finally died. She was alone, as she always had been.

PART THREE

Alexandra

Chapter 10

The house on the Avenue Foch stood protected by a tall, impeccably trimmed hedge that shielded everything behind it from the pedestrians' view. There were gardens groomed to perfection, and a solid brick hôtel particulier built in the eighteenth century, with handsomely carved doors, brass knockers and knobs, beautiful shutters painted dark green, with silk and damask curtains hung at the windows.

It was a house closed off from a far more public world, shielded from all publicity, a house in which perfection reigned, filled with Fabergé objects and crystal chandeliers and impeccable antiquities. It was the house of the Baron and Baroness Henri de Morigny, one of France's oldest families. His was a house of great nobility and dwindling wealth, until he married the lovely daughter of old Comte de Borne fourteen years before. The house on the Avenue Foch had been a wedding present from the count, and as a gift to Henri, Alexandra had restored his family seat for him, a handsome chateau in Dordogne, and a hunting box in Sologne as well. And since then they had bought a summer house in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, where they went every year with their children. It was a life of considerable luxury, and endless grace. It was the only life Alexandra de Morigny had ever known, and she played the perfect wife at all times for her husband. She ran his house, planned his dinners, entertained his friends, followed his instructions, and brought up their two daughters, Axelle and Marie-Louise to perfection. The girls were the greatest joy in her life, and she sat at her desk with a quiet smile, thinking of them that afternoon. They would be home from school very soon, and she would walk the dogs with them in the Bois. It was a good chance to talk, to find out what was going on, who they liked, who they “hated,” who might be having trouble at school, and then they would come home for the girls to do their devoirs, have their bath, dine and play and go to bed. Alexandra always stayed with them until her own dinner with Henri. They were six and twelve, as different as night and day, and they were the joy and the laughter in her life. Marie-Louise was serious and a great deal like Henri, but Axelle was just as she had been as a child, a little bit shy, totally trusting, and enormously affectionate. It was wonderful just being with her, stroking her pale red curls and looking into those huge blue eyes. Alexandra's heart sang just thinking of it. And she sat smiling as she stared into space, and didn't hear his step on the highly polished parquet floor as he entered the room and watched her. He was almost in front of her before she awoke from her reverie, and she looked up to see the tall, handsome man she had married. He was fifty-nine years old, and powerfully built, with strong lines in his face, and hard eyes that bore into her, as they always did, as though he were about to ask a very important question. It was a face that was not often amused, but he was a man she could trust and depend on. And she respected him. She had fallen in love with him at nineteen, and they had been engaged for two years. Her father had wanted to be sure that she was not making a mistake or acting on an impulse. Henri was twenty-four years older than she after all, but she had been absolutely certain. She wanted someone just like her father, the old Comte de Borne. He had been sixty when she was born, or he would have been. He had adopted her when she was six years old, and he worshiped her. He had never had children of his own, and he had just lost his wife of forty years when he married her mother. He had gone to the south of France, to grieve, and instead he had met Margaret Gorham, doing precisely the same thing after the death of her husband. She was twenty-seven years old and it was a whirlwind romance and within six months they were married, and Pierre de Borne adopted Alexandra. And only he and Margaret shared the secret that she'd been adopted once before when she came to Margaret and George Gorham at the age of five in New York. It was not something anyone needed to know, and it was no longer important. She was Alexandra de Borne, and she was as dear to the count's heart as though she had been his natural daughter. Perhaps more so. She grew up cosseted and spoiled and adored as few children are, and in return she worshiped the man she knew as her father. It was to Pierre that she turned with every woe, or wish, or dream, sharing all her secrets with him, confessing her misdeeds, of which there were few, while Margaret looked on, content in every way, filled with love for her husband and child, and full of mischief of her own. Margaret was, in effect, the child of the family, pulling pranks on both of them, hiding unexpectedly, wearing ridiculous costumes to make them laugh. She was an oversized child who loved to laugh, and enjoy every moment. And Alexandra was oddly enough more like Pierre, affectionate, shy, and filled with admiration for Margaret's wild schemes and irresistible laughter.

Alexandra was protected and greatly loved and it surprised everyone when she fell in love at nineteen and said she wanted to get married. And Pierre de Borne was not pleased at the prospect of his daughter marrying Henri de Morigny, mostly because he was so much older. He also thought him far too serious, and a difficult man in the bargain. Morigny had never married before, and the old count knew that he'd been waiting for just the right girl, with an important family, an equally important fortune, and if at all possible, a title. And Alexandra certainly had all of that to offer him. But what did he offer her, her father asked her. Was he warm enough, would he be kind to her? Pierre talked constantly of it to Margaret, and she was just as concerned as he was. But Alexandra was positive she wanted Henri and never wavered. She was married at twenty-one at the church on their country estate in Rambouillet. Seven hundred people were there, from all of Europe's finest families. And they spent their honeymoon in Tahiti, drinking exotic punches and making love on the private beach of the house Henri had rented for her. And when they returned to Paris, Alexandra loved him with even greater passion than she had before, and all she wanted was to have his babies. It took them over a year to conceive, in spite of all of Henri's most romantic efforts.

Her father lived just long enough to hold his first grandchild, two years after Alexandra's marriage. And then he died peacefully in his sleep at the age of eighty-three. Margaret was bereft and Alexandra was stunned, she couldn't imagine a life without him, couldn't imagine not having his hand to hold, his wise eyes to look into. It made her suddenly extremely dependent on Henri, whom she adored and also a little bit frightened of him. He became suddenly all-important to her and she was obsessed by her fears of losing him too, and knew she couldn't have stood it. Alexandra had always had an irrational fear of losing the people she loved and who loved her. And it worried Margaret considerably because she thought Henri took advantage of it to control her. And in some ways he treated Alexandra like a child, someone to be scolded, and spoken to in firm tones and told what to do, as though she didn't know herself. In Margaret's eyes, he was more a father than a husband, and Alexandra did everything to please him, no matter how trivial or foolish. He had aspirations toward politics and it made him maniacal about appearances. Everything had to be perfect, constantly circumspect, Alexandra had to be impeccable at all times, the children had to be ten times more polite than any others. Margaret found it exhausting just having tea with them, and it worried her at times that Alexandra seemed to think it was all normal. Anything was all right, as long as it pleased her husband.

“That's just the way he is, Maman. He doesn't mean any harm. He's a serious man and he wants everything to be perfect.” Alexandra's own father had never been as demanding of his daughter or his wife, and he had had a marvelous sense of humor. Margaret found Henri a dead bore, in comparison to her late husband, but she never said it in so many words. All she wanted was Alexandra's happiness, it was all Pierre had ever wanted for her too. And he left her most of his fortune when he died, leaving Margaret more than enough to amuse herself with for another forty years. She was only forty-five when he died, and in many ways she seemed far younger, mostly because she enjoyed herself so much, and she was still very attractive. She was three years younger than Alexandra's husband.

Margaret de Borne always had a good time, something amusing to say, something outrageous and entertaining to do. She was pursued by every eligible man in Europe, and she had no desire whatever to remarry. She had been happy with George years before, and she had had everything she wanted with Pierre. There was no point trying to top that, she knew she never could and didn't want to try it. But Alexandra was another story, and Margaret worried about her more than Alexandra suspected.

Henri expected so much from her. So much so that Pierre and Margaret had decided not to tell him of Alexandra's background, which she herself didn't remember. She only remembered “Papa” as she called Pierre, although Margaret knew she had some vague other memories as well, but they were long buried. She no longer seemed to have any recollection whatsoever of George Gorham. They had told her simply that buried deep in her memory was the fact that she'd been adopted by Pierre after her father died, a man she no longer remembered, and it never occurred to her, nor did they tell her, that she had in fact been born of other parents entirely, that Margaret was not her mother at all, that she had been adopted Once before, after her own parents' tragic death. Pierre had been adamant with Margaret before he died. He did not want Alexandra's husband to know anything about either of her adoptions. But he had said nothing about it to Alexandra, not wanting to stir the memories or her conscience. She was such a decent girl, she might have felt obliged to tell her husband. It was much easier if she didn't remember. Her father knew Henri well enough to know what a maniac he was about his bloodline.

And Margaret did not disagree with her husband about their son-in-law, so for Alexandra's sake, she also remained silent. And remarkably, after so many years, no one even remembered that Alexandra was adopted.

And Margaret rejoiced when Marie-Louise was born, and then mourned when Alexandra lost a baby boy a year later. And then came Axelle after an excruciating pregnancy and endless labor. And after that, her doctor urged her not to try again. He told her she couldn't have any more children without jeopardizing her life. And she was content with the two little girls they had. Only Henri was bitterly disappointed, and resentful for a long time that she had not produced a son for him. And for years after Axelle was born, he told her so whenever he was angry. And always made her feel vaguely guilty toward her husband, as though she had somehow shortchanged him, and owed him something more because of her failure.

The loss of a son was a cross Henri had to bear and having Margaret de Borne as a mother-in-law was yet another. She drove him mad with her long, American legs, her endless stride, which he declared unfeminine, her booming laugh—too loud—her ghastly accent in French, which, to him, was like fingernails on a black-board. He hated her pranks, detested her sense of humor, and cringed almost visibly whenever she arrived, bringing water pistols in the form of lipsticks for the girls, dime store toys they adored, or at the other extreme, boxes and boxes and boxes of clothes from New York, including the matching navy blue coats with little mink muffs, which he told Alexandra were extremely vulgar. He detested everything she brought and everything she said, and was grateful Alexandra was nothing like her. He could never imagine why the old count had married a woman like her. And he thanked God every day that Alexandra was so much more restrained than her mother. Alexandra was intelligent and kind and discreet, and still very shy, and obedient, which was one of the qualities he liked most about her.

He looked down at her as she sat at her desk, and smiled at her in a quiet, distant way. He was not a man to show his emotions, but although he expected a great deal from her, and showed no romance, he nonetheless had deep feelings for her. He knew that without her his life would not be the same, not only financially but in subtler ways that were even more important. She ran a beautiful home for him, she had elegance and style, and her impeccable breeding showed in countless ways. Alexandra de Borne de Morigny was every inch a lady.

“You look as though you're dreaming, Alexandra.” He spoke to her quietly, with only slight reproach. He never raised his voice to her or anyone, he had no need to. People ran to obey his orders from just a single glance, as did Alexandra. He was distinguished and powerful, with dark eyes and gray hair. He had been extremely handsome and virile and athletic in his youth, and he had aged admirably. He still had a powerful frame and handsome face, and he did not look fifty-nine years old, anymore than Alexandra looked thirty-five with her big innocent blue eyes, and the silky strawberry-blond hair that she usually wore up in elegant French twists and chignons.

“Have you organized everything for the dinner next week?” He handed her a checklist of things for her to go over again. She had a secretary to assist her with such things, but she preferred doing most of it herself. That way she could assure him of the perfection he expected.

“Everything's done.” She smiled up at him with respectful eyes filled with admiration, and he looked serious, as he always did, and a little distant.

“Please be sure of it.” He eyed her with a warning like that you would give a child, and she smiled at him. Sometimes he frightened her, but not very often. She knew how good-hearted he was, beneath the constant demands for perfection.

“We're dining at the Élysée tomorrow night,” he informed her.

“That's nice. Any particular reason?” She smiled at him, unimpressed. They dined there often.

“They're announcing the new minister of defense.” It did not sound fascinating to her, but dinners at the Élysée never were. But Henri thought they were extremely important. He was still toying with the idea of a political career when he retired from his bank, which was still a few years in the future.

“I'm having lunch at my mother's tomorrow. But I'll be home in plenty of time to get ready for the evening.” She looked away, glancing at the papers on her desk, not wanting to see the disapproval in his eyes. She hated that, always had. She had always hoped he'd come to love her mother, but she had given up in recent years, and it was an open secret that Henri disapproved of Margaret.

Almost as revenge, his voice seemed to grow cold when he spoke again. “I'll be out for dinner tonight.” He offered no reason or excuse, and she would not have asked for one in any case. “I suppose you'll want to dine with the children.”

She nodded, meeting his eyes again, wondering where he was going. She knew he'd had one mistress only a few years before, and hoped it was not something he was starting fresh now. It was something she accepted about him. It was hardly unusual, in France. “I'll tell the cook.” She loved eating with the girls, as long as it didn't mean something ominous between them, and this time she wasn't quite certain. “A business dinner, darling?” She tried to keep her voice light as she watched him.

He scowled at her disapprovingly. The question was out of place and he nodded, as his daughters bounded into the room, not expecting him to be there. There were shrieks of delight, and Marie-Louise's long, coltish legs in her short navy blue skirt, her eyes shy and admiring as she saw Henri, and then a warm hug for her mother as he watched them. He never showed Alexandra affection in front of them. But Axelle was the image of her, she looked like a miniature as she sat happily on her mother's lap, playing with the things on the desk, and almost overturning a bottle of ink as Henri cringed in anticipation of disaster.

“Axelle!” he said sternly as she gazed up at him, unconcerned, unafraid, and with endless mischief in her eyes. At times he feared she would turn out to be like her maternal grandmother, and he was strict with her because of it. “Be careful what you do in your mother's study.”

“I am, Papa.” She smiled up at him with her angelic blue eyes. Her mouth formed a natural pout, her cheeks were still round, and she still had the baby fat of a little girl, unlike Marie-Louise, who was long and tall and elegant, and already looked more like her father. “They sent me out of the room today in school,” Axelle announced proudly to everyone in the room, and Alexandra laughed. She was only sorry her father wasn't alive to see them both, she knew he would have been totally in love with Axelle, and of course very proud of Marie-Louise too. They were both lovely girls, and Alexandra was very proud of them.

“That's nothing to brag about, mademoiselle. What did you do?” Henri questioned, watching them with hidden pride of his own. He loved them both, although he never said it and still regretted not having a son to bear his name. He often thought it was a shame Alexandra hadn't been able to give him that, and he thought of it as her only important failure. And she felt that.

“Can I have some gum?” Axelle whispered audibly and Alexandra blushed. It was a treat she sometimes gave the girls when Henri wasn't around, because it was forbidden to them by their father. But Axelle always gave her away. Marie-Louise preferred licorice and chocolates, but Axelle loved to blow enormous bubbles with great wads of pink goo.

“Certainly not.” Henri frowned at all three of them, reminded Alexandra of the list he had left on her desk, and went into his own study next door, firmly closing the door behind him, and then opening it just a crack, watched with a grin, as his wife handed out candy and bubble gum to the girls. He loved watching Axelle with the sticky stuff all over her face, but he felt it was not appropriate for him to admit it. He silently closed the door, and went to his desk with a sigh, as the girls enjoyed their time with their mother.

“Papa's home early,” Marie-Louise observed quietly as she sank gracefully into a Louis XV fauteuil near her mother's desk, munching a piece of licorice. She had large, dark soulful eyes and a natural elegance about her. She was going to be a beautiful girl in a few years, and already was in many ways. But Axelle was the more striking of the two, and her hair had her mother's natural red color, although Alexandra used a rinse to dim the red and had worn it blond for years, because Henri preferred it. He thought red hair “inappropriate,” even though in her case it was natural. But she wore it blond, to please her husband.

“He's going out tonight,” Alexandra said matter-of-factly, handing Axelle another piece of bubble gum, and Marie-Louise a chocolate.

“You too?” Axelle's eyes instantly filled with tears, although she was quick to take the chewing gum from her mother's hand, and Alexandra laughed and shook her head in answer.

“No, I'm not. He's going to a business dinner, and I'm dining with you tonight.”

“Hurray!” Axelle exulted with a mouthful of gum, and Marie-Louise smiled. She loved it when her mother ate with them, particularly when their father was out. They always laughed a lot, and she told them stories about when she was a little girl, and the wonderful tricks Grandma helped her play on her father.

“Does your nonny know you're home?” she asked the girls, but she could see from Axelle's dirty hands and face that they had come to her without the governess's knowledge. The nurse always sent them in, immaculately dressed and spotlessly groomed, and she preferred them like this, a little more natural, and totally relaxed in her presence.

“I think we forgot to tell anny we were home,” Marie-Louise confessed as Axelle blew an expert balloon with the pink gum, and the three of them laughed together.

“You'd better not let her see that.” Alexandra smiled and set Axelle back on her feet. “You'd better tell her you're home.” The chauffeur usually brought them home from school in the Citroen, although Alexandra liked to pick them up whenever she could make it. “I have some things to do now.” She wanted to go over Henri's lists, to make sure she didn't forget anything for his dinner party the following week. She already knew who the guests would be. She had invited everyone three weeks before, on their formal cartons, and reminders had been sent out, formally engraved and edged in gold, letting their guests know that the Baron and Baroness de Morigny were expecting them at 14 Avenue Foch, for a dinner in black tie, at eight o'clock. She already knew what she was going to wear, the flowers had been ordered, the menu set. Everything was in order, she saw, as the girls left the room, and she read carefully down the list. And she knew Henri would produce their best wines for the occasion. Probably a Chateau Margaux '61, or a Lafite-Rothschild '45. There would be Cristalle champagne, and Chateau d'Yquem afterward, and eventually poire and a host of other liqueurs as the men smoked their cigars, and the ladies withdrew to another drawing room reserved for their use while the gentlemen enjoyed their cigars and brandy and allegedly ribald stories. It was a custom few people still used, but Henri liked the old customs, and Alexandra always did things the way Henri liked them. It would never have occurred to her to suggest something different to him. She had always done things his way. Always. And to perfection.

She sat quietly in her study, after the girls left, thinking of her husband and wondering where he was going that night, and then thinking of her daughters. She heard their voices in the garden outside, and knew they were playing with the nurse. They would soon be out of school, and they would be going to Cap Ferrat as they always did for the summer. It was good for the children there, and Henri would join them in a few weeks, after settling things at his office in Paris. They would undoubtedly join friends on their yacht, and perhaps go to Italy or Greece for a few days, leaving the children alone with the nurse and the other servants. It was a golden life, the only one Alexandra had ever known, and yet sometimes, once in a great while, Alexandra allowed herself to wonder what life would have been like if she'd married a different man, someone easier, or perhaps younger. And then feeling guilty for the thought, she would force it from her mind, and realize how fortunate she was to be married to her husband.

When she saw Henri again that night, just before he went out, he looked handsome and impeccable in a beautifully tailored dark blue suit, with a perfectly starched white shirt and dark blue tie, his sapphire cuff links glinting discreetly at his wrists, and his eyes were bright and alive. He always seemed full of energy, full of some secret reserve and strength that belied his almost sixty years, and made him seem much younger.

“You look very handsome, as usual.” She smiled at him. She had changed into a pink satin dressing gown with matching mules, and her hair was piled on her head with a cascade of curls loosely falling from it. She looked beautiful, but it was obvious from the look in her eyes that she was totally unaware of it.

“Thank you, my dear. I won't be back late.” His words were banal, but the look in his eyes was gentle and loving. He knew she would wait up for him as she always did, in her own room, with the light on, and if he wished, he could come to see her. In most instances, he would knock softly on the door, and come in for a visit before he went to bed, in his own bedroom next door to hers. He preferred separate bedrooms. He had insisted on them since they were married. She had cried about it for weeks at first, and tried to change his mind on the subject for the first several months, if not years. But Henri was firm with her. He needed his own space, his own privacy, and assured her she would need hers in time as well. And he meant it. It was just a habit he had, like so many others. Eventually, she had grown used to it. They had connecting doors which gave easy access to the rooms, and the door between them didn't keep him from appearing in her room in his dressing gown, late at night, with a frequency that always pleased her. And he still felt desire when he looked at her, as he did now. But there were other women who appealed to him too. He always tried to be discreet, although he suspected that occasionally she knew, by instinct if nothing else. Women had an uncanny knack for things like that. He had discovered that in his youth, and he had a great respect for it.

“Have a good time.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek, and went down to the smaller dining room to have dinner with the girls. She heard his car pull away moments afterward, and turned to help Axelle cut her meat, trying not to think of where he was going.

“Why does Daddy go out alone?” Axelle asked casually with a mouth full of food, and Marie-Louise frowned disapprovingly.

“That's rude to ask,” she chided her, but Alexandra smiled.

“It's all right. Sometimes he has business dinners where he prefers to go alone.”

“Are they very dull?” She was interested in everything.

“Sometimes.” Alexandra laughed. “I'd rather be here with both of you.”

“I'm glad.” Axelle grinned, and announced a loose tooth, as Marie-Louise winced in disgust at her younger sister. She was past all that, and Axelle's offer to wiggle it for them revolted her still further.

“Stop that! You make me sick!” She made a face and Alexandra smiled at them. She was never happier than when she was with her daughters. She spent a little while in Marie-Louise's room that night and discovered she had a new best friend at school, and then read stories to Axelle, and kissed them both, and said their prayers with them before retiring to her own room. It was odd. Sometimes Marie-Louise reminded her of someone else, but she was never sure whom. Henri perhaps … maybe that was it … and then she forced the thought from her mind, as she slipped off her dressing gown, took a hot bath, and eventually climbed into bed with a new book.

It was after midnight when Henri finally came home, and she heard him in his room, before he finally came in to say good night to her. “Still up?” She nodded with a smile. She liked waiting up for him, sometimes he was more relaxed at night and more likely to open up to her, about his ideas, or plans, or problems.

“Did you have a nice evening?”

“It was all right.” His eyes seemed to search hers, and then he said something unusual for him, something that relieved her mind more than he could ever have imagined. Perhaps he didn't have a new mistress after all, she thought with immense relief. “I should have taken you along. I was bored without you.” It was unlike him to pay her a compliment like that, and she smiled and patted her bed for him to sit down, and when he did she leaned over and kissed him.

“Thank you, Henri. I missed you too …” Her voice was gentle and her smile was the private one that always stirred him. “I had a nice time with the girls tonight. Marie-Louise is so serious and so grown up now, and Axelle is still … well, she's still a baby.” She laughed and he smiled. He was proud of them too, even if he didn't show it.

“They're good little girls.” He leaned over and kissed her neck. “Just like their Maman … you're a good girl too, my darling.” They were tender words she loved to hear and they warmed her.

“Am I?” She smiled mischievously at him. “What a shame …” She laughed then, and he lay next to her, touching her breast with one hand, and kissing her with the full measure of his desire. He hadn't intended to make love to her that night, but she looked so lovely, lying in her bed, with the pink and gray sheets, and her pink satin nightgown. And it was so hard for him to tell her how much he cared sometimes. It was easier to show her here, in the dim light of her boudoir. He loved their hours in bed, their nights side by side until he tiptoed quietly to his own room in the morning. He was deeply attached to her, and to the girls, but it was always difficult for him to show that. And he expected so much of her … of himself … he wanted her to be everything he had always dreamed of in a way, and in some ways that was why he had married her. He could never have married someone less than Alexandra. But the daughter of the Comte de Borne was of a breeding worthy of him, her upbringing suited her perfectly to become his wife, and in the past fourteen years she had proven him right. He was proud of who she was and all he had taught her. She was perfect in every way, and he could never have settled for anything less than Alexandra. He wanted her on a pedestal … except for these rare times … in his arms … in her bed … then he could allow her to be someone else, for a few moments at least. And with a contented sigh, and a last look at her afterward, smiling happily at him, he turned over and fell asleep, totally sated.

Chapter 11

The chauffeur drove the Citroën over the Pont Alexandre III to the Left Bank, and moments later, passing the Invalides, was on the rue de Varenne. It always felt like going home to her. As beautiful as the hôtel particulier on the Avenue Foch was, as handsomely decorated, after all these years her parents' house on the rue de Varenne still felt like home to Alexandra.

Her heart always seemed to give a happy little leap as she saw the house, and the caretaker opened the gates so they could drive into the court, and then there was still that moment of sadness, that tiny jolt, as she realized that her father would never be there again. After all these years, she still felt his absence sorely. But the prospect of seeing her mother was a comfort and a joy, and it was a homecoming each time she saw her.

Their old butler was standing smiling beside the front door, holding it open wide in welcome. And beyond, Alexandra could see the priceless artifacts her parents had collected. Beautifully inlaid pieces of furniture, Louis XV chests covered with rich pink marbles and dripping with handsome bronzes. Urns they had bought at auction in London. And Renoirs and Degas and Turners and Van Goghs, and the Cassatts her mother was so fond of. It was a house filled with beautiful things, all of which would one day be hers, which was a prospect she didn't even like to think of, but the only one that consoled Henri for the exasperation of being related to Margaret.

“Darling, are you here?” the familiar voice called from upstairs, from the sitting room overlooking the garden that she was so fond of. And Alexandra hurried up the marble staircase, feeling like a child again, with a happy smile, anxious to see her mother. She found her sitting on a couch, doing needlepoint with her glasses on the very end of her nose, and a glass of wine on the table next to her, and her Labrador retriever stretched out in front of the fire. Axelle and Marie-Louise loved the dog, who was old and good-natured, but Henri always cringed as she slobbered and licked and kissed and left her hair all over everyone who touched her. “Darling!” Margaret dropped her needlepoint and stood to her full six feet, a pretty woman with blond hair and blue eyes not unlike Alexandra's, in a bright pink Chanel suit with a navy blue blouse and matching shoes, and ruby earrings the size of doorknobs. “My God, who died?” She backed off suddenly after kissing Alexandra.

She looked at her daughter with a frown, and Alexandra grinned at her. Her mother always wore bright colors and clothes from wonderful designers. Chanel and Givenchy and Dior and de Ribes, and almost always in brilliant colors. They suited her, but Henri preferred her in black and navy blue and beige and in the country in gray flannel. She had come to her mother's home in a new black dress from Dior, with a matching jacket. “Now stop that. This is new, and Henri loves it.” Unlike her exchanges with her husband and her children, Alexandra always spoke to her mother in English, and although she spoke it well, she had a noticeable French accent.

“It looks awful. You should burn it.” Margaret de Borne sat down on her couch again, indicated to the butler to pour Alexandra a glass of wine, and went back to her needlepoint as she smiled happily at her daughter. She always loved her visits, and their private exchanges. She enjoyed going out with her too, but this was always a little more special. They both got out more than they needed to, so they didn't need each other as an excuse to go to the latest fashionable places. Instead, they preferred to eat a simple lunch of salad and cheese and fruit on trays in Margaret's sitting room overlooking her garden. She glanced at her daughter again and shook her head in obvious dismay. “I wish you'd stop doing your hair that color, sweetheart. You look like one of those fading blondes from California. If I had hair your color, I would flaunt it. I'd make it even more red!” She shook her glasses at her for emphasis before setting them down to sip her wine. She had always loved the red of Alexandra's hair before she began to rinse it blond. It seemed such a waste of one of nature's great gifts. Her own hair had to be helped considerably now twice a month at Alexandre's.

“You know Henri hates it red. It's too loud. He thinks it looks more ladylike this way.”

“Henri … the poor man is so afraid to be a little out of the ordinary. I'm surprised he doesn't make you wear a black wig and cover the whole thing. Seriously, darling, God gave you red hair, and you ought to enjoy it.”

“I don't mind it like this.” She smiled easily and sipped her wine. She was used to her mother's complaints about her husband. His were far worse about Margaret. And Alexandra had lived with it for fourteen years. She was only sorry they had never come to like each other, but she had given up long since. It was obvious they were never going to fall in love with each other.

“You're too good-natured. How do you like these, by the way?” She smiled happily, pointing at the new ruby earrings she was wearing. She could afford to be generous with herself, partially thanks to Pierre's generosity when he died, and partially thanks to her own very handsome fortune. “I just got them.”

“I thought so.” Alexandra laughed. Her mother was always buying beautiful clothes and fabulous baubles. It was good for her, she looked well in what she bought and it made her happy, despite what Henri said about a woman spending “that kind of money.” “They're very pretty, and they suit you to perfection.”

“Van Cleef.” Margaret looked pleased with herself. “And a terrific bargain.” But at that, Alexandra laughed heartily as she set down her wineglass.

“I can just imagine.”

“No, really! They were under a hundred thousand.”

“Dollars or francs?”

“Are you kidding? Dollars of course.” Margaret grinned without a trace of guilt as Alexandra laughed at her.

“I thought so.” Alexandra smiled. It was not exactly the kind of bargain Henri would have approved of. And after almost thirty years in France, her mother still spoke more English than French, and calculated everything in dollars. “What else have you been up to?”

“The usual. I had lunch with Mimi de Saint Bré yesterday.” She was another American woman who had married a titled Frenchman, and like Margaret, she had a good mind and a wild sense of humor. “We're going to New York together next week.”

“What for?”

“Just to get our hair done and do some shopping. I haven't been in months and thought it might be fun before the summer. After that, I'm meeting friends in Rome, and I thought I might go to San Remo for a few weeks. I haven't made up my mind yet.”

“Why don't you stay with us for a few weeks afterward?” Alexandra looked delighted at the prospect, but her mother looked cautious.

“I don't want to make your husband nervous.”

“Just don't bring the girls' whoopee cushions and those hand buzzers and everything will be fine.” They both laughed at the memory. Henri had almost fainted when he sat down in the living room with guests, and landed on one of the whoopee cushions Margaret and the children had planted.

“Do you remember how awful that was?” Margaret could hardly stop laughing at the memory, and there were tears in Alexandra's eyes when she stopped laughing. It had been awful for Henri, but in truth it was desperately funny, and they had all been banished to their rooms afterward, including Margaret, who had taught Marie-Louise how to short-sheet the beds, which had complicated matters even further. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that she was not Henri's favorite houseguest. “Actually, I thought I'd see what I could find for them in New York … nothing quite so outrageous of course …” But her eyes twinkled wickedly at the prospect. She used to buy silly jokes like that for her late husband, and he had always loved them. For him, being married to Margaret was like having another child. Alexandra had always been a bit more serious than that, even as a little girl, and especially after she got married.

“I'll tell Henri you're coming.”

Margaret grinned. “Wait until you really want to annoy him.”

“Mother!” Alexandra laughed. Her mother had very few illusions. “You make him sound so awful and he isn't!” She always defended her husband, and to Henri, she defended her mother. She was loyal to both.

“He is not awful, darling.” Margaret grinned. “Just stuffy.” The afternoon seemed to fly by, as it always did when they were together, and at four-thirty Alexandra looked at her watch and stretched regretfully. She was so comfortable in the cozy room, looking out at the garden, and in her mother's company. They always had such a good time together. Margaret was still her closest friend, and always had been.

“I should go … much as I hate to …” Alexandra stood up with obvious regret as Margaret watched her.

“Why? Are you giving a party tonight?”

“No, that's next week. Tonight we're dining at the Élysée, and Henri will get nervous if I don't come home early and start getting ready.”

“You ought to do something wonderful to surprise him, like wear a skintight dress covered with rhinestones, and tease your hair straight up. It would do them good at the Élysée.” She chuckled at the thought and Alexandra smiled. Her mother probably would have done something just like that, and Henri would have called his attorneys in the morning. With him, that was always the implication. Step out of line and … Alexandra never tested his mettle in that direction. She loved him too much to risk everything for pranks like her mother's. And besides, she wasn't like that.

“You're a lot braver than I am, Maman.”

“That's only because I'm not married to your husband. I can do exactly what I want now. And before, your father always let me get away with anything I wanted. I was very lucky.” She smiled gently at her daughter.

“Papa was lucky too. And he knew it,” Alexandra reminded her and the two women embraced and walked slowly downstairs, as the butler waited to let her out with his usual warm smile. He had been with them since she was a little girl, and he called her “Madame Alexandra” as he helped her into her car and closed the door firmly. She waved at her mother as the driver took her home in the Citroen, and she felt the same sadness she always did when she left her mother. Life had been so simple on the rue de Varenne, living with her parents … before … but that wasn't fair either. She loved Henri, and of course, the children. They were the life force of her existence. But seeing her mother always made her long for a life that was simpler, and a time when she didn't have quite so much to live up to.

She was still thinking of it as she slipped out of her dress and ran her bath, and took out a serious, well-covered black evening gown for their dinner that night at the Élysée Palace.

The girls came in to say hello to her while she was in the tub, and she heard Henri go into his study while she was getting dressed, but he didn't come in to speak to her and she didn't see him until they met in the front hall, ready to go out for the evening. Her dress had long sleeves and a high neck, and a long slender skirt with beautiful gold embroidery on it. It was exquisitely made and from an old collection of Saint Laurent. She wore it with a short sable jacket and a pair of outstanding diamond earrings given to her by her father.

“You look lovely tonight.” His eyes were admiring, his voice restrained, and his manner impeccably formal.

“Thank you.” She turned to him with her blond good looks, her hair swept into a smooth French twist, exactly as it had been worn years before by Grace Kelly. It was a good look for Alexandra, and one that Henri approved of. “Did you have a good day?” Her eyes looked lonely, and she suddenly wished he would kiss her, but he didn't.

“Very pleasant, thank you,” he answered. There were times when they were like two strangers, and the intimacies of the night before seemed all but forgotten in the formality of the moment. He helped her into the car, and the driver pulled away, with both of them lost in thought in separate worlds in the backseat, and two little girls in nightgowns watching from the upstairs window.

Chapter 12

The day after Hilary saw Arthur Patterson, when he had told her he didn't know how to find her sister, Hilary felt as though the world had come to an end. She was seventeen years old and she felt as though her life was over. For years she had lived only to find Megan and Axie. And now there was no hope. They were gone forever.

She began her first job the next day with an aching void in her chest, but her face was calm, her eyes cool, and no one would have known the agony of despair she was feeling. The only thing that kept her going was her determination to survive in spite of everything, and her hatred for Arthur.

She felt like a machine as she moved through the days and nights, but she performed her job well. She improved her typing, studied steno from a book, and went to college at night, just as she had promised herself years before she would. She did everything she had said she would, but through it all there was not so much a sense of accomplishment but of heartless determination. She was going to succeed at all costs, but even she didn't know why she wanted to make it. There was no one to prove anything to. No one who cared. No one to love or who loved her.

She only kept the job for a year, and then she got a better one. She heard about it before anyone else, at the employment agency where she worked, and she went to the interview before anyone else even knew about it. It was as a receptionist at CBA-News. It was a fabulous job that paid almost twice what her current job did, and she had to be quick, smart, and good, and she was all three. The woman who interviewed her was very impressed with her. She got the job, and managed to stay on in school. And she got steady raises from then on. She eventually became a secretary, and then a production assistant, and within five years a producer. She was incredibly bright, and by then she had graduated from college. She was twenty-three years old and she was well on her way to a real career. She was respected by her superiors, and feared by some of her employees, most in fact, and she seemed to have few friends at work. She kept aloof and worked hard, staying late most of the time, and turning in projects deserving of the praise she won. She was a remarkable girl, and when she became one of the main producers of the evening news at twenty-five, Adam Kane, the man in charge of network news invited her out to celebrate. She hesitated and then decided it would be politically unwise to refuse him. She accepted gracefully and found herself dining at the Brussels with him, drinking champagne and talking shop, discussing how important the network was and where she hoped to go eventually. He was surprised to hear that she had long-range goals, particularly since they were more ambitious than his own plans for the future.

“Hey, hold on there … what is this?—a staff meeting for women's lib?” He was an attractive man with brown hair and gentle brown eyes, and a philosophical way of looking at life. “Why such big plans?” She was the first woman he'd ever known who had admitted her ambitions to him, and he admitted to her that he found it frightening. He and his wife had just gotten divorced because she didn't think she wanted to be a “wife anymore.” and it had shaken him to the core. They had two little boys and a house in Darien, and now suddenly he was living alone on the West Side, and women were talking to him about “goals within corporate management.” He laughed softly as he looked at her. She was so beautiful and so young and so intense and yet there was something missing. “What's happened to women who want to have babies and live in the suburbs? Is that totally out of fashion?”

She smiled at him, aware that she might have overstated her case, but she so seldom went out with men. She forgot that one had to be quiet about things, and this one was nice. She liked working for him. “I guess that's out for some of us.” She didn't apologize for it. She knew where she wanted to go, and nothing would stop her until she got there. She was still running from the demons of the past after seventeen years and knew she probably would forever. She accepted that now, though she didn't explain it to him. She never told anyone anything. She lived alone, and she went to work, and other than that, she had no interest in anything. He sensed that now, and it frightened him, for her. He knew how much more there was to life. He was thirty-eight years old and he had married at twenty-three. And now he was discovering endless new horizons.

“Don't you want a husband and kids one day?”

She shook her head. He looked as though she could be honest with him. “That's not very important to me.” More than that, she didn't want anyone she could lose … least of all two little girls … two little children someone could take away from her…. She knew she would never let that happen to her. She wanted to be alone, and she was, and it only hurt occasionally, like now, as she looked at this man and wondered what it would be like to be close to him. Or was it only the champagne, she wondered.

“My children are the best thing in my life, Hilary. Don't cheat yourself of that.” She couldn't tell him that in a way, she had already had kids. She never told anyone that, and knew she never would. Ever.

“Why does everyone think you have to have kids to be complete?”

“These days they don't. Most women think like you, but they're wrong. Hilary, the women who don't have children now are going to panic in ten or fifteen years, mark my words, we're going to see a whole generation of women fighting their own biology before it's too late. But now they're all cool, they figure they've got years ahead of them. But it's a mistake to rule it out. You've never been married?” He looked into her eyes and he liked what he saw there, courage and honesty and integrity and intelligence. But he saw fear too. She was running from something and he couldn't figure out what it was that had hurt her. Maybe, maybe she'd had a bad experience with someone … not unlike his with Barb. He still couldn't believe she had left him and taken his children.

Hilary shook her head in answer to his question. “No, I've never been married.” And then she laughed. “I'm only twenty-five. What's the big rush?”

“These days none at all. I was just curious. I was twenty-three when I got married. My wife was twenty-one. It was real important to us. But that was fifteen years ago, things have changed a hell of a lot since then. This is 1974. We got married in '59.” And then he smiled at her over the last of their champagne. “What were you doing then? You were probably just a kid.”

Her eyes clouded over then, thinking back. 1959 … she'd been in Boston then, with Eileen and Jack … or were they in Jacksonville by then? … the thought of it almost made her feel ill. Axie and Megan were already gone. “Oh, nothing much. I was living with an aunt in Boston around then.” She tried to make it sound ordinary, almost fun.

“Where were your folks?”

“They died when I was eight … and nine …”

“Separately?” She nodded, anxious to change the subject back to work again. She didn't want to talk to him about this. Not to him or anyone. “How terrible. In accidents?” She nodded noncommittally and finished her champagne at one gulp. “Were you an only child?”

She looked him in the eye then with something cold and hard he didn't understand and nodded at him. “Yes, I was.”

“It doesn't sound like much fun.” He felt sorry for her and she hated that too. She didn't want pity from him or from anyone. She tried to smile at him to lighten the mood, but he was looking so intensely at her, it made her nervous.

“Maybe that's why I love my work so much. It's home to me.” That seemed pathetic to him, but he didn't say so.

“Where'd you go to school?”

“N.Y.U.” But she didn't tell him she'd gone at night, while she was working.

He nodded. “Barb and I went to U.C. Berkeley.”

“That must have been fun.” She smiled and he reached out to her, not anxious to talk about his ex-wife anymore, but only about her.

“I'm glad we went out to dinner tonight. I've been wanting to talk to you for a long time. You do a hell of a job at the network.”

“I should.” She grinned. “I've been around CBA for long enough. Seven years.” Years of pushing and shoving her way up, until she was a producer. She had a right to be proud of herself and she was. It was a long, long way from the Jacksonville juvenile home, or the foster homes she'd been in, or even her life with Jack and Eileen in Boston.

“Do you think you'll stay?” he asked, and she stared at him.

“At CBA? Why would I go anywhere?”

“Because in this business people move around a lot.” He certainly had, and he wasn't unusual in their field.

She shook her head at him, with a look of determination in her eyes that startled him. “I'm not going anywhere, my friend. I've got my eye on an office wayyyy upstairs.” And he sensed that she meant it more than she had meant anything else she'd said that night.

“Why?” That kind of ambition puzzled him. He was successful, and he liked his job, but he had never aspired to great heights, and he couldn't imagine wanting that, particularly not if you were a beautiful young girl.

“Because it's important to me.” She was being honest with him. “It means security. And accomplishment. And it's something tangible I can take home with me at night.”

But he knew better than that. “Until they fire you and hire someone else. Don't hang everything on your job, Hilary. You'll end up alone one day, and disappointed.”

“That doesn't frighten me.” She'd been alone all her life. She was used to it. In fact, she liked it that way, no one could hurt her or let her down, or betray her that way.

She was an odd girl, he thought, and he had never known anyone as independent as she was. He took her home that night, and hoped she would invite him upstairs but she only shook his hand with a warm smile and thanked him for the evening. And he went home so horny for her, that as soon as he got upstairs, he called her. He didn't even care if he woke her up, and he doubted that she was asleep yet.

Her voice was husky when she picked up the phone, and he closed his eyes, listening to her. He was a nice guy, and he hated living alone. And she was so damn beautiful … he knew his boys would love her too … “Hello?”

“Hi, Hilary … I just wanted to tell you what a nice time I had tonight.”

She laughed softly at him, and he liked the sound of that too. “So did I. But don't you try to distract me at work, Mr. Kane. I'm not planning to lose my job over anyone. Not even you.”

“I got that. Want to have lunch sometime this week?”

“Sure. If I'm not too swamped.”

“Tomorrow sound okay?”

She laughed again, a delicious mixture of hot smoke and icy cool. “Why don't you relax, Adam. I told you, I'm not going anywhere.”

“Good. Then let's take advantage of it. I'll pick you up in your office at twelve-fifteen. Okay?” He sounded like a little kid, and she was smiling in the dark, lying in bed, and much as she hated to admit it, even to herself, he did something to her no other man had till then. And she trusted him. Maybe it was all right … just for a lunch or two … what harm could that do? She hadn't allowed herself anything more since coming to New York, and oddly enough she had never wanted anyone. Other people had boyfriends, and affairs, and broken hearts. And all Hilary wanted were promotions and raises and work. That was her lover, and so far it had treated her very well. “Twelve-fifteen?” he repeated in the face of silence from her.

“Fine.” Her voice flowed over the single word, and he felt as though he were floating when he hung up.

There was a single rose on her desk the next day, and they had lunch at the Veau d'Or and she didn't get back to her office till three o'clock.

“This is terrible, Adam. I never do things like this.” She threw the long black hair over her shoulder, and rolled up the sleeves of her shirt. It was a beautiful warm day and she didn't even feel like going back to work. “You're a miserable influence. I just got a promotion and now you're going to get me canned.”

“Good, then will you marry me? We can move to New Jersey and have ten kids.”

“How depressing.” She looked at him with her icy green eyes, and he felt something he never had before. She became a challenge. There was a wall around her he would have done anything to climb, but he still wasn't sure how far she'd let him go. They were still circling each other carefully, but he had so much to say to her and she was such intelligent company. And he appealed to her in a way no one had before. It was a dangerous combination, and at times it frightened her, particularly when he distracted her from her work, but after all he was her boss.

He invited her to dinner on Saturday, but she declined, and she turned down his next two invitations to lunch, but he looked so unhappy about it when he stopped to talk to her that she finally relented and agreed to go out with him the following Friday night. They went to P. J. Clarke's for a hamburger, and then a walk up Third Avenue to her new apartment on Fifty-ninth Street.

“Why do you keep such a distance between us?” He looked sincerely unhappy about it. He was crazy about her, and he was dying for her to let him get closer.

“I'm not sure it's such a good idea. It could make things awfully complicated at work. You're my boss, Adam.” She smiled up at him, and as attracted to him as she was, she was afraid of repercussions at the office.

And then he smiled at her regretfully. “Not for much longer, I'm afraid, if that makes any difference to you. I'm being transferred to sales in two weeks. I just heard about it today.”

“How do you feel about that?” She was concerned for him. It was kind of a sidestep, and in his shoes she'd have been crushed, but he didn't look too disturbed as he shrugged and smiled at her.

“No big deal. I might like it better than where I am … except for you, of course. Will you see me more often then?” It would certainly make things easier for her, but she still wasn't sure if she should get involved with him. Life was so much easier living as a celibate.

Celibacy had become a way of life to her, and giving it up meant risking a part of herself. “Hilary?” He was looking down at her as they walked, and he gently took her hand. He seemed very young as he smiled at her, and in some ways he still was. “I want to be with you … you mean a lot to me …”

“Adam, you don't even know who I am … I could be anyone … La femme aux yeux verts …” The words slipped out and she laughed.

“What does that mean?”

“It's French.” She had revived her French in college, and was surprised to find it was still there, dormant but not dead, a final gift from her mother. “It means the woman with green eyes.”

“How come you speak French?” He wanted to know everything about her, and there was so little she wanted to tell him.

“I spoke it a long time ago … when I was a little girl. And I picked it up again in college.”

“Did your parents speak French?” She could have told him then, could have begun to open up, could have said something about Solange, but she decided it was safer not to.

“No, I just learned it at school, I guess.” He nodded, satisfied with the answer she'd given him, and when they reached her apartment, after a moment's hesitation, she invited him upstairs. They listened to Roberta Flack on her stereo, and talked for hours over a bottle of wine, and he stood up regretfully around one o'clock and looked down at her with a wistful smile.

“I'd like to spend the night with you, Hilary, but I get the feeling you're not ready for that … are you?” She shook her head, not sure she would ever be. People had tried to get close to her but she was not even remotely tempted. “Are you involved with anyone?” He had meant to ask before but he had put it off. She shook her head in answer, looking at him strangely.

“No, I'm not … I haven't been in … a long time….”

“For any particular reason?”

“A lot of them. Most of them too complicated to explain.” He sat on her couch and looked at her quietly.

“Why don't you try me?”

She shrugged again. She didn't want to tell him what she'd been through. That was nobody's business. She led a different life now, in another place, another world. She didn't want to drag those things with her, and yet she did, in spite of all her efforts to deny them. “I'm sorry, Adam … I can't….”

“Why not?” He reached out and took her hands in his. “Don't you trust me?”

“It's not that.” She felt her eyes fill with tears and she hated herself for it. “I don't want to talk about it … really….” She stood up and walked away, her. proud shoulders straightened against the world and all it had done to her. And without knowing it, she looked exactly like her mother.

“Hilary …” He walked up to her from behind and put his arms around her. “Why don't you let yourself go? I know how strong you are, I've seen it at work, but this is different … this is us … this isn't a war zone.”

Her voice was tired as she spoke to him with her head bowed. “Life is a war zone, Adam.”

“It doesn't have to be.” He was so gentle, and so innocent. She envied him his simple life. The most difficult thing that had ever happened to him was his wife's deciding she wanted to be free and no longer married. But he knew nothing of the agonies Hilary had endured. He couldn't even begin to understand them, “life can be so sweet … if you let it….”

“It's not as easy as that.” She sighed and looked at him. “I don't think you understand the kind of life I've led, and I don't think I could explain it.”

“Then why not go on from here? Isn't that possible, and leave the past behind you?”

“Maybe.” She wasn't sure it could be done, but she was willing to try it. He reached out and kissed her gently at first, and then suddenly with more passion. He had wanted her for weeks, months, since the first time he'd seen her, and now he couldn't hold back. He peeled her clothes from her and dropped his own, and carried her to her bed, where he began making love to her. But she lay distant and cold, and secretly frightened. Some of the things he did to her were the same things that Maida and Georgine had done … and some of the other things reminded her of the boys who had raped her the day after Maida and Georgine left. It was too much to overcome, even with a good man like Adam. And it didn't take him long to realize that she didn't want to go on. He pulled away, still throbbing with desire for her and unable to understand what had happened.

“What's wrong? …” His voice was hoarse, his eyes bleary with unspent passion. “I want you so much.”

“I'm sorry …” She whispered the words, and turned over on her side, staring at the far wall, wondering if she would ever be normal. Perhaps she would never overcome the past. She was twenty-five years old, and she was beginning to suspect that. There were too many people left that she hated … Arthur Patterson … Jack Jones … the boys who had raped her … Maida and Georgine … Eileen. the people at juvenile hall. and in the far distance, even her father. It was too big a burden to carry around and still allow her to function as a woman. “It's not you,” she tried to explain. “I just can't.”

“Why? You have to tell me.” He was trying to sit calmly at the edge of the bed, trying to reach out and understand her. And she sat up quietly and turned around. Maybe it was better to shock him than to hurt him.

“I was raped a long time ago….” She didn't want to say more, and hoped that would be enough, but of course it wasn't.

“How? … by whom?”

“It's a long story.” And which one should she tell him? Maida and Georgine, who were the first, or the boys who had come later? Or Jack who had done his best to precede them all and then had beaten her to within an inch of her life when he didn't get what he wanted. They were all possible candidates for the role, but she couldn't even imagine Adam able to withstand any truth she might tell him

“When was it?”

“When I was thirteen.” That much was true at least. They had all happened before her fourteenth birthday. She took a gulp of air. “And there hasn't been anyone since then. I guess I should have told you.”

“Christ.” He looked deeply shaken by what she'd said. “It certainly would have helped. How was I supposed to know something like that?”

“I didn't think it would matter.”

“Oh really? You were raped twelve years ago, haven't had relations with anyone since, and you actually thought it wouldn't make a difference? How can you do that to yourself, and to me, for chrissake? What about counseling? Have you had a lot of that since then?” He assumed she had, of course, everyone he knew was in therapy. He'd gone right back to his own shrink as soon as his wife left him.

“No.” She spoke very calmly, and got up to put on a bathrobe. She had a long, languid body and beautiful graceful legs that made him ache with wanting her again, but he tried to force himself not to think about it.

“What do you mean ‘no’? You got help after the rape, no? Yes? Right?”

She smiled at him. Hardly. “No. Wrong. I guess I didn't need it.”

“Are you crazy?”

“All right, let's say it wasn't available to me at the time.”

“Where were you? The North Pole? Where is there in the modern world that therapy isn't available?” Oh God, he understood nothing of what her life had been like. Therapy? Where? In Louise's home, or at juvie?

“I told you, Adam.” She was getting annoyed, but he was getting frantic. “I don't want to discuss it. It's too complicated.”

“Too complicated or too painful?” She averted her eyes, so he couldn't see the pain he had already inflicted.

“Why don't we just forget it?”

“What, the relationship? Why? You're not a quitter, Hilary.” Now he was sincerely angry. She would have done anything for her job, but not for him, or the relationship they might have, if she was willing.

“Why don't we just forget the problem, Adam. It'll go away by itself eventually.”

“Really? How long's it been now? Twelve years, you said, and I wouldn't exactly say you're cured. How long would you like to wait for it to ‘go away’? Thirty years maybe? Or how about fifty? You ought to feel a lot better by then, and Christ you'd only be sixty-three, you could have a great sex life, Hilary, be serious!” He took her by the hand and pulled her down on the bed beside him, but he wanted too much from her, and Hilary already knew she couldn't give it to him. He wanted everything, heart and soul, commitment and marriage and children. She could sense that in him, he wanted everything his wife had taken back and more. And she knew for a certainty that she didn't have it in her. She had nothing left to give him. All she could do was take, or maybe extend herself for a little while, if no one asked too much, but the rest was gone. All her love had been given too long ago, and all her energies were reserved for where she was going at the network. “I want you to go into therapy.” He sat staring at her, as though announcing he wanted her to have brain surgery, and she had no intention of obliging him. God only knew what they'd find there.

“I can't.”

“That's bullshit. Why not?”

“I don't have the time.”

“You're twenty-five years old and you have a problem.”

“It's not one I can't live with.”

“You're not living, you're existing.” But slowly, she was getting angry too. He had no right to make judgments on how she was living, just because she didn't want to make love with him.

“Maybe it'll get better.” But she didn't sound as though she really cared and that disturbed him.

“By itself?” She nodded. “I doubt it.”

“Give it time, Adam. This is only the first time.”

He sat silently for a long time, watching her. He saw more than she wanted. “There's a lot you're not telling me, isn't there?”

She smiled, sphinx-like. “It's not that important, Adam.”

“I don't believe you. I think you live your whole life behind a walled fortress.”

“I used to … a long time ago….”

“Why?”

“Because there used to be a lot of people out to hurt me.”

“And now?”

“I don't let them.”

He looked sorry for her, and leaned down to kiss her with a gentle hand on her shoulder, as they sat on the edge of her unmade bed, where their passion had been so unsuccessful. “I won't hurt you, Hil … I swear …” There were tears in his eyes, and she wished she could feel something for him, but she couldn't. She couldn't feel anything for anyone, and she knew that now, except perhaps if he awoke some unborn passion in her, but she couldn't imagine that either. “I love you …”

She had no answer to those words, and only looked at him sadly. And then he smiled at her and kissed her again. He understood, and that touched her. “It's okay … you don't have to say anything … just let me love you….” He lay her back against the pillows, and gently sculpted her body with one finger, drawing it close to her center, and then moving it away, drifting around her breasts and all the way down her belly, and then up again, touching her with his tongue and his heart and his fingers, but with nothing else, and after hours of it, she was writhing and begging him for something more, but he wouldn't do it. Instead, he let her feel him, and touched her gently with his throbbing organ. He ran it over her like a satin hand, and she bent down and began to kiss it, and touch him gently until he was writhing as she was, and then first with his lips, and then with his fingers, he touched her and felt her grow frightened and rigid.

“It's all right, Hil … it's all right … I won't hurt you … I … please, baby … please let me … please … Oh, God, you're so beautiful …” He crooned to her like a mother with a baby and slowly he Entered her and soothed her until he came, but he knew that she had not joined him. But at least it was a little better. “I'm sorry, Hil …” He wanted more for her, he wanted everything that he felt, but it was too much to ask for.

“Don't be. It was lovely.” She lay quietly beside him, and eventually he slept and she watched him, wondering if she would ever feel for him what he wanted, if she could even feel it for anyone, or if her body was too filled with hatred.

He left the next morning before she dressed for work, and asked her to lunch later that morning, but she said that she was too busy. He wanted to see her that night, but she had a meeting. And in desperation he asked her to join him on Sunday with his boys. They were spending the weekend with him. She looked strangely hesitant over that, as though she were about to say no, but he looked so hurt that she accepted.

“They're great kids, you'll love them.”

“I'm sure I will.” She smiled. But she was filled with trepidation. She had avoided children for years, and she was not anxious to get to know his, or grow too attached to them. She had had her fill of children long since. The only two she had ever loved had been taken from her.

They arranged a meeting place in Central Park, and on Sunday morning she wore jeans, and a T-shirt, and went out to meet him. He had promised to bring the baseballs and the picnic and the children. And as she spotted them beneath a tree, the littlest one on his lap, and the six-year-old sitting beside him, she felt something stir in her heart that was so long gone she almost couldn't bear it. She stopped in her tracks and wanted to run, but she couldn't do that to him. But as she approached it only grew worse. What she saw in his eyes was the kind of love she had had for Megan and Axie.

She never made it to lunch. She watched them throw baseballs for half an hour, and then she pleaded a terrible headache. She ran from the park in tears, and went all the way back to her apartment without stopping for a light or a car or a person.

She lay in bed all day and sobbed, and then forced herself to realize again that Megan and Alexandra were gone from her life forever. She had to make herself remember that. There was no point hanging on to them. No one knew where they were anyway and it would have been close to impossible to find them. There was no point torturing herself now. And they were no longer children, they were women. Alexandra would have been twenty-two by then, and Megan would be seventeen. But there was no point thinking about them anymore. They were no longer lost children, and she was never going to see them again. But she didn't want to see any other children either. She couldn't bear it.

And when the phone began ringing that evening, she quietly took it off the hook and left it there. The next day she acted as though nothing had happened. She was pleasant and businesslike and friendly, and distant and Adam never knew what had hit him. As planned, he was transferred on to sales the following week, and he never went out with Hilary again. She saw to it that they never even ran into each other. And she never took his calls. It was as though none of it had ever happened. And what she didn't know was that he felt sorry for her. But he finally realized that he couldn't help her.

For the next several years Hilary concentrated even harder on her career. She had risen to a higher production position by then and was twenty-seven years old, and she had carefully kept away from all liaisons since her brush with Adam. She was too busy working her way up to want anything else in her life, and all of the men she met seemed to be divorced and have children. Until she met William Brock, CBA's newest anchor. Tall, blond, and handsome, he had been a major football star and had been recently hired by the network. Twice divorced, he had no children, and no desire to have them. He dated his way around the station with gusto, until he got to Hilary, and her ice-like green eyes fascinated him. He treated her with caution and respect, and sent her everything from flowers to a fur coat.

“That was cute, Bill.” She dropped it on his desk, box and all, on her way to her office one morning.

“Not your size, darling?”

“Not my style, Mr. Brock. In every possible way.” She was not given to romances at the office, or anywhere else for that matter, and becoming a notch on Bill Brock's belt was the last thing she wanted. He invited her to Honolulu for a week, Jamaica for a weekend, skiing in Vermont, dinner at the Côte Basque, and anything else he could think of. But he didn't stand a chance, until one stormy night, when she couldn't get a cab home and he gave her a lift in his Ferrari. He started heading downtown from the network, and Hilary tapped him on the shoulder. “Nice try, Bill. I live on Fifty-ninth Street.”

“I live on Fifth Avenue and Eleventh.”

“Congratulations, now take me home, or do I have to get out and walk?” She wasn't kidding and he skidded to a stop, but before she could say anything further, he kissed her.

“Your place or mine, Madame Producer, or shall we do something really crazy and go to the Plaza?” She laughed at his outrageous spirit, and demanded that he take her home, but she was no longer surprised when he stopped on the way, to take her to dinner. They stopped for a hamburger at one of his favorite hangouts, and she was surprised at how intelligent he was, beneath the playboy veneer, and the overdeveloped male body. “And you, pretty lady? What makes you tick behind those green eyes that look like emeralds?”

“Ambition.” He was the first person she had been that honest with, but for some reason she thought he'd understand that.

“I've had a taste of that myself. It's addictive once you get started.”

“I know it.” But it was all she had to keep her going … getting to the top so that nothing could ever get to her again. She wouldn't feel safe till she got there. But that she didn't explain to him. “There's nothing like it, is there? Were you sorry to give up football, Bill?”

“Sort of. It's a great game, but I got tired of having my knees kicked around and my nose broken. You can't take that kind of abuse forever.” He smiled at her in just the way that melted most women's hearts, and points south, paid the check, and escorted her back to his Ferrari. He dropped her off at her place without a fight, and she was almost sorry as she let herself into her apartment. Somehow, she had expected a little more than that, an attempt at least, something. She was already undressed and in her nightgown, half an hour later, when the bell rang.

“Who is it?” she asked on the intercom.

“Bill. I forgot to ask you something about the show tomorrow.” She frowned and then grinned. He sounded sincere but it was probably a ploy. She decided to keep it that way, and let him stand in the snow while he talked to her.

“What is it?”

“What?”

“I said what is it?”

“I can't hear you!” He started to buzz frantically and she tried to outshout him on the intercom and then finally gave up, and buzzed him in. If it was a ruse, she would put him in place, and quickly. She was waiting in the doorway when he came up, red-faced, smiling, and covered with the snow that was still falling. “Something's wrong with your intercom.” He was out of breath and devastatingly handsome.

“Oh, really? Nice of you to come by. Ever heard of the telephone, Mr. Brock?”

“No, ma'am, I haven't.” Without further ado, he swept her off her feet, picked her up like a rag doll, walked into her apartment and kicked the door closed behind him. She was laughing at him as he did it. It was such an incongruous scene, and there was something boyish and wonderful about him, but not so wonderful that she wanted to get involved with him, no matter how handsome he was, or how attractive. “Where's your bedroom, Miss Walker?” He was all innocence as she laughed at him. He was like a schoolboy playing a prank on her. But he was also extremely sexy.

“In there. Why?”

“You'll see in a minute.” He deposited her on the bed, walked into the bathroom as she stared at him, and emerged five seconds later, stark naked. She was so stunned that she stood staring at him. He was the most outrageous man she had ever known, but also the most appealing. And without further ado, he began making love to her, and despite her initial resistance, his expertise melted whatever reserve she had, and she was soon moaning for him and within a very short time, he obliged her. He lay breathless in her arms, and then rolled over and smiled as she stared at him in amazement. It had aroused feelings in her she had never known existed, and before she could say anything, he began making love to her again, and she thought she would go mad as he made love to her again and again and again until morning. It was an experience she had never had before and was sure she would never have again, but it convinced her that not everything inside her was entirely dead, and maybe one day the right man might come along and find it. But in the meantime, Bill Brock had done something to her she would never forget. And when he left the next morning, she stared out the window at him wistfully as he drove off in his red Ferrari.

She knew then that she would remember him for the rest of her life, but she didn't expect anything more from him. He was not looking for a relationship, or a girlfriend, or a mistress or a wife, or even a friendship. Life to him was one constant stream of pretty girls, and making love was something he did like eating and sleeping and drinking. He didn't really care who he did it with, or how often, or if he ever did it again with the same one. He just wanted to be able to do it, when and where and with whom he wanted.

When he sent Hilary a huge bouquet of roses the next day, and a diamond bracelet from Harry Winston, she gave the bracelet back, with a smile, and he didn't seem surprised. But he also didn't ask her out again. He had other fish to fry, and she was just one of a universe full of pretty women. She was disappointed but not surprised. The only surprise she got was when she went to the doctor two months later. She had had the flu for weeks, and instead of better, she was getting worse. And she was totally exhausted. All she wanted to do was sleep, the thought of food made her sick, she couldn't even stand the smell of coffee when she went into the office in the morning. So finally, after six weeks of it, she called her doctor and made an appointment. He suggested a series of blood tests, a thorough examination, and after the blood tests, he was thinking of putting her on antibiotics.

“It could be some kind of stomach virus, Miss Walker. Have you been anyplace exotic recently?”

She shook her head, depressed to be feeling so poorly. She felt two hundred years old and all she wanted to do was put her head down and sleep all day long. It was depressing to feel that lousy. But two days later she knew why. The test results came back, and the doctor did not suggest antibiotics. She was pregnant. He had done a routine pregnancy test, and a VDRL too, checking her for syphilis. When she heard the news she felt she would rather have had the latter than the former. She put the phone down in shock, staring around her office. She knew exactly whose it was. He was the only man she had slept with in two years, and she hadn't used any precautions and neither had he. It had never occurred to her, she didn't have any to use. He was only the second man she'd ever slept with in her adult life, since the tragedies of her youth. And now she was pregnant.

There was only one solution to the problem. And she called the doctor back within the hour and made the appointment. She left her office at lunchtime in a state of shock, and went home to think about the predicament she was in. Should she tell him? Should she not? Would he laugh? Would he figure it was exclusively her problem? And what about the abortion? Was it wrong? Was it a sin? A part of her wanted to be rid of it instantly, and another part of her remembered Axie as a baby, and little Megan again … that sweet smell of powder and the silky hair nestled in her arms at night. She remembered the little noises she made before she went to sleep at night, and suddenly Hilary thought she couldn't do it. She had already lost two children she loved, how could she kill this one? Perhaps this was God's way of making it up to her, of making it all right again, of giving her back one of the babies she had lost, of filling the empty years ahead of her with more than just work … and the baby would be so beautiful with a father like Bill Brock, and he need never know … it could be all hers … all hers … and suddenly with every ounce of her being, she wanted to protect it.

She suddenly understood why her skirts had been getting tight, even though she'd been losing weight. Her waist had been growing, and she felt a tiny bulge in her stomach. The doctor had told her, when she talked to him, that she was eight weeks pregnant. Eight weeks … two months … and inside her there was a tiny baby. She couldn't let herself kill it. Yet she had to, what kind of career could she have with a baby around her neck, who would help her? … but that smell … and the sweet cry … she still remembered the first time she'd seen Axie … but what if someone took this baby from her too, as they had Megan and Axie, what if Bill Brock found out and wanted his child. For the rest of the week, Hilary was torn by mounting panic. She had no one to talk to, nowhere to turn. She was left only with her own guilt and confusion and panic. She wanted desperately to keep the baby, but couldn't imagine how she could, but more importantly, she was terrified that one day she would lose it, that somehow, someone would take it from her, and she never wanted to love anyone that much again. It was that fear that was the deciding factor. It was too much to ask of her, the rest she could handle, but not the terrible fear of loss, she knew too well the agony it would cause her. She could never risk that again, with children of her own, or anyone else's. She would sacrifice this child in the memory of Megan and Axie. There would never be children in her life and heart again. And as she walked into the doctor's office that Friday afternoon, she thought she was going to faint as she walked through the doorway.

She gave the nurse her name, and signed a form with trembling hands, and then they let her sit in the waiting room for an hour. She had taken the afternoon off from work, and she had lain awake the night before. Some part of her was shrieking at her to save the life of this baby. But the voice of the past was too important to her. It outshouted all else and reminded her of the terrible pain of losing Megan and Alexandra. She kept thinking of the day they'd driven away, and the unbearable agony of it … but the agony of tearing this child from within her was no smaller.

The nurse led her down a corridor and into a small room as she felt her knees grow weak. She was instructed to take off her clothes, put on a gown and paper slippers and report to the nurse across the hall.

“Thank you,” Hilary whispered almost inaudibly, wishing somebody would stop her before it was too late. But there was no one to do it.

The nurse across the hall looked at her as though she had committed a federal offense, and handed her a clipboard with more forms to sign. Just glancing at them made Hilary feel ill, and she sank onto a narrow wooden bench.

“You all right?” the woman asked uninterestedly.

“I'm a little dizzy.”

She nodded, unconcerned, and told her to lie on the table.

“The doctor will be in, in a few minutes.” But an hour and a half later, Hilary was still waiting. She had begun to shake from head to foot well over an hour before, and she had finally thrown up out of sheer nervousness. She hadn't had anything to eat since that morning. The nurse with the clipboard finally came back, looked at her, smelled the air, and Hilary blushed.

“I'm sorry, I … I don't feel well.”

“It'll probably happen again afterward,” she said matter-of-factly. “He'll be right in. We had a little problem down the hall.” And all Hilary could think about was the baby still alive inside her, the longer they took, the longer it would live, and soon they would have to kill it. She felt desperation choke her, but there was no way out, she couldn't allow herself to love this baby, couldn't go through it ever again. A part of her tried to tell her this was different, but the rest of her knew that it wasn't. She had loved Megan and Alexandra like her own … and she had lost them. And one day someone would take this baby from her too. She couldn't let that happen. She had to stop it now … before it destroyed her.

“Ready, young lady?” The doctor blew into the room like a hurricane, in surgical garb, with a green hat to cover his hair, and a small mask hanging around his neck. She could almost sense the blood dripping from him from his last abortion.

“I … yes …” Her voice was a barely audible croak and she felt as though she were going to throw up again or start crying. “Are you going to give me something to put me to sleep?” They had told her nothing about it.

“You don't need any of that. It'll be all over in a few minutes.” How few? How long would it take? What were they going to do to her baby?

She lay flat on the table, and the nurse forced her feet into the stirrups, they were wider than usual, and the nurse secured them with straps so that Hilary couldn't move, and she felt a sudden wave of panic.

“Why are you doing that?”

“So you don't hurt yourself.” She was about to tie down Hilary's hands too but she begged her not to.

“I promise I won't touch anything … I swear … please …” It was like some medieval torture, and the nurse turned to the doctor and he nodded as he put on a fresh mask.

“Just relax. It won't take long, and then you'll be rid of this.” … rid of this … she tried to be comforted by the words, but she wasn't. She told herself she was doing the right thing, but everything inside her shrieked that she was killing a baby. They had only taken Megan and Axie away, no one had killed them. It was wrong, it was a sin, it was terrible … she wanted … she felt the local anesthetic jab into her sharply, and she wanted to cry and wanted to ask the nurse to hold her hand, but the nurse looked uninterested as she assisted the doctor. And suddenly Hilary heard a terrible machine, it sounded like it was going to eat the walls. It was the vacuum.

“What's that?” She leapt to half-sitting position, unable to move her legs, and she still felt a sharp pain where they had put the needle in her cervix.

“Just what it sounds like. It's a vacuum. Now lie back. We'll be ready in a minute. Count to ten.” She felt an incredible pain as something sharp and metallic shoved its way inside her. No torture ever concocted by Maida and Georgine had equaled this … not even the boys with their hard bodies pressed into hers … this was awful, it was beyond bearing, it was … she let out a scream, and the metal piece inside her felt as though it was tearing her apart. It was forcing her uterus to open, dilating it so that they could take out the baby. “You're further along than we thought, Miss Walker. We're going to have to open a little wider.” The local seemed to have done nothing for her and the pain was excruciating as her legs trembled violently and the doctor gave a grunt of satisfaction. “That's it.” He said something to the nurse as Hilary threw up all over herself, but the nurse was too busy assisting the doctor to notice or help her. And then suddenly Hilary knew this was the wrong thing … she couldn't do it … she had to keep the baby, and she raised her head again, trying not to vomit so she could tell him.

“No, please … don't … please … Stop!” But he only spoke soothingly to her. It was much too late to stop now. They had to finish what they had started.

“It's almost over, Hilary. Just a little bit longer.”

“No … please I can't stand it … I don't want to … the baby …” She was feeling faint again, and her whole body was wracked by convulsive shaking.

“There will be lots of babies in your life … you're a young girl, and one day it'll be the right one.” He gave another ominous grunt, which she knew now meant he was going to inflict more pain on her, and suddenly he inserted the vacuum. She felt as though every ounce of her body was being sucked out by that machine and she threw up again as it went on endlessly, and then finally there was silence.

“Now just a little scraping,” he explained, and she saw the room reel as she felt him scrape what was left out of her, but the baby was long gone … she had lost the others, and now she had killed this one. It was all she could think of as she lay there, wanting to die like her baby. She was a murderer now, just like her father. Her father had killed his wife, and now she had killed her own baby.

“That's all now.” She heard the voice she had come to hate, and they took out all their tools, and left her lying there, still trembling and strapped to the table. She could feel something wet and warm pouring out of her, and she knew she was bleeding profusely, but she didn't care anymore what they did to her. She didn't care if she died. In fact, she hoped so. “Just rest for a little while, Hilary.” He stared into her face, patted her shoulder, and left the room with a resounding bang, as she lay strapped to the table and sobbed in a pool of her own vomit.

They came back for her in an hour, handed her a damp cloth and a sheet of instructions. She was to call them if the bleeding seemed too heavy, and otherwise she was to stay in bed for twenty-four hours and she'd be fine. That was it. It was all over. She staggered outside once she was dressed, still trembling violently, and hailed a cab, and gave him her address. And she was shocked to realize it was six o'clock. She had been in the doctor's office for almost six hours.

“What'sa matta, lady, you sick?” She looked terrible, even to him, even in the darkness. Her eyes were suddenly dark-ringed, her face was green, and she was shaking so hard she could hardly talk. And she only nodded in answer.

“Yeah … I got … the flu …” Her teeth were chattering and he nodded.

“Everybody's got it.” He grinned at her then, she was probably a pretty girl when she wasn't sick. “Just don't kiss me.” She tried to smile at him, but she couldn't. She felt as though she would never smile again, at anyone. How could she? How could she ever look herself in the eye again? She had killed a baby.

She crawled into her bed when she got home, without even getting undressed, and she slept until four o'clock on Saturday morning. The cramps she felt woke her up, but when she checked, nothing seemed to be out of order. She had survived it. She had done it. And she knew she would never forget it.

On Monday, she went to work looking pale and wan, but she went, and she did her work, and she went home again, with a stack of papers. She was going to bury herself in her work, she was going to do anything to numb herself, and she did. She worked like a machine for the next six months and for another year after that. She became the wunderkind of CBA Network. She became the kind of woman people admired and everyone feared, the kind of person no one wanted to be like.

“Terrifying, isn't she?” one of the new secretaries said the day Hilary turned thirty. “She lives and breathes nothing but this network, and God help you if you cross her. At least that's what people say. Personally, she scares me.” The other girl agreed and they went to the powder room to discuss the two new men in the newsroom. But Hilary was immune there too. She seemed to have no interest in anyone, except her work, her career, and the network.

When she was thirty-two years old, she became a vice-president, and two years after that, she got another promotion. At thirty-six, she was the most senior woman in management, and at thirty-nine she was the number three person at the network, and there was no doubt in anyone's mind that one day she would run it. And probably sooner rather than later. The New York Times ran a big piece about her shortly afterward discussing her policies and her plans, and The Wall Street Journal did another piece on her shortly afterward. Hilary Walker had made it.

Chapter 13

The air on Park Avenue seemed to crush him as he left his doctor's office two hours later. He wasn't surprised. He had expected it, and yet … Arthur Patterson had secretly hoped for something different. But the pain had been so great. The pills had barely helped him for the last month, and yet he had tried to tell himself it was something else. He stopped to catch his breath as he reached the corner. It was four-thirty, and he was totally exhausted as the pain ripped through his chest again, and he coughed pathetically. A passerby stopped to look, wondering if he should help, but Arthur caught his breath and got back into the car, barely speaking to the driver.

He was still thinking of his doctor's words and dire prediction. He had no right to ask for more, reasonably. He was almost seventy-two years old, and he had led a full life … more or less … he had been married once … Marjorie had died three years before, and he'd gone to her funeral, surprised to discover that she had remarried only a few years before, a retired congressman. He had wondered as he stood there, in the dim light of St. James's, if she had been satisfied with her life … if she had ever been truly happy.

And now he was going to die too. It was odd that it didn't frighten him more. He was only sorry. He had so little to leave the world, a law practice that had slowed down years before, although he still went to the office every day, or whenever he was well enough. He wondered if his partners would miss him when he was gone. There was certainly no one else who would notice his absence, except possibly his secretary, who would just be reassigned to one of the other lawyers.

The doorman gave him a hand as he got out of the cab, and he took the elevator upstairs, making idle conversation, as he always did, with the elevator man on duty. They discussed the early heat, and the baseball scores, and he let himself into his apartment with a sigh of exhaustion. It was so odd to think about it now. Soon it would all be gone … and then as he walked into the living room, he began to cry. For no reason he could think of, Solange had come to mind … Solange with her fiery red hair and her emerald eyes … he had loved her so much so long ago. He wondered if he would see her now, when he died, if there was an afterlife … a heaven and a hell, as he'd been taught as a boy. … He closed his eyes as he sank heavily into a chair … Solange … he spoke her name in a whisper as the tears rolled down his cheeks, and as he opened his eyes again, he had a sudden feeling of desperation. He had let her down so desperately, and Sam … the daughters they had loved so much had been cast to the winds and totally disappeared. He had let them disappear. It had all been his fault. He could have taken them in, if only he'd had the courage. But it was too late now. Much too late. Solange had died more than thirty years before … and Sam … and yet, he knew without a doubt, what he had to do now. He had to do one last thing. He had to find them.

He sat in the same chair until the room grew dark, thinking back over the years, all the way to the trenches near Cassino, to his wound and the time Sam had saved him … and the liberation of Paris and the first time he'd seen her. There was no going back. No changing what had happened. And perhaps it would make no difference now. But he knew that before he died, he had to find them, to explain to them … to bring them together again, for one last time, and with the crushing agony of memory, he remembered that day in Charlestown when he had gone to get Megan and Alexandra, and Hilary had begged him so piteously not to take them.

He lay awake in his bed for most of the night, thinking of the little girls, wondering how he would find them, or if they could be found in time. There was only one thing that he could leave them. The rest was all stocks and bonds. But perhaps the house in Connecticut would mean something to them. He had bought it years before, as a summer place, but seldom ever used it. It was a large, rambling old Victorian house, and he liked going there, but he had kept it more as a home for his sunset years. And now the sunset was coming. There would be no time for retirement, for quiet gardening, for long walks down to the seashore. For him, it was all over. The doctor said it was too late to operate. The X rays told their own tale. The cancer had spread too far, and he was too ill now to withstand any dramatic treatment. It was difficult to estimate how much time he had. Three months, perhaps six, or less if the disease spread very quickly.

He got up at midnight to take a sleeping pill, but it was daylight before he fell asleep, sleeping fitfully and dreaming of Hilary's sobs as he drove a car away from her, clutching something to him, he wasn't sure what, and then suddenly Hilary's face became her mother's, and it was Solange crying in his arms, asking him why he had killed her.

Chapter 14

Arthur Patterson left his office at noon the next day, exhausted from his sleepless night, but he had been determined to go to the office. He had conferred with one of his partners at eleven o'clock, and gotten the name of a man who was thought to be the best in the business. He did not explain why he needed him, and the partner did not ask any questions.

Arthur had placed the call himself, and was surprised that John Chapman was willing to see him that day, when he explained that it was urgent. But Chapman knew who he was, and it was rare that the senior partner of an important law firm called him himself, and with such obvious desperation. He said he would see him shortly after noon, although he had only an hour at his disposal. And Arthur thanked him profusely, and hurried out of his office, patting his pocket to make sure he had his pills. He couldn't afford to be without them.

“Will you be back after lunch, Mr. Patterson?” his secretary inquired as he hurried past her, coughing as was now his habit.

“I don't think so,” he said barely audibly, and she shook her head as he stepped into the elevator. He looked terrible and he was too old to be coming to work every day now. She wished someone would force him to retire.

It was a short cab ride from Arthur's office to Chapman's, and he was impressed when he saw the well-appointed offices Chapman kept on Fifty-seventh, off Fifth. It was a smaller building than those that housed Brokaw, Miller and Patterson, but it was respectable and well kept, and Chapman had most of a floor, with a discreet sign on the door that said only JOHN CHAPMAN. A receptionist took his name, and several other people appeared to be waiting for Chapman's associates. Most of the other people in the waiting room looked like attorneys.

“Mr. Chapman will see you now,” the young woman said, and ushered him inside. Chapman had an office high above Fifty-seventh Street with thick carpeting and English antiques, and like his own office, it was filled with lawbooks. It was comforting to be in surroundings that looked so familiar. He had been afraid at first that the place he was being sent to would be sleazy, and it was a relief to find that it wasn't.

The door opened to reveal a handsome blond man in a tweed jacket and gray slacks, with lively gray eyes, and the look of someone who had gone to Princeton or Harvard. In fact, he had gone to both. He had done his undergraduate work at Princeton, and had gone to law school at Harvard.

“Mr. Patterson?” He came easily around the desk, and shook Arthur's hand, startled at first by how frail it seemed in his own hand. He had played football in college, and even as tall as he was, Arthur was dwarfed by the young attorney who was thirty years his junior. “Please sit down.” He indicated a chair with a warm smile, and sat down in the chair next to Arthur's.

“I'm very grateful to you …” Arthur coughed, trying to catch his breath. “… for seeing me on such short notice. It's a matter of both urgency and importance, and I'm afraid I … don't have much time.” He meant it just the way it sounded as he coughed again, but John Chapman assumed he was referring to a deadline associated with a court case.

“I was impressed that you were handling the matter yourself, sir.”

“Thank you.”

He knew who Arthur was, and it was most unusual for the senior partner of the firm to contact an investigation service himself, no matter how illustrious the outfit was, and John Chapman's was one of the best-known in the country. It operated more like a law firm than just an investigative bureau, and his own legal background made him extremely helpful. He grabbed a pad and pen as Arthur coughed again, and prepared to jot down some notes about what Arthur wanted.

“Would you like to explain to me, Mr. Patterson, so I can have an idea how we may be of service?” He was quiet and professional and had the precise diction of the upper classes, and yet he seemed oddly unassuming, easygoing almost, and Patterson found himself curious about him. Why hadn't he gone into his father's firm? His father was the head of the most important law firm in Boston, and two of his brothers were prominent attorneys in New York. And yet he had chosen this rather unorthodox career instead. It was intriguing, but Arthur didn't have the time to think about it now. He had to save his strength to tell him what he wanted.

“It's a personal … matter.” He wheezed, and then took a sip of the water Chapman had quietly poured him while he waited. “Of the utmost confidentiality and importance. You are not to discuss this with anyone.” Arthur flashed his eyes at him, but the effort was wasted on Chapman.

“I don't discuss my cases with anyone, Mr. Patterson. Period.”

“I'd also like you to do this yourself, if it's possible. One of my associates tells me you're the best in the business. I want to hire that talent, and no one else's.”

Chapman pursed his lips, waiting to hear the rest, making no commitment to Arthur. “That depends on what's involved. I try to stay involved in all of our cases, to as great an extent as I'm able.”

“I want you to do this yourself. And we don't have much time.” He coughed and took another sip of water. “I'm dying.”

Chapman watched him carefully, curious now. The old man was shaking with anticipation, and clutching a file he had taken out of a briefcase. Perhaps it was an old unsolved case he was determined to tie up before he died. It was odd the things people did when they were dying.

“The doctor thinks I might have three months, maybe six, maybe less. I think three months is more like it. I want to find three young women.” Chapman looked surprised. It was an odd request from an old man, unless they were his daughters. “They were the daughters of close friends of mine, my closest friends. Their parents died thirty years ago, and two of them were adopted shortly after, the third one was left with her aunt and uncle. They were respectively one, five, and nine years old when I lost track of them, and I have no idea where they are now. I know who adopted the two younger girls, and I know the oldest one wound up in Jacksonville, Florida, and then came to New York twenty-two years ago, but that's all I know. I've included all the information I have in this file, including clippings about their parents. Their father was a very well-known Broadway actor.”

“Did the parents die simultaneously in an accident?” It was only curiosity on his part. Thus far, it was an intriguing story.

“No.” Arthur took a painful breath and continued. “He killed their mother, no one ever really knew why, except that they had an argument and he seems to have gone crazy. I defended him in 1958.” Arthur's face went a little grayer as Chapman watched him, surprised that he had taken a criminal case. There had to be more to the story than he was telling. “He was convicted and committed suicide in his cell the night of his conviction. I tried to place the girls in a home together.” He seemed close to breaking down as John Chapman watched him, sorry for him, it was obviously painful for him to remember, and worse still to discuss it with this stranger. Any attorney would have felt responsible … but not responsible enough to go looking for the children thirty years later. Or was it that he felt guilty? “But no one wanted to take all three. I had to place them in separate homes, and leave the older girl with the aunt and uncle.” He didn't tell him that he had considered taking them himself, but didn't do it because his then wife wouldn't let him. “There was also a recent clipping about a young woman at CBA,” he went on, “by the same name as the oldest girl. I think there's a possibility it might be she, but it could be just a coincidence. I included the clipping and you ought to check it out.” Chapman nodded. And Arthur remembered finding the article in the Times only weeks before, and praying it was the right Hilary Walker. His hand had trembled as he held the column he'd clipped out and stared at the picture. She didn't look like anyone he knew, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. Newspaper photos often didn't. “That's it, Chapman. I want to find those three young women.” Young to him perhaps, but certainly full-grown, Chapman thought to himself. He did a quick calculation and realized they were thirty-nine, thirty-five, and thirty-one years old. It wasn't going to be easy to find them. And Arthur confirmed that. “The adoptive parents of the two younger girls moved away years ago, and I have no idea where they went … I just hope you can find them.”

“So do I.” Chapman took the file in his hands, and looked somber as he questioned Arthur. “And when I do?”

“First, I want you to locate them, and then come back to me and tell me that you've found them. Then I want you to explain to them who they are, who I am, that I am an old family friend, and that I want to reunite them with their sisters. I'd like to do it in my home in Connecticut, if that's possible. I'm afraid I can't travel anymore … they'll have to come here.”

“And if they refuse?” It was possible. Anything was possible. He had seen everything in the seventeen years he'd been in the business.

“You can't let them.”

“They may not even remember having sisters, two of them anyway, and it may be a tremendous shock and disruption to them.” He wondered if there was a sizable inheritance being attached to it, but he didn't want to press Arthur on the subject.

“I owe it to them to bring them together again. It was my fault that they were separated … that I was never able to find a home for all of them. I want to know that they're all right, that they don't need anything … I owe that much to their parents.”

John was tempted to tell him that it was a little late, but he didn't want to be disrespectful. At thirty-nine and thirty-five and thirty-one, it couldn't matter very much to them anymore why they had been taken from their sisters, if they even remembered having any in the first place. But it was not his place to question the wisdom of arthur Patterson's final wishes. Arthur was sitting watching him with quiet desperation.

“Will you do it?” It was a barely audible whisper.

“I'll try.”

“Will you do it yourself?”

“Most of it, if that's possible. I want to read the file first, before I make a definite commitment. I may have operatives already in the field in areas we're interested in who could do the job better and more quickly than I could.” Arthur nodded, that much made sense to him. “I'll get to the file as quickly as possible, and I'll call you with an appraisal of the situation.”

Arthur was painfully honest with him. “There's not much there, Chapman. Not much more than I told you.”

“That's all right. Something may jump out at me.” He discreetly looked at the clock he could see over Arthur's left shoulder. It was almost one-fifteen, and he hated to keep Sasha waiting. “I'll call you in the next day or two.” He stood up and Arthur followed suit unsteadily.

“I'm deeply grateful to you, Chapman.”

“That's all right, Mr. Patterson. I hope you won't be disappointed.” Arthur nodded thoughtfully, barely able to consider that. Chapman had to find them. “I should warn you as well, this could be an expensive project.” Arthur looked up at him then with a wintry smile. “I've got nothing else to spend it on now, do I?”

Chapman smiled at him. It was a difficult question to answer, and he walked him quietly to the outer office, shook his hand, thanked him for coming, and then hurried back to his office to lock the slim file in the safe, and head out the door at a dead run. Sasha was going to kill him.

Chapter 15

John Chapman flew out of his office building on Fifty-seventh Street, and raced the two long blocks west, glancing at his watch, and catching his reflection in shop windows. Tiffany … I. Miller … Henri Bendel … it seemed to take hours to get there and he knew how she hated him to be late, but he couldn't hurry Arthur Patterson out of his office after all. The man was ancient and he was dying, and Chapman was intrigued by the case. But he also knew Sasha wouldn't understand that.

She was twenty-eight years old, sinew from head to foot, and every ounce of her was disciplined to perfection. She wore her blond hair pulled back so tight that it looked as though it were painted on her head, her green eyes had a Slavic til, and she wore her lips in a constant pout, which had seduced him from the first time he'd seen her. They had met at a friend's house, a ballet buff, who raved about how talented she was, and how extraordinary she'd been as a little girl. And now she was even more so as a big one. The daughter of Russian émigrés, she had studied for years at the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and then gone on to Juilliard as a young girl, where she'd been a star already in her early teens. At twenty she had been invited to join the American Ballet Theatre. And at twenty-eight, she was not a prima, but she was a fine dancer with a solid career to be proud of. She indulged in the jealousies of her troupe, and it irked her not to be one of the prima ballerinas, but in truth she was too small to be more than one of the corps of dancers. She had the consolation of being very good, and she told John that every chance she got, when she wasn't complaining about her feet or the fact that he was late coming to meet her. But even though she wasn't easy to get along with, for months, John Chapman had found her enchanting … her discipline, her intense routine, her talent coupled with her tiny face, her feet that seemed to move on butterfly wings when she danced, the huge green eyes … there was something very special about her.

“You're half an hour late.” She glared at him halfway through a cup of borscht, when he breathlessly reached her table at the Russian Tea Room. The atmosphere was precisely as it had been for the past fifty years, and they both loved blini and caviar. Besides, it was close to where she rehearsed, and they met there half a dozen times a week, for lunch or after rehearsals, or even after performances, late at night, for a quick bite before they went home to his apartment. She lived with four other dancers, and it was impossible to talk, let alone make love in the West Side walk-up that was always filthy and drafty. But her green eyes were looking up at him in reproach as he apologized and sat down. “I was thinking of leaving.” She looked like an angry child and he realized, as he always did, how much he loved her.

“I'm glad you didn't.” He gently touched her hand, and smiled at the familiar waiter. He was an old Russian who chatted with Sasha in her maternal tongue. She had been born in Paris, but still spoke Russian with her parents.

“I was hungry.” Her eyes bore into his mercilessly. “That's the only reason why I waited.”

“I'm sorry. I had an important case. The head of a major law firm needed some help, I couldn't shove him out the door.” He smiled placatingly at her, wondering how long it would take him to get back in her good graces. Usually, not long, her anger was hard and quick to burst into flame, but generally it abated fairly quickly. “I'm sorry, darling.” He touched her hand again, and she looked only slightly mollified by his contrition.

“I had a very difficult morning.” She looked petulant, and more beautiful than ever.

“Something wrong?” He knew how she worried about her feet and her legs and her arms … it was not easy being a dancer. A pulled muscle, a torn ligament, and her life could be changed forever.

“They were trying to introduce a new choreographer, and he's impossible. He makes Balanchine look lazy by comparison. This man is mad. You cannot dance the way he asks you.”

“You can.” Chapman smiled proudly at her. He thought her a remarkable dancer. And this time, she smiled at him. He was almost forgiven.

“I'm trying. But I think he's trying to kill us.” She sighed and finished her borscht. She didn't want to eat too much before rehearsal that afternoon, but she was still hungry. He had just ordered blini, and she was tempted but that was too heavy for her when she was dancing. “Maybe I'll have a salad.” She told the waiter in Russian and he nodded and disappeared as she told John about her woes of the morning. She asked him nothing about his case. She never did. All she ever thought of was dancing.

“Are you rehearsing tonight?” he asked with eyes full of understanding. He was a kind man, and he didn't mind their life revolving around her work. He was used to that. His ex-wife had been a writer, and he had sat patiently for seven years while she churned out mysteries that had eventually become major best sellers. He had respected her as a woman and a friend, but it hadn't been much of a marriage. Everything had come second to her work, even her husband. She had been a difficult woman. The whole world had to come to a shrieking halt when she started a book, and she expected John to protect her from any possible interruption. And he had done a fair job of it, until the loneliness of his life with her overwhelmed him. Her only friends were her characters, every plot she wrote became real to her, and she wouldn't even speak to him while she was working. She worked from eight in the morning until midnight, every day, and then went to bed, mute with exhaustion. In the morning, she'd start again, but she didn't talk to him over coffee because she was already thinking about the book. It had been lonely being married to Eloise. She wrote under the name of Eloise Wharton. And when she wasn't working on a book, she was either in a major depression because she wasn't working, or she was on tour in thirty cities in forty-five days, pushing her latest epic. He figured out before he asked her for a divorce that they spoke to each other on the average something like thirty hours a year, which was something less than what he needed for a happy marriage. They loved each other, but she loved her work more. And he wasn't even sure how much she understood when he left her. She had been deep in a book, and there had been only the vaguest of answers as he said goodbye and closed the front door behind him. It was a relief, oddly enough, he discovered that it was less lonely being alone than being with her. He could play the stereo, sing when he liked, have friends over who made as much noise as they wanted. He went out with other women. Life was fine. And the only thing he regretted was that they had never had any children. He and Eloise had been divorced for five years, and he was only now starting to think about getting remarried. In fact, he had been thinking about it a great deal lately.

Sasha had nodded in answer to his question about rehearsal. “We are rehearsing until eleven.” She still spoke English like someone who had learned it as a foreigner, and yet she had no clearly discernible accent.

“Can I pick you up?” His eyes filled with hope, and he told himself that he was not repeating the same pattern. He was not leading his life entirely around Sasha's dancing. Besides, she was so much more alive than Eloise had been. She was so vital, and exciting. Eloise lived in a dark room, with a single light burning over her head, haunted by imaginary people. And she hadn't changed in the last five years. She had only become more successful. She was one of the most successful mystery writers in the country. The new Agatha Christie, The New York Times had hailed her, and Publishers Weekly agreed. She was forty-one years old, and she lived in a world of fantasy. Not like Sasha … not at all …

“Thank you. I'll be at the stage door at eleven-ten.” And he knew she meant it. She had the precision of a surgeon. “Don't be late.” She frowned and wagged a graceful finger.

He smiled at her, and touched her knee under the table. “I won't. I'm not working tonight.” All he wanted to do was read the file Arthur Patterson had left him, and that couldn't take him more than an hour, possibly even less. In fact, that was what he was afraid of, that there wasn't anything in it of any real substance. “I'll just look over the files on this new case.”

“Don't get too interested.” She frowned at him. He had done that before, and been an hour late after a performance. She wouldn't tolerate that from him, or anyone in fact. She didn't have to. As she pointed out to him regularly, she was a real artist.

“Do you want me to take you back?” He looked hopeful, like a schoolboy anxious to please her. It was something about him that had pleased every woman he'd been involved with, even Sasha, although she didn't admit it to him. She never told him how much she loved him, or how much she liked his company. It was beneath her to say those things, and he didn't need to know them.

“I'm meeting some of the others in five minutes, John. On the corner. I'll see you tonight?” She stood up, tiny and exquisitely erect, her back like a beautifully sculpted slab of marble, and one eyebrow raised over the olive-green eyes. “On time, yes?”

“You're a tyrant.” He stood to kiss her and watched her go, as he sipped his tea, and then paid the check. Something about her always left him feeling unnerved and excited. As though he wanted more, as though he couldn't get enough, as though she would never let him possess her. It was as though she danced away from his grasp each time he reached out for her, but in some ways he liked it. He liked chasing her. He liked everything about her. She was so much more alive than Eloise, and the endless numbers of women attorneys and ad execs he had taken out in the five years since he'd divorced her. Sasha was entirely different.

He walked back to the office, more slowly this time, thinking of Sasha at first, and then of arthur Patterson and the three women he wanted him to find. It was an odd story and he couldn't help wondering if there was more to it than Arthur was telling. There was a piece missing to the puzzle somehow, maybe even several of them. Why did he want to bring them back? What did it matter if they met now? They were grown women, having led separate lives, what could they possibly have in common? And why did Arthur Patterson feel so guilty? What had he done? Or what hadn't he done? And who were these women's parents? John's mind whirled over the questions as he walked along. He was good at what he did because he had an uncanny knack for seeing the pieces that were missing and then finding them, like the proverbial needle in the haystack. He had found more than a few, and had been crucial in several major cases. His most astounding work had been in the field of criminal law, and he was respected by attorneys and courts all over the country. Arthur Patterson had come to the right place. But John Chapman wondered if he could find the missing women.

He took the file home with him that night and pored over the little that was there. It was pathetic how little there was, though. Arthur had been right. There wasn't much there to help him. Only what he had said in the office. There were all the clippings of the trial, which John read first, intrigued by the unspoken elements of the story. Why had Sam Walker really killed his wife? Was it premeditated, as some thought, or a crime of passion? What had the woman done to him, and who was she? In a way, he didn't need to know those things, and yet the questions intrigued him. He read reviews of several of Walker's plays, and remembered seeing him once as a little boy. All he remembered was that it was an impressive performance and he was very handsome. But more than that he didn't remember.

There was a brief note in Arthur's trembling hand, explaining that he and Sam Walker had been buddies in the army. There was a list of the places they had been, and a description of their first meeting with Solange, which was surprisingly lyrical for a man his age, and one who had written nothing but legal documents and briefs all his life. And John wondered if therein lay some of the answers. Perhaps Arthur had been in love with her. Or perhaps it didn't matter. The facts were still the same. Sam had killed Solange for whatever reason, leaving their three children orphans.

The eldest had gone to relatives at a Charlestown, Mass., address, an Eileen and Jack Jones, and Arthur knew she had gone to Jacksonville from there, because she had told him so when she'd come to his office in 1966, seeking her sisters' addresses. Arthur had mentioned in a footnote that she had been less than cordial. He said too that she mentioned having been in juvenile hall in Jacksonville, and John wondered if she had gone afoul of the law as a young girl. If so, she may have done so again, and he might be able to find a rap sheet on her. That would make her easier to find anyway, especially if she was sitting in prison somewhere. But at least he could tell Patterson he'd found her.

The second one had gone to one of arthur's partners, who had then died, and the widow was God knows where, remarried to God knew who. That one was a healthy project. He'd have to start with the Gorham files at the firm, and pray they'd had to contact her for something in recent years, maybe a trust or some other lingering detail of the estate Arthur knew nothing of since he was not one of Gorham's trustees … and then there was the baby.

The youngest child had also virtually disappeared, but not without warning. Arthur had told him that David Abrams felt strongly about Patterson's not maintaining contact with the child, that they wanted her to have a new life, totally divorced from her past, and wanted to ensure that she did so. John even found himself wondering if that had been part of their reason for moving to California, to start a new life, where no one even knew that the child was adopted.

And after that, there was nothing. There was one clipping at the back of the file, the one Arthur had mentioned, but despite the similarity of name, like Arthur, John thought it was a long shot. It was the article from The New York Times, about a Hilary Walker's promotion at CBA Network, and it was highly unlikely that she was the same girl. Even Arthur didn't recognize her, and it was too sweet and easy to find her within easy reach, and successful. John had been in the business of finding people for long enough that he knew a false hope when he saw one. He'd look into it of course, but he was sure she would turn out to be a different Hilary Walker.

And that was it. There was nothing else. He sat back in his chair, and thought about all three. How to find them, where to start. The wheels were already turning. And then with a sudden start, he glanced at his watch.

“Son of a bitch …” he muttered to himself. It was just after ten-thirty. He grabbed his jacket off the back of a chair, and hurried down the three flights of his brownstone. He had the top floor of a lovely house on East Sixty-ninth Street. And he was lucky enough to find a cab almost at once, but with posttheater traffic, he barely made it to the stage door in time to meet Sasha.

She came out at precisely eleven-ten, as he knew she would, looking tired, wearing jeans and sneakers and carrying her dance bag.

“How was it?” There was always the tension of someone having performed major surgery, not unlike Eloise's struggles with difficult denouements in the plot. But somehow this seemed more exciting.

“It was awful.”

He knew better than to believe her, and put a protective arm around her as he took her dance bag. “You expect too much of yourself, little one.” She was so tiny, it always made him feel protective of her, and in any case, he was that kind of person.

“No, it was terrible. My feet were killing me. It's going to rain tonight. I can always tell.” John had learned that dancers' feet were a constant source of agony, and a constant topic of conversation.

“I'll massage them when we get home.” He promised as they climbed into a cab and headed back to East Sixty-ninth Street.

The apartment was peaceful and quiet when they arrived. There were only two other tenants in the building, one a doctor who never seemed to be there. He was younger than John, and when he wasn't on call, delivering babies at New York Hospital, he seemed to be staying with assorted women. And the other was a woman who worked for IBM and traveled eight to ten months of the year. So most of the time he was alone in the building. He had a view of the little garden outside, and the larger gardens of the town houses on Sixty-eighth Street. “Do you want a drink?” he inquired, poking his head out of his well-ordered kitchen.

“Just some tea, thanks.” She sat down on the couch with a sigh and stretched her arms and her back and her legs. She never cooked anything in his small kitchen. It never dawned on her to do things like that for him or herself. John always did them for her.

He emerged a few minutes later, bringing her tea in a glass, the way she liked it. It was a Russian tradition he had come to like, and he had bought special glass mugs just for that purpose. He had been equally expert at preparing Eloise's snacks while she was working. But in return, she had cooked him some wonderful dinners between books. She loved to bake, and had a real flair for French cuisine. Unlike Sasha, who thought being expected to make toast was an affront to her as an artist.

“Are you coming to the performance tomorrow?” she asked as she slowly pulled the pins from her hair, and it began to cascade in long blond sheets past her shoulders.

John looked at her with regret. He hated to remind her. He knew that whenever he did it would create a scene between them. It annoyed her when he went anywhere. She expected him to be always near. And the next afternoon he was flying to Boston.

“I'm going up to the Cape for the weekend, Sash. I said something about it a few weeks ago, but you may have forgotten. It's my mother's birthday. I tried to get out of it, but I really couldn't. It's her seventieth, and it's important.” Both of his brothers were going to be there, and their wives, and their children. It always made him feel inadequate somehow, going there without an entourage to show for his years of marriage and assorted romances. Everything they had was tangible and obvious, wives who had nice sapphires or diamonds as engagement rings and anniversary presents, kids who had skinned knees and missing teeth, and in the case of his oldest nephew, even a high school diploma. It was going to be a long weekend. But he knew it would be fun too. He was fond of his two brothers, one older, one younger. His sisters-in-law were a bit difficult, but the kids were great. And there was no way he could bring Sasha. Even at his age, his parents would have frowned on his bringing a woman with him for a family occasion. “I'll be home Sunday.”

“Don't bother.” She straightened her back and dropped both feet to the floor gracefully. “I have rehearsal Sunday afternoon. And I'm not interested in crumbs left over from your parents' table.” She looked so outraged that he could only laugh at her choice of words. Sometimes her English was outlandish.

“Is that what I am, Sash? A crumb?” It was more than obvious that she thought so.

“I don't understand what is so sacred about your family. You've met my parents, my aunt, my grandmother. Are your parents so much better than mine? They would disapprove because I'm a dancer?” She sounded terribly Russian and looked extremely dramatic as she paced around the room, her hair flying and her hands shoved into the back pockets of her blue jeans, her tiny little body tense with emotion.

“They're very private, that's all.” And very Bostonian. A writer had been difficult enough. A ballerina would drive his mother totally crazy. She had a healthy respect for the arts, but preferably on a stage, not in her son's bedroom. “They don't understand relationships like ours.”

“Neither do I. Are we together or are we not?” She stood in front of him looking like an enchanting elf, but an elf who was extremely angry. She felt shut out by the family he never introduced her to, and without his ever saying so, she was aware of their disapproval.

“Of course we're together. But as far as they're concerned, you don't acknowledge those things until you're married, or at least engaged.” And she was the one who resisted that. She saw no need for a permanent statement.

“They think we're immoral?”

“Maybe. They prefer not to think about it. They don't want to have to confront this kind of thing, so they don't. And as their son, I have to respect that. They're pretty old, Sash. My mother is going to be seventy on Saturday, my father is seventy-nine. It's a little late to force them into acknowledging modern arrangements.”

“That's ridiculous.” She stormed across the room again, and then stood glaring at him from the kitchen doorway. “And if you were any kind of a man at all, you would take me anyway, and force them to acknowledge my existence.”

“I'd rather invite them to see you dance the next time they're here. That would be a better introduction. Don't you think so?”

Sasha thought it over as she crossed the room again, only slightly mollified, and then she sat down on the couch and began to put on her sneakers. He knew it was a bad omen. She was always storming out at two in the morning and going back to her apartment.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm going home. Where I belong.” She looked at him malevolently and he sighed. He hated scenes, and she doted on them. They seemed to be part of her art form.

“Don't be silly.” He stretched out a hand and touched her shoulder. It felt like rock beneath his fingers, “We each have things in our lives we have to do on our own. You have your work and your ballet friends and your rehearsals. I have my own work, and a few other obligations.”

“I don't want to hear it. The truth is, Mr. Chapman” —she stood up and glared at him, swinging her dance bag over her shoulder—“that you're a snob, and you're afraid your parents won't think I'm good enough. And do you know what? I don't care. You can have your Mayflower and your Plymouth Rock and your Boston. I don't need to be in the social register, I will be in Who's Who one day. And if that's not good enough”—she made a gesture that said it all, and stalked to the door. And for once he didn't stop her. He knew that by Sunday she'd cool off, and he couldn't appease her by not going.

“I'm sorry you feel that way, Sash.” She slammed the door in answer, and he sat down with a sigh. Sometimes she was so unbelievably childish. And so self-centered. He didn't let himself think about it often, but she hadn't once asked him about his new case. The only time she noticed his life was when, for whatever reason, it enraged her.

He turned off the lights in the living room, and went to bed without putting their glasses in the sink. The cleaning lady could do it in the morning. And as he lay in bed, he thought about her accusations … that he was a snob … and that his parents wouldn't approve of her. In some ways, she was right. His parents would not have been enchanted by Sasha Riva. They would have thought her too limited, and extremely difficult, inadequately educated and ill-informed, and yes, it would matter to them that she wasn't “social.” It wasn't something that mattered to him a great deal, but he knew that to them, it was important. Eloise had been something else. She and his mother had never really gotten along, and she thought his sisters-in-law unspeakably boring. But she was from an excellent family, and had graduated from Yale summa cum laude. You couldn't fault Eloise's breeding, or her education. And she was intelligent and amazingly witty, none of which had made her a good wife. Far from it. Not that Sasha showed much greater promise. He thought about calling Sasha after she got home, but he was too tired to hunt her down, wake her roommates up, and beg her forgiveness because he was going to Cape Cod to see his mother. Instead he burrowed into the pillow and fell asleep, and didn't wake up until the alarm rang the next morning.