You Were Meant For Me (26 page)

M
iranda carried Celeste—even though the papers had not been signed, she was calling her that now—by the handle of the car seat as she walked into the lobby of the small Upper West Side building. She clutched the handle tightly, as if someone might snatch it away; Miranda still could not believe that her daughter had come back to her. But Jared had honored his word, and her initial wariness changed into pure, undiluted happiness; she'd been flooded with it. Cascaded. Miracles did happen. She was living one.

But once the adoption was made official and the ink on the paperwork had dried, she realized there was something that had not been resolved, something that continued to eat at her. Geneva Highsmith Bales. Evan—who had not, to her great sorrow, returned her call—had given her the rudiments of the connection, but she still needed to fill in the blanks. Why had
Geneva chosen such a devious, convoluted path instead of coming out directly with whatever suspicion or knowledge she had? She had to find out.

“Miranda!” Geneva had been surprised but not unfriendly. “It's nice to hear from you.”

“Is it?”

“I heard the baby—Celeste—is back with you now.” Geneva ignored the question. “It sounds like it's working out well for everyone.”

“You could say that.” Miranda was not sure how to best frame her request. “But I still had some questions. I was wondering if we could meet.”

“Meet?” Geneva's smooth surface had been ruffled.

“Yes, meet. It would mean a lot to me.” She paused, wanting to play her trump card to maximum advantage. “And in the long run, to Celeste.”

*   *   *

The
doorman called up while Miranda waited. When the doorman gave her the nod, she pressed the button for the elevator and waited. Was there anything that Geneva could say that would exonerate her in Miranda's eyes? Doubtful. But here she was anyway.

Geneva stood in the open doorway; she must have been listening for the elevator. Dressed simply in an oversized white shirt, black leggings, and black ballet flats, she exuded the austerity of a nun. “I was afraid to see you at first. But now that you're here, I'm glad.” She addressed Miranda but was staring at Celeste.

“Why were you afraid?”

Geneva shifted her gaze to Miranda. “Jared told me that he knew about my relationship to Caroline—and that you know too.”

“I know,” Miranda said. “I know, but I don't understand.”

“Come in.” Geneva stepped aside so she could pass. “We can talk more comfortably inside.”

Miranda followed her into a living room whose walls were painted dove gray and whose floor was mostly hidden by a thick Persian rug that glowed with jewel-bright arabesques. Gingerly, she lowered herself onto the love seat, covered in pale yellow raw silk. She placed Celeste, still in the car seat, on the floor beside her. Poking at her back was a small army of obscenely stuffed pillows: tufted, tasseled, and embroidered, they seemed designed to prevent anyone from getting too comfortable.

“So here you are. Both of you.” Miranda said nothing, but Celeste struggled to get out of the car seat so Miranda removed her and gathered the baby onto her lap. “Can I get you something?” Geneva was still standing, eager, it seemed, to dart off to the kitchen. Miranda shook her head. “Not even a glass of water?”

“Nothing,” said Miranda. “I just want to talk. And then leave.”

Geneva sat down on the chair right across from Miranda. “It's Caroline,” she said. “You want to know about her. About us, really.” Miranda nodded. “All right, then,” Geneva said. “I'm going to tell you. But don't blame me if you don't like what you hear.”

“I just need to hear it.” Miranda looked down at Celeste. “Please.”

“She was always different,” Geneva said. “Even when we were little, I knew. Knew that something was, well, not wrong exactly. But not right.”

“She was younger than you?”

“Three years.”

“And what was ‘not right' about her?”

“So many things. She was so pretty. And smart too—they skipped her a grade in school. But she was what my mother used to call ‘high-strung.' That was a nice, Southern-lady way to put it. But it was more than that. She had these rages; she would throw things, scream, and threaten to hurt herself. Or one of us. My mother would take me into the bedroom and lock the door until she wore herself out. Our father had died when she was a baby, so she didn't have much help; she really didn't know how to cope.”

“How sad,” said Miranda. She shifted Celeste in her lap.

“Sad?” Geneva looked as if she were surprised to see Miranda sitting there. “It was
horrible
; that's what it was.
She
was horrible. And it only got worse.”

“But why didn't your mother get her into some kind of therapy? It seems so obvious she was disturbed.”

“My mother was ashamed at first. She didn't want anyone to know. Which was absurd because of course people knew. In first grade Caroline cut up the living room drapes in her best friend's house to make a princess costume. When she was eight, she hacked off all her hair. That same year, on a dare from some boy, she walked into her class at Sunday school naked. Naked! Imagine my mother showing up at the church supper after
that
.”

“But those were all signs of how troubled she was. Didn't she see that?”

“She thought it was her fault, something she'd done. Or not done. Or because our father had died. Did you know he drowned too? In a boating accident? Anyway, she did try to get help for her. From our pastor, and when that didn't work, she consulted with doctors all over the state. And then other
states too: she took her to Atlanta to see one specialist and to Charleston to see another.” Geneva picked up a large nautilus shell, one of a grouping that was arranged on the glass-topped coffee table, and began rubbing its smooth, pearlized surface.

“And there was nothing that helped?” Miranda was very aware that their roles had reversed; now she was the one asking the questions.

“Not consistently. By the time she was a teenager, she was on so much medication my mother had to type out a chart to keep track of it all. One day Caroline crumpled up the chart and refused to take it anymore. Said she couldn't bear the side effects: nausea, bloating, headaches, double vision—and those are what I can remember. ‘I'd like to see
you
swallowing those pills,' she said to me. And do you know what I said?” Geneva's eyes filled with tears. “‘If I lived with the kind of pain you live with, of course I'd take the pills! That's what they're
for
.'” She pressed her palms together hard, in furious prayer. “‘I don't know who I'd be without my pain,' is what she said back to me. ‘I wouldn't know myself anymore.'”

Miranda was silent. This was Celeste's mother Geneva was talking about, the troubled, tortured woman who had given birth to her alone and then left her in a subway station. What if this illness had been transmitted to Celeste? What if she grew up to suffer in the way that Caroline had? Miranda felt physically assaulted by the thought; her head throbbed like she'd been hit and her mouth was suddenly parched. “If you don't mind, I think I will have that glass of water.”

“Of course.” Geneva put the shell back in its place before getting up and heading for the kitchen. Miranda stood too, and with Celeste in her arms, began moving around the room. There on the wall next to the window was an oil painting she
had not paid attention to before. Two young girls in high-waisted dresses, one blond, the other brunette. The taller of the two had her arm around the shoulders of the smaller girl; the gesture did not seem affectionate or casual, but grim and even desperate.

“You have her picture hanging here,” Miranda said when Geneva had returned with the water. “Why?”

“She's still a part of me,” Geneva said. “She always will be.”

“I would have thought you wouldn't want to be reminded of her.”

“It doesn't matter whether the picture is here or not. She's with me all the time anyway.”

“Even though you shunned her?” She drank the water greedily.

“I know it seems awful,” Geneva said. “Heartless.” She walked over to the love seat and sat down. Miranda followed. “But I just got tired. Tired of trying to help, again and again, and to have my help spurned. She couldn't take the hand that was being offered to her. She didn't know how.”

“When did you cut her off?”

“It wasn't all at once. After I graduated from college, I came to New York, but we stayed in touch. By that time, she had dropped out of college and was living in different places, but always down South.”

“What about your husband? Did he come to New York too?”

Geneva seemed to flinch at the word
husband.
“What makes you think I was married?”

“The wedding photograph—the one in the country club newsletter.”

“It was a brief marriage.”

“You still use his name.” Miranda didn't know where she
was going with this, but it was one of the facts Evan had presented her with, and it seemed, if not exactly relevant, then not without meaning either.

“Preston and I were very young. Too young, really. I was still in college. But we had to get married.”

“Because you were pregnant?”

Geneva nodded. “And even though I could have had an abortion, my mother and Preston pressured me. It was—a mistake.”

“What about the baby?”

“She was stillborn.” Miranda bounced Celeste a little; she was getting fussy.

“I'm sorry.” Miranda looked at Geneva's pale, drawn face and felt the first stirrings of pity for this puzzling woman.

“Preston and I—well, things kind of fell apart after that. I knew he blamed me somehow, like I was being punished for even considering an abortion. For wanting one—because I really and truly did.”

“New York was a new start for you.”

“Exactly.” Geneva's color came back, and she looked more animated now. “A clean slate. But I kept my married name. I'm not even sure why; maybe I believed that if I did, Preston might come back to me.”

“What happened when Caroline got here? Did you let her live with you?” Miranda felt restored too; the water had helped. Celeste wouldn't become like her mother; Miranda would not let it happen. If she saw the signs—
any
signs—she wouldn't be ashamed, wouldn't hide behind the scrim of denial. She'd go to the ends of the earth to help her daughter. To save her, as poor Caroline had not been saved.

“She showed up in New York when our mother died. She knew where I lived and she sweet-talked the super into letting
her into my apartment. I nearly fainted when I came home and found her taking a nap on my bed. But I let her stay—at least for a little while.” Geneva was quiet, remembering. “It wasn't so bad at first. She could be fun; she could be charming. She had a wicked sense of humor. We used to laugh a lot. . . .”

“But then it changed.” Miranda pushed one of the offending pillows out of the way so she could lean back. It slid to the floor, but Geneva did not seem to notice.

“No.” Geneva shook her head. “It just went back to the way it was before. The way it had always been. If I asked her to do the dishes, she screamed at me and accused me of being a scold, just like our mother. She stayed out until all hours and then woke me up when she came in. She let the tub overflow, left the stove on, and nearly set the place on fire with her smoldering cigarettes. A couple of times she even did light fires—intentionally. ‘I just wanted to see something burn,' she said. She tossed garbage out the window, swore at the neighbors. Then there were the men. I once got up in the middle of the night and found her having sex with someone on the living room rug. And she could barely keep a job—”

“You supported her?”

“Yes. Almost the whole time she was here. She only worked sporadically.”

“Doing what?”

“Well, she didn't have a lot of options. She wasn't cut out for waitressing or being a salesgirl—her moods were too unpredictable. And forget about office work. But I knew someone who owned a small modeling agency—”

“Caroline was a model?”

“Not a fashion model; she modeled parts—eyes sometimes. She had gorgeous blue eyes. Lips too. And feet! She had
the
most elegant feet: small, with high, fine-boned arches and
very even toes. Not everyone has those, you know. They're very highly prized.”

At another moment, Miranda would have burst out laughing. But this was not that moment.

“Anyway. Finally, I told her she had to go. But even then I was still involved; she'd have a fight with her landlord and I'd have to intervene. Or she'd run out of money for the fourth time in six months. So I'd go in and patch up whatever it was. It was only later that I cut her off completely. I had to. She had keys to my apartment, and one weekend when I was away, she came in and practically cleared the place out. Clothes, dishes, even furniture—gone. I didn't even try to find out what she had done with everything. Or why. I moved and left no forwarding address. When she called my office, I instructed people not to put the calls through. She was crazy, pure and simple. Crazy and hell-bent on staying that way.”

“She was your sister. She had no one else,” said Miranda. Couldn't Geneva have had her committed? Put her somewhere that she would have been safe?

Geneva was silent for a moment. “I don't expect you, or anyone who hasn't lived with someone like her, to understand. She was my sister, but my sense of revulsion—and it really was that, revulsion—began to overshadow any love I might have had.”

“You were angry,” Miranda said, beginning to understand. “You still are.”