Garden of Lies (80 page)

myself you didn’t really need the money as much as I did, that it was unfair in the first place for

you to have gotten it all. But I guess that doesn’t change what I did. And for whatever it’s worth,

I hate myself. You couldn’t hate me any more than I already hate myself.”

Rose felt stunned, too shocked to think or speak.

Anger rose in her, thick and choking.
Damn it. How could Marie
[496]
have
lied
to me? All

these years. If she needed the money, all she had to do was ask. I would have given it to her, all

of it.

Then Rose saw the way her sister was stiffening, squaring her shoulders, lifting her chin. Tears

glittered in her eyes, but now they were hard, defiant tears.

Her anger faded as suddenly as it had come. She understood. Marie’s pride was all she had left.

For her to have to ask for money would have been worse than lying. Worse than stealing, than

anything.

Rose, overtaken by emotion—pity, relief, love—went over and put her arms around Marie.

“I don’t care about the money, Marie. Keep it all. But don’t you see what this means? He
did

care. Whoever my real father was.
Somebody
cared.”

Yes, somebody,
she thought,
but who? Who is he? And how is he connected to Sylvie

Rosenthal?

Chapter 38

Sylvie, sighing, closed the ledger. It had been Gerald’s once, but now the spidery script that

filled its lined pages was hers. She smoothed her palm over its worn calfskin cover. It had once

been bright maroon and was now the color of port. In faded gold letters tooled across the top, it

read: ACCOUNTS.

Monies received, monies paid. Each monthly column of figures nicely balancing out. All in

order. All debts paid.

All except one,
she thought.

The largest, most important one.

You’re a fool,
she told herself.
You should never have gone to that courtroom. Didn’t Rachel

tell you not to go? Why couldn’t you listen to her?

Remembering Rose, her Rose—and how magnificent she had been, saving Rachel—Sylvie felt

the old regret welling in her, but accompanied now by a new, sharper pain.

I’ve seen what you have made of your life, my daughter. And I am proud. You are beautiful and

brilliant, just as Nikos said you were. And I was wrong to deny you. Even having Rachel, having

her love, can never make up for that.

Last night, when Nikos told her he had decided he would not reveal her secret to Rose, she’d

been so relieved. She had felt like someone from the Bible, delivered from a deadly plague by the

hand of God.

And then, when he said he still wanted to marry her, more than ever now, she’d been moved to

tears.

Now, alone with her thoughts, Sylvie wondered if she should say yes.

I
do love him,
she thought,
but do I really want to marry him?

Sylvie gazed for a long moment at the portrait of herself over the fireplace, her likeness, yes,

but someone altogether different, really. She was no longer that timid woman who had once come

[498] secretly to Nikos in his basement room, but someone who could be herself, openly, without

embarrassment or regrets.

It was only her heart that hadn’t changed. Her heart, which had never stopped grieving for

Rose. ...

Sylvie suddenly felt very tired. She brought her forehead to rest against the ledger, its leather

so smooth and burnished from handling it seemed almost to have the patina of living flesh.

Alone, she could almost enjoy her weariness, let it settle in with her like an old friend. She

could put her head down in the middle of the day, and there was no one to cluck over her, ask if

she was ill.

How strange life is,
Sylvie thought.
After Gerald died, how I hated being alone, sitting down to

a breakfast table set for one, the whole day stretching out ahead of me like the loneliest road in

the world.

But now she found she liked it, her solitary breakfast, sometimes on a tray in bed, making her

feel pampered, luxurious, with the
Daily News
or “Good Morning, America” for a bit of the

world. Writing all the checks, her
own
money, no one raising an eyebrow if she splurged on

another pair of irresistible shoes, or a new dress from the designer floor at Saks.

But most of all, she loved depending on no one but herself. What a luxury that was! And how

good to feel strong enough now to do so much!

Sylvie recalled a day at Nikos’s house, less than a month ago. She was there alone, poring

through fabric swatches, when upstairs a pipe burst, water gushing as if from a spring right out

into the center parlor. She had panicked, too overwhelmed to think what to do. But then she had

rushed to the basement, found the main cutoff valve, called the plumber’s emergency number,

and even mopped up the water before it could seriously damage the ceiling below.

But if Nikos had been there, he’d have taken care of everything, and she would have felt weak

and quite useless. And she would have
wanted
him to do it all. That was what was so awful. She

was strong. But was she strong enough to resist letting a man take charge? And not just a broken

pipe either, but of everything, of her whole life?

Yet Nikos, God bless him, he needed her.

I
have Rachel, at least,
Sylvie thought,
but Nikos has no one. No, it’s even worse than that, a

daughter he yearns to love but cannot.

[499]
Oh God, forgive me, all those years I was so afraid of Gerald’s finding out. But it was

Nikos I was really hurting.

Could she ever be forgiven? By Rachel, by Nikos, by Rose? God, how she longed for it!

Sylvie lifted her head. Somewhere in the silence of the house a clock was chiming. Why was it

so quiet? Bridget’s day off. Only Manuel, out in the yard raking up the dead leaves in the rose

garden.

The weatherman had promised snow. And it did look that way. Outside the window, the sky

looked still and somehow swollen; soon her rosebushes might be blanketed under a white quilt of

snow, vanished like a dream.

But not gone, not really. Under the snow and beneath the frozen soil, some lovely green would

be secretly hibernating. And in the spring, there’d be a miracle, and everything would bloom

again.

And so it goes,
she thought.
Something dies, but it’s never really all gone. In our hearts,

there’s always a little piece left. And it can bloom again.

The front-door buzzer pierced the silence, startling her. And for no reason at all, her heart

began beating quickly.

She felt frightened of answering the door.

But even while inwardly she hesitated, her footsteps carried her across Gerald’s office, out into

the hallway, her heels clacking on the marble-tiled foyer. And without even pressing the intercom

to see who was there, she pulled open the heavy walnut door.

Sylvie had not asked, because in her heart she must have known somehow who it was. Even

before she’d swung the door fully back, and glimpsed the tall, olive-skinned girl in the Burberry

raincoat poised on the front steps, the first snowflakes swirling down, catching in her dark hair

like petals, Sylvie knew.

Standing in the doorway, rooted to the spot, she felt her heart leap, smashing against her chest.

“Rose,” she breathed.

Chapter 39

Rose stepped inside, bringing a gust of cold air with her. Sylvie felt the young woman’s huge

dark eyes fixing on her with the same bewildered curiosity as the last time they had actually stood

face to face, that wintry day in a Brooklyn schoolyard.

Sylvie, almost overcome with an irrepressible longing, had to fight to keep from clasping her

daughter to her bosom.

Instead, Sylvie just stared at Rose, watching the snowflakes turn to water, dripping off
her

raincoat onto the black and white marble tiles. A shiver ran lightly up her spine.

“How did you know my name?” Rose asked.

Sylvie took a step backward, and her hand found her throat, found the little buttons marching

up the neck of her red cashmere cardigan. She caught hold of the top one, twisting, feeling it

begin to tear free of its threads.

“I ... ,” she began, but her voice caught in her throat. She wanted to cry out the truth.

But it was as if her voice, her throat, her lungs all had frozen, and the cold was spreading now

in waves, numbing her, turning her to ice.

I am your mother. I gave birth to you, then gave you away. But how, how can I ever tell you

such a thing?

“We haven’t, I suppose, actually been introduced, but Rachel has told me all about you,” said

Sylvie, feeling spineless, and hating herself for it. “Please, won’t you come in? You must be half-

frozen. They say we may have six inches by the time it’s over. Amazing, isn’t it? In November?

Here, why don’t you give me your coat? Then we can go up to the parlor and talk. You’ve come

about Rachel, haven’t you?”

Her chatter seemed to come out of nowhere, someone else’s voice sliding past her frozen lips.

[501] Rose seemed to falter, her expression hesitant and uncertain. She allowed Sylvie to take

her coat. Under it, Sylvie saw, she was wearing a simple navy wool skirt and a white sweater. She

looked so much like that solemn little girl, dressed in her school uniform, whose image Sylvie

had carried like an invisible locket in her heart for more than twenty years. She couldn’t go on

with this dreadful pretense, no, not a moment longer.

“Coffee? Or do you drink tea?” But, oh dear God, she
could.
She was doing it. “I myself prefer

tea. Camomile tea. It’s very soothing to the nerves, they say.” As she led the way upstairs, Sylvie

kept up the chatter. “Please, sit down. Anywhere.” She indicated the coziest chair, the plump

chintz loveseat beside the fireplace. “You didn’t say. Coffee or tea?”

“Tea, please, if it’s no bother.”

“No bother at all. It’s my housekeeper’s day off, though, so I’ll just pop into the kitchen

myself. I won’t be a minute.”

Sylvie felt a great relief at just getting out of the room, at not having to look into those eyes,

Nikos’s eyes. Accusing her. Blaming her.
Rose can’t know who I am, but she senses things. Deep

down she must remember. ...

In the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil, Sylvie clung to the edge of the counter, her arms

and shoulders aching. She felt dizzy, and the cold seeped through her body with a constant,

burning pain.

When the tea was ready and she’d stayed away as long as she decently could, she carried the

tray up, listening to the chinking of the Wedgwood cups trembling in their saucers, willing herself

to stay steady.

“Here we are,” she said brightly, settling the tray on the low rosewood table in front of the

settee. “Do you take lemon?”

Rose nodded. “Yes, please.”

“Now then,” Sylvie said, handing Rose the delicate flower-painted cup brimming with

steaming tea, “is there something I can help you with? Something concerning Rachel?”

“I ... not really ... it’s just ...” Rose shifted uncomfortably in her chair, her eyes darting about

the room as if she didn’t really know why she was there. Then her dark gaze fell on Sylvie again,

and Sylvie felt herself begin to shiver helplessly, terrified that Rose [502] was now peering right

through the window of her pretenses, seeing right into her dark secret.

“I didn’t come about Rachel, actually. I ... well, it all seems a little silly now that I’m actually

here ... but the thing is, yesterday, in court, I thought I recognized you. I was sure of it, in fact.”

Rose reached up under her cloud of dark hair and pulled something from her ear.

Sylvie flinched.
Dear God, oh dear God, the earring I gave her. She kept it. All these years.

She stared at the earring, cringing inside, as if it contained some deadly poison that might harm

her.

Now Rose was holding it out, a ruby in the shape of a teardrop that dangled from a diamond

stud. It twinkled bright and hot as blood in her outstretched palm.

“A lady gave it to me when I was a little girl, just nine years old,” Rose explained. “A lady

who looked like you. Almost exactly like you, as a matter of fact. Of course it was a long time

ago, but I remember her so well. ... You ... this woman ... took this earring from her own ear, and

just handed it to me, without saying a word. Well, you can’t imagine how shocked I was ... it was

as if ... as if a fairy godmother had appeared out of nowhere and waved a magic wand over me.

Only she ran off without ever telling me why, or who she was. I was hoping maybe you could

help me. I thought you might somehow know why. ...” She trailed off, staring at Sylvie as she

refastened the earring.

Now those black eyes were burning her, just as Nikos’s had, burning right through her. And

Sylvie could feel layers and layers of her pretense peeling back like so many coats of old paint.

She knows. She remembers me. Dear God, let the lies stop. Let me tell her the truth.

She couldn’t, though. The truth felt too huge, a great boulder that would choke her if she tried

to push it out.