Garden of Lies (81 page)

And now another truth struck her:
I’ve kept the secret so long it’s a part of me, like my own

living flesh. Cutting it out would be like killing some part of me.

“I wish I could help you, my dear,” she lied once again, hating herself more than she ever

thought she could, “but I’m afraid I don’t know this woman. You say I remind you of her? Well, I

know what that’s like. I met a woman once, and it nearly drove me crazy, she [503] looked so

familiar, and I couldn’t think why. I never did figure it out. Oh dear, your tea has gotten cold. Let

me pour you a fresh cup.”

Rose replaced her cup in its saucer with a decisive click. “No ... thank you.” She seemed very

agitated. “I ... I have to go. I apologize for taking your time. For barging in on you like this. But,

you see, I thought ... I was so sure ...”

“Please, don’t apologize. I’m delighted you came. I wanted to thank you anyway. For helping

Rachel. You were marvelous.”

On her way down the staircase, Sylvie prayed that Rose wouldn’t notice how badly she was

shaking, how false and tinny her words surely had sounded.

And then she saw, as they reached the bottom, the look in Rose’s black eyes.
You lied,
those

eyes said.
I don’t know why. But I know that much.

Sylvie thought of the ruby earring that matched Rose’s. And she remembered how, years ago,

she had pulled out a loose brick in the garden wall, and hidden the earring behind it.
Like a seed,

she thought now,
one not planted in the earth, one that will never grow.

Right then, she wanted to lie down on the cold tile floor and die.

Chapter 40

Rose, watching Sylvie go to the closet for her coat, felt an urge to grab her and shake her. Her

one chance to find out the truth, maybe her only chance, and it was slipping away. In a moment it

would be gone.

She knows something,
Rose thought,
but, dammit, she won’t tell me. She seems afraid. But

why? Who could she be afraid of?

And then, glancing about as she waited for her coat, Rose looked into an open doorway—the

room looked like a man’s study: worn leather chairs, an antique map, and huge 1920s posters of

great operas framed on the walls. Over the fireplace, with its massive brass lion’s-head andirons,

hung an oil painting of a young woman in a blue chiffon dress, hands resting in her lap. Pale as

she was, she seemed to glow with warmth and life, as if she might step right down into the room.

Rose, intrigued, drew closer, crossing the threshold. Stopping before the fireplace, she stared

up at the portrait, at the willowy green-eyed woman with hair like watered silk. Then she noticed

something else, a bit of red shining below her ear, a ruby set in gold, and shaped like a teardrop.

The artist had painted it with such skill it actually seemed to sparkle.

Rose felt dizzy, her heart leaping with quick, shallow beats, like a stone skipping over the

surface of a pond.
It’s her ... my guardian angel.

“This was my husband’s study,” Sylvie’s voice fluted behind her. She sounded anxious,

flustered. “All his books, his record collection ... he loved opera, you see. ...”

Rose forced herself to turn and face Sylvie, who stood near the doorway. Bunched in her arms

was Rose’s coat. There was something odd, Rose observed, about the way she was holding it,

clutching it to herself, almost as if it were a child.

[505] “It
was
you.” Rose barely managed to squeeze out the words; all the air seemed to have

been sucked out of her.

She had known it, of course ... but this ... actually
seeing
it ... that earring. A perfect match.

God, what was happening?

She felt the blood rise inside her head like a great wave, crashing, roaring in her ears.

She watched Sylvie. take a step backward, then wobble, her delicate ankle turning under her so

that she stumbled, and had to catch hold of a side table to steady herself. Rose’s coat fell from her

arms, splaying out on the Oriental carpet.

Then Sylvie was straightening herself, slowly, cautiously, like someone very aged, or very ill.

Perfectly still, erect, she looked like a marble statue, illuminated by the hazy gray light that

glowed between the heavy drapes.

Rose took a step forward, feeling chilled, as if she had been treading water in a lake and now

had swum into a cold spot. She felt her skin shrink with gooseflesh, and a vein in her neck begin

to pulse wildly.

Rose, not aware of what she was doing, suddenly realized that she had brought her hand up,

and was fingering her ruby earring.

She saw Sylvie flinch, as if she’d been struck.

“Who
are
you?” Rose whispered.

Sylvie stared at her for a long time. She stood as if frozen, her eyes unblinking, like a wild

animal caught in the headlights of an onrushing car.

Then she said: “I am your mother.”

Her voice seemed to carry an echo, as if she were speaking inside a tunnel.

What did she mean? Rose felt stupid. Sylvie seemed to be saying something to her, something

important, but it was as if she were speaking Chinese. Mother? How could this woman be her

mother? No. Impossible. She must have heard wrong.

“I don’t understand,” Rose said. It was hard to speak. Her lips felt frozen, her face too. “I

don’t ... my mother ... my mother is dead. …”

“Yes. Angie, she died. But not your real mother. Me,
I
carried you, here.” She pressed a pale

hand to her belly. “I gave birth to you. You, so dark ... all that black hair, eyes like jet buttons ...

[506] but I wanted you ... oh yes, I wanted you. But Gerald, he would have known then that I’d

loved another man ... and I knew he would hate me, divorce me.” Sylvie was trembling, her

words spinning out wildly, disconnected from the pale contorted oval of her face. “Then the

fire ... there was a fire that night ... and, God forgive me, I took Angie’s baby instead of my own.

Instead of you.” She covered her face with her hands, her thin shoulders hunched beneath her red

cardigan.

“Rachel,” Rose breathed.

Then in a flash, it came to her ... that nagging feeling she always had around Rachel. ... Rachel

always reminding her of someone, but who? Who? And now, oh sweet baby Jesus ...
right there

in front of my eyes all along, only I just couldn’t see it. ...

Marie. God, yes.

Rachel, golden-brown hair, hot blue eyes, petite, just like Marie. A younger, prettier Marie.

Rose felt a strange lightness, as if someone were lifting her up, and she was weightless,

floating in the air. This wasn’t real ... this couldn’t be happening. ...

This woman, Sylvie Rosenthal. My real mother.
No, that couldn’t be.

And yet ... at the same time she felt it must somehow be true. Somewhere, in some hidden part

of her, she must always have known it. The way in dreams you know things, things that otherwise

you have no way of knowing.

Then she felt as if she were coming apart inside, like fragments of colored glass in a

kaleidoscope, whirling and scattering. But her center remained still and cold. A rime of fury

settled like frost around her heart.

My mother is not dead. She didn’t die in that fire ... she just walked away ... left me to

strangers ... oh God ... she LEFT ME. ...

“I regretted it,” Sylvie said, dropping her hands and showing her drawn, tortured face. “As

soon as I did it, I was sorry ... I wanted to go back, tell them it was a mistake. But I couldn’t. I

didn’t see any other way.”

“And my father? Who is my father?”

“Nikos Alexandros. He was my lover. I didn’t tell him ... but he knows now. And he wants you

... more than anything. He would have wanted you then too. But ... I was so confused, you see,

and [507] so afraid. Wrong. I know that now. So wrong to give you up. There hasn’t been a single

day all these years that I haven’t hated myself for this.”

“But you could have come back for me ... when I was one, or five, or seven.” The coldness

gripping her heart was spreading, numbing her fingers, her toes. Outside, she could see, the snow

falling faster, harder, swirling against the windowpanes with a sizzling sound. “And when you

came to my school. Why? Why didn’t you tell me then?”

“I just wanted to see you. Just once ... see how you were. What you looked like.” Sylvie’s

voice cracked a little, and she brought a trembling hand to her ear, remembering. “And then I

couldn’t let you go without ... without something of me.”

“But what about
me
?” Rose cried, taking another step forward, her knees buckling a little.

“You had Rachel, you didn’t need anything from
me
.”

“No ... no, you don’t understand ...
I
wanted you.
But it was too late by then. Far too late.”

Reflections of the falling snow flitted across Sylvie’s thin white face. “How could I have told you

then? You would have run away. You wouldn’t have believed me. You wouldn’t have wanted

me.”

“But you’re wrong. I did want you. I
needed
you
... or someone ... anyone to love me.” Rose

stared at Sylvie, watching her grow even paler. She remembered that day, the cold wind whipping

at her thin coat, the shock of her unexpected gift—a ruby earring, like a drop of sacred blood in

her palm, like the scourge of Jesus. Oh yes, how she remembered. “What if you had claimed me

then? Was it Rachel that stopped you? What would have happened to her?”

Sylvie jerked upright, as if there were invisible wires attached to her, pulling her spine erect,

lifting her head high. Her face worked with the tears she was holding back.

“I won’t lie to you,” Sylvie said. “I’ve lied enough. I love Rachel as if she were my own. I

could no more have given her up than if ...”

Rose felt something within her snap. She sprang forward—in her new weightlessness she

seemed to clear the room in a single giant step—gripping Sylvie’s shoulders, her thumbs digging

into the [508] soft flesh below the delicate bow of Sylvie’s collarbone. She could smell Sylvie’s

perfume, a light flowery scent, sweet, filling her with equal measures of desperate longing and

rage.

“
If what?
Than if she were your own child? Is that what you were going to say?
Is it?”

Sylvie made no attempt to pull away. She stood there, arms limp, her huge green eyes burning.

Slowly, Sylvie shook her head, and the movement dislodged a tear. It rolled down her cheek,

dropping off her chin, splashing hot onto Rose’s wrist.

Then it was Sylvie holding her, cradling her face between her hands ... her fingers cold,

shocking Rose with their coldness. For an eternal moment they stood that way, joined, silent. The

only sound was the thundering of Rose’s heart.

“All these years ...” Sylvie’s tremulous voice shattered the stillness. “To touch you ... oh, just

to touch you ... like this ... my child ... my daughter ...”

Rose wrenched away, a wave of fury rolling up from her gut, dull red blossoming inside her

skull.

“No!” she screamed. “
No!
You didn’t want me then ... you never wanted me ... you
left
me

there like ... like I was a dog or a kitten. All my life, I’ve felt like I wasn’t a part of my family. Or

anybody’s. My own grandmother, she hated me. She saw how different I was ... she thought it

was
my
mother, Angie, who’d been sleeping around. She blamed me for her son’s death. And you

thought a lousy bank account could make up for that? Oh yes, I know about that, too. It had to be

you. But even then you didn’t have the guts to show your name.”

“I couldn’t. But I wanted you to have something. ...”

“You gave me nothing! No, less than nothing. That day at my school, you were like some

beautiful dream, you gave me hope. But it was a false hope. Useless. Like this earring. Did you

ever stop to think how useless a single earring is? Worse than that ... it’s a reminder of what isn’t

there.”

Sylvie pressed a hand to her heart, grimacing as if she were in terrible pain. Her face was wet.

“I am sorry ... so sorry,” she choked. “I didn’t mean ... I never wanted to hurt you. ...”

“How could you hurt me? I didn’t know you.” Rose felt a salty [509] taste on the back of her

tongue; any minute now, she might start to cry.

Rose stooped to snatch her coat from the floor. Blood rushed to her face. Pinpricks of light

danced before her eyes, blinding her for a moment. Then her vision cleared, and she started

toward the door.

“Good-bye ...
Mother
.”

“Wait! You can’t go. Not now ... not until ... wait, oh please!”

Sylvie’s voice, calling her back, was like an echo inside Rose’s head. An echo of another time.

She could feel, as she had on that long-ago day, her arms and legs growing heavier, slowing her

until she couldn’t move. And like that winter day in the schoolyard, she found herself turning,

hopelessly snared by the urgency of that voice.

Stupid. Get out of here!
But she stood there, hating her own weakness. Even now she was

longing for what she could never have. A mother’s love. It was too late for that. If only Sylvie

had told her sooner ... if only she had loved her more than Rachel.