Letter from a Stranger (20 page)

Acutely aware of him, she pushed herself into the corner of the seat, hoping he would not hear her heart thudding in her chest. He flustered her; there was no other way of describing it.

Although Justine had no way of knowing it, Michael had a similar problem with her. He was thrown off balance when they were in close proximity. She affected him like no other woman ever had, and he was drawn to her on every level. He wondered what she thought about him. He had noticed that odd look in her eyes, the tantalizing smile when they were at the dinner table, but he hadn’t quite figured it out. Not yet.

It was Justine who finally broke the silence, when she asked in a low voice, “How did you know I was sitting out here?”

“I was in my bedroom, talking on the phone to my New York office. I walked over to the window and looked out. I saw you coming down the path from Gabri’s
yali.
”

Justine simply nodded, made no comment.

He went on, “Once I’d finished my call I decided to join you.”

“You said we had a lot to talk about before you sat down.”

“We do, but before we get to that, I want to apologize. I sounded kind of nasty when I made those gratuitous comments about
Proof of Life.
But honestly, I didn’t intend to sound mean, or sarcastic. The words just came out all wrong. I feel like a jerk. Will you accept my apology?”

“There’s nothing to apologize for, Michael.”

“I think there is, but thanks for being so nice. Can we be friends again?”

She nodded. “We weren’t
not
friends.”

“Great.” There was a moment’s pause before he went on in a more serious tone, “I don’t want to be intrusive, but I would like to ask you something.”

“Anything. And I’ll try to answer.”

“Has Gabri told you what this rather long and baffling estrangement with your mother is all about?”

“She did explain it, yes. Like you, I needed to know, and so did my brother. Gran was immediately willing to talk about it earlier this evening. I think she
wanted
to get it off her chest, unburden herself. Talking about it was a relief for her.”

“Must it remain confidential, or can you share it?”

“I can share it with
you.
I’m afraid it was about money. And my mother’s bad behavior about money. My grandmother really is … well, an innocent bystander.… That is the best way I can describe it. My mother has always been avaricious by nature, and I guess she still is. But the quarrel did happen ten years ago, and it’s become ridiculous.”

Justine noticed at once that Michael looked astonished, and he sat staring at her for a few seconds. At last he exclaimed, “She kept your grandmother cut off from her family because of a quarrel about
money
? How reprehensible.” He sighed, shaking his head. “But then they do say money is the root of all evil.”

“In my mother’s case I believe it is.”

“What does your brother say? How’s Richard taking it?”

“He feels the same way.” Justine looked at Michael carefully, asked, “Do you think that Gran kept the reason for the quarrel, and the estrangement, to herself? Wouldn’t she have confided in Anita?”

“I think she obviously would have done that, yes. But Anita has always told me she didn’t know what it was about. But, you know something, that doesn’t mean a damn thing. Those two are extremely close.” Michael paused, staring into the distance, a reflective expression settling on his face. Finally, he murmured, “Anita may very well have known for years, but kept it to herself. They’re very protective of each other.”

“Oh yes, I’ve gathered that,” Justine said.

“Can I keep going? With the questions?”

“Yes, that’s fine, Michael.”

“What did your mother tell you and Richard? How did she explain your grandmother’s absence from your lives all these years? Ten years is a long time.”

Justine stiffened, dropped her head, staring down at her hands, wondering how to answer him. She actually didn’t care what he thought of her mother. But she did suddenly wonder whether her grandmother would want
anyone
to know that her own daughter, her only child, had told her grandchildren that she was no longer of this world. It was somehow shaming, wasn’t it? Her mother had done a truly shameful thing—wiping her mother off the face of the earth was unconscionable.

“Hey, it’s okay, Justine,” Michael said, kindness echoing in his tone. “Don’t put yourself on a rack about this. It’s not worth it. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I’m curious because I’ve spent time with Gabri over the years, a lot of time, and I know how she has suffered. Listen, Justine, you’re here now, and that’s all that really matters. She has you back with her and that’s the most important thing of all.”

She stared at him, still unable to speak.

He saw the tears trickling down her cheeks, and reached out for her, drew her closer to him very gently. Leaning forward, he wiped the tears off her cheeks with his fingertips. “Don’t cry. I can’t bear to see you weep.”

Justine took a deep breath. As steadily as she could, she said, “My mother told us Gran had died in a plane crash.”

Flabbergasted, Michael gaped at her. His dark brows grew together in a frown, and he asked in a tight voice, “And when did she tell you this?”

“The day after our graduation. She obviously felt she had no alternative. She had to explain Gran’s absence somehow, because Gran wasn’t at the ceremony. Naturally we believed her. Who could ever imagine that our mother would tell such a rotten lie about our grandma?”

Michael nodded, but remained silent.

At last he responded, saying in a gentle voice, “I’m so sorry this devastating thing happened to you and Richard. And most of all to Gabriele. It wasn’t necessary, and ten years have been lost. Ten precious years, and at a time when Gabriele needed you both…” He didn’t finish his sentence. He was choked with emotion, could not speak. He loved Gabriele, and she had been part of his life for as long as he could remember.

There was a long silence.

Almost without thinking, Justine reached for his hand, held on to it tightly. He squeezed her hand in return, sitting side by side on the garden seat, thighs touching. Being together was comforting to them both.

Justine suddenly muttered, “What my mother did is unforgivable.…”

“It is, yes,” he answered in return. “And that’s the reason you never tried to find her until now, isn’t it? You genuinely believed your grandmother was dead.”

“That’s right. Listen, Michael, I have a question for you. Did something important happen recently? To Gran, I mean? Was Gran suddenly taken ill? Did she have a heart attack? I can’t help wondering, because I don’t understand why Anita suddenly wrote that letter to my mother after all these years.”

Michael gazed at Justine for the longest moment, then answered, “It’s all my fault. I was worried about Gabriele. Over the last year she has become withdrawn, quiet, not her usual self, and I realized she was thinking about her approaching eightieth birthday. So, I just took the bull by the horns, so to speak, and told Anita to write a letter to your mother, asking her to end the estrangement.”

He paused thoughtfully. “Of course, how was I to know that she would write it over and over again, become nervous about getting it in the mail, and so forget to put her address on the envelope in her haste.”

“You didn’t know, and I’m happy you told Anita to put pen to paper. The letter brought me here and I’m glad I’m here.”

“So am I.”

He said no more, afraid he might spoil the beginning of something special. Because he knew it was a beginning. How strange life was. Yesterday they had never met, although he already knew a great deal about her. Nine hours ago she had rushed past him on the jetty, almost knocking him over. He had realized who it was at once, and had raced after her. And in that short span of a few minutes his life had changed. Irrevocably. There was no question in his mind that she was his destiny. And that he was hers.

*   *   *

Gabriele awakened with a start, and sat up in bed, feeling disoriented. She had just dreamed that she was back at Indian Ridge, tending to her rose garden, and now she blinked and looked around.

No, she was not in Connecticut. She was here in her
yali,
the much-loved home she had shared with Trent for many years. She
was
in Istanbul after all.

But something was different.

She frowned, and then it instantly hit her.
Justine was here.
Her beloved granddaughter had found her. Something shifted inside her, perhaps it was her heart leaping, and leaping with joy. Justine was with her, and Richard would come soon, bringing with him her great-granddaughter Daisy. She could hardly wait.

Last night Justine had given her a photograph album, explaining that it had been assembled in a hurry over a few days, and that it was hers to keep.

It was full of pictures of Daisy, Richard, and Justine. There were also some of Joanne, always a favorite of hers, with her little boy, Simon. They’re all back in the fold, she thought, or perhaps I’m the one who’s back in their fold. Whichever it is, we’re going to be together soon, all of us under one roof.

Gabriele knew herself well, accepted that she had been sinking down into herself, becoming uncommunicative in certain ways, solitary, sorrowful, and even occasionally depressed. Although she usually tried to combat that by keeping herself busy. Now, suddenly, she felt buoyant, excited, glad to be alive.

Her family.
How important it was to have a family. They belonged to you, and you belonged to them, and when you were together everything was well with the world. You were all safe, protected, loved, and cherished. That’s the way it had been at Indian Ridge when Tony was alive. He had loved his children, and her and Trent. And his wife as well, but Deborah had made his life miserable, for the most part. Absent wife. Absent mother. Absent daughter.

Gabriele’s thoughts settled on her. She had known for years that there was something radically wrong with her daughter, but had never really been able to pinpoint it exactly.

Then ten years ago, when Deborah had thrown a hysterical fit after breaking into her writing case, she had finally understood.

Her only child was unbalanced, unhinged, and a sick woman, and had been for years. At the time she had wondered what it was that she had done wrong. Had she not brought her up in the right way? Was it her fault?

For a while she had experienced enormous guilt. But in the end she had let it go … because she had started to remember once more those years with Peter, the way her happy marriage had turned bad when their little daughter was five years old. It seemed he was more interested in his daughter than her. Then his overbearing mother had weighed in with her unwanted advice. Davina Hardwicke had actually called her an unfit mother, and had railed at her. And she had never understood why. Or what she had done that was wrong.

Nothing. I did nothing wrong. They wanted Deborah for themselves, and they took her away from me in a sense, even though we all lived in the same house. But we weren’t a family, not really. My presence was tolerated, but seemingly not needed. I was pushed out.

Because I was different. I was not like them. I was tolerant and fair-minded, and had no prejudices. But the Hardwickes did, most especially Davina. Her late husband Oswald had been a major in the Indian army and in the early days of their marriage they had been stationed there. Oswald had been infected with the same snobbery endemic in some of the British officers in India and in Arab countries. Racial superiority was a given. They referred to the Indians as the natives or wogs, looked down on them and anyone who was not an Englishman of the Protestant religion, including Roman Catholics; they deemed Arabs, Jews, and the Asian races to be dirty, ignorant heathens—“the great unwashed” was the way Davina had described them to her once, much to her horror.

Obviously, Oswald and Davina had influenced their only child, Peter. He was teeming with racial superiority and class distinction, and was equally snobbish and bigoted. He hadn’t even had a good word for the Allies during the war, had hated the Americans, the French, and the Poles. These disgusting traits had only grown with age and she was aware they had been absorbed by Deborah, who had idolized her father. And idealized him after his death.

Gabriele thought, the Jesuits said it best: Give me the child until the age of seven and I will give you the man. Or the woman in this instance.

She sighed under her breath and let go of these thoughts.

Opening her eyes, she got out of bed; it felt warm in her bedroom, and she walked across to the window, opened it. As she looked down into the garden she saw them sitting on the garden seat. Justine and Michael. She smiled to herself, pleased that they were becoming friends, but also wondering what they were doing up at this hour. It was after two o’clock in the morning. Well, they could do what they wanted, they were both over twenty-one.

*   *   *

Later that day, when she told Anita that their grandchildren had been keeping company in the middle of the night, her dearest friend would smile knowingly, a dark brown eyebrow would lift, and she would start to plot and plan. But there was no way anyone could tell Michael Dalton what to do, and certainly Justine was her own person, an independent woman, used to making her own decisions at thirty-two.

Anita would hope and pray that they would get together.
And she?
What would she do? She would wait. She knew only too well that life had a way of taking care of itself. No one really had control of their own life. They thought they did but that wasn’t true. Outside factors always intervened. And prevailed. God had a plan for everyone.

Once, long ago, she had lost faith in God. Had cursed Him, hated Him, blaming Him for every evil in the world. But evil was not God’s creation. It was Man who had invented evil and set it in motion. And eventually she had managed to forgive God, absolve Him.

For a reason she did not understand, Gabriele suddenly remembered the baby, the little boy, instantly shocked that this thought had floated to the surface of her mind. Her chest tightened and her legs felt weak; she leaned against the window frame as a slew of devastating memories rushed back, swamping her. Then with swiftness and ruthless determination, she pushed the unwanted memories away.