Carla Neggers - Betrayals

He was trying.

Mai took her box of Godiva chocolates-courtesy of Maureen Sloan-off her night table and picked out the fattest one she could find. “You’re still in love with Rebecca, aren’t you?”

Jared grabbed the box of chocolates from her. Naturally she’d taken all the semisweet ones. “Stay out of my love life, kid.”

“Why? You meddle in mine.”

“You’re fourteen and I’m pushing forty.”

She popped the chocolate in her mouth. “Time you got married, Dad.”

It was the first time she’d called him Dad since he’d told her about Quentin and Tam.

She caught his expression. Chocolaty saliva dribbled out of the corners of her mouth, and she suddenly looked very frightened. “You’re still my dad, right? No matter what?”

“Mai…yes. I’m your dad. Forever.”

He swept her into his arms and held her.

For the first time since her husband’s death twenty-six years earlier, Jenny O’Keefe Blackburn came to Boston. First she visited her husband’s grave at Mt. Auburn Cemetery. Then she visited her father-in-law in his “hidden” Beacon Hill garden. His head was still bandaged, but he was doing just fine, sitting at a small wrought-iron table.

“Someone should have knocked you on the head a long time ago,” Jenny said, smiling as she set a pot of pink geraniums on the brick courtyard. “I remember you consider cut flowers a waste. You can plant these in your garden and see what becomes of them. Thomas-” She began to cry; she’d promised herself she wouldn’t. “Can you forgive me?”

He waved a bony hand in dismissal. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

“I wanted someone to blame-”

“You didn’t do or say anything I wouldn’t have. Jenny, there hasn’t been a day I haven’t wished I’d gone on that trip instead of Stephen.”

“I know.” She pulled up a chair and sat beside him, taking his hand. “It’s been so long, Thomas, and I don’t mind saying I’ve missed you, in my own way.”

He squeezed her hand. “How are the children?”

“They’re fine. I brought pictures. And my father sends his best. He says you’re invited to come down and sit on the front porch with him and drink iced tea anytime you want.”

“Is it warm this time of year?”

“Quite.”

“Good. Never mind my concussion, we’ll leave this afternoon-”

Jenny laughed. “You’re as impossible as ever. As it so happens, Father and I are planning a family reunion for Memorial Day weekend. With all the daughters-in-law and grandchildren, we’ve gotten to be quite a horde.”

“I considered you a horde in 1961.”

“You can’t get to me anymore, you know. I’ve come too far. I’ve raised six children on my own, I own a damned citrus grove, and I’ve lived within spitting distance of my father for twenty-six years. I’ve toughened up.”

“You’ve never remarried,” Thomas said.

She shrugged without apology or regret, then smiled. “I’m only fifty-four. You never know.” Her pale blue eyes never leaving him, she said, “What about Memorial Day? I’m not going to beg, but you’ve got great-grandchildren you’ve never seen…and grandchildren who need to get to know you.”

His eyes misted. “Jenny…”

“And if you’re worried about paying for your ticket, please don’t.”

That brought him up straight. “I have no intention of accepting charity-”

“What about a share in Junk Mind?”

Thomas sat back and gave her an appraising look. “Go on.”

“When Sofi and Rebecca were starting out, they got anyone and everyone they could to invest in their crazy scheme. I did, the kids did-and so did you.”

“I didn’t give a penny toward that game.”

Jenny cleared her throat. “Um, do you remember that Chinese porcelain vase?”

“The one that came over on one of Eliza’s ships in 1797?”

“The ugly one with the screaming eagles painted all over it.”

“Eagles were a tremendously popular motif in the new republic-”

“Thomas, the vase was ugly.”

His incisive gaze fastened on her. “Was?”

“Well, I’m sure it still is, it’s just not mine any longer. And I did say mine, Thomas, because as I recall you did give it to me-probably because you knew I thought it was ugly. Anyway, I sold it to a very rich old woman in Palm Beach and invested the proceeds to Junk Mind in your name. The money’s in some kind of trust. I worked it all out. I know you’d probably rather have the vase back. If you’d like, I’ll give you the woman’s number and you can badger her until she relents. You’ll have enough money to buy ten more like it if you want.”

“There’s only one like it.”

“Thank God for small favors.”

“How much am I worth?”

She grinned at him. “That’s a loaded question, but if you want a dollar amount, you’ll have to talk to Sofi.”

“Why not Rebecca?”

“This one was between just Sofi and me. Being a Blackburn, Rebecca would have insisted on telling you, and I didn’t want to deal with you. I wanted the girls to have the money, but I didn’t want to profit myself from selling anything that had meant something to you-so I just did what I did.”

Thomas smiled and leaned forward, kissing her on the cheek. “I don’t know who to call first, Sofi or a travel agent.”

“Then you’ll make it?”

“I think I can live another week or two.”

“The kids’ll be thrilled. Oh, Thomas.” Her voice cracked, and she couldn’t believe she was crying again. “I’m not sure Rebecca will make it, but you’ve probably seen enough of her to last you a while. If she has any sense, she’ll be in San Francisco. Jared’s taking Mai home tomorrow, and I picked him out as my one-and-only son-in-law thirty years ago.”

“Where is Rebecca now?”

Jenny sighed. “France.”

To the disgust of the purists at the next table over in the sidewalk cafe, Rebecca sipped on a tall glass of iced café au lait and tried to decipher an article in the morning edition of the Paris Le Monde. Finally she pushed the paper across to Jean-Paul Gerard. “My French rots. Does this say what I think it says?”

He glanced at the headline and smiled. “Probably.”

The last ten days had transformed him. Springtime in Paris was just as gorgeous as everyone said, and he’d hobbled on his cane, dragging Rebecca from one sight to another. He’d told her about Gisela and how he was her “whim,” the child she’d wanted. She hadn’t wanted any of her regular lovers for the father: she’d wanted an honorable, intelligent, good man…a friend. In late 1934, Gisela found herself in French colonial Saigon on a lark, and she discovered that Emily Blackburn had died the previous year and Thomas was totally bereft. Emily had been her friend, as well, and Gisela and Thomas fell into each other’s arms for comfort. And she’d decided…him. He’d be the father of her baby.

And so it was.

An honest and open person, she’d told her son everything, but explained that Thomas had never had an inkling he’d gotten her pregnant. And she’d made Jean-Paul promise he would leave it that way.

“Then he never knew?” Rebecca had asked.

“No-but I resented him for it. I thought he should have recognized me…seen himself in me. But I favor Gisela, and what can I say? It just never happened.”

Now he folded up the newspaper and drank some of his espresso. “It seems,” he said, looking at her over the rim of his cup, “the Louvre has received an anonymous donation of the Empress Elisabeth’s Jupiter Stones.”

“That’s what I thought it said.”

“They came with a typed note explaining that the empress-an eccentric woman given to whims-had, at one time, taken to wandering through the gardens of Riviera cottages. One night in the early 1890s, she came upon a girl who wasn’t frightened of this strange, wealthy, powerful woman, and they talked until dawn, at which point the empress gave the girl a bag of ‘pretty colored stones’ in gratitude for those moments of peace and friendship.”