Who was this girl?
And sometimes, Allegra would think … Who were the others?
The decision, which Allegra hardly thought of when Genevieve was small, and which she could tuck away for months or even years, now smacked her in the face every day. When Allegra checked the back of her mind, where the decision lay, she saw how immense it was. A river she could not recross.
Yet the decision had been easy to make. Allegra could no longer imagine how this could have been the case. Surely she and Ned had wept and clung to each other and made lists of pros and cons?
No. They had just done it. And since they had never told anybody to start with, nobody had asked.
The rain pounded relentlessly, as if it planned on coming in the house.
Allegra considered various robes. Her favorites were satin and lace, but the day was damp and chilly. She settled on a chrysanthemum-print fleece. She didn’t usually care for fleece, which quickly looked ratty, but the robe was cozy. She fixed her hair, put on some makeup—because she never appeared anywhere without makeup, even her own kitchen—and slid her toes into small woolly slippers.
Their little house had two bedrooms: she and Ned were downstairs in a charming space without enough closets while Vivi was upstairs under the eaves, a funny little suite with low ceilings and small slanted closets. Allegra rarely went up there. Vivi did her own cleaning, changed her own bed and carried her own laundry down to the cellar, where the washer and dryer were hooked up.
At this hour on a Saturday, Vivi would be asleep upstairs.
Allegra Candler smelled coffee. She smiled happily. Ned’s golf game would be canceled. Maybe they could go shopping. She loved shopping. Vivi would be busy; she was always busy. It was one of her most attractive features.
* * *
Kitty Vianello managed to find the correct one-way entrance to Stamford station. She was proud. She glanced at her daughter.
Gripping the handles of her purse so hard her knuckles were white, Missy was staring at the station as if expecting a rock star to get off a train. Her eyes burned feverishly. Her teeth were actually chattering. When Missy leaned over to kiss her mother good-bye, the lips that touched Kitty’s cheek were cold.
“Sweetheart, are you feeling all right? You’re not coming down with something, are you?”
“I’m fine, Mom.” Missy vaulted out of the car. “See you later.” She slammed the door, ran across the sidewalk, hauled open the glass door and darted up the stairs to the station.
Somebody was honking. Cars were piling up behind her. Kitty drove away.
I should be proud, she thought. I brought up a daughter who can sashay into the city without a backward glance.
But Missy had been glad to get away from her mother.
Kitty felt herself being drawn into the unfinished scrapbook. The shoeboxes of photographs that still sat on the high closet shelf. The truth.
A past she could not change and a future she could not predict.
* * *
It’s Saturday morning! thought Genevieve, coming up off the bed as if catapulted. And I have sisters!
She hugged herself and darted to her sleeping computer. She brought up the precious video and watched it twice.
What to wear?
She stared in the mirror at a body exactly like the bodies occupied by two other girls. Those identical bodies had slept last night, would shower this morning, put on clothing and swallow juice. She would believe this if she saw herself across the room at Grand Central.
I’ll call Claire now, she thought. We need to be all three of us, not two minus one. But Missy told me not to call.
Genevieve had forgotten to ask anything important. Do you know who our parents really are? Did you know you were adopted? Do you like Chinese food? Do you hate sandals where the strap divides your toes?
She and Missy had simply talked, as if they had known each other all along. As if they were sisters.
Genevieve had to wrap herself in a towel for a while, and dry her thoughts out as well as her hair. She was too wired to face her parents. Even the least involved mother and father in New York State might notice her excitement. But Saturday mornings, from early spring to late fall, her father had breakfast with golf buddies. As for Allegra, Saturday mornings were a precious chance to loll around, and she rarely rose before eleven.
Genevieve did not need permission to go into the city. Her parents expected her to make her own decisions. Still and all, they liked to know where she was. She decided to leave a note on the kitchen counter. Later she would text, to be sure they had read the note.
What to write? It must be impossible to check, and yet reasonable, so they wouldn’t worry. Not that Ned and Allegra were worriers. “We trust Vivi completely,” her parents liked to say, and other parents were cowed, because they didn’t trust their kids an inch. But trust was not involved. Her parents simply didn’t think about Genevieve that much.
Which would she rather have—two new sisters or parents who cared?
It isn’t a choice, she reminded herself. My sisters exist. I have them whether we meet or not. As for my parents—they are who they are. And they’re not actually mine.
I’m adopted.
The shiver of rejoicing was followed by a shudder of shame. It would be her lifelong secret—that when she realized Ned and Allegra were not her father and mother, her heart had leaped with joy. She would not even tell Missy or Claire, assuming the girls became close. It was a black mark next to her soul.
She brushed her hair, thinking of the identical hair of Missy and Claire. Her analysis didn’t feel right. Why would Ned and Allegra, whose interest in parenting was low, have bothered to keep adoption a secret? In fact, why would they have adopted?
Ned and Allegra were not attracted to children. They didn’t volunteer in school, help with a club or assist a coach. They barely knew the names and faces of Genevieve’s classmates, whereas her friends’ parents tracked Genevieve along with their own kids.
Genevieve could not picture Ned and Allegra at the moment of her adoption, clasping their new baby to their hearts, crying, “At last! We have our own child!”
Had adoption been trendy that year? Were all their friends having babies? Was Genevieve just a way to keep up?
Genevieve watched the video again. She had forgotten to ask Missy why the girls had even done that interview. What had they known, or guessed, to make them throw their situation into the air like that?
She found an umbrella. She could walk to the train station as easily as she walked to GeeGee’s nursing home or high school. She planned to go early. She would wait inside the station, out of the rain.
How would she and Missy greet one another? Would they scream? Weep? Laugh? Would they know each other, bone to bone, soul to soul, the way identical twins supposedly did?
What would they do about Claire?
* * *
Claire Linnehan stood alone in the kitchen. What was she going to do all day? Why did it have to be raining? How was Claire going to survive college if she couldn’t even get through a weekend without Missy?
If she’s my cousin, and I need her like a blood transfusion, it’s warped. But if she’s my identical twin, and I need her, all of a sudden it’s normal.
I will not go on a crying jag, she told herself. I will get busy and do interesting things.
Compared to a long-lost identical triplet, not much was interesting.
Her cell rang. It was Missy’s ring. Grief choked her: fear over who she was or wasn’t; pain over what Missy had done, or was doing now.
Claire let Missy’s call go to voice mail.
* * *
Ned Candler looked up from his newspaper.
His daughter walked into the kitchen, looking beautiful in long pressed pants, a long gauzy shirt and a long wafting jacket with a tiny trendy vest over it. “You look terrific, Vivi. What’s up?”
She seemed rattled by the sight of him. “You don’t have a golf game?”
&n
bsp; He pointed out the window at the rain.
“Oh,” she said. “Well. Um.”
He had to smile. Vivi was still just a kid.
“A bunch of us are going into the city,” she told him. “Metropolitan Museum. Some kids have an art assignment. The rest of us are tagging along.”
Ned couldn’t stand museums. He was bored before he paid the entry fee. Five minutes of walking through those halls and his legs were tired. They should have golf carts in museums. You’d purr past the dull parts. Which would be most of it.
“Can you drive me to the station, Dad? Since it’s raining?”
“Sure.” Ned went to the computer and scrolled through his e-mails, deleting some, reading a few, postponing most. There was a message from Boyd in Connecticut. Boyd had been best man at his and Allegra’s wedding twenty-five years ago. Could Ned and Allegra really have been married for twenty-five years? Had he missed their anniversary? No, because he’d be dead.
He counted. They’d been married in December. A white velvet, green holly, red berry wedding—the most beautiful he’d ever been in or been to. He still remembered it with pleasure. He still had the most beautiful bride. Good thing he’d thought of that, because their twenty-fifth was coming up. We have to do something special, he thought.
Of course, “special” meant expensive.
Vivi said, “Dad? I have to go.”
He clicked on Boyd’s e-mail. The message was brief. DID YOU SEE THIS YET??????!!!! There was a link. Boyd was always sending something, as if Ned cared about dancing parrots or abandoned towns in the Northern Plains trying to coax people to live there, or some weirdo who had spent his life reinventing algebra. Ned had long since ceased to open the attachments. He wrote back, Wow!
* * *
Allegra Candler entered the living room/kitchen. Her husband was at the computer. She waltzed over and kissed his bald spot. It was so cute. Every year he was cuter. Whereas she, every year, had to wear more makeup and now had to have her hair colored because of the appalling gray that had begun to appear years too early. She was sure Ned had no idea she colored her hair.
Over his shoulder, she scanned the list of e-mails. “Boyd wrote?” she cried. She adored Boyd, even though Boyd was on his third wife, which cramped their friendship, since wife number one had been Allegra’s college roommate.
“Oh, you know Boyd,” said her husband. “Always forwarding something nobody cares about.”
Allegra turned toward the coffee and there stood Vivi. “Darling, I love the outfit. It doesn’t look like your average Saturday morning. Where are you headed?”
“A bunch of us are going into the city.”
If Allegra never went into New York City again, it would be fine.
“Metropolitan Museum,” her husband added.
Allegra worked in the heart of Manhattan, but never did anything except shop. She was just barely acquainted with the names of museums, never mind the contents. “Do you have enough money, Vivi?” she asked. “Do you have an umbrella?”
Genevieve waved a small collapsible black umbrella.
“Have a good time.” Allegra took Ned’s place at the computer. Before checking her own e-mail, which was bound to have something depressing from work, she clicked Boyd’s message. Boyd could always dig up something fun.
Allegra followed the link.
LONG ISLAND
Still Saturday morning
AS ALWAYS, HER parents’ thoughts were elsewhere. Ned was staring at the rain, Allegra at her e-mail. If my parents are sorry they adopted me, thought Genevieve, I have no hope. I will never be closer to them and they will never be closer to me.
For a moment it was hard to stand up straight.
Her father’s cell phone rang. He began talking in the loud voice he used only on the cell, as if his model were deficient at carrying sound. “I know!” Ned shouted. “The rain! I don’t know what I’m going to do all day long! Okay, that would be great! But first I have to drive my daughter to the train station.”
A few hours from now, she thought, all three adoptions will be exposed. Three sets of parents will have to admit the truth, if they haven’t already. The evidence is visible. There will be scrutiny from every relative, neighbor and stranger. Maybe even from the media.
What if her parents had even less use for Genevieve once the truth came out?
She was zipping a granola bar into her handbag when her mother made a strange sound. Genevieve turned to see Allegra scrambling away from the computer, almost tipping the chair over. Her face was distorted, her cheek twitching. “No!” said her mother thickly, batting at the computer screen as if mice were popping out of it.
“What’s wrong?” demanded Ned. “Gotta go,” he said into his phone.
“Nothing’s wrong!” shouted Allegra, closing the screen. She whirled to face her husband and daughter. She looked like a shoplifter caught by store security. “Vivi, when are you leaving? Ned, get her to the station.” Allegra swept them toward the door. “Have a good time, Vivi.”
“You’re really in a tizzy, Legs,” teased her husband. “Mid-level managers are not allowed to have a tizzy. What did Boyd send, anyway?”
It must have been Missy’s video, thought Genevieve. That’s Boyd’s role in life—finding crazy stuff, sending it on. My mother just saw two girls who look exactly like me. She just heard Missy claim that she and Claire are identical twins. Mom thinks I don’t know. She’s trying to hide the video from me. She’s trying to protect me.
How sweet is that?
Genevieve checked her watch. She had a few minutes to spare. “I’ve seen the video, Mom,” she said gently. “I saw it two days ago. Don’t worry. I’m okay with it.”
Allegra gasped, then crumpled. “Oh, Vivi,” sobbed her mother. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Sorry about what? Adoption was not the end of the world. It was just a different way to set up a world.
Ned frowned. He walked back to the computer, bent over it and clicked, standing until he had brought up Boyd’s attachment.
Allegra found a tissue. From the careful way she blotted her eyes, her main concern was her mascara. This was good. Her mother was returning to normal. Appearances first.
I love her, thought Genevieve, slightly surprised. I love them both, just the way they are.
Something hard in Genevieve vanished.
* * *
Missy’s train pulled out. The train originated in Stamford, and though it had many stops to make before it reached New York, already the car was half full. Missy tried to save a seat for Claire, but a man talking loudly into his cell phone sat down, flapping his newspaper against her.
Scenery changed swiftly from corporate landscape to golf course, wonderfully green from the rain. At the Old Greenwich station, a swarm of riders got on, with the eager, pleased expressions of people going into the city for fun. The wheels of the train clacked like a song in a picture book. The train stopped in Riverside. Cos Cob. Greenwich. Port Chester. The next stop was the likeliest for Claire.
Get on, get on! Missy prayed.
She had only a partial view of the platform. Was Claire there?
I need you, Clairedy. You need me. You have to come. You can’t sit home and watch television.
The train departed. Missy sat tall, making herself visible. She looked up and down the aisle for the black-haired, black-eyed cousin who was her identical twin.
Triplet, she corrected herself.
But Claire did not appear.
* * *
Ned sat down so hard on the wooden chair that Genevieve expected its legs to snap. “I didn’t know,” he whispered. “I didn’t know. Who could have known? They’re identical. Look at them.” He played the video again, pausing it exactly where Genevieve had: identical black-haired, black-eyed girls staring at each other, one with joy and one in shock.
“People will know.” Allegra’s voice broke.
This was Allegra’s big worry? Who cared if people knew?
&nb
sp; For once think of me first! thought Genevieve. I’m your daughter! Well, no. Actually, I’m not.
She looked at her watch again. She was not going to make the train. Her heart seized up. I can take the next one, she told herself, trembling. Nothing is ruined. I’ll text Missy. She’ll be okay waiting at Grand Central.
On Saturdays, trains ran hourly. Genevieve would give her parents a few minutes and then walk to the station, no matter how hard it was raining. She was not telling them why she was going into the city. Her sisters were none of their business. “The moment I saw the video, Mom, I realized that I’m a triplet separated at birth and separately adopted. Don’t be upset. I’d rather be your daughter by blood, but adoption doesn’t change who we are. You’re still my parents.” Genevieve felt as if she were quoting a book on how to be well-adjusted. In fact, in her opinion, adoption changed one hundred percent of who they were.
In particular, it changed who her great-grandmother was.
Genevieve’s hope in life was to be as fine a woman as her great-grandmother. The list of GeeGee’s virtues was long. Genevieve liked to think that she had inherited some of her great-grandmother’s traits, even the same jaw and the same hands.
No.
“Adoption!” cried Allegra, as if this were a new and thrilling word. “Yes!” she said firmly to her husband. “Genevieve is adopted.”
“Adopted,” repeated her father, sounding confused.
For this she had missed her train? Genevieve was beside herself. Only Ned and Allegra could construct a life built on a lie, and then allow the lie to become so real they forgot about it. A moment ago she had loved them again. Now she despised them again. “You adopted me because GeeGee wanted the next generation of Candlers. You wanted to cozy up to her. Uncle Alan said that was the only reason you had a kid. He was right, wasn’t he? You don’t even like children! You adopted me to inherit GeeGee’s money.”
Three Black Swans Page 14
