“I’m sure she’s not thinking that, Emily.”
“I thought it of you,” I said before I could stop myself.
He stared at me for a moment before looking away. “Emily, I’ve told you that you were on my mind every day.”
“Yeah, well, you had a funny way of showing it.” I sighed. “I built up all these stories in my head about you. I was convinced you hated me. What if my daughter feels like that about me?”
“No,” he said firmly. “You felt that way because I knowingly hurt you. What you did was different from what I did. You had the courage to do what you felt was right for your child. I, on the other hand, only had the weakness to do what felt right for me. You made the choice to give your child a better life. I’m sure she can see that.” He paused. “You shouldn’t be carrying around this kind of burden. I can see it in your eyes. But you made a responsible choice. You made a choice out of love. You can’t feel guilty about that.”
“Yes, I can. I can feel guilty because I did it for the wrong reasons. I did it because I was lost and scared and alone.”
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you were alone, Emily. If I’d known . . .”
“What, you would have miraculously rematerialized? When you couldn’t be bothered to come back for me after Mom died?”
“I was having a lot of problems with Monica by then,” my father said haltingly. “She—she wouldn’t let me come back for you. She said if I did, she’d leave me. And instead of fighting her on that, instead of standing up for you, I just caved. It was easier that way.”
“Well, gee,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “It makes total sense now that you’ve explained.”
“I can never expect you to forgive me for that. And I’m sorrier than you’ll ever know. In the end, all you have are the people you love, and I . . . ” He trailed off and bowed his head. Neither of us said anything for a few minutes, until he broke the silence. “Have you tried hiring a private agency to find your daughter?”
I sighed and shook my head. “I can’t afford it, but even if I could, it’s not my place. I gave up the right to know her when I let her go, didn’t I? And what if her life is going perfectly, and I throw her off balance by intruding in it? No, I’m dying to know that she’s okay, but I can’t risk disrupting her life. So I’m waiting. If she wants to find me, I’m here. I’m findable.”
“Do you think that maybe it might help to let her know you love her and still think about her?” my dad asked after a pause. “But in a way that leaves the ball in her court and lets her come to you if she wants to?”
I shrugged. “I don’t think I’d know how to do that. I gave her up, Dad. I don’t want to hurt her any more than I already have.”
“The records are sealed?”
“Yeah. It was a closed adoption.”
“Have you tried the agency that facilitated the adoption?”
“They went out of business years ago. And the owner died. I’ve tried every way I can think of to access the records, but they’re just not there.”
“And you’re on all those adoption search sites?”
“Every one of them.”
“Then when your daughter is ready someday, she’ll come looking for you. And in the meantime, all you can do is to be the best person you can be, to make the best choices you can make, and to try hard to fix the things that are broken.” He paused. “We make mistakes along the way. We all do. That’s life. You have to do your best to correct any damage you’ve done. But then, you have to forgive yourself.”
I surprised myself by bursting into tears, and then I shocked myself even more by letting my father pull me into his chest and hold me tightly until I stopped crying. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel at peace until I know that my daughter is okay,” I murmured. “Is that crazy?”
“No,” my father said softly. “That’s what being a parent is: loving someone so much that they’ll be a part of you forever, no matter what. Knowing that your happiness is forever tied to theirs.”
“But you don’t feel that way,” I said. I didn’t mean it as an accusation, and I felt a little guilty when my father’s eyes filled again.
“Of course I do, Emily. I’ve just screwed everything up so badly that it’s hard for you to see it.”
I nodded, looking away. When I turned back to him, he looked like he was struggling to say something, but finally, he sighed heavily and said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty exhausted. Should we head to bed so that we’re fresh in the morning for our flight?”
“Sure.” But there was a part of me that was disappointed. I hadn’t felt this kind of connection with my father in years, and I was afraid that in the morning, it would be like it never happened. I stood and gave him an awkward smile. “Good night, Dad.”
I couldn’t sleep that night, whether because of the time change, my conversation with my dad, or my anxiety over our trip to Atlanta the next day. I got up around four in the morning to log in to the adoption sites I frequented, thinking how poetic it would be if my daughter had finally responded while I was across the ocean, searching for her great-grandfather. But my search strings continued to dangle unanswered, and so I refreshed most of them and reposted on some of the boards.
I turned off the light around five and tried to will myself back to sleep, but I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing the face of my daughter.
* * *
Because we’d booked our travel so late, my father and I were separated on the plane the next morning. I dozed a bit during the ten-hour flight, but when I was awake, I was thinking about what he had said about forgiving myself. Still, by the time we touched down in Atlanta just before three in the afternoon, I felt unsettled to be back. We rented a car and set out on I-85, but as we passed familiar exit after familiar exit and saw the skyline that I knew so well, I felt myself coming quickly undone. It was one thing to try to find peace over the decision to give up Catherine. It was another to find closure over the way I’d dealt with Nick. He still lived here; it’s where his advertising agency was located. With every mile I drove, I felt like I was getting closer to my past.
My mother was here too, in every sight and sound. I remembered going to Turner Field with her for Braves games a few times a season. The last time she took me to the Coca-Cola museum, when I was twelve, felt like just yesterday. There was Centennial Olympic Park, where we’d both volunteered during the 1996 Olympics, and the Georgia Tech campus, which we’d visited my junior year of high school while I was trying to decide on colleges. The world passing by outside was so familiar, but it all belonged to a previous life.
“You okay?” my father asked as we got off the highway at exit 251A and took a right.
“Mostly.” We turned right on Peachtree, passing the High Museum of Art, where Nick had once taken me for what he jokingly dubbed a “grown-up date.” I swallowed hard as I tried not to remember the way it had felt when he kissed me that Saturday afternoon in front of my favorite Monet. It was all still vivid in my mind, perhaps because I’d made such a conscious effort to lock it away.
We turned right again a quarter mile later onto a side street, and a half block down, we drew to a stop in front of a squat, gray building with a metal statue of a ballerina out front. “This is it,” my father said as he put the car in Park. “The Ponce Gallery. We should have a half hour before it closes. Let’s go.”
Inside, the lighting in the entryway was dim, and there was no one at the reception desk. While my father went off in search of the owner, I gazed around at the art on the walls.
I’d only been here once—at a Christmas party for my mother’s office, back when I was sixteen—but it looked the same. Tall, white walls. Black-framed monochromatic photographs. White-framed modern art with bold pops of color. It felt more like a wealthy person’s apartment than an art space, but that was the gallery’s charm. It apparently survived—and thrived—on donations from some of Atlanta’s wealthiest families, who considered it more exclusive and
personal than the High Museum. As my father returned, I looked behind him at the dapper, middle-aged man in a perfectly cut navy suit and silver bow tie following him and did my best to pretend that I wasn’t as uncultured as I was.
“Greetings,” the man said in an accent I couldn’t quite place. “This gentleman here tells me you were the recipient of the lovely painting I sent to Munich.”
My eyes widened, and I glanced at my father, who smiled. We had found the painting’s source.
“You sent the painting?” I studied his face, trying to figure out who he was.
He nodded. “Well, I was the one who shipped it, in any case. I’m Walter Pace. I own the Ponce. Would you like to come with me to my office? Perhaps we’ll be more comfortable there.”
My father and I followed Walter down a narrow hallway to a sprawling office in the back of the building. The walls featured floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked a small, meticulously kept garden in the back. “Please, sit,” Walter said, gesturing to two stiff upholstered chairs that faced his desk. “Now where were we? Ah yes, the painting.” Walter rifled through a few papers. “Now, you see, we don’t do restoration work here at the Ponce. And though the painting was in beautiful shape, the owner was insistent on having it restored to perfection. Admittedly, it did appear that it had been damaged slightly by long-term exposure to moisture in the air.”
I leaned forward. “But who was the owner? Who gave you the painting?”
“Oh, I’m really meant to keep that piece of information confidential.” He laced his fingers together and propped his elbows on his desk. “Yes, she was most insistent on discretion.”
“She?” I repeated. I realized I’d been assuming that the sender was a man.
He nodded. “She wanted this done in total anonymity. Then again, you are the one she had the painting sent to, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” My heart was pounding wildly. “She must have been reaching out, right? Why else would she send the painting?”
Walter studied me for a moment. “The problem is, I have no way to contact her. She wrote that she would check in with me to ensure that the painting had been properly delivered, but I haven’t heard from her since I received it.”
“But who is she?” I asked, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice.
He hesitated. “Ingrid Gaertner. The widow of the famed realist painter Ralph Gaertner.”
My father and I exchanged looks. “So the painting is a Gaertner?” I asked.
“Oh, no, no, of course not. The painting we’re speaking of is obviously quite different from his work.” He frowned, and I had the feeling he thought my question was foolish. But then he added, “That said, the technique is very similar to Gaertner’s. My guess is that the work is by one of his students. He occasionally mentored other artists early in his own career.”
I leaned forward. “Could a man named Peter Dahler have been one of the artists he worked with? Have you heard of him?” What if somehow, all these years later, Gaertner’s widow had discovered my grandparents’ love story and was trying to tell me something?
“No,” Walter said after a pause. “The name doesn’t ring a bell. But I’m sure there were many artists he took under his wing who never received the acclaim that Gaertner did.”
“And you don’t have any contact information for Ingrid Gaertner?”
He chuckled. “No one does. She’s very private. In fact, I’m fairly certain I’m one of the only ones in the art world who has heard from her since her husband’s death.” He puffed up his chest proudly as my heart sank.
“Well, if she calls, can you give her my number?” I asked, scribbling it on a piece of paper and handing it to him. “Can you explain that both I and my father, Victor, are here because we want to know what happened to my grandfather?”
“Certainly.” He took the piece of paper from me and slipped it into one of his desk drawers. “In the meantime, you might be interested to know that there’s a Gaertner exhibit currently on at the Schwab Gallery in Savannah, which is only three and a half hours from here. Perhaps you might find the curator there, a woman named Bette Handler, more helpful. Bette’s a bit of an expert on Gaertner; I believe a few of the paintings in the exhibit are on loan from Mrs. Gaertner’s private collection, so she may have some contact information for her. Would you like me to make a call and set up a visit for you for tomorrow?”
“Yes, please.” I glanced at my father while Walter dialed a number and spoke briefly with Bette Handler’s assistant.
“Is one in the afternoon acceptable?” Walter asked, covering the mouthpiece. My father and I nodded, and Walter confirmed the appointment time before hanging up. “Well, if there isn’t anything else . . .”
We took the cue to stand up and head toward the exit. He showed us out the front entrance, locking the door behind him.
“I feel like we’re getting closer,” my father said as we walked back to the rental car. “But the question is, why would Ingrid Gaertner send you the painting anonymously? Why wouldn’t she just explain the whole thing? It’s all so strange.”
“I know. But maybe it’s because she keeps to herself, like Walter Pace said. Maybe she doesn’t want anyone to contact her.” My dad pulled out of the museum and back onto Peachtree. A few minutes later, we were snagged in rush hour traffic on I-85 headed back toward our hotel at the CNN Center downtown. For the first portion of the drive, we were both silent, lost in our own thoughts.
“Dad?” I asked after a while as we inched forward on the highway, barely making any progress.
He turned to me. “Yes?”
I took a deep breath. “What are you supposed to do when it’s too late to fix something that’s happened in the past?” I couldn’t believe I was asking him for advice, but being here in Atlanta, I couldn’t stop thinking about Nick and the terrible thing I’d done by walking away and denying him the chance to know his child. “I just have the feeling that time is running out.”
He stared at me for a long time. “How did you know?”
It wasn’t the answer I expected. “How did I know what?”
His face had gone white. “It’s not too late, honey,” he said after a moment. “You’re wrong about that. There’s still time to fix things between us. And the doctors are optimistic.”
“Wait, wait.” I held up my hands. “I wasn’t talking about me and you.”
“Oh.” He looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry. What were you asking about?”
“No. You can’t change the subject now. What do you mean about the doctors being optimistic? Is something wrong?”
He clenched the steering wheel and stared straight ahead, although we were hardly moving. “I have cancer, Emily,” he finally said quietly. “But I should be okay. I’m seeing a very good oncologist at Shands in Gainesville, and he has me in a trial that we both feel very positive about.”
“Cancer?” I repeated, stunned. I shouldn’t be feeling this devastated; after all, I had already lost my father in all the ways that were important. But he’d been working his way back into my life for a while now, and I had finally opened the door a crack. I’d thought we had all the time in the world to fix things. “What kind?”
“It’s in my liver.”
“Liver cancer?”
“I’m going to be fine,” he said firmly. “I’m responding well to the chemotherapy. My doctor is very optimistic.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He paused. “I didn’t think you’d care.”
The words wounded me. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry you felt that way. But I do care. Of course I care.” I stared out the window and tried not to cry. “You’re really going to be okay?”
“Emily, right now, I feel fine.” He nudged me. “Now what were you trying to ask me about?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I murmured, still reeling.
“Of course it matters.” Traffic was moving again, and we moved toward our exit at a crawl. “And in answer to your question,
it’s never too late to try to fix something you’ve done wrong, whatever it is. It’s what I’m trying to do now.”
I hesitated. “Are you sure it wouldn’t be better to just let the other person live in peace without burdening them with your guilt?”
“Is that what you want from me? To be left in peace?”
I hesitated. “No.”
“Good.” My father glanced at me. “Do you want to tell me who you’re talking about?”
“No.”
“Okay.” He thought for a minute. “And you hurt this person?”
“Yes. A long time ago.” I hesitated. “And it wasn’t just that I hurt him. It was that I made some choices that impacted his life too, and he doesn’t even know about some of them. I—I have a lot to apologize for.”
“Then it’s something you should try to fix, if you can. That’s what I think, anyhow. Hurt never really goes away, does it?”
We rode in silence the remainder of the way back to the hotel, and when we got there, my father pulled into the valet line and turned to me. “I’m pretty tired, but if you want to grab some dinner, I could meet you after I freshen up.”
“No, you should get some rest.” I took a deep breath. “There’s actually something I need to do.”
“Are you sure?”
I hesitated. Nick’s office was less than a mile from here. I knew I wouldn’t have time before we left town tomorrow to catch him. If I wanted to reach out in person, I’d have to do it now. My father was right; I needed to try to fix what I’d broken, even if it was impossible. Even if it terrified me. “Yes. It’s time.”
My father smiled. “Good luck, then.” He handed me the keys, and I walked around the car to the driver’s seat. He leaned in and squeezed my arm. “I’ll leave your room key for you at the front desk. Give me a call when you’re back, and maybe we can meet for a bite.”
“You’ll be okay?”
“I’m fine, Emily. Go do what you need to do.”
When We Meet Again Page 17
