“No. I never hated you. I wanted to. I tried to. But I did hate myself. Who I became after the war and the hospitals. Bitter. Hard. Lost in a bottle most of the time. You were right when you said I was like him. I let that happen. I used the war as an excuse—and you. Until I looked in the mirror one day and saw him instead. Everything I hated about him staring back at me. That night I went to my first AA meeting. I’ve been working my way back ever since.”
“Back to what?”
“To this,” he says hoarsely. “To you.”
I resist the words. Words are easy. “But when Rory went to San Francisco . . . When she told you . . .”
He looks away, as if pained by the memory. “Twenty years sober, and I never needed a drink like I needed one that night. I can tell you, club soda isn’t much help for that kind of news. It was like she ripped the scab off all of it. My mistakes and my bitterness, my goddamn pride, everything I’d thrown away, and I couldn’t bear to look at it. She was asking me to own it, and I wasn’t ready.”
“And now?”
“Now everything’s changed. Last night, I saw your face, and all the poison came rushing back. I thought I’d come here tonight to end it, that I’d hand you back the rosary and it would be over. Now I realize it’s never going to be over, and I don’t know what to do with that, except to finally own it—and say I’m sorry. About the years we lost. About our daughter. About believing my father’s lies.” He reaches for my hand, stroking the back of my glove with a tenderness that makes my breath catch. “And about this.”
When I don’t resist, he raises my hand to his lips. I feel the warmth of his mouth against my knuckles, and I turn my hand, cupping his face as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, as if no time has passed at all. The memory can play tricks. The heart too. And I marvel at how the simple touch of a cheek, the landscape of a face, can erase years of loss and pain—and leave you vulnerable.
He covers my hand with both of his, as if afraid I might pull away. “Tell me what you want, Soline, and I’ll do it. If you want me to go, I’ll walk out that door and you’ll never see me again. But if you want me to stay, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to give you back the years we missed.”
My eyes pool with tears until his face begins to blur. “We can never get those years back, Anson. They’re gone.”
He nods and lets his hands fall, stepping away from my touch. “I suppose they are.”
My throat closes as I watch him move toward the door, and I think of the morning I left Paris. If I had known then that forty years would pass before I saw him again, would I have allowed us to be separated? Can I allow it now?
As if in answer, Maman’s words drift back to me. There are times for holding on in this life and times for letting go. You must learn to know the difference.
And suddenly, I do know.
He’s turning up his collar, preparing to duck out into the downpour, when I catch his arm. Because I don’t have another forty years to waste, and neither does he. “We can’t get those years back, Anson, but perhaps we can make something of the ones we have left.”
FORTY-SEVEN
SOLINE
31 October 1985—Boston
We wake together with the sun streaming in. Anson smiles sheepishly as our eyes meet, and for a moment it’s as if no time has passed. We’re the same people who met in a busy corridor of the American Hospital, a handsome hero and a frightened volunteer. But we’re not those people. Time has left its scars on us both and made us into different people. People who will have to work hard to discover one another again. But we’ve decided to try.
There are gaps to fill, empty years and hollowed-out dreams, and we have begun to fill them. I have told him about the Roussels and our strange vocation, and he has told me about the faces that still haunt his dreams and sometimes jolt him awake in the night—ghosts from his time in Moosburg. There is more to tell, of course, for both of us. We have each collected our share of shadows over the years, but there have been bright places, too, and eventually we will get to it all.
We lie amid the tangle of sheets, flushed and awkward, tripping over our tongues as we endeavor to navigate this new reality. It’s been a long time since either of us has awakened to a lover’s touch. The sharing of a bed and our bodies, and of all that comes after, is unfamiliar ground.
Now and then, one of us will go quiet and simply stare at the other, or venture some small touch, reassurance that all of this is real, and I suddenly realize that this is how it would have been—should have been—after that first night all those years ago. We would have risen with the sun, young lovers with a newfound wonder for the world and each other. We were cheated of that morning, but we have been given a do-over, as Rory calls it, a chance to do it differently, to do it better.
We get up finally, and I make coffee while Anson uses the phone in my study to make a few calls. Later, I take him to Bisous Sucrés for croissants, and we walk the few blocks to the Common. The trees are nearly bare, the ground littered with papery leaves, and there’s a bite to the morning air. We stroll around Frog Pond and eventually find a bench in the sun. We’ve been talking nonstop, filling in the blanks left by forty years apart, but suddenly there’s a lull in the conversation. I watch as a child of two or three toddles after a pair of ducks, her mother close behind.
“I love it here,” I say with a sigh. “It reminds me of Paris, when we used to sneak away to the park for lunch. I used to come here every Sunday with my coffee and my croissant. Because it reminded me of us. That’s why I wanted to come today. To show you.”
“I’ve been here before,” he says, his tone suddenly somber.
“To the Common?” It never occurred to me that his business might have brought him to Boston, though I suppose it should have. “When?”
His eyes cloud, and he looks away. “Sometimes,” he says heavily, “when I was home and missing you so much I was afraid I might drink, I’d get in the car and come here instead, walking for hours, thinking maybe I’d catch a glimpse of you.”
The confession stuns me. “Did you?”
“No.”
“And if you had?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I’d like to think we would have ended up on this bench, that somehow we were always going to end up here, but I don’t know, and it scares me a little to think about it.”
I weave my fingers through his, holding his gaze. “Rory asked me once if I believed that certain things were meant to happen. I wasn’t sure then, but I am now. Somehow, against all odds, we’ve found each other again, with the help of a granddaughter neither of us knew existed. I can’t explain it. I only know that we are here on this bench. The rest of it doesn’t matter.”
He answers me with a kiss, and I feel like a teenager again, with flushed cheeks and a belly full of butterfly wings.
He’s grinning one of his boyish American grins when we finally pull apart. “I must remember to thank our granddaughter,” he says huskily. The grin slips then, and he checks his watch. Suddenly he looks very somber. “Speaking of Rory, I never told you why I turned up at the gallery the other night. I came to see Rory, but then . . . there you were.” He pauses to touch my cheek, but his face has gone serious. “At the risk of ruining the moment, I need to get back to my hotel. I’m expecting a call, and then I’m going to have to talk to Rory. In person.”
FORTY-EIGHT
RORY
Rory sat down at her desk with a fresh mug of coffee and opened her planner. With the opening in her rearview mirror, she’d finally been able to settle into the day-to-day activities of running the gallery. Business was slow and would be for a while, but she planned to use the time to expand her stable of artists and get a jump on plans for several spring events she wanted to hold. And she could do with a little downtime after the excitement of the last few days.
She had just scribbled a reminder to buy thank-you notes when she heard the soft peal of the entry chime. She grabbed a sip of coffee before head
ing down. No need to pounce. Give them time to get inside, look around. But when she reached the landing, instead of customers, she found Soline—and Anson.
Her initial reaction was panic, but the longer she looked at them, the more she realized everything was fine. Quite fine, in fact. Anson had a hand at the small of Soline’s back, as if it belonged there, while Soline looked up at him with soft, wide eyes. Is she blushing?
Rory started down the stairs toward them, unable to suppress a grin. “Unless I miss my guess, something’s happened since I last saw the two of you.”
Soline reached for Anson’s hand. “Quite a lot, actually.”
It was impossible to miss the change that had come over Anson since their first meeting. He looked almost boyish standing there with Soline’s hand in his, as if forty years had suddenly lifted from his shoulders. She had no idea what had transpired between them. She only knew it felt right, like a circle finally closing.
“Should I call you Grandpa now? Or Gramps? Pops, maybe?”
Anson cleared his throat awkwardly. “We’ll talk about that later. Right now, we need to talk about other things.”
Soline’s eyes flicked to Anson, then back again. “There’s been some news, Rory. About Hux.”
“News . . .” The room seemed to wobble as she repeated the word. “What . . . kind of news?”
Anson let go of Soline’s hand and came to stand in front of Rory. “The night we met in San Francisco, you mentioned your fiancé had been missing for some time. I remembered his name, so the next day, I decided to make a few calls.”
Rory clutched at the stair railing, her palm suddenly sticky.
“After the war,” Anson continued, “when the doctors finally finished putting me back together, I went to work for the International Red Cross, as a prisoner advocate. They have people all over the world who specialize in negotiation and extraction. Some of them are friends. So I picked up the phone to see who might have a useful contact.”
“And someone did?”
Anson narrowed his eyes at her. “Maybe you should sit while we talk.”
“No. Just tell me. Please.”
“A few months ago, the State Department received a tip. Someone claiming to have spotted two men and a woman in a village just outside Atbara in the company of two armed men. They were washing clothes at a pump in the center of town. When they finished, they were waved into a green panel truck with no markings. Our guys were skeptical, and not without reason. I doubt there’s a soul in Sudan who doesn’t know about the kidnapping—and the reward. Liars come out of the woodwork when there’s cash up for grabs. The source was a shaky one, and the lead looked like another dead end. But there was one guy who wouldn’t let it go, and it paid off. They found him, Rory. They found all three of them—alive. That’s all I knew when I came here the other night. That he was alive. But since then, one of our negotiators managed to broker terms for release. A friend of mine called a few hours ago. They were released last night. They’ll need to be checked out, but barring any serious medical issues, Hux should be on his way back to the States in a week or so.”
Rory sank to the bottom step, burying her face in her hands. The tears came silently at first, catching in her throat until she thought they would break her open.
Alive. Safe. Coming home.
Finally the sobs broke free, welling up from the dark place she’d been trying not to look at for so long. Home. The word seemed to sing in her veins, over and over again. Hux was coming home—after ten months of god only knew what. She’d heard the stories, everyone had, men so damaged their lives were never the same. She lifted her head, dragging her sleeve across her eyes. “Did they say . . . Do you know if he’s . . .”
“I don’t. But if there was anything serious, they would have said. That doesn’t mean he won’t go through some things. There’s always a period of adjustment. Some rockier than others. But there are people who specialize in that kind of trauma. And more importantly, he’ll have you.”
She nodded mutely as the tears came again. He would have her—and she would have him. Together, they would work through whatever came.
In time, Rory became aware of Soline sitting beside her on the step. She mopped her face again with her sleeve, smiling weakly. “He’s coming home.”
“Oui, ma petite. He’s coming home. You will have your happy ending at last.”
“I still can’t believe it. Part of me was starting to think it might never happen, and now it has. I know he’ll have some things to deal with, but I can’t wait for you to meet him and for him to meet you and Anson. And to show him the gallery. So much has happened . . .” She paused for a breath, then smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, I know I’m rambling, but this feels like a miracle. And speaking of miracles . . .” She tipped her chin toward Anson, who had wandered over to one of the exhibits, presumably to give them some space. “How did that happen?”
Soline smiled mischievously. “That, ma petite, is too long a story for now. And we don’t know where it’s headed yet. What we do know is that we’re willing to find out.”
Rory felt a fresh wave of happiness wash through her. After all the years and all the heartache, a reconciliation. “I’m so glad, Soline. He’s never stopped loving you. It’s written all over his face.”
Soline’s smile widened as she watched Anson move from painting to painting with a furrowed brow. “We’re certainly going to have a lot to tell your mother.”
Rory nodded, sniffling noisily. “You can call her from my office, if you want, and fill her in. I’d like a minute alone with Anson, if you don’t mind.”
She waited until Soline reached the top of the stairs, then went in search of Anson. She found him standing in front of one of her pieces. He turned when he heard her approach. “These are amazing.”
Rory managed a watery smile. “Thanks.”
The silence stretched as they stood looking at each other, and for a moment she was afraid she was going to cry again. “I sent Soline upstairs to call my mother because I wanted a minute to talk to you, to say thank you for what you did for Hux. And for me. I didn’t exactly endear myself the first time we met, but you still—” She broke off, swallowing a fresh rush of tears. “I don’t know how to thank you. I’ll never know.”
“I was only a tiny piece of the outcome, but I’d say we’re even.”
“You mean you and Soline?”
Anson lit up like a boy with his first crush. “It could just be that getting ambushed in the bar of the Fairmont Hotel was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Rory felt herself flush. It had worked out pretty well for her too. And for Camilla. That night at the bar, he’d told her bluntly that there was no chance of a happy ending. He’d been wrong about that, and she was glad. “I’m still not sure how it happened, but I seem to have gone from having no grandparents to having a full set. Do you think I could maybe . . . hug you?”
The request seemed to catch him off guard. He swallowed hard, then nodded. “I’d like that too.”
She stepped into his arms, breathing him in—soap and citrus with a hint of shaving cream underneath. It was subtle yet masculine: the smell of comfort and safety. How had she lived all these years without smelling this smell? Something told her she was going to enjoy having grandparents, though she really was going to have to think of something else to call them.
Moments later, they heard the tap of Soline’s heels as she approached. “Look at you two, already making up for lost time.”
Rory shot Anson a wink. “I’d say we all have a bit of that to look forward to. So did you call her?”
“I did.”
“And you told her everything? Not just about Hux but all of it?”
“Well, most of it.”
“And she was happy?”
Soline answered with a smoky laugh. “What do you think? She was going to call Thia, and then she was coming right over. She says we need to start planning your engagement party. And then the wedding.”
/>
Rory let the words sink in. The wedding. Her wedding. The thought made her want to pinch herself. Hux was coming home, perhaps not unscathed but home—to her. Yes, there would be a wedding, though not right away—he would need time to recover—but she would wait as long as he needed her to wait. And they would figure out the rest together.
The thought filled her with a quiet joy, like ripples spreading across the surface of a pond, slowly widening, until they eventually lapped the shore. She broke into a grin. “I suppose at some point, I’m going to need a dress,” she told Soline, then turned to look up at Anson. “And someone to give me away.”
It still seemed impossible. Such an inexplicable confluence of events. Lives intersected. Hearts reunited. Families mended. Because of a box she’d found under the stairs of a burned-out building. A box full of happy endings—and perhaps a touch of la magie.
EPILOGUE
SOLINE
A new and specific binding charm must be composed for each client bride, conceived for her and her alone. The charm will be hers in perpetuity and may never be reused.
—Esmée Roussel, the Dress Witch
17 May 1986—Lyman, Massachusetts
At long last, there is to be a wedding.
I stand at the window, gazing out over sloping lawns and perfectly manicured hedges, gardens filled with blushing pink peonies, and a sky so blue it hurts my eyes. I blink away the sting, afraid I’ll muss my makeup. There’s a pretty gazebo out by the lake, dressed in yards of ivy and frothy white tulle, and several rows of folding chairs. It will be a small, intimate affair, limited to family and close friends.
The Keeper of Happy Endings Page 37
