Hidden Heart

by Camelia Miron Skiba

  “Me too, sir. I have to admit your press conference following my visit came as a surprise. Many farmers called, thanking me for convincing you to return their money. It must’ve been very hard on you to admit publicly your daughter’s mistake…”

  “Indeed, it has been hard, especially being in the public eye and scrutinized as much as I am. But, at least I was able to undo some of her wrong-doing; I hope the community will forgive her—in time.”

  “I’m sure they will. Time heals a lot. Give your wife my best,” Tessa said and shook his hand. A bodyguard whispered something into the mayor’s ear, and then they left together.

  Tessa turned to see Monsieur Deuvault and Victor in discussion with Alessandro. Victor waved at her and when she walked towards them, Alessandro looked her way, said something and then shook their hands, leaving before she reached them. It looked as he left only to avoid her.

  “Where did he go?” Tessa said, looking after Alessandro.

  “He needs to catch his plane; he’s going to Italy for a few days,” Victor said matter of fact. “Monsieur Deuvault was telling me about this awesome resort on the French Riviera; let’s see if we can make some vacation arrangements.”

  Tessa smiled and listened to the conversation, but her annoyance grew by the minute. Alessandro didn’t have any reason to be so rude to her, first embarrassing her in front of everyone while she held the baby, and now when he took off like a shot. What’s his problem?

  Alessandro arrived at the airport within fifteen minutes. The plane was scheduled to depart in an hour and he rushed to check in. He walked distractedly through the tunnel into the waiting area, sat and pulled a newspaper out of his bag, but the rows seemed to dance in front of him replaced by Tessa’s image, holding Victor’s grandson. When he first saw her, he almost ran to her, an unbearable need to hold her temporarily clouding his judgment.

  For a moment, he thought she held their baby, the baby she’d lost, and the grief overwhelmed him. What hurt the most was her refusal to acknowledge the loss; to talk with him openly about the baby—as much a part of him as it was part of her. He tried to understand her need for time and not wanting him anymore, but didn’t he deserve closure, too? His agony lasted too long and he wanted nothing but to stop hurting.

  He stood and walked to the nearby bar area and ordered a glass of wine, then a second one. He dialed Gabriela’s number and when she didn’t answer, he left her a message, “Ciao, bella, I wanted to surprise you first, but…I’m on my way to Milano with the plane arriving from Bucharest at ten o’clock. Don’t come to the airport, it’s too late, but if you could, please wait for me at home; I need to talk to you.”

  Tessa drove to the address her biological father gave her. She was a mess, so nervous, she could hear her heart beating. First Alessandro angered her, behaving like a spoiled child and now having to face the man that was her only other living relative other than Octavia and Chiara. She had promised them she’d call no matter how late she returned home, both being too curious to see how her visit went.

  She arrived at the upscale neighborhood, with old, opulent houses well maintained. Tall, metal gates marked each estate. Several houses had guards patrolling outside the properties while others had security cameras installed on every corner.

  The address she looked for was an enormous brick house remotely positioned from the main gate and hidden behind bushy oak trees. She pressed the button on the security panel and waited. A young voice asked who she was and after saying her name, the gates opened; Tessa drove in and followed the paved driveway to the house. The front door opened and a young lady showed her inside.

  “Dr. Mincu will be with you shortly,” the young woman said, disappearing through a door that seemed to be part of the wall, covered in wood panels to the ceiling.

  Left alone, Tessa looked around her. Rich marble flooring covered the first floor, up the stairs and continued on the second floor. Two half-moon sets of stairs opened into a large foyer with heavy wooden doors behind each set of steps. An impressive painting of an Arabian horse with a golden frame hung on the wall at the end of the stairs on the left, while another painting, this time of a man reading on a sofa, with a German Shepherd resting at his feet hung on the opposite wall, next to the second set of stairs.

  “That’s my father, your grandfather, before the war.”

  She turned to see a tall man, well-built for his age, staring at her. His rather buttery voice had a unique timbre, a richness to it that sounded like a whisper. His salt and pepper hair was neatly combed over his head, a short-trimmed, completely white goatee around full lips, thin nose and his eyes… Dina was right, she did inherit her father’s eyes.

  “Adrian…sir…” Tessa mumbled.

  He came closer and looked into her eyes, so deep as if he tried to read the back of her mind. His eyes filled up with tears. He brushed a shy palm over her face, barely touching it and said, almost forcing the words out of his mouth, “Ana… God, you look so much like her…I wish…I wish I had known about you…” He dropped his gaze on her pearl necklace and a gasp escaped his lips.

  Tessa instinctively raised her hand and touched the pearls.

  “She kept them,” he said. “She kept the whole set, the earrings, the bracelet, and now you’re wearing it.”

  “You gave them to her?”

  “Yes, I did. She loved pearls and she always looked lovely wearing them.”

  His shoulders slumped under the weight of his emotions, but a weak smile spread over his face and when he smiled, Tessa knew why her mama fell in love with him.

  Adrian seemed to recover quickly and said, “Come, let us sit in the living room, we have so much to talk about. I have a few things I want to show to you.”

  He took her elbow and showed her to a large room with leather sofas arranged in a u-shape in the middle. They bordered an antique coffee table, with a piano in the opposite corner. Burgundy velvet drapes decorated ceiling-tall windows. A wide gold-framed mirror hung above a marble fireplace.

  Once seated, the same young lady that showed Tessa into the house entered the room carrying a tray with coffee, hot tea and cookies.

  “Tea for me, please,” Tessa said.

  The young lady didn’t ask Adrian what he wanted; instead she handed him a cup of coffee and left as quietly as she came.

  Tessa waited for the lady to leave the room then turned to Adrian, “You have a maid?”

  “I do…there is another house on the other side of the park, behind this house for the…I don’t like calling them servants, but helping hands,” Adrian responded.

  “You have more employees?”

  Adrian cleared his throat, visibly embarrassed and said, “Well, there is a cook and a chauffeur and two men helping in the horse stalls.”

  Tessa assessed one more time her surroundings and said, “I had no idea doctors make so much money.”

  “Well, it’s more Yvonne’s, my wife’s, lifestyle than mine. I could be happy with just a room, nothing extravagant, nothing pretentious.” He fixed his gaze on the portrait on the shelf above the fireplace and, pointing at it he said, “My wife’s family moved to Bucharest before the Second World War. She was raised in an elite French family and had the best of everything, even after she married a poor doctor like me. After her parents passed away, as an only child, Yvonne inherited estates all over Europe, as well as here in Romania.” He looked back at Tessa, took a sip of his coffee and continued, “She passed away several years ago. I live here surrounded by my books, horses and music. Once in a while, my son comes to visit me.”

  Tessa sat, absorbing his words and although she came prepared with a long list of questions, her head felt vacant of any thoughts.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you have other children?”

  He sighed and rubbed his goatee, averting his eyes. “I think you and I need time to adjust to this new situation and I didn’t want to scare you away. Finding out you have more relatives at once might overwhelm you. I didn’t tell y
ou because…because he got really mad at me and…and he doesn’t want to meet you.” He sighed again, this time looking at Tessa. “I had no idea about your existence and I can’t change anything about the past.”

  “Do you regret my looking for you?”

  “Oh, no, not even for a second. I won’t lie; I was shocked at first and very skeptical, but Mr. Borcea convinced me when he told me Ana’s name. I realized he was telling me the truth.” Adrian took another sip of his coffee, this time his hand shaking slightly. He stopped the cup’s rattle by placing it on the coffee table, then slowly rubbing both hands on his knees.

  “Why?” Tessa asked moments later, the most important question of all, the question that should put her worries to rest, her past behind her and free her up to live her future—a future free of deception, fear and betrayal.

  Adrian stood, walked to the window, holding both his hands behind his back. He seemed lost in his thoughts for a while. When he spoke, his voice sounded as if he were returning from a different universe.

  “Why? Why do people cheat? Why do people fall in love? Why do they hurt their loved ones? Why did I get involved with your mother even though we both were married?”

  Adrian returned to the sofa and sat next to Tessa, slightly facing her. “I can tell you that I was trapped in a marriage that didn’t give me the things I wanted, needed, craved. I can tell you that I wanted a divorce even before I met your mother or after we became involved. I can tell you that I lived thinking of Ana night and day after I moved away, a living hell for so many years, I lost track of them. I can tell you so many things now, but honestly, none of them would change what we’ve done.

  “They’d be nothing but excuses, and I doubt that’s what you want to hear. I made a few mistakes in my life, mistakes I am not proud of, but if there is one thing I’ve done right it’s getting to know Ana, loving her and being so lucky to be loved by her. She had been my world…my everything. I still love her with the same intensity, the same passion I did thirty years ago.” He didn’t bother to wipe his tears away, his face contorted with pain.

  “How long had you been together?”

  “I returned to Bucharest after several years and I didn’t look for her, trying to go on with my life. But we met again and…we tried to resist…to stay away…I asked her if we could maybe just have a cup of coffee now and then. For about a year we did that. One day, she worked the nightshift and I waited for her in the morning. It was pouring rain outside and I offered to give her a ride home. We were together after that, until she got the news about the cancer.

  “She called me and told me to come to our apartment, she had news for me. I got there thinking she finally decided to accept my marriage proposal. Instead she told me that day would be our last day together,” Adrian said and a new wave of tears filled up his eyes, his voice choked. He struggled to speak again, swallowing hard a few times.

  He cleared his throat and continued, “She told me that she wanted me to always remember her as the woman I fell in love with, whole, healthy, alive, and not some butchered, messed up, empty body she’d turn into after the mastectomy and the chemo. I told her all I wanted was to grow old with her, no matter how little time we had left, but she was adamant about it. She made me promise not to ever try to contact her and not to come to her funeral.

  “I was weak and visited her once in the hospital after the surgery, but she didn’t see me, still under the heavy anesthesia. I never really said goodbye to her. And here I am, a year after she has passed away, still waiting for her to come back to me…”

  Tessa had been brave since she got there, keeping her emotions in control. She knew her mama loved this man. She knew they’d fallen prey to a passion that consumed them even after they stopped seeing each other. She knew they’d been too weak to resist each other.

  She came wanting to be mad at Adrian, mad at her mama, and judge them for being unfaithful. Judge them, point her fingers at them and scream for making her feel shameful for something she hadn’t done. But she couldn’t. The anger inside her heart mysteriously disappeared, replaced by acceptance. And forgiveness. And hope.

  Tessa put her hands on top of his and when Adrian raised his eyes to hers, she smiled and said, “I’m tired of being mad, I’m tired of hurting. I want to live in the present, free of the past’s burdens. You loved Mama and she loved you back. I can’t promise much, but if you let me… if you allow me in to your life, I’d be willing to try…try to accept you. Don’t get me wrong, I had a father, a father that loved and raised me. But…knowing what you and Mama had, the love you gave her and how happy you made her…I am at peace with that.”

  Adrian’s sob got lost in Tessa’s embrace. He hugged her back. She closed her eyes as she let him hold her and imagined her mama doing that sometimes, feeling loved, protected, belonging.

  Adrian let go of her, wiped his face, and smiling, said, “I have a few pictures of Ana. Would you like to see them?”

  She dried her face, sniffled, and said, “I would very much like that.”

  He grabbed a medium-size wooden box from the coffee table and opened it with infinite care. “This is my favorite one,” he said and pulled out a photo of Ana, smiling, young and beautiful, her black hair framing her lovely face and holding a huge wildflower bouquet.

  “She took me a few times to that place where you used to meet her,” Tessa said, admiring the photo.

  “She did?”

  “Yes, but she told me it belonged to a friend of hers going through divorce.”

  “How do you know it was our place?” Adrian said.

  “Because of this,” Tessa said and pointed at her mama’s face. “The way she smiled, the way she talked, I was old enough to see the change in her. She never smiled that way around us, around my dad. Her face lit up with love each time we went to the apartment.”

  They looked through the entire box; Ana reading, Ana cooking, Ana sleeping, Ana dancing, and in each one of the photos Ana looked happy. At the bottom of the box, there was a lock of hair tied with a red ribbon. Adrian picked it and held it in his open palm; he closed his eyes and ran a finger over it.

  “I used to love touching her hair, playing with it. She cut this the day I last saw her and gave it to me,” Adrian said opening his eyes. “You have the same thick, beautiful hair, like her.”

  Tessa untied her hair and shook it down her back, then brushed a hand through it.

  “I guess I do,” she said.

  Adrian put everything back in the box and placed it back on the table.

  “I’m glad you’re here. We have so much to talk about, how about we have dinner together?”

  Tessa looked at her watch and realized she didn’t eat much for lunch and dinnertime was close. “I think that’s a great idea. Thank you for inviting me.”

  “Perfect,” he said, stood and took her hand. “I told Pepin you might stay for dinner tonight; let’s see what he prepared.”

  “Pepin? You have a French cook?” Tessa asked as they walked down the hall to a room, not as large as the living room, with a long dining table in the middle, ornate, sturdy chairs, and gold plated silverware and plates set out as if a big party would begin any minute.

  Adrian chuckled. “Pepin has been part of our household since Yvonne and I married, part of her wedding gift from her parents. After she died he chose to stay since he has no other relatives back home in France and he’s learned the Romanian ways.”

  Adrian called Florina, the maid, and gave her instructions about having dinner with his daughter, emphasizing the word and looking lovingly towards Tessa. After she left, Adrian took Tessa on a tour around the house, then around the property.

  The estate was bigger than anything Tessa had seen before. A park, a pond, horse stalls, a huge garage housing three old cars, and the second house for the employees. By the time they returned, Tessa felt dizzy and so hungry, she could’ve devoured an elephant all by herself.

  “This is incredible. I never thought such propertie
s existed. I mean, we all see movies, read books, but to see it like this, it feels surreal.”

  Adrian handed her a glass of wine, then got one for himself.

  “As I said, my wife’s family had been very wealthy. I don’t do as much as I could around here. She used to entertain quite a bit, but I would come home and lock myself in my studio and read until the wee hours. I still do it and leave the household to my people; they know it better than I do anyway.”

  Florina brought the food and the aroma made Tessa’s mouth water before she could see what was underneath the lids.

  “Ah, Pepin wants to impress you. He is very proud of his perfect roasted Chateaubriand in wine sauce and his chateau potatoes are to die for. Try it,” Adrian said, slicing a piece of the beef and placing it on Tessa’s plate. He added potatoes, and then served himself.

  They ate quietly for a while, too famished to make small talk, but the silence didn’t feel uncomfortable at all, quite the opposite. It had been a tremendously emotional day for Tessa and most likely for Adrian as well, but she realized that spending time together would benefit both of them.

  “Why do you think Mama never told you about me?” Tessa said, switching her empty dinner plate with a cup of homemade ice cream.

  “I wish I knew,” Adrian answered. “She talked about all three of you a lot, being happy when her girls were happy, sad when her girls were sad and…” Adrian stopped and looked over Tessa’s shoulder. He looked as if he saw a ghost. She followed his gaze and turned to look towards the doorway. She felt as if the blood drained from her head, a horrible knot forming in her stomach. She dropped the spoon of ice cream—it became inexplicable heavy.

  “Tessa? What are you doing here?”

  “Cristian! What are you doing here?” Tessa tried to stand, but her legs remained stubbornly still. She twisted her body in the chair, so she could see him better.

  Adrian shot to his feet as if something burned him and came to stand by Tessa. Cristian rushed to her side as well, staring down at her.