Lily Rose

by Deborah Robinson

  The constant abiding interest for Emily had always been horses— their house was less than a mile from a riding stable called Green Meadows. At the age of seven, she took her first riding lesson, and it seemed like she had barely left the saddle since. Over the past ten years she’d become an accomplished equestrienne, winning tournament ribbons that plastered the walls of her bedroom. But Eric and Gabriella had always made sure that she earned the privilege of her passion, that she pulled her weight in taking care of her chestnut dressage horse—whom at age twelve she had named Chessy—and that it never interfered with her schoolwork. Luckily, Emily was a star student and wanted to attend Yale.

  Eric thought he knew everything about his oldest daughter’s life, until a week ago.

  He’d been sitting in his study, looking at some proofs through a jeweler’s loupe, when there came a soft knock at the door. Emily slipped in, and as she sat down across from him, Eric was struck by how much she looked like her mother, with her long dark hair and eyes, round face, and full lips. Both of his daughters took after Gabriella in coloring, but he liked to think that in their veins ran the characteristic stubbornness of the Langvins.

  “What is it, my dear?” he asked.

  Emily looked down, twisting the frayed cuffs of her baggy sweatshirt. Almost in a whisper, she said, “Dad, I’m sorry. I don’t know how else to tell you, but . . . I’m pregnant.”

  Staring at his seventeen-year-old daughter, Eric felt the past rush up to grab him by the throat. He was seventeen himself, sitting opposite a blond girl at a yacht club. A whirlwind of questions threatened to cloud his mind. Are you sure? Who’s the father? How far along…. Automatically, his eyes moved toward Emily’s stomach, hidden behind her sweatshirt. She had worn oversize clothes the whole summer, even in the warmest weather, and now he wondered what she had been hiding beneath them.

  Emily guessed what he was thinking. “I’m twenty-two weeks along.”

  Too late for an abortion, even if Gabriella and her faith allowed it at any point after conception.

  Eric finally found his voice. “Does your mother—”

  At his daughter’s nod, Eric thought of course her mother knew. Of course Gabriella was the first person Emily would have told. Gabriella would have wanted to share the news with him, to be with her daughter when she told him, but Emily would have insisted on doing it herself. He knew that Gabriella had taken Chloe out to run errands that afternoon, and it must have been planned deliberately so that Emily could be alone with him. He tried to remind himself that before him was his little girl, needing his comfort as much as she had when she was four and skinned her knee, or ten and taken a fall at a dressage event.

  “Tell me everything,” he said.

  In a halting voice, Emily spoke of how over the spring she’d gotten to know a new worker at the stables, a boy her age from Argentina named Santiago. (Eric felt a sudden, burning desire to crush this Santiago’s head.) He had been visiting relatives in the area, and wanted to make some money for school. His family back home raised polo ponies, so he was familiar with horses and loved them just as much as she did. One day Chessy came up lame and Santiago figured out that she had a pebble lodged beneath her shoe. As he expertly removed it, Emily was impressed by his skillful hands and started talking to him about his experience with horses. When he told her about the ponies and their springtime foals that roamed in the fields owned by his family in South America, she felt like she was being transported to another world. Before long, they were hanging out together all the time at the stables.

  At this point Eric didn’t need to hear any more. He knew what this would lead to—the proverbial roll in the hay. Emily had had a couple of boyfriends before, classmates who had taken her to dances or to the movies, but he’d never had any reason to think that she’d liked any of them very much, or had gotten very deeply involved with them. She wasn’t the kind of boy-crazy teenager some of her friends were; she had a level head on her shoulders; she was more interested in studying and horses . . . wasn’t she? How could she not know enough to keep from getting pregnant? Eric caught himself. When he was her age, he should have known better, too.

  He couldn’t blame this Santiago, either. Santiago was out of the picture, had gone back to Argentina at the end of the summer. Emily said they had exchanged a few emails, but he didn’t know she was pregnant. She hadn’t even known, until two months ago.

  “I guess I was trying hard not to believe what was happening,” she confessed, staring at her hands in her lap. “Until it was too late.”

  “Have you been to a doctor at least?” Eric asked softly.

  “Mom took me last week.”

  Last week? He had truly been kept in the dark.

  But he didn’t have time to reflect on that, as Emily said in a shuddering voice, “I’m so sorry, Dad. I know I’ve disappointed you. I’ve ruined my life . . .”

  Eric stopped her with a gentle hug. “No, you haven’t. And there’s nothing you could do that would disappoint me. Now, I want you to go upstairs and rest. We’ll figure everything out, I promise.”

  After kissing her on the forehead, he watched as she left the room, and continued to sit in his studio as the afternoon light waned. Instead of thinking about Emily, however, he couldn’t help reflecting on how similar her revelation was with the one that had blindsided him thirty-six years ago. A bitter laugh escaped his lips. What did they say about history repeating itself? Then he felt the sting of remorse—he and his family had abandoned a pregnant seventeen-year-old girl, giving her a check in exchange for putting her baby up for adoption and going away. After Jeff had gone back to Kentucky, he’d wondered at times how she was doing, whether she’d changed her mind and wanted to keep the baby, but then he’d started school at Harvard, and it was easy to forget what had happened in the fall of his senior year in high school. He’d rarely thought about Jeff since. He’d definitely never told Gabriella about her, and, while he didn’t think she would never forgive him over a teenage transgression, in light of what was happening to their family, he’d have to tell her sooner rather than later . . . as soon as they figured out what to do about Emily.

  Eric heard footsteps in the hallway; Gabriella and Chloe had returned from shopping. He heard Emily’s voice float down to greet them, Chloe barreling up the stairs to show her what they’d bought. Chloe idolized her older sister, and at thirteen she had just become a teenager herself, he was reminded. He almost wished he could halt the passage of time, even reverse it to when his girls were still little, and he could protect them and save them from the same sort of mistakes he’d made in his own life.

  Opening the door, he caught sight of Gabriella passing by. The look on her face was one of sadness and understanding as she realized that he now knew, and he couldn’t be upset with her for keeping Emily’s secret. Without speaking, her eyes said to him, Whatever may come, we will deal with it together. Grateful to her, for her, Eric stepped outside the room to join his family.

  * * *

  In the following week, Eric and Gabriella had not been able to come to a decision. Emily should carry the baby to term, that was certain. But whether to give the baby up for adoption, they disagreed.

  “She’s set on going to school, she wants to be a veterinarian. She has her whole life ahead of her,” Gabriella argued.

  “This isn’t something that can be undone. She might regret it for the rest of her life,” Eric retorted. He wasn’t ready to tell his wife why he felt this way, why he needed to give his daughter the option that he’d never had, to get to know his own child.

  When asked what she wanted to do, Emily simply groaned and said she was too tired to think about it. Eric tried to impress upon her the importance of letting the father of the baby know, and she said she would call Santiago, but Eric suspected she didn’t want to add one more person to what was already a complicated situation.

  The only thing the three of them were unanimous on was that they should let other people know about Emily’s
pregnancy. She was so tiny and slim that she was unable to hide her bump anymore; she couldn’t hide behind sweatshirts forever. Besides, Chloe was getting suspicious, and once she knew, it would be impossible to keep her mouth shut. In her typical way, upon being told, Chloe gasped in disbelief, then was excited about being the first aunt in her eighth-grade classroom.

  With everything going on in his household, Eric was only now reminded that Lily Rose Long had left a message on his phone that he’d never answered.

  When he dialed her number, she picked it up on the second ring.

  “Hello?”

  “This is Eric Langvin. I apologize for taking so long to return your call. I . . . had some family business to attend to.”

  He could just hear the constriction of breath on the other end. “Thank you for calling back, Eric. Would you be able to meet me in the city one afternoon this week? I need to talk to you, but it has to be in person.”

  Ordinarily Eric would have required more explanation, but something about the quivering note in Lily’s voice, as if she were afraid to let go of something massive behind it, made him agree. “Of course. Where do you want to meet?”

  “How about the grand salon at the St. Regis Hotel? Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes.” He’d done photo shoots there many years ago when he was just starting out in his career. “What time?”

  “Three o’clock on Wednesday?”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Thank you so much, Eric. I promise I’ll be able to tell you more when I see you.”

  After hanging up, Eric thought this might be a welcome diversion from his current family drama. In any case, whatever Lily Rose Long had to say, it couldn’t be more earth-shattering than what his daughter had so recently told him.

  Chapter 21

  LILY ROSE SAT NERVOUSLY AT a table in the grand salon at the St. Regis Hotel, facing the entrance. Although the room was glittering with glass and crystal, she only had eyes for the guests that came in, her heart jumping a little if she saw a man of a certain height and age and coloring arrive. She knew she would recognize him, but despite their brief time together, she didn’t know if he would recognize her. In her all-black outfit and subdued jewelry, she blended in with the well-heeled tourists and businesspeople waiting for clients. No one would think that she was waiting for the one person who could change her life.

  Ever since she had learned that Eric Langvin was her biological father, Lily hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. In her mind she kept replaying their one and only meeting at the Couture magazine photo shoot. She had been in a dark place at the time, despairing over ever having a baby with Peyton. Somehow, Eric had convinced her to forget about her worries for most of the afternoon, focusing on herself and her love for her dog, Sable, who had accompanied her on the shoot. He had taken a photo of her and Sable and sent it to her, and she’d had it framed, where it sat on her desk along with other pictures of her dear family members.

  When Lily had left Red Rose Farm and gone back to New York, the first thing she’d done was go find that picture in her apartment. In it, her hair was loose around her shoulders, her arms were thrown around Sable, and she was laughing. “Remember this moment,” Eric had told her. Sometimes, when she’d looked at the photo, she’d remembered its photographer, too, and wondered about him. How strange that because of this photograph, he had been with her for so many years, even without her being aware of it.

  She didn’t need a private investigator this time; she had only to go through the many media articles about Eric’s career, look at the hundreds of photographs he’d taken. Now that she was back in New York, she was able to pull a few strings with people she knew at Couture magazine to get his phone number, pretending that she was looking to hire him for her boutique’s spring campaign.

  “You’ll never be able to get him,” she was told. “He works only with a very select few people.”

  “Oh, I think he’ll be interested,” Lily replied, although deep down she was afraid that Eric’s reaction to being told she was his daughter would be to reject her, just as Jeff had done.

  For the time being, she busied herself with work. Being back felt better than she had anticipated; as close contact as she had kept with her assistants while she had been at the farm, seeing the World of Lily Rose in person made her realize how important her boutique was to her. Although it was hard to bring herself to step inside R. R. Peyton’s again, it was worth it to see how well the fall line was doing. She was able to walk down the street again without fear of running into Peyton or his father, her head held high.

  After working up the courage to call Eric and leave him a message, Lily spent an agonizing ten days wondering whether he was going to call her back. If someone had left her a cryptic message like that, she would have assumed blackmail or worse. When he returned her call, though, he didn’t sound like he suspected anything. Lily had lain awake the night before they arranged to meet, too agitated to sleep.

  Finally, she caught sight of him. He stood in the entrance of the grand salon for a moment, scanning the room. His thick blond hair was slightly graying at the temples, but his jawline was as strong as ever, and age had only made him more ruggedly handsome. Casually dressed in blue jeans and a tan barn jacket, he still commanded attention wherever he went. Some of the hotel’s guests turned their heads to stare at him, wondering if he was a movie star, not aware that he was indeed someone, just not the person they’d imagined.

  As when she’d last seen him, Lily immediately noticed the color of his eyes, which were like the sea on a calm day. This time, though, it came with a jolt of realization—the odd shade of blue was the exact same as her own. This genetic similarity heartened her; at last, she had some visual evidence that she was related by blood to someone.

  Seeing her, Eric smiled and maneuvered around the other tables until he reached her. Lily suppressed the natural instinct to jump up and hug him, and held out her hand instead.

  “It’s nice to see you again, Lily,” he said as he took it and sat down across the table from her.

  “It’s nice to see you, too,” she echoed shyly. “How was your trip?”

  They spoke briefly about his train ride into the city and the weather as they waited for the tea they’d ordered to arrive. When it did, Lily stared at the scones and bowl of clotted cream, too anxious to take a bite; if she did, she was sure it would stick in her throat. She didn’t want to carry on the pretense too long, as she had done with Jeff.

  Taking a deep breath, she said, “Eric, I want to tell you about a trip I just took to Atlanta. I was looking for my birth mother. I’m not sure if I told you that I was adopted?”

  Eric shook his head.

  “I’d known her name for years, but I never felt the need to look for her until what happened to me last year. . . . ”

  At this, Lily glanced downward, aware that Eric would know from the tabloids exactly what she was referring to. When she raised them again, she looked back into a gaze that was as penetratingly blue as her own, and was encouraged to continue.

  “I hired a private investigator, who found her in Atlanta.”

  She paused, and Eric asked politely, “What did you find out?”

  “After she’d given birth to me and put me up for adoption, she went to college there. Emory University, actually. She went on to do quite well for herself.”

  “She remarried?”

  Lily gave him a curious look. “She married a wealthy businessman, but it was her first marriage. My birth parents were just teenagers when they met, they never married.”

  Eric nodded. “Of course not.”

  “I traveled to Atlanta to see her.” Lily went on to describe the woman she’d encountered—a brassy blond, statuesque—who asked to be called by her nickname. “It was strange, a boy’s name, not something I would expect at all.”

  She paused, and Eric simply said, “Jeff.”

  His face did not betray a single emotion. Whether it was be
cause they were in a public place, or he’d subconsciously thought about this for years, his expression remained unchanged, as if he were sitting still for a photograph.

  Then he asked, “So how is your mother?”

  “She’s not my mother. She’s my biological incubator. She doesn’t want anything to do with me. She said,” Lily caught her breath, “that she never wanted any children.”

  Eric gave a low, wry laugh. “That sounds like Jeff.” Leaning forward, he took Lily’s hand in his own. “My dear, I know that must have been hard for you to hear. But I have to explain what happened. We came from different worlds, Jeff and I. In my senior year, my high school organized a poverty awareness tour of Appalachia. At our last town, some students at a local school held a party for us. That’s where I met Jeff.

  “We were . . . instantly attracted to each other, but that’s all it was. We . . . made a mistake, and she got pregnant. We were both so young, intending to go to college, that we didn’t think it made sense for us to stay together. Both of us thought it was best if she gave the baby up for adoption and we didn’t see each other again.”

  “And you didn’t keep in touch?”

  “Lily, you have to understand that Jeff and I hardly knew each other. We’d met up maybe all of three times before I had to go back home.”

  “But that was enough for her to get pregnant.” Lily couldn’t keep a note of bitterness from entering her voice. “And now you have your own family.”

  “I do, but if I hadn’t met Gabriella, I think I would be quite alone in this world. I had a sister who died young, my parents are now gone, and my brother hasn’t spoken to me in years. My wife and my children are everything to me now.”

  “At least you have that.” Lily turned her sad, luminous eyes on him. “You see, Eric, I don’t have anyone. My adoptive parents passed away when I was barely a teenager, as did my relatives who took me in afterward. I’m sure you’ve heard about what happened with my husband. We didn’t,” here her voice choked up, “we didn’t have any children. When we got divorced, not only did I lose him but also my father-in-law, who until then treated me like one of his own. Or at least I thought he did, until he made it quite clear his company was more important. Then I found out about Jeff, and you know how that turned out.”