Her eyes large with shock, Lily flew through the front door just as I descended the stairs to go to les halles to buy vegetables. She came to an abrupt stop when she saw me—her chest heaving, her eyes accusing.
“What’s going on?” I reached for two baskets at the door.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her anger pulsed in waves.
“Tell you what?”
“That you’re selling Madeleine Marie. Why didn’t you tell me?” Lily paused. “Why? You never tell me anything. You never do anything! And now you are. Why this? Why now? Why haven’t you mentioned this to me?”
“I honestly thought you wouldn’t care, Lily,” I said softly and tried to stroke her cheek.
She pulled back out of reach. “Well maybe I do care. Did you ever think of that? You’ve told me about this place my whole life,” she said.
I carefully replaced the baskets to their spot near the door. “I’m sorry. More sorry than I can say. But we can come back to visit anytime we want. I found a nice cottage for Jean and—”
“What is wrong with you? Of course I care. This place is the coolest ever.”
I could see the storm of emotions roiling within her, and I prepared for the blast. The curtains were closing on my reactions and a sense of calm washed over me. At a certain point, I’ve learned, you can withstand everything with a smile.
“You should have divorced Dad a long time ago and made a real home for us like this one. But you didn’t. You just made us live there in that house of hell.”
I swallowed. “I made a huge mistake, a very bad judgment call, and I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. I wish I could rewrite what happened, but I can’t.”
“It was awful, Mom,” she said slowly.
“Lily, I stayed because I wanted to protect you. I wasn’t sure I’d get full custody. I didn’t want to take that risk.”
“That’s the problem with you, Mom. You never ever take risks.”
“I won’t take a risk when the potential loss is too great.”
“Yeah, well, you lost me.”
“I almost did,” I said quietly. “I made a nearly fatal mistake that will always haunt me.”
“And now you’re doing it again. You’re refusing to take a risk. You’re refusing to try to save Madeleine Marie.”
“Who told you this?”
“Your uncle Jean-Michel. He’s in the garden. I met him when he drove up. He said he’s come to take one long last look around. When I asked why, he said you were selling the villa and I ran inside to ask you if it was true.”
“Lily, you have no idea the impossibility of keeping a villa going like this. There’s no money to do it. If I could, I would.”
“Really? You can’t figure out a way? Well, I think you can, but you just don’t want to be bothered. You just want to tuck everyone into their neat little boxes, including me, and go back to the States.”
A small part of me was thrilled that she was challenging me. She was finally becoming a teenager—rebelling, not staying silent, or running away. But, sadly, I couldn’t do what she wanted; I could only do what was financially possible. “Lily, we’re going back, yes, but I was thinking we could move to Manhattan. Soho even. Or would you prefer to be with your friends in Darien if you came back? I suppose I could find a small bungalow there if you insisted. What do you think?”
“You don’t get it,” she said. “I’m not going to New York, and I’m not going back to Connecticut. That is for sure. I’ll go back to Miss Chesterfield’s if that’s the only other choice. But I want to stay here. And, yes, I hate Dad for what he did. But most of all I hate you for not figuring out what to do. For not getting us out. I had to get myself out.”
“Lily—”
Her beautiful face turned into a wildly contorted vision of fury and hatred and she ran out of the room without one telltale sound of sadness.
I couldn’t feel my arms. And I couldn’t move my feet. It felt like cement coated every part of me. I could barely turn my head to look toward the open door. How could it be sunny? Nothing made sense in my world.
“Ma pauvre chérie.” My uncle’s figure, black against the brightness of the day, filled the doorway. His voice pierced the buzzing in my ears.
I still couldn’t move. A dull roar began in my head, and my heart turned over with each hard beat in my chest, clogging my throat. I would have given anything for a chair. “Please, leave.”
“Mais, non. Absolument pas! You are very white. Like a ghost, chérie.”
“Stop calling me chérie.”
He tsk-tsked. “But of course you are my chérie. My darling niece from America. And now my darling great-niece is here too. I just met her. Adorable child. Looks just like Antoinette when she was that age. And she’s in top physical shape.”
If one more person discussed our physical forms I would stuff their face with a dozen croissants. No. Really. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask the same of you, Kate.”
“What. Are You. Doing. Here?” My voice rose in pitch with each word. The exotic fumes of hate were filling the deepest part of my sinuses.
“Why, I rang my father. Your grandfather.”
“Condescension is so unoriginal, Jean-Michel. I don’t need you to clarify who Jean du Roque is.”
“Oh là là,” he said. “You had better learn to insult with a bit more flair while you’re here. The ideal is to do it in a way that leaves the person unsure if you’ve insulted them or not. You Americans are so blunt and brusque. No finesse at all.”
A sound echoed off the high ceiling. We both turned to see Jean with his raised cane in hand seated in his wheelchair pushed by Youssef. He was about to dash the cane again against the parquet floor of the long hall. “Enough. I’m tired of you both being at each other’s throats.”
I nodded toward the salon door in response to Youssef’s silent questioning expression.
Youssef pushed Jean’s chair into the room with Magdali bringing up the rear carrying a magnificent silver tea tray. It was silent except for the low squeal of the wheels on the wood veneers. Youssef parked the wheelchair on one side of the long low table as Jean-Michel and I sat on opposite ends of the famous blue sofa.
“Merci, Youssef,” Magdali said. “You may take your lunch now.”
The flash of Youssef’s wide white grin against the black of his face did not disarm Magdali. She showed not an inch of emotion as he bowed and departed.
“How lovely, Magdali,” Jean-Michel said. “You’ve got yourself an underling to order around. Finally!”
Magdali, her face impassive, placed the tea tray on the long low table and began pouring tea for everyone without a word.
“What is going on here? I can smell something is very off,” Jean said.
“Nothing at all, Papa,” Jean-Michel continued. “Other than the issue of the magnificent Kate, with her PhD in meddling with other people’s lives, and whatever else. Yes, well, she has no control of her own daughter. A daughter who detests her and doesn’t trust her. And this is the person Antoinette has sent here to fix our problems. A woman who has so far done nothing but interfere in our affairs and bring strife wherever she goes. Do you know she’s concocting to sell Madeleine Marie to Jojo, that imbecile of a mayor? She’ll probably ask for money under the table and keep it for herself. Why can’t you—”
“You’re just annoyed that you’re about to be cut out of the deal you planned the minute you inherited,” I said coolly.
“How can you tolerate her, Papa? She’s got that tainted Hamilton blood. You can’t trust her.”
“Jean-Michel, enough!”
“No, Papa. I’m tired of doing everything to help you without a word of thanks. Indeed, I’m now subjected to questions and insinuations. Where was Antoinette when we needed her? Not here. And she could well afford to help. Instead, she sends her daughter, who has no sense of tradition. No sense of birthright. Indeed, our dear Magdali would have been a better branch on our tree. And she is in a strange way, after all. Somehow the Hamilton blood did not take in her though, but by—”
“Jean-Michel,” Jean said with bite. “Tais-toi.” Shut up.
“Magdali knows her place,” Jean-Michel continued. “She’s a devoted member of the family. And would never suggest this beautiful family treasure be sold. And certainly wouldn’t do it behind our backs.”
Magdali moved toward the door.
“No,” I said without thought. “Don’t you dare leave, Magdali.”
She stopped and parked herself near the door with her head bowed.
I felt as if I were in some sort of strange tale about Cheshire cats and going through a looking glass. Just couldn’t figure out what my uncle was saying. Something was lost in translation.
“It’s such a pity your father couldn’t seem to produce males to carry on his line,” Jean-Michel continued. “But he liked to spread his seed, so perhaps there are sons we know nothing about. Yes, I vaguely recall—”
The cane descended with such force that the sound echoed for long moments in the room. “I said, tais-toi, Jean-Michel,” Jean demanded.
Finally, blessed silence.
“What the hell is he talking about?” My voice was hoarse.
“Kate, Magdali. Leave us,” Grandfather demanded.
“No,” I said. “I will not. Magdali, I said don’t leave.”
Magdali took her hand off of the brass door lever.
“What does my father have to do with Magdali?”
Both men began speaking at once. The son’s sharp tones cut through his father’s. “Why are you protecting her from the truth? She has the right to know. Magdali does.”
A dozen insane ideas battled in my brain. “Granddaddy. Tell me. Please.”
Jean looked first at me, then toward Magdali, and finally his gaze rested on his son. “I’ve overlooked your deficiencies in character for too long. I’d hoped you would change. But you haven’t. I want you out of Madeleine Marie by tonight.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “He doesn’t go until he tells me what he’s insinuating.”
Again, Jean tried to speak but Jean-Michel won out. “Magdali is your half sister, you little fool.”
“Pack your affairs and go,” Grandfather said, quiet fury building. “And don’t return. I don’t want you at my funeral or anywhere near my grave. Get out. You might be one of my legal heirs, but you are not my son. And I shall redo my will to leave the full twenty-five percent the law allows me at my discretion in Kate’s name.”
Jean-Michel disregarded his father and instead focused on me, his eyes small and bright with hate. “When your father, the ugly American, arrived in Biarritz, he stayed at the Hôtel du Palais. Had his way with Magdali’s mother, who was a maid there at the time. He then met Antoinette, and managed to impregnate both of them within the same month. And you take after him. Your character is proof. You’ve tainted my father’s mind, which everyone knows is questionable due to your psychological influence.”
“You’re lying about my father,” I said. “Jean. Tell me he’s lying. Magdali?” I looked at her standing by the door ten feet away and the parquet floor seemed to contract half the distance. “Magdali?” I repeated.
She shook her head.
“My father did not—”
“Oh, but he did,” Jean-Michel said with a cool smile. “Repeatedly.”
My grandfather’s hoarse voice rose and the two men began shouting at each other in French, while my thoughts darted in every direction.
It felt like we were all players in an off-off-Broadway tragi-comedy. As if on cue, Lily appeared at the doorway. She was holding Solange’s hand. My gaze fell to the doll dangling from Solange’s other hand. Tiny Tears. My . . . I strode over to the girls and dropped to my knees to look at my old doll. My first and only doll. The one who had listened to all my fears for so many years and then had been put in a chest to hold all my secrets.
But the ancient doll had strange striped overalls, not the white lace gown she’d had when I’d seen her in the chest in Lily’s bedroom. “Who gave you that doll, Solange?”
Solange, eight, looked at her mother. “Maman.”
I rose up on my feet and looked at Magdali. “Where did that doll come from?”
“Leave it, Kate,” she said slowly.
“That is not my doll. The one my father gave me has a crack at the hairline.”
And once again, as usual, reality was tipping past the point of understanding. There was no ground beneath my feet, nothing genuine or real to stand on.
North was south and east was west. Beyond the windows the leaves of the plane trees threshed the turbulent hot July air as the winds collided from every direction. The church bells rang, and the monstrous orange tabby cat streaked across the pea gravel drive. Air flowed from an open window and it smelled of rain and earth. People were speaking, loudly then softly, none to me. It was hard to care. The only thing that made sense was what I could see, and smell, not hear.
And all of a sudden I realized I was standing all alone by the window, looking out. I must have walked there. I felt so calm, all alone. It was my favorite way to be. By myself. The only time I could relax.
I wasn’t meant to be with other people. I’ve always known that. I told you that at the beginning of the story, remember? I’ve never had that resilience my profession insisted was the key to life. I just know how to plod on without emotion.
“Kate, are you listening to me?” Jean’s words finally registered.
I turned to face him. All the others had departed. “Is it true?”
“Yes.”
“Why . . . why didn’t anyone tell me? Or did everyone just forget? Or were too embarrassed?”
“I don’t know. It was just understood. There was never a reason to discuss it. It was obvious we should keep it a secret.”
“Obvious? So I would have gone to my grave not knowing I have a sister? A sister I didn’t see for years and years. And she knows.”
“Your father decided you were too close to one another. And none of us thought it wise for anyone outside the family to guess the truth. But it’s why I took in Nadine before Magdali was born. The Hôtel du Palais showed Nadine the door when it became obvious she was pregnant, and she came to the villa in search of your father. By then, Antoinette was pregnant as well, and I’d given my consent as there was no other option. I would have never agreed if I had known about Nadine. It was your mother who insisted we employ Nadine. Magdali’s mother told her all the sordid details just before she died.”
I could barely breathe. “Did he know Nadine was pregnant when he married my mother?”
“Yes, I believe he did.”
“Well, at least now I know why you hated him so much.”
“Kate, I watched helplessly as he choreographed the most confounding life for you and Antoinette. Constantly moving, always restless, always new ideas, far too smart, and far too charming.”
“No one is perfect,” I said dryly. “And by the way, to her credit, my mother loved our life, until it became too much even for her. And I didn’t mind the life we had. At least it was exciting.”
“You’ve got it wrong, Kate,” Jean said. “You were the adult and they were the children. You raised yourself. But I can’t blame Antoinette. Her childhood was nonexistent.”
A sudden peace washed over me. “We all do the best we can.”
“But sometimes life requires more than that.”
“Granddaddy—”
The door to the salon opened, and Jean-Michel strode in. “I’m leaving. Here is the key to the house. I’ve packed my affairs and taken one last look around to say adieu to the house that was supposed to be my legacy.”
“Half your legacy,” I said. “You keep forgetting about your sister.”
He pretended I wasn’t in the room and finally a great ball of recklessness took root in my belly.
He dangled the key right beyond the reach of my grandfather, who was leaning forward to take it. Slowly, he lowered his arm.
I jerked the key out of my uncle’s hands.
“And, Kate,” he said, “take care in how you spend my family’s money, for I shall have a lawyer review everything when all this is said and done and then monitor every last sou spent going forward. Because that’s French family law, in case you don’t know. You can’t disinherit your children like the bestioles in America.”
“Oh,” I said. “How drôle. Now I’m a beast from America, am I? Perfect. Well, from one beast to another, how much more money do you want to bilk from the family? How much money will it take to buy you out of your legacy—so you will be permanently out of all our lives?” I didn’t know what I was thinking. It was pure emotion.
He scrunched his face, bemused, but barely hesitated. “One million.”
I turned to look at Jean. His face was ashen and he said nothing as he stared at the turbulent, darkening sky out the window.
“Come now, Jean-Michel,” I continued, “the Sotheby’s agent said the most that could be expected was one point five million euros. And if my grandfather can lawfully give my daughter or me”—I sent a glance to my grandfather—“twenty-five percent, then your share would be . . .” Math had never been my forte.
“Five hundred sixty-two thousand five hundred,” my uncle said far too quickly.
“This is ridiculous,” Jean finally whispered. “Jean-Michel, you will not hold anyone ransom by your—”
“Half a million will do,” Jean-Michel interrupted, sensing an immediate windfall in the offing.
A thousand voices told me to keep my mouth shut. “Done,” I said. “I will have a lawyer draw up documents for you to sign relinquishing any claim and you shall receive the money in return. Within the next six weeks.”
He smirked. “You think you can sell it that fast.”
“That is none of your business,” I said. “Now get out of our house.”
“You have no right to tell me to leave my—”
“I do. And I will. Get the hell out of here.”
He looked at his father, who refused to turn his face to his son. Instead, Jean du Roque looked at me.
Jean-Michel bent to kiss his father’s cheek only to have his father turn his head away. “Mon Dieu,” Jean-Michel muttered, shaking his head. He slowly crossed the floor to reach the door and left, slamming it behind him.
I closed my eyes against the unbearable sadness. “Granddaddy?”
“Yes, my darling.”
“I don’t want you to worry. I will figure out a way to keep this damn mold-ridden villa even if I have to sell my soul. I don’t want you to move. And if I understood it, and it’s not some childish whim, which I don’t think it is, knowing Lily, then it appears we will both be living here with you, if you allow it.”
His old hand, rich with history, reached toward mine, shaking. I met it halfway with my own. I finally dropped to the sofa beside his wheelchair.
“There’s only one thing,” I said.
“What’s that, dearest?”
“Either this sofa goes, or I do.”
A smile finally broke over his features. He scratched his head. “Never let it be said that a du Roque doesn’t have a sense of humor. You get that from me by the way. And you’re the only one who got it.”
Tomorrow I would wonder what on earth I had just done. Today, I would simply luxuriate in—for the first time in forever— the feeling of doing instead of enduring.
“Kate?”
“Yes?”
“Forget me. Forget Magdali—all of us.”
“What—”
“No,” he said softly. “Let me have my say. I just want to know one thing. Do you want to live in this house or are you doing this for me or Lily? Because I won’t have it. I will sell it myself if that’s the case. Our ancestors Madeleine and Marie wouldn’t have ever wanted anyone here who didn’t want to be.”
“I know it’s hard to understand my change of heart, Grand-daddy, but you see, I think I never felt like I was part of the family. Not the du Roques nor the Hamiltons. Here I was the American, and in the US I was French. So, I didn’t feel the right to live here. But you know what? My daughter is right, and you are right. This is more a home than anywhere else could ever be. And I think I always have known it but didn’t want to hope because I’ve never really had a home. Seeing Lily here, and you, and Magdali—there’s nowhere I’d rather be.”
Peace, that old-dog-with-a-bone emotion, washed over me as I gazed into my grandfather’s old, wise eyes.
And worry, that slippery-rope emotion, soon followed.
How I was going to finance this grand scheme so quickly cobbled together and so poorly thought through was beyond me. But I would rather fail at this than succeed at anything else.