It was mid-afternoon the following day when Olivia awoke to another tidal wave of nausea. She tossed the covers aside and sprinted to the bathroom. With nothing but a few saltine crackers and a few sips of tea in her stomach, the retching subsided quickly but her stomach still felt as though it were stuck on spin cycle. To be safe, she dragged the duvet and a pillow into the bathroom, along with a few of the journals.
Over the next few days, the cycle continued: sleeping in the afternoons, reading at night, and sipping tea and nibbling crackers between visits to the bathroom. After being in Paris for a week, she finally began to feel better.
Consulting her to-do list, she decided her efforts would best be spent trying to find an apartment, so she called the realtor who had been recommended to her and set up an appointment with him for noon the following day. Then she ordered a late dinner from room service and settled into bed to read the rest of her mother’s journals.
By the time the early morning sun pierced the open curtain the following morning, Olivia had finished reading about Mac’s return and her mother’s miscarriage. She held her breath, too stunned to process what she’d learned, and opened the last journal.
She read quickly, wanting to see how and when Mac entered her mother’s life again after he left her in the hospital—because she knew he had—but halfway through the journal, the page went blank. She flipped to the next page and the next. Nothing. She fanned through the pages but there were no more words.
What the hell?
No, no, no. Her mother could not leave her hanging like this. There had to be some mistake. She leapt out of bed and went to the bureau. She scanned through every journal but there was no mistake. Her mother’s story ended. Just like that.
A crushing blow of disappointment struck her right between the shoulders and she launched herself onto the bed and the offensive journal. Dammit. She’d been sure she would find the answers she sought in her mother’s words. As she lay spread-eagle on the bed, her mother’s final words on the night she died replayed through her mind like a record that had been played so often she knew them by heart.
* * *
She’d been reading the latest Nora Roberts novel out loud when her mother clasped her hand around her daughter’s forearm. Olivia peered over the top of the book at her mother and arched an eyebrow.
Her mother wore a determined expression.
“What is it, Mom?”
“I have something to tell you.” She paused, as if weighing her words carefully, and then closed her eyes for a long moment.
Olivia’s heart jerked in her chest until her mother’s eyes opened again. Olivia pushed out a sigh of relief.
“There was a time when…before you were born…I was unhappy,” her mother said. After a short pause, she drew in a ragged breath and continued. “And I…went to my mother’s house for a few days and I…I ran into someone I used to know…a man I used to…see…and I—”
Olivia sprung from her seat. “Mom, why are you telling me this?”
“Because you need to know.”
Olivia’s mouth set in a tight line. She didn’t like where this was going. “No, Mom, I don’t need to know. Please, just rest now.”
Her mother’s voice grew more urgent. “You do need to know. Please, let me finish.”
Knowing there was not much time left, Olivia pushed aside her frustration. “Okay, Mom. What is it you want to tell me?”
“I had…an affair.”
Olivia shot out of her chair as though she’d been electrocuted.
“You mean you…cheated on Daddy?” Even as she said the words, she couldn’t believe it was true.
My mother, the former nun, had committed a mortal sin?
“It wasn’t…like that. I loved…him…once and—”
Olivia shook her head and clamped her hands over her ears. Without waiting for her mother to finish, she shot out of the room, tore open the front door and ran into the night.
* * *
Even after all this time, she could feel the sting of betrayal, as though her mother had just spoken the words. Assuming now that her mother had cheated on her father with Mac, the hurt cut even deeper. Before this past week, the man had been a nameless stranger. But after reading the journals, she felt as though she knew Mac. She had felt the power of her mother’s love for him. And his for her.
Olivia wondered whether her father had been a consolation prize. The man her mother married because Mac had died. When Mac came back, did she regret the fact that she was married to someone else? Her father claimed they were happy, that they loved each other. And he had forgiven her, hadn’t he? So why shouldn’t she? Her mother hadn’t committed any sins against her. So why had her mother’s betrayal wreaked such devastation on Olivia’s life?
Heat spread through her cheeks and she clenched her jaw. She reached for the journal beneath her, arced her arm back and launched it. When it struck the wall, the answer slammed into her brain.
Because if her father had been a consolation prize, that meant that she had been, too.
Olivia rose from the bed, yanked open various dresser drawers and sifted through the contents until she found what she was looking for. She slipped into a pair of Lee jeans, a cashmere turtleneck sweater, and a pair of sneakers. She stomped from the room, and left the hotel for the first time since she’d arrived eight days before.
She wove through the familiar, cobblestoned streets of Paris, down to the River Seine. As she walked along the river, memories of her childhood tripped through her mind. Bolting through the front door every day after school, dropping her book bag on the floor and running to find her mother, waiting for her with open arms. Baking cookies and making dinner together, and smiling as her mother greeted her father every night with a kiss. Dinners filled with chatter—hers mostly—about what they each did that day.
Never feeling like a consolation prize.
Hot tears cascaded down her cheeks, nearly freezing in their tracks in the bitter wind of the unseasonably cold first day of fall. How had she lost sight of how wonderful her childhood had been? How had she allowed her mother—the person she’d loved most on this earth—to become a stranger? Though she obviously hadn’t known as much about her mother as she once thought, she knew her heart. And Olivia knew that she’d been loved.
Sitting down on a nearby bench, she let the tears overtake her. Strangers walked briskly past her with their heads down as she cried. When the last of her energy drained from her body, she rose and turned back toward the hotel. She was tired. Tired of fighting ghosts. Her mother’s ghost. She wanted—needed—peace. A truce.
Forgive her, Lamb.
She smiled at her father’s words. He’d been right all along. It was time to move on.
I forgive you, Mom.
I hope you can forgive me, too.
She had no idea how long she’d been walking, but when she returned to the hotel, the concierge informed her that a Mr. Henri LaCroix had been to see her. He’d waited an hour and then left.
Shit. Henri LaCroix. The realtor. She was four hours late for their appointment.
After leaving a message for Henri—thankfully, she got his voicemail—she took a hot bath, ordered dinner and turned on the television. She flipped through all the channels twice and decided there was nothing worth watching. She clicked off the set and turned out the light. As she stared into the semi darkness, she was struck by the parallels between her and her mother’s lives.
They’d both loved deeply. They’d both experienced the crushing loss of a child. And both their marriages had been rocked by adultery. Her mother’s marriage had survived the betrayal. Could hers? Her father had found it in his heart to forgive her mother and they’d been happy. Olivia thought she could forgive Jonathan for the affair, but would she ever be able to trust him again? When he worked late, would her mind always wonder whether he was really at the office?
She loved him, of that she was sure. While her mother had loved two men, Olivia knew in her heart that Jonathan was the only man she would ever love. Could ever love. She’d brought so much destruction into their marriage—they both had—but the love was still there. It had been tested, trampled on, taken for granted. But it had survived. Her love for Jonathan had survived. Had his for her? She turned on her side and hugged the extra pillow to her, sending up a silent prayer that it had.
For the second time that day, tears trickled from her eyes and plopped onto the pillow case. She thought about Bethie and the tears came faster. They burned her cheeks, pierced her heart, and stole her breath. Before long, the bed shook with long overdue grief. Her mother had suffered the same loss but had never spoken of it. Olivia had done the same thing at great cost. But she wouldn’t do it anymore. Oh, how she wished her mother was here to comfort her. To share her wisdom. To cry with her.
Her sobs grew louder. She sat up and pounded her fists into the pillow; she punched it harder and harder until she was too weak to lift her arms anymore. Then she collapsed in a heap and fell into a coma-like sleep.