More Than Words(75)

“I am,” Nina answered, wondering if Tim had told his mother about them yet, if that was what Caro wanted to talk about.

When Caro opened the office door, her face gave nothing away. “Want to take a walk?” she asked. “I spoke to my husband this morning.”

Nina could see Caro’s fists clenched. She was upset, even if she wasn’t showing it.

“Sure,” Nina said, standing up. “Let’s go.”

The two women walked out of the office and took the elevator down to the ground floor.

“Central Park?” Nina asked, orienting her body north.

“As good a place to talk as any,” Caro answered.

They walked quickly, Nina waiting for Caro to speak. When they were two blocks from the office building, Caro finally said, “So it seems like your father and my husband made some unfortunate choices.” That was what this was about. Not Tim.

“That’s one way to put it,” Nina said, wondering what TJ had told her, whether he’d given her the whole story.

Caro turned, and Nina could see tears shimmering in her eyes. “God, they’re such idiots. It’s not just the illegality and the secrecy and the impropriety of it all. It’s the fact that their goddamn egos were more important than morals. More important than anything, really.”

So he’d told her everything.

Caro had put words to what Nina hadn’t quite figured out how to say. “Yes,” she said. “I know. And how do we get out of this mess? What do we do to fix it? Can we?”

“I don’t think we can,” Caro responded. “I think we don’t say anything. We’re the only ones who know.”

The women had reached the park and walked in through the Artists’ Gate, making a left on the park’s footpath. Nina thought about that, about keeping this secret her whole life. About asking Rafael to. She’d have to. They’d have to.

“You were right to tell TJ to retire,” Caro continued. “If anything comes out, TJ will take the fall. As he should. I told him as much. But hopefully it won’t come to that.”

Nina’s heart felt battered. So much had happened over the past six weeks. She thought about the person she was, the life she was living on primary day, and it seemed so foreign to her, like that woman was someone she’d once read a book about long ago. There was so much she wanted to say but she didn’t know how to express. At least not now. Maybe she’d call Leslie later. Leslie would help her figure all of this out.

“Are you taking the day off today?” Nina asked Caro, as the park drive turned north. “Want me to walk you home?”

“We can go in that general direction,” Caro answered. “But I think I might stay at the hotel tonight. This isn’t just about the company for me. I wish he’d said something. That he’d told me so I could’ve talked him out of it. That he trusted me.”

Nina should’ve realized that sooner. Honesty. Partnership. The two things Caro valued most had come crashing down around her. “You can stay at my dad’s place if you want,” Nina offered. “It’s empty.”

“Thank you,” Caro answered. “I’d prefer that. Fewer questions.” She shook her head. “When you’ve been married to someone for nearly forty years, you think you know him. I guess that’s not always true.”

Bikers and joggers were whizzing by, women with baby carriages—a couple of men pushing them, too. Nina often wondered what stories people had tucked inside them as they went about their day. No one would expect that she and Caro were having the conversation that they were. Anyone who saw them would probably assume they were mother and daughter, out for a stroll.

“While we’re talking about secrets,” Nina said, thinking about it for a split second before following her heart and asking. “Do you know what happened the day my mom died? I found a letter in the house upstate that my mom had written, talking about my father’s affair.”

Caro turned to Nina with a look of alarm on her face. “Oh, Nina. I’m so sorry you had to find that out.”

“So you knew,” Nina said.

“I did. Your father thought you’d never need to know. He felt terrible about it.”

Nina shrugged. “It’s the least of my problems at the moment.”

They walked by a playground, and the sound of children laughing floated toward them on the breeze.

“I don’t know how much you read,” Caro said, “but your father was having an affair with a British gallery owner he’d first met when he studied at Oxford. Veronica something. I can’t remember her last name. But she’d moved to New York after a divorce to open a gallery here.”

Nina could see her father being attracted to an Oxford-educated gallery owner. Like with her mother, he was interested in intelligence when it was paired with something slightly more bohemian. “Was he going to leave us for her?” Nina asked, feeling for a moment like the small child she once was.

Caro stopped walking and looked squarely at Nina. “He would never have left you, darling. Even if he and your mother divorced, he never would have left you. In spite of whatever flaws he may have had, your father loved you more than anything in his life. And from what he said to me afterward, he’d told Veronica as much when she suggested he get divorced, that they split their time between New York and London, that he build a Gregory Hotel there. He’d said no, but she stopped by with a Christmas present on her way home to England for the holidays anyway. And that changed everything.”