The Keeper of Happy Endings(120)

His face darkens. He’s angry that I’m amused. “I’m not blind, Soline.”

“I’m afraid you are, Anson. Quite blind. Myles Madison was my boss and my friend. He was also gay. He gave me a job when . . . after Assia was born. And a place to live. I was at the end of my tether, as they say, and he came to my rescue. We fought like cats and dogs and we loved each other madly. But we were never lovers. And even if he had been straight, there could never have been anything between us. I was still in love with you.”

“Except, as far as you knew, I was dead.”

I stare at him, stung by the absurdity of his remark. “Do you think that’s all it takes? Dying? There was only ever one man in my life, Anson. The fact that you don’t know that stuns me. But the fact that you would take your father’s word against mine, that you were so quick to think the worst of me, stuns me more. He took my daughter—my baby girl—and let me believe she was dead. When I had already lost you, he took her from me, and paid someone to give her to strangers. He took her from you, too, Anson. But instead of asking about her, you’ve come to throw Maddy in my face. And you sounded just like your father when you did it.”

I go quiet, waiting for him to say something, but he just stands there staring with his hands fisted at his sides. His silence makes my throat ache. “Back then, it seemed impossible that you could be his son. Now I see that there’s more of him in you than I realized.” I swallow my tears, determined to keep my voice even. “Perhaps fate did us both a favor.”

I see his shoulders tighten and realize I’ve struck a nerve. I’m glad. We eye each other silently, the quiet brittle. It seems there’s nothing left for either of us to say.

He pushes to his feet slowly, as if his legs have stiffened. “I’ll go.”

I nod, not trusting my voice. I want him gone so very badly, and yet the thought of him walking back out of my life fills me with a grief I’m not sure I can bear.

He moves toward the door, then turns back. “I nearly forgot,” he says, reaching into his pocket. “The reason I came.”

After a moment of fumbling, he holds out his fist and pulls my hand from my pocket. I resist briefly, then look down at the puddle of garnet beads he’s left in my gloved palm—Maman’s rosary.

A sound catches in my throat, the beginnings of a sob, as I remember the moment I gave it to him. A pledge made the night our daughter was conceived. I look up, searching his face. “You kept them?”

“I promised I would bring them back. Now I have. The end.”

The finality of his words hits me like a dousing of cold water, and I suddenly understand what he meant when he said he’d come to end this thing. He meant he’d come to fulfill his part of our bargain. Before I can stop myself, I’m weeping. It’s as if he’s spent forty years planning the best way to cut out my heart. On this day of all days, when I’ve just learned our daughter is alive, he’s come to reopen a different wound. So be it.

“Wait here,” I say thickly. “I have something for you too.”

He’s standing near the sofa when I return, flipping through the photo album Rory made for me. I jerk it out of his hands. “I’d rather you not touch that.”

“They both look so much like Thia.”

For an instant, there’s a tenderness in his face that belongs to the Anson I used to know. “They look like you,” I say softly. “Especially Rory.”

His lips curl briefly, an uncomfortable smile that fades almost immediately. “I always imagined our daughter would look like you. I guess nothing worked out the way I thought it would.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Nothing did.” I put down the album and hand him his shaving kit. “This belongs to you.”

He takes it, turning it slowly in his hands. Finally, his eyes lift to mine. “You’ve had this . . . for forty years?”

“You know exactly how long I’ve had it,” I tell him flatly. “I would have returned it sooner, but you were dead.”

“Soline . . .”

I turn my back, weary of sparring, but he catches me by the wrist, pulling me around to face him. For the first time, he seems to register the fact that my hands are not bare. He goes still, his face unreadable. “Why are you wearing gloves? What’s wrong with your hands?”

“There was a fire,” I say, forcing myself to hold his gaze. “Four years ago now. I was trying to save a dress, and my sweater caught fire.”

“You were . . .”

“Burned. Yes.”

The lines around his eyes soften and I feel his grip relax. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

The warmth of his fingers is bleeding through my glove, making it hard to think. I pull my hand free. “There’s a lot you don’t know.”

“Soline . . .”

“Oh, please, won’t you go?” It comes out like a sob, desperate, broken. “You’ve said what you came to say and done what you came to do. What else do you want?”

“I want to know why you kept my shaving kit.”

“We had an agreement. Remember?” My throat is full of broken glass as I force myself to meet his eyes. “You came here tonight to hold up your end, and now I’ve held up mine. C’est fini. Finished.”