Capturing Paris (32 page)

“I don't want to hear any more,” Annie said. She put down her wine and crossed her arms.

“Please, listen,” Daphne pleaded. “I truly felt you'd be better off without Wesley. He was holding you back. I could see that. You were happier with me at God House.”

“I was happy there, I don't deny that, but Wesley wasn't holding me back.” Annie looked at Daphne and shook her head. “He was going through a bad time then, his job and everything. He was under a lot of pressure.”

“You didn't see it that way then,” Daphne said defensively.

“You may be right.” Annie fingered the sofa cushion next to her, drawing her hand across the smooth velvet. She remembered again the texture of Paul's skin, the feeling of his back. She had betrayed Wesley, the one person she'd loved the longest.

“Can you forgive me?” Daphne asked.

Forgiveness
. The word fell before her, vast and encompassing. Could she forgive Daphne, who had manipulated her and Wesley and tried to break up their marriage? Could she forgive Wesley for shutting her out, his coldness, his unwillingness to consider her feelings? And for having sex with Daphne? Was his betrayal any different from hers? Could she forgive herself?

“Annie?”

“I'm sorry,” she said distractedly. “Of course. I forgive you.”

“You'll come back to God House?”

“One day I will,” she said. “Just not for a while.”

“I see.”

“There's one other thing. Something I've wondered about.” For the first time in their relationship Annie knew that she was in control, that she had the upper hand. “What happened the summer that Tim met you, the summer in England when you were sixteen?”

Daphne set her glass on the table and leaned back in her chair. “Thinking of that makes me feel old. We were different people then.” Her eyes looked colorless and dull. She stared down at a swath of late-afternoon sun pouring across the living room rug. “It was the most heavenly summer.” She offered a wistful smile. “My brother, Roger, was home, and Mummy let me go everywhere with him. There were parties, so many parties, pretty wild even by today's standards. Mummy loved to have the house full of people. Everything was perfect, except for this girl.”

“A friend of Roger's?”

“More than a friend.” Daphne looked directly at Annie. “She was a little fool. Even at sixteen I knew that.”

“Roger felt otherwise I guess.”

“Oh God. He was mad about her. Tessa this, Tessa that, the darling Tessa Hardwick. She was trying to talk him into taking a year to travel with her. She had pots of money, no interest in finishing school. She wanted him. Only him.”

“Why was that so terrible?”

“You wouldn't understand. You'd have to have known her. This little sweet snip of a thing. Roger thought he loved her.”

Annie waited. She knew from Daphne's expression that it didn't end well.

“We had a terrible argument one night. We'd come back from a party. It was late. Roger and Tim had gone out to the barn. It was more than a barn really. Mummy had put a billiard table out there, and they wanted to play. We were all drinking a lot, and Tessa had planned to spend the night. I knew what that meant. Mummy did too, but she didn't care. Roger was twenty-one, not a boy. I told Tessa that she should go on this trip without Roger. That he wanted to go back to university and not waste his time traipsing after her. I told her that he had no intention of going with her. I'll spare you all the details. She
got terribly upset and decided to go home. She only lived a few towns away. Ten, maybe fifteen miles at the most.” Daphne had started to cry. Quiet tears streaked her cheeks.

“They found Tessa early the next morning. Her car had gone off the road into a tree. She died immediately.”

“How terrible,” Annie said.

“Yes. It was terrible.” Daphne wiped her face with the back of her hands. “Roger said it was my fault. He said I shouldn't have let her drive, that I should have stopped her. He accused me of wanting to break them up. He said that I killed her.” She looked imploringly at Annie. “I'd had a lot to drink too. I wasn't thinking clearly. Tessa was nearly twenty. She wouldn't have listened to me.”

“You were only sixteen,” Annie said softly.

“Yes. I was a girl. All the same, Roger hated me then. He went up to London. He refused to speak to me. I kind of went to pieces and refused to go back to school. Mummy took me to God House. So there it was. No father, then no brother, and Mummy got sick just a few years later. Not a happy time.”

“I'm sorry,” Annie said.

Daphne stood. “Well, now you know. You see, it's hard for me to be with Tim. It's hard for both of us.”

“I understand.”

After Daphne left, Annie went back to her chair in the corner of the living room and read the place de Furstenberg poem one last time. It was finished. She slipped it into an envelope and wrote “Paul” on the face. The color of the Waterman's South Sea Blue stood out vividly on the paper. It wasn't yet dark. She decided to walk to his office and slip it under the door.

La Crise

“Annie, you need to come to New York,” Wesley said
.

“I'm coming next week—”

“It's Sophie,” he interrupted. “An emergency. She's in the hospital.” He sounded terrible. “She may not make it. She—” His voice broke. Annie had never heard him in such despair.

“Wesley, what's the matter?” Annie was flooded with alarm. It was after five. She'd been about to call Mary to see if she was free for dinner when the telephone rang. Instead, Wesley's news shattered the peaceful lull at the end of the afternoon. She felt like she had plunged into a pool of deep, cold water, shocking her to attention. “Please, please,” she pleaded. “Tell me. Tell me what happened.” Images of car accidents, planes crashing, fire—all her worst fears grew vivid in her mind.

“You've got to come.” She could tell he was trying to regain control. He began to explain. At first his words were disjointed, his voice raspy, broken, difficult to understand. “A rare disease. Sudden. Thank God, this doctor recognized it. Fatal case in the Midwest last month.”

Annie tried to wrap her mind around this news. It was too much to take in. She imagined Sophie pale, deathly ill with some horrific illness she'd never heard of. She couldn't speak.

Wesley gradually grew calmer and hurried to explain. His words came flying at her now, with such speed and intensity that she couldn't absorb them. Meningococcal meningitis, bacterial, flulike symptoms, rashes, loss of limbs, alive one day, dead the next.

Dead
. The word pierced her consciousness like a bullet. Annie couldn't believe what she was hearing. She brought her hand to her
throat. “Wesley, our baby. This can't be true.” Now she was the one dissolving in despair. She felt like she couldn't breathe. She opened her mouth to cry out, to beg for … what? Mercy, courage, forgiveness. Save my daughter, she thought. My Sophie has to live. Oh, Lord, please don't let her die.

Wesley was talking, and Annie had to force herself to focus. Sophie's life depended on it. “Call Air France,” he said. “See if you can get a seat tomorrow on the morning flight. You can pick up your ticket at the airport.”

“Wesley, I …” Her ears pounded.

“Look, sweetie. I've got to hurry. I'm on my way to her now. We'll talk when you get to New York.”

“But, where? And—”

“I'll send you an e-mail with a hotel and the name of the hospital.” The phone went dead.

Sophie—her poor Sophie. She hadn't thought about her in days. She couldn't remember when they had last spoken. How could she have forgotten her own daughter? Annie got to her feet and went to the windows, amazed that she could gather the strength to walk. She stared numbly out onto the rue des Archives. It was twilight.
La crépuscule
. The sky, now a cold, smoky blue, edged into evening.

For a few moments she stood very still, unable to move, trying to take in everything Wesley had said. She felt gripped by a bleak emptiness, the kind of feeling that sometimes comes in the middle of the night, when you lie awake, powerless, haunted with regret, when the entire world seems hinged on doubt. She staggered over to her desk and turned on the light.

She picked up the photograph of her mother and dusted the glass with her forearm. She held the frame under the lamplight and studied the face of that young woman, closer to Sophie's age than to her own. She noticed again how her mother's smile tilted up to the right in the exact same way that Sophie's did. This time the sobs came from deep inside her. She felt the weight of her want, the hunger for her mother, blurring into the longing she felt for her own daughter.

As much as she wished to be comforted and loved, she wanted to take Sophie into her arms. She wanted to hold the pale blond sprite of
a child, the ungainly, wobbly girl of twelve, and the lovely, mature young woman who was now leading a life of her own. Lowering herself into her chair, she let herself cry. She allowed her tears to pour out, moaning aloud and rocking from side to side. She drew her hands together, clasping them under her chin in a maternal unconscious prayer. Gradually, she felt her strength come back. It seemed that in some way her mother was with her, as if her mother's spirit had eased into her own. Annie wiped her face with the back of her hands, smearing the hot, wet tears. Enough. She needed to call for her ticket. It was time to pack.

Later that evening she called Hélène. She could no longer bear the weight of this worry by herself. “I wish I'd gone to see her sooner,” Annie cried. “It's all my fault. Sophie shouldn't have to be in a hospital alone.”

Hélène listened to every word. “But you will be with her,” she said reassuringly, “and Wesley is with her by now.”

“Hélène,” Annie said, “I've done everything wrong. I should have paid more attention to her. She wanted me to move back.”

“Nonsense. You must not think like that. When you arrive, it will make all the difference. Life is about going forward. It is not living to look back. Annie,
ma chérie
, what you do now, that is what is important.”

“But—”

“Annie, you must pack. Tell Mary if she needs help at the office, I am happy to do what I can.”

Annie thanked her, and though still sick with worry, she felt like she had more resolve and the strength to prepare to leave. Once she got started, it was amazingly uncomplicated to put her life in Paris on hold.

She telephoned Céleste, sparing her the true gravity of the situation, and explained her hasty departure to New York. Céleste immediately expressed her concern, and agreed to come and check on the apartment in Annie's absence. She would collect the mail and water the plants. She requested the name of the hospital, and Annie knew she would be sending flowers and a card.

“Stay as long as you need,” Céleste said in a maternal voice. “Give Sophie a hug and take care of Wesley too.” Céleste had never said anything more about Annie and Wesley's marriage troubles, but Annie knew she was relieved that Annie was finally going to be with her family. Although Céleste had never understood Annie's commitment to her writing, she remained a loyal friend. Her support was comforting.

Annie called Mary next, sharing only the minimum of details. She too was sympathetic and told her not to worry.

“Don't hurry back,” Mary said. “Take time for what's important.”

Annie hoped she wasn't too late. No, she thought. She would not allow those thoughts. She forced herself to be hopeful, requiring every ounce of energy to fight her fear. She flew around the apartment, gathering her things, packing, not wanting to pause for a minute to allow dread to creep in. Sophie will get well. She will live. She said it over and over, like a mantra, pushing all other possibilities aside.

Annie waited until just before going to bed to call Paul. She had to let him know she'd be away. They had spoken several times since their night together. He had had a publishers' conference in Berlin and had invited her to come with him. She had declined, saying there was too much going on at Liberal Arts Abroad.

“When will I see you?” he'd asked.

“I'm not sure,” she'd answered. “Not just yet.”

“Do you regret? Are you wishing it had not happened?”

He'd sounded kind. She knew her answer mattered to him. “I'm just not sure what I think,” she'd told him. “Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.” She wasn't ready to see him again. It would be all too easy to fall into the habit of meeting him and continuing their affair. She thought about him constantly—the shape of his hands, the way he looked at her as if a question were about to form on his lips, the slope of his shoulders before he stood to get out of bed. Would making love over and over change anything between them? Would it ever be more than that, an affair? How long would it be until his skin, his scent, his touch, felt familiar, no longer charged with the thrill of newness?

Tonight he picked up on the first ring. “Annie, I am so happy it is you. I can't stop thinking about us and—”

“Paul.” She knew her voice would convey the seriousness of her message. “I'm flying to New York in the morning. Sophie is sick in the hospital.” Annie felt tears coming and didn't try to hold them back.

“Ma chérie,”
he began, “let me come to you. You must tell me everything.”

She wanted to shut him out and put an end to everything between them, but she couldn't deny the wave of tenderness that crept in. “No, no, I need to go to sleep. I'm leaving early. I just wanted you to know that I was going away.” A lump in her throat was making it hard to continue. “Sophie is seriously ill. I have no idea how long I'll be gone.”