15. Liv #2
I hugged her close, too moved to speak. It would be so easy to end our conversation here, like a closing shot in a Hallmark movie. But I’d dedicated my career to helping people confront their truths. What kind of hypocrite would I be if I turned my back on my family’s?
Exactly the person they always thought you were, a nasty little voice inside me whispered. Not really a Carter-Brentwood. Carter-adjacent, at best. Most likely to betray them.
I let her go, cleared my throat, and said the one thing I knew I could never take back. “Grandma, I don’t want to upset anyone. But somewhere out there, I bet the Dresslers are still hurting. Would you be willing to take a DNA test, to resolve this once and for all?”
My grandmother’s eyes widened in surprise. “I don’t know much about these things, Olivia, but for a test like that to matter, you’d have to have someone else’s DNA to compare it to, wouldn’t you? Isn’t that how it works on those Ancestor commercials, or whatever they are?”
“,” I said, suppressing a smile. My heart was pounding in triple-time; it knocked against my ribs, an insistent, anxious drumbeat.
“And yes, Grandma, ideally you would, although the test would also show whether you had Ashkenazi ancestry, as a descendant of Eastern European Jews like the Dresslers. But the thing is…”
In as few words as I could manage, I laid out a G-rated version of the weekend’s events: meeting Theo; discovering who he really was; and bringing him to her house under false pretenses.
I did not tell her about the circumstances under which our little revelation had emerged; when my grandmother suggested I meet a man, I was pretty sure Hot Piano Sex hadn’t been what she had in mind.
“Oh, dear,” my grandmother said when I finished, in her typically understated way. “That’s a very bizarre coincidence, Olivia. How odd.”
“Please don’t be angry with me, Grandma. It’s just…I was afraid you wouldn’t let him come if you knew. And I hoped it would resolve things for him, but…”
My grandmother peered at me with eyes that seemed to see right through me. I wondered if she could tell there was more between me and Theo than I’d let on. But all she said was, “It’s a terrible thing, what happened all those years ago. I’m not upset with you. You did what you thought best.”
Hope surged within me. “You’ll take the test, then?”
The tire swing that hung from the magnolia swayed once, twice. I held my breath. But then she shook her head. “It’s peculiar that the man happens to be a Dressler, I’ll give you that. But I’ve been dealing with this all my life, Olivia. I know who I am. There’s not an ounce of doubt in my mind.”
I bit my lip, thinking of my grandma’s dreams about her mother. About the woman I’d seen at the door of Atomic and then on the dance floor. “But—”
She lifted a gnarled hand to touch my face.
“If it were just the two of us, I would agree to do it. I know you can’t stand the idea that there’s a family out there for whom I’m the missing piece.
You want to give me—and them—the closure you never had.
But Olivia darling, it’s not just the two of us.
It’s your father, and your mother, and your uncle Jamison, and Krista. ”
My cousin Krista still lived in Manhattan; in fact, she’d inherited the apartment in Gramercy Park.
She’d gone to Juilliard for piano, and the irony of it was, if she’d met Theo under normal circumstances, she probably would’ve loved him.
But my grandmother was right; Krista had drunk the Carter-Brentwood Kool-Aid.
She liked her life just the way it was, and even a whiff of this idea would give her the horrors.
“You know how much it would upset all of them if we went down this path,” my grandmother said, letting her hand fall.
“And it would stir up the Dresslers, too…a family that’s already dragged us into court once.
I have to think of all of that before I take a test that would give me an answer I already know. I hope you understand.”
I heaved a disappointed sigh, and she stroked my hair.
“I won’t say anything to your parents about this,” she said, anticipating my next question. “And Olivia, you should think good and hard about whether you choose to, as well.”
My phone rang at 8:30 that night, not long after I’d put Chloe to bed.
My eyelids heavy with exhaustion, I finished ironing her school uniform, then glanced at the screen.
My heart rate spiked at the sight of my parents’ number.
Either they wanted to rehash brunch, which could wait until tomorrow, or it was something far worse, in which case I doubted I had the emotional wherewithal to deal with it.
I considered not answering. But I knew from experience that if my mother wanted to talk to me, she would call again and again until I picked up.
Two rings. Three.
God, what if Grandma Ella had let something slip? Worse, what if Theo had come back after I left? He wouldn’t do that, would he?
Four rings. Five.
The call went to voicemail, and my phone immediately started ringing again. Stomach churning, I braced myself for the worst and answered. “Hello?”
“What did you say to your grandmother?” My mother didn’t bother with a greeting. Her tone was at its most accusatory, each syllable tipped with ice.
Oh, crap. “Hello to you, too, Mom,” I managed to get out, even as my heart sped up even more, pounding so hard I could barely catch my breath.
Clutching Chloe’s shirt, I tiptoed into the living room and shut the French doors behind me.
Something very bad was coming, and the last thing I wanted was for my daughter to hear any of this.
“Don’t you ‘hello’ me, Olivia Carter-Brentwood! How dare you bring the enemy into our midst? It’s one thing for you not to embrace our values. But this? You’ve gone too far.” Was it my imagination, or was she…crying?
“Mom—”
“Let me get this straight, Olivia.” It was my dad, his voice tight with rage.
“You knew this man was a Dressler. A direct descendant of the people who caused our family so much trouble. And you chose to invite him to brunch. You let him eat our food and lie about his origins. In short, you deliberately endangered our family and everything we’ve worked for.
And then, you brought this nonsense to your grandmother. What were you thinking?”
“Grandma Ella told you,” I said, hoping against hope that that was how they’d found out. If Theo had gone back on our agreement, I would never forgive him—or myself.
“That’s what you take away from this? That your grandmother refused to be party to your deception?
” My father’s baritone rumbled over the line, as intimidating as if he were holding court from behind the massive desk he’d inherited from Grandpa Charles.
“She felt so unwell after your conversation that she had to lie down. When I checked on her and asked what was wrong, she didn’t want to tell me, but after a restorative sip of brandy, it all came tumbling out.
” He bit out his next sentence. “I couldn’t be more disappointed in you if I tried. ”
He’d manipulated a ninety-three-year-old woman into confessing something she wanted to keep to herself, and I was the villain here?
It was on the tip of my tongue to say as much, but that would get me nowhere.
My father was the master of turning arguments back on themselves, dragging irrelevant situations into the fray so that I wound up defending myself from all sides.
Every arrow I slung always bounced right off him and rebounded in my direction. It was like arguing with an obelisk.
“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” he prompted.
I knew I shouldn’t let his disappointment define me.
I was a grown woman, and my self-worth was tied to my own actions and achievements, not to what my father thought of me.
But somehow, he made me feel like I was sixteen all over again.
Struggling not to lose my temper, I gripped Chloe’s shirt tighter.
“I’m sorry for lying to you. That was the wrong thing to do.
But I was afraid if I told you the truth, you’d never let him in the door. ”
“Of course we wouldn’t have!” My mother’s sigh was so heavy with the weight of all the ways I’d let her down, it could’ve sunk the Titanic.
“It’s hard for people of our social standing to know who we can trust, Olivia.
I’ve drilled that into you since you were a child.
Everyone wants something from us. But I never thought we’d have to protect ourselves from our own daughter. ”
Tears stung my eyes. “I’m sorry you find me to be so worthless, Mother.”
“Oh, don’t make this about you! That man could have done anything. We’re lucky that the worst crime he committed was lying to us. For all you know, he could’ve planted a bug in Ella’s house.” Her voice rose, as if this were a credible threat. “Russ, you don’t think—”
“Already on it, Kate. I have a security team scheduled to do a sweep in the morning.”
A security team? “This is ridiculous! What do you think Theo’s going to do? Steal Ruth’s cranberry-walnut muffin recipe? Kidnap Grandma Ella all over again?”
“That is enough out of you, Olivia!” In the background, dishes rattled, as if my father had slammed his fist on the table.
“You’ve exhibited terrible judgment in the past—marrying that irresponsible artist, finding yourself on your own to raise a child—and we haven’t said a word.
We’ve supported you financially when you needed it, paid for years of schooling without complaint. And this is how you repay us?”
Hadn’t said a word? They’d had plenty of things to say about Gray, both before we tied the knot and after I signed the divorce papers.
“My marriage, Chloe, and my PhD have nothing to do with this situation,” I retorted, trying my best to hold my own.
“This is about finding the truth, and maybe having the chance to reunite Grandma Ella with her long-lost family.”