50. Theo
Theo
It was a shapeless Sunday afternoon the week after Thanksgiving, and I sat at my piano, the windows of the beach house open to let the fresh, cool air inside as the music came to life under my fingers.
Years ago, when I was in college, I’d tried my hand at composing.
I’d loved it, but set it aside when I went to Wharton.
Now, I felt the urge to revisit it, as if I were connecting with a younger, purer version of myself.
I couldn’t help but draw a line between this and my feelings for Liv, like she’d awakened a part of me that I’d abandoned in favor of making money, as if the two couldn’t coexist. With her, for the first time in forever, I’d felt like I was living, rather than just surviving, and here was the proof.
I would’ve loved to tell her so, if only she’d take my calls.
Well, I had no one to blame but myself. I should’ve been up front with her about the lawsuit, rather than thinking I could fix things on my own.
I’d screwed up, as always, even when all I’d wanted was to do the right thing.
I’d managed to make her life spectacularly worse, and I wasn’t even in it anymore.
My phone rang, startling me. Lifting my hands from the keys, I crossed to the coffee table and picked it up. I expected it to be Perez, confirming the final details of the deal with Stellar. When Liv’s number popped up on the ID, for a second I thought I’d conjured her.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m so glad you called. Please let me explain—”
“Theo.” Her voice trembled.
I gripped the back of my neck. A series of terrible scenarios unspooled in my mind, the only reasons for her to go back on her decision that she wanted nothing to do with me: she’d been in a wreck; some asshole had hurt her; something had happened to Chloe.
A sick bolt of nausea shot through my stomach. “What’s wrong?”
She cleared her throat. “I know I said I didn’t want to talk to you. But my grandmother asked me to call.”
“Okay,” I said, my heartbeat slowing. “Why?”
“You remember the dream I had the night you—um—came over?”
“Sure.” I remembered, all right, not to mention what had followed. I still hadn’t figured out how to reconcile the weird shit that had happened when we were in the city. “What about it?”
“Well, after our, um, argument, I called the New York Historical Society, and they had a bunch of Charles Carter’s journals.
They were only missing a few, from the year that Ella and Lily disappeared until his death in 1931.
” There was a creak and then a click, as if a door had eased shut behind her.
“So I went to my grandmother’s house to look for them.
And I found one. This little book, with ‘CC’ engraved on the cover. Green, just like the one in my dream.”
I rounded the couch and sank down on the cushions. “Holy shit. Well, what did it say?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t looked. My grandma insisted we wait for you.”
My heart picked up speed again, blood pulsing in my ears. “You told your grandmother about our trip?”
“I did.” There was a pause, and then she spoke again. “I told her everything.”
It was my turn to be silent, this time from shock. Holy hell, she was so much braver than I was.
“Theo? Are you still there?”
I tugged at my cuffs, snapping off a stray thread. “Yeah, Liv. I’m here. What do you want me to do?”
And then she said something I thought I’d never hear her say again. “Can you come over? Now?”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” I said, grabbing my keys.
Liv greeted me at the door, looking like she’d been dragged backward through a hedge.
Her hair was down, and bits of things were tangled in it.
There was a smudge of dirt below one of her eyes and her jeans were ripped at the knee.
And still, seeing her hit me like a sucker punch to the solar plexus... every time.
Bracing myself, I followed her into the living room. Ella sat on the couch, a small green book beside her, fingers knotted in her lap. She smiled when our eyes met. “Hello, Theo.”
I came to an awkward halt on the rug in front of her. “Hi, Mrs. Carter-Brentwood. It’s good to see you again.”
“I told you, call me Ella.” Her smile trembled around the edges, and my heart went out to her. None of this mess was her fault.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you about who I was when I came here the first time.” I owed her this much. “I wanted to meet you, to see you for myself. But I know that wasn’t the right way to go about it. I’m sorry about the lawsuit, too. I tried to stop it, but…well, I couldn’t.”
Next to me, Liv fidgeted, smoothing her hands down her jeans the way she did when she was nervous. Maybe she hadn’t expected me to apologize, but Ella deserved it. And if I couldn’t be the man Liv deserved, I could at least present my best self to her grandmother.
“Thank you. I’m not pleased you weren’t straightforward with me, but I understand why you did it. As for the suit, we can discuss that after we’ve finished. Come sit down”—Ella patted the couch next to her—“and we’ll read this together.”
I sat beside her, and Liv sat on her other side. “Are you ready, Grandma?” she said.
“I am.” She sat up straight, the journal in her lap. “Theo, are you?”
“Yes,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Open it.”
A musty scent wafted from between the pages as Ella cracked the book open to the first page, covered in neat, rounded handwriting.
I’m not sure who I’m addressing this to, the entry began.
“It’s my father’s writing,” Ella said. “I haven’t seen it in years, but I remember what it looks like. See the curlicues on his ‘f’s? I would know them anywhere.”
“Do you want me to read it aloud, Grandma?” Liv leaned forward, one hand on her grandmother’s knee. “So it’s easier on your eyes?”
“That would be lovely, dear.” To Ella’s credit, her voice was steady.
Her free hand twining in her hair, Liv started at the top of the first page.
I’m not sure who I’m addressing this to. For it is not my hope that anyone living will read these pages.
But perhaps I want someone to read this. Perhaps I want to be caught.
Liv stopped reading. The journal trembled in her hand. “Oh my God.”
“Jesus.” I drummed my fingers on my knee, trying to contain the enormity of my emotions. “It’s his confession.” But to what? Stealing a child? Or murdering a man?
Ella didn’t say anything, and when I stole a glance at her, tears shone in her eyes.
Liv took her grandmother’s hand. “Are you sure you want to keep going, Grandma?”
“We found this for a reason. If I’ve been living a lie all these years, I need to know.”
“All right.” Liv turned the page. “Just tell me if you need me to stop. I don’t want to read more than you can handle.”
“Darling.” She raised her free hand to stroke Liv’s cheek. “I’m stronger than I look. Keep going.”
Clearing her throat, Liv went on.
From the moment we brought the child home, I had my doubts.
And seeing May’s devastation compounded them.
I don’t believe, as Elizabeth does, that the woman’s goal is to extort us or make away with our rightful child.
Nor do I believe she is delusional. I believe she is heartbroken.
I remember that feeling well, when we lost Ella.
In fact, I feel it still, as I wonder if the child Lizzie tucks in each night is our daughter.
“Holy shit,” I said before I thought better of it. “Oh—sorry, Mrs. Carter… Ella.”
She shot me a rueful look. “There’s no need to apologize. I’ve heard worse. And given what’s in front of us right now, I’d say some foul language is the least of our concerns. Go ahead, Liv, sweetheart.”
Squeezing her grandmother’s hand in comfort, Liv obeyed.
I’ve been dreaming of the daughter I lost…of Ella. I’ve come to love the sweetheart I imagine might be Lily. Her face lights up with joy when I come through the door each evening. She sits on my lap, enraptured, when we take her to see the Philharmonic or the Symphony.
At night, though, I dream of the child Lizzie bore me. Not as my darling looked when she disappeared, all chubby cheeks and blond ringlets, but older...the age she would be now. The baby fat is gone from her cheeks, and her hair reaches past her shoulders in a fall of loose curls.
“Daddy,” she tells me each night in that sweet, high voice of hers, “Lily’s mama misses her; send her home. Tell Mama she has to let me go.”
I worry that she is dead, that this is her spirit communicating with me from beyond the grave. For surely if she lived, we would have found her.
“Oh,” Ella said in a small voice, a hand pressed to her lips. “Oh, my.”
Liv read on, her tone tentative.
I’ve tried to tell Lizzie this, but she weeps and tells me I’m being cruel.
She says that regardless of whether my suspicions are correct, the child will have a better life with us.
Why would I condemn a little one to an existence in the tenements, without enough food to eat or clothes to wear?
We can offer the girl so much more, she says.
It’s true we can provide the child with material things. But if we have stolen her, is that any substitute for returning her to the bosom of her family?
Liv’s voice caught, and I looked over at her. She was wiping her eyes.
“Do you want me to read for a while?” I asked.
Wordless, she nodded, and I turned the page, willing my voice to stay steady.
I took Ella to the park—Lizzie refuses to trust a nanny with her, not that I blame her—and May was there again with her older child.
Susi is her name. The girl tried to get May to come away, but she refused and cursed me in Yiddish.
Ella was terrified, and I couldn’t help but wonder if some part of her understood the woman’s words. She hid her face and clung to me…
“I remember this.” Ella sounded amazed. “Seeing the woman, so thin and desperate, and realizing she wished my father ill. I remember she had a girl with her who kept begging her to leave.”
“You remember?” I slid my gaze to her, surprised.