Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
It took no more than five minutes to arrange for the DNA test. Mona had more money than she knew what to do with and could expedite something like that—something that seemed so enormous that could be arranged with a brief phone call to a friend who had a connection with a lab.
After they sent their cheek swab to the clinic via one of Mona’s assistants, they were told that they would know within twenty-four hours.
“Stay in the city,” Mona ordered Max as they separated there at the same office they’d entered not an hour before. “Regardless of what happens, I’d like to take you both to dinner tomorrow. Nora, I hate that I don’t remember you. We’re cousins, for goodness’ sake.”
“I remember you,” Nora said. “And they’re beautiful memories. You were a wonderful little girl.”
Mona laughed nervously. “My mother never said anything like that to me.”
Nora didn’t tell Mona how little her mother had been around when she’d been small.
She didn’t want to break her already-broken heart anymore.
“She wasn’t always the warmest of people.
She didn’t know how to show her emotions,” Nora said instead.
She wanted to tell Mona that Aunt Cynthia had loved her, but she didn’t know if it was true.
As they slipped into a cab outside the office building, Max and Nora admitted to each other that they were too tired for dinner out, so they returned to the hotel, put on big, fluffy robes, and ordered room service as they flicked through the potential movie titles on the big screen and tried to relax.
They ordered burgers and fries and a beautiful bottle of Italian wine and sat up against their pillows, sipping and eating with a fork and knife.
They still hadn’t selected a movie, and trailers played over and over again on the screen.
“It’s surreal to see her like that again,” Max said finally, his eyes distant. “I couldn’t believe how quickly she agreed to the test.”
“It was like she’s been waiting for something like this to happen,” Nora said.
“It goes to show that people need people,” Max offered. “No matter how high-powered they are. No matter how much money they have.” He sipped his wine. “Why do you think all the Greenaway kids turned their backs on one another?”
“They weren’t taught that family is important,” Nora pointed out.
“I suppose not.” Max sighed. “I’m grateful I didn’t grow up that way.
I’m grateful that I was able to impart that knowledge to my girls.
” With a smile on his face, he showed Nora some of the photographs his twins had sent him from Paris that morning.
They were pretending to be moody in them, pouting, but there was laughter in their eyes.
“I can’t wait for you to meet them,” Max said, his voice earnest and sure.
“I can’t wait to meet them.” Nora’s heart pounded.
When she and Max had first run into one another more than a month ago at that book signing, she never could have imagined any of this.
She never could have imagined this storyline.
Each time she expressed her panic to the Salt Sisters, they told her to lean into it.
Max knew how painful it was for Nora, as she couldn’t introduce him to Paul. He touched her hand and reminded her, “He’s going to come back. He knows how important family is.”
“Maybe I wasn’t able to teach him that,” Nora said gently. “Maybe I passed on the Greenaway curse.” She remembered how easy it had been for her at first to slip into the Greenaway lifestyle, how captivated she’d been with their yachts and their champagne. Maybe it had poisoned her.
It was a summer she would never get over, she knew.
That night, she and Max cuddled in bed and eventually fell asleep. When they woke up a few minutes after eight, Max read his texts—fifteen of them, all from Mona. He laughed aloud.
“It sounds like you were right all along, Nora,” he said. “Mona’s my sister.”
Nora threw her arms around Max. Together, the two of them jumped on the bed, joyous that they’d been able to close this mystery after more than forty years.
It was mind-boggling.
That night, Mona sent a long, sleek limo to pick Nora and Max up and whisk them off to the Upper West Side, where they were seated with Mona and Mona’s boyfriend, Raymond, to celebrate Mona and Max’s discovery.
This time, Mona hugged Max in a way that seemed to collide their worlds.
She smiled in a way that harkened back to her happier toddler days, and she ordered bottles of champagne and more appetizers than the four of them could eat.
“I can’t believe this,” Mona said, gushing with joy. “When I first read one of your novels, I swear, I had tears all down my face. Raymond kept asking me what was wrong. Didn’t you, Raymond?”
Raymond gazed at her adoringly. “We were on vacation in Mexico, and she could not pull herself away from that book. I kept begging her to go hiking. But as soon as she finished the first, she bought another one by you and put it on her e-reader. I swear, she became obsessed.”
“It was like something in my heart knew we were related!” Mona said. “Isn’t that insane?” She turned to look at Nora, big-eyed and happy. But then, it was like a switch was switched off, and the light dimmed in her face. “Nora, I want to tell you something. I googled you.”
Nora’s heart stalled. She’d been caught up in the conversation, grateful not to be the topic. “Oh?”
Mona nodded. “I wanted to tell you. It’s bizarre, but it’s true. During the last few years of her life, one of my dearest friends was Cleo. I did some advertising work for the symphony and happened to interview her for a little background info. We hit it off.”
Nora felt nauseated. She closed her hands into fists and told herself to smile. But how could she? This was all too bizarre.
“You know, it’s funny,” Mona said, realizing that Nora couldn’t speak.
“Cleo talked about her husband and his parents often. She adored you both! And she adored Paul like no woman has ever loved another man, I swear. When her cancer diagnosis came, I was so brokenhearted. I felt sure she would find her way out of it. You know, she seemed so strong. Although I know that strength doesn’t dictate anyone’s way through cancer.
” She furrowed her brow. “I can’t imagine how that was for the three of you. I’m sure you still feel it.”
She reached across the table and took Nora’s hand. Nora let her, amazed that so many years ago, she’d been the one to calm Mona down, and now, it was the other way around.
Tears filled Nora’s eyes. She didn’t want to tell Mona the worst of it, that her son had asked for space so he could heal his broken heart alone. She couldn’t bring herself to destroy Mona’s beautiful reunion with her brother, not now.
“Cleo was a wonderful soul,” Nora said finally, because she knew she needed to honor her daughter-in-law in some way, here with a dear friend of hers.
“She changed my life,” Mona said. “It sounds like you did, too. I can’t imagine what it was like to lose your parents and immediately come live with mine.
I can’t imagine they were always kind to you.
And goodness, I only have two children. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to suddenly care for four little kids when you were just a kid yourself. ”
Nora felt the world crashing in on her. It was too much empathy, too much recognition.
When the server came by to refill their glasses with champagne, she made an excuse and took off for the bathroom.
She bypassed the bathroom altogether and headed out to the patio.
Out there, she inhaled deeply, trying to calm herself down.
A blistering orange sunset made it look as though the city was on fire.
She remembered, years ago, taking Paul to a restaurant similar to this to celebrate his SAT scores.
She wondered if he remembered that, too.
It was while she was up there, staring down at the city that had once contained her entire universe, that her phone rang. She pulled it out, expecting it to be Max, trying to find her.
But it was Isaac.
Nora had a moment of panic. How could she answer it and explain where she was and what she was up to? How could she tell her ex-husband that she was falling back in love with a man who’d changed her life at sixteen?
She took a breath, then another, and answered it. “Isaac,” she said. His name was like music.
“Nora,” Isaac said. “Nora, I don’t know how to tell you this. But Paul’s here. Paul’s home.”