Chapter xxxiii
xxxiii
AT EXACTLY TEN A.M. ON SUNDAY MORNING, EVA rang my doorbell for our biweekly walking date.
I look forward to our Sunday morning walks the way I looked forward to library day each week in elementary school. Then, I never knew which story we would hear, which book I’d take home with me. Now, I never know where Eva’s and my meandering conversations will go, which stories will imprint themselves on my heart. Eva has a lot to say. She’s experienced so much, and it’s given her a fascinating perspective on the world.
“Good morning,” I said when I answered the door.
“You look chipper today,” she replied. “Perhaps a little happier than usual?”
“Perhaps,” I said. She and I hadn’t spoken since before I’d left for Italy, and I knew she’d love hearing the details about my trip and about meeting Dax. But what I really wanted her opinion on was Darren and Samuel and what I should do. “You look happy, too,” I told her. “Anything new going on in your world?”
“Well, darling,” she said, “it’s been a busy two weeks.”
I linked my arm in hers, and the two of us started walking to our coffee shop. Eva told me about running into someone she knew from her fine art days, about his invitation to take her to the opera. “Sometimes,” she said, “you think a part of your life is over, but then someone comes along and takes you to the opera!”
“To the opera!” I said, marveling at how much younger, how might lighter she looked while telling me this story.
Eva smiled. “We saw each other at the market, in the tea aisle. It turns out we both enjoy a cup of Lady Grey in the afternoon.”
“And then?” I asked.
“We got to talking,” she said as we walked. “He’s a widower—his wife had been quite a talented sculptor and passed a few years ago. He’s also a retired judge and an opera aficionado. And quite handsome.”
I laughed. “There must be something in the air,” I told her. “I met a remarkable man in Italy. He’s a New Yorker but working there for an NGO.” Just talking about Dax made my heart beat a bit faster.
“A philanthropic doctor,” she said. “Are you finally ready to entertain the idea of another man?”
I thought about how she’d phrased it, what that meant. “Entertain the idea, yes,” I told her. “But I think maybe it’s good that he’s in Italy right now.” As much as I wanted to be with Dax, as much as he kept sneaking into my thoughts, I was still scared.
She nodded. “Just remember: Time is finite.”
And then I thought about you. “I know,” I told her.
She patted my hand. “I know you do, darling.”
“There’s actually something I want to ask you about,” I said. “I think it’s time to tell Samuel the truth. There’s going to be a big gallery show and retrospective and a new edition of Gabriel’s book to commemorate ten years since he died, and it just doesn’t seem fair to keep this secret anymore. I want to tell the truth—I want Samuel to know about his biological father, to feel connected to him. I wanted to be honest from the beginning, but Darren disagreed. We said we’d tell him eventually, when the time was right, and I think that time is now, but Darren suddenly doesn’t want to tell him ever. He thinks it’ll be more harmful to tell the truth than to keep the secret. What do you think?”
“Come,” Eva said, pointing me toward a bench.
We sat together on the promenade, looking over the water to Manhattan.
“The truth comes out,” she said. “From what I’ve seen in my eighty-nine years, always, the truth comes out in the end. You know that during the war I was sent to a convent and then adopted by Christian parents—wonderful, kind people who wanted to keep me safe. Well, there were many parents like that who adopted babies even younger than I was. Little ones not even a year old, toddlers who had no memory of another life. And when the war ended and those babies’ biological parents had perished, some of the Christian parents kept the secret from the children, pretended that they were their own. And mostly it was fine, but there were always questions: the way people looked, talents they had. When those children later found out the truth, many of them said similar things: that their lives finally felt like they made sense. That they had always felt like they didn’t quite belong, but they couldn’t quite put their finger on why. And then, it all fell into place. Their lives felt more stable, more solid. I’m not saying that’s how your Samuel feels—his situation is different—but those observations, the similarity of them, has always stuck with me. Especially because it could have been me experiencing them, if I’d been some years younger.”
It was an interesting connection.
“So how did they feel about their families after they found out?” I asked.
“Often there was some anger at being lied to, but also understanding about why, and then in the end, the love overcame it all. One person I spoke to said that she felt like she had gained a second family but still had the family that raised her and loved her. Like with an open adoption, your family expands. And with divorce and death, remarriage, you can have multiple fathers and mothers. There isn’t just one way to define a family.”
“My kids already have two mothers, essentially,” I said. “They know firsthand that some family members are connected by blood, and others are connected solely by love.”
“Lead with that,” Eva said. “Lead with love.”
I nodded. “Thank you,” I said. “Now, tell me about your night at the opera!”
Eva’s face glowed as she told me about her evening out—they saw La Bohème —and as I listened, I kept thinking: Lead with love.