“My sisters! Chapman found them both!” She sounded ecstatic and Margaret's blood suddenly ran cold. She had somehow hoped that he wouldn't find them.

“How nice.” She tried to force herself to sound happy. “Are they well?”

“One of them is a doctor, the younger one, and the other one, Hilary, works for a television network in New York.”

“They sound like quite an illustrious group. And you're a baroness. They ought to make a movie about you.” But she was not amused, and Alexandra knew it.

“Don't worry, Maman. It's not going to change anything. Please know that.”

Margaret wished she could be sure of that. Her fears were not so different from those of Rebecca Abrams. “When are you meeting them?”

“On the first of September. I just got the call. I'm going to Connecticut.”

“What are you going to tell Henri?”

“I haven't figured that out yet. I thought maybe I'd tell him I was going with you … or perhaps on business for you.”

“He won't believe that.”

“No. But I can hardly tell him the truth. I'll think of something.” They talked for a moment longer and then hung up, and five minutes later Margaret called her back, and her first words stunned Alexandra.

“I'm going with you.”

“What? … Maman … you can't….”

“Why not?” She had made up her mind, and thought it an excellent idea, aside from providing Alexandra with the alibi that she needed. Besides, that way she could keep an eye on things, and stay close to Alexandra. She was desperately afraid of that meeting.

“It's such a lot of trouble for you. You weren't even going back to Paris until the end of September. You told me you were going to Rome for a few weeks.”

“So? I can go to Rome in October. Or on the way back from New York. All I wanted to do was visit Marisa”—one of her oldest friends—“and buy some decent shoes. But I'd much rather go to New York with you,” and then, almost shyly, “… if you'll have me.”

“Oh Mother …” Tears sprang to her eyes as she thought of it. She sensed how frightened Margaret was, but she didn't need to be. No one, no blood relative, no husband, no friend, could ever replace her. “Of course I'd love you to come. It just seems like such an imposition.”

“Don't be ridiculous. I'd be a nervous wreck if I stayed here.” And then she had a totally crazy idea, but she liked it. “Shall we take Axelle and Marie-Louise?” Alexandra's face lit up at the thought. She didn't like just leaving them at the end of the summer, even for only a few days. And Henri couldn't possibly object to a family trip like that.

“That's a wonderful idea. The three of you can stay in New York while I go to Connecticut, and then we can all have a little fun before we go back to Paris. The girls don't start school until the eleventh.”

“Marvelous, I'll call the Pierre and make the reservations today. You call the airlines. What day will we arrive?”

“Friday is the first … maybe we should fly on Thursday, the thirty-first of August.”

“Perfect. I'll make reservations for ten days. We can always change them if you want to come back sooner.”

“Maman …” There was a lump in her throat the size of a fist as she thought of the only mother she had ever known. “I love you.”

“Everything's going to be fine, darling. Just fine.” And for the first time since John Chapman had appeared at the rue de Varenne, she really thought so.

Alexandra didn't say anything to Henri for another week. And then she mentioned it casually to him one afternoon as they lay on the terrace.

“My mother wants me to go to New York with her, at the end of the summer.” She said it easily but he looked up at her angrily. He was still angry at her for her supposed transgression before they'd left Paris. They had never discussed it again, but she knew he hadn't forgiven her.

“What's that all about now?”

“Nothing. She has some business to take care of in New York. Some investments of her family's that need looking into, and she asked me to come along and bring the girls.”

“That's ridiculous. Why would you go to New York in August?” He was suspicious of both of them, and the plot they were obviously cooking up against him.

“It's actually not till the very end of August. And it might be fun for the girls to do something a little different.”

“Nonsense. You can go to New York some other time, this winter without the children.” But the harshness of his words sent a chill down her spine. He didn't know it, but nothing was going to stop her from going, or from taking her children with her.

“No, Henri. I'm going now. With my mother. And the children.”

He bolted to a sitting position and stared at her angrily. “Aren't you getting rather independent suddenly, Alexandra? May I remind you that I make the decisions here, for you, as well as the children.” He had never put it quite so bluntly, but it was true, or had been until then. But slowly, things had begun to change, since John Chapman had come to Paris.

“I don't think this is worth getting excited about, Henri. It's an invitation from my mother, for myself and the girls.”

“And if I forbid you to go?” His face was red with unspent fury, and her shocking behavior.

“I will have to go anyway. My mother has asked me to come with her.”

“Your mother is not an invalid. I'll call her myself and tell her you're not going.” But this time Alexandra stood up and faced him. She spoke in a quiet voice, but there was no mistaking the steel beneath the velvet.

“I do not wish to disobey you, but I must go to New York with my mother.”

“Why? Tell me that. Give me one valid reason.”

“It's too complicated to explain. It's all family business.”

“Alexandra, you're lying to me.” He was right, but she had no choice, the truth was too frightening to share with him.

“Please don't say that. I won't be gone long. Just a few days.”

“Why, dammit, why?” He pounded his fist on the glass table and she jumped.

“Henri, please, you're being unreasonable.” And she was frightened that he would force her to tell him. “My mother wants to visit her family, and she wants me to come along. There's nothing wrong with that.”

“What's wrong with it is that I didn't say you could go, and I see no reason for you to do so.”

“Perhaps because I want to.”

“You don't make those kinds of decisions for yourself. You are not a single woman.”

“Nor am I a slave. You can't decide everything for me, for heaven's sake. This is the twentieth century, not the Dark Ages.”

“And you are not some sort of modern women's libber to do as you please. Or if that's what you wish, Alexandra, you may not do it under my roof. Please keep that in mind before you start making your own travel arrangements.”

“This is ridiculous. You act as though I've committed a crime.”

“Not at all. But it is I who decide what you'll do when. That's how it's been for fourteen years, and I see no reason to change it.”

“And if I do?” she asked ominously. For the first time in her life the way he treated her truly rankled. She knew he was a kind and decent man, but he ran her life in such a way that she was no longer happy with it. And what's more, she knew it.

“You'll have trouble with me if you try out this independence. I'm warning you now.”

“And I'm telling you, as politely as I can, that I'm going to New York with my mother on the thirty-first of August.”

“That remains to be seen. And if I let you go, you are not taking my daughters. Is that clear?” It was all a power play and she suddenly hated him for it. All he needed was a whip to complete the image he was making.

“Are they prisoners here too then?”

“Is that how you see yourself?”

“Lately, yes. Ever since you sent me down here as a punishment for a sin I didn't commit. You've treated me like a criminal all summer.”

“Perhaps it's your own guilt that makes you feel that way, my dear.”

“Not at all. And I refuse to feel guilty about a trip with my mother, or to bow and scrape and beg, I don't need to do that. I'm a grown woman, and I can certainly do something like that, if I choose to.”

“Ah, the young baroness spreads her wings. Are you telling me that you don't need my support because of the size of your own income?”

“I would never say such a thing, Henri.” She was shocked at how bitter he seemed to be. But he was furious that she wouldn't bend to his wishes.

“You don't need to, my dear. In any case, I've decided. You're not going.”

She looked at him and shook her head in despair. He didn't understand that he was choosing the wrong issue on which to take his stand. Nothing could have kept her from going. Not even her husband.





Chapter 26




When John Chapman arrived in Kentucky, it was like landing on another planet. He had to change planes twice, and a jeep met him and took him over three hours of bumpy roads into the mountains, until he was deposited at a “motel” with a single room and an outdoor toilet. He sat huddled in his room that night, listening to the owls outside and sounds he had never heard before, and he wondered what Megan would be like when he met her the next morning.

He slept fitfully, and woke early. He walked to the town's only restaurant and ate fried eggs and grits, and a cup of truly awful coffee. And the jeep came for him again after lunchtime, with a toothless driver, who was only sixteen years old, and drove him to the hospital, high up in the mountains, under tall pine trees and surrounded by shacks where assorted families lived, most of them with a dozen children running around barefoot in what could only be called rags, followed by packs of mangy dogs hoping to find some crumbs, or leftover food the children might have forgotten. It seemed difficult to believe that this godforsaken outpost could be huddled in such beautiful country, and only hours away from places like New York, or Washington or Atlanta. The poverty John saw was staggering. Young boys who looked like bent-over old men from poor working conditions, bad health, and acute malnutrition, young women with no teeth and thin hair. Children with swollen bellies from lack of food. John wondered how she could stand working there, and walked into the hospital, not sure of what he'd find there.