Stevie was frightened.She felt no closer to revealing the identity of Joni’s father than she had when all this began.Feeling alone, she confessed her problems to one of her coworkers, who blinked at her, confused, and asked, “You never told him you were pregnant?”
“It was complicated,” she explained.But she never dug deeper into the story behind Joni, behind the greatest love she’d ever known.She didn’t feel she owed it to anyone.
Maybe she was wrong.
When Joni’s pregnancy finally stuck, Stevie prayed nightly that everything would go as planned.She visualized herself holding Joni’s baby.She envisioned Joni and Joni’s baby with her in the sunshine, on the beach, watching the ocean sweep across the sands.She imagined Joni growing her family, dropping the grandkids off at Stevie’s when she went to Pilates or yoga or whatever it was she did.Stevie’s heart swelled with excitement.
But when the baby was born, Joni contacted Stevie exactly once.
“She’s here,” she said.Her voice was resigned.
Stevie was at home, washing dishes.She stood at the sink, tears racing down her cheeks.“How are you?How is she?”she demanded.She was ready to leap into the car and head over there.She could be holding her granddaughter in an hour, tops.
“We’re okay,” Joni said.“We’re healthy.”
“Oh, what a relief!”Stevie cried.She’d known that her daughter was due any moment.She’d wanted Joni to call when she was going to the hospital, but she’d also known that Joni probably wouldn’t.“I can be there soon.Can I pick up anything for you?Food?Chinese?”Joni loved Chinese food more than anyone in the world.
“Nothing, Mom.No.”Joni cleared her throat.She sounded exhausted.She probably was.“Mom, I called to tell you that Sam and I have decided we don’t want you to meet the baby just yet.”
Stevie felt as though she was going to fall over.“I’m sorry?I’m sorry?”She felt like a fool.She reached for the kitchen chair and sat down.Maybe she’d misheard?
“You know, we think it’s really dishonest that you won’t tell me my father’s identity,” Joni continued.“We sort of understand your reasoning, I guess, but we really don’t like it.We need honest people in our daughter’s life.We need to start from a place of healing and love.”
Stevie gasped for breath.“Honey, I don’t know what you think, but your father, he isn’t…”He isn’t who you think he is.He isn’t going to offer you anything.He isn’t.He isn’t.
But before Stevie could muster a response, Joni had told her she had to go and hung up the phone.Stevie sat, sweating with panic, and tried to call her back.But Joni had blocked her number.Her daughter had built a wall between them, one that Stevie wasn’t sure she could ever climb.
ChapterTwelve
Finding Grayson’s mother’s Montmartre apartment was much easier than he’d reckoned.Freezing on the northern Parisian streets, he followed his instincts and cut up the road from Château Rouge, up a set of painfully steep stairs, and finally to a wooden door he would have recognized anywhere.He saw the name on the buzzer: HARRIS and laughed aloud.It was rare to see such an English-language name on an apartment building in Paris.His memory had served him well.He pressed the bell and waited, his hands in his pockets, until his daughter’s voice greeted him through the intercom.“Hello?”
It didn’t take much prodding to get Camille to let him up.The door unlocked with a dramatic buzz, and he shoved his way through and up an additional three flights of stairs.Outside his mother’s apartment door, he slid his boots across the mat and pressed the already open door wider.Standing in the foyer, he assessed the prewar apartment, its ceilings more than ten feet high, its glowing wooden floors, its floor-to-ceiling windows and doors onto a balcony lined with lace-like iron.“Camille?”he called, surprised at how tender he felt, just in saying his daughter’s name.Her mother had called him here, saying that Camille needed him.So he was here, no matter what had happened, no matter how it had destroyed his business.He couldn’t care less.
“I’m here, Papa.”Camille’s little voice came from the room at the far end of the hall.
Grayson followed it, poking his head into the study, where Camille was buried under a heap of blankets, a book of poetry on her thighs.Her eyes glowed with the light from the window.Snow continued to flutter outside.
“Camille, honey,” Grayson said, removing his shoes and stepping into the little room.“Honey, are you all right?”
Camille had grown up in Paris.She had a French mother and French friends.In nearly every way, she evoked the energy of a French woman and lacked any of her father’s Americanism.But for him, she spoke English, knowing it made him more comfortable.
“Did Mama call you?”she asked.“Did she tell you that I was losing my mind?”
Grayson entered the room quietly and sat across from his daughter.On the table between them were more stacks of books, some of which he remembered his own mother reading.He loved that his daughter was a study in contrasts: a reader, a dreamer, a party animal.She took on as much of life as she could.
“She said she was worried about you,” Grayson admitted.“I’ve been worried, too.You haven’t answered any of my texts or calls in a while.”
Camille raised her shoulders.
Grayson’s heart dropped.“I know it’s been hard.The divorce and everything, it must have come as a shock.”
Camille made a sound in her throat.
“What?”Grayson asked.“Please, honey.Talk to me.”
“The divorce wasn’t a shock,” Camille said.“I always prayed you and Mama would get divorced sooner.You weren’t meant to be together.I knew that when I was a little girl.”
Grayson couldn’t help but smile at his daughter’s rather rude statement.“Did you know before I knew myself?”
