I headed straight for Grand Central and managed to catch the last train out. I skipped a night at the Blue Mountain House. I didn’t need to sleep, I just needed to see him.
It was a good twenty degrees colder at the camp than in the city, and I had left abruptly, with nothing but the clothes I was wearing and my handbag. I wrapped my cardigan around myself and paid the driver, though he seemed uneasy about dropping me there alone. It looked empty and barren except for a guide’s car parked near the pathway to the farm and a few porch candles already lit.
“You sure you’re all right here by yourself, ma’am?” the driver asked. I wondered if I’d made a big mistake, Archie could’ve gone anywhere, but something told me to listen to my instincts. “I don’tfeel right leaving you here alone,” he said. “But if I don’t head back now, I won’t get to the main road before dark.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Thank you, I can take care of myself.”
Unlike the red and golden fall leaves I’d seen on the train ride out of the city, the trees in the Adirondacks were already bare, with a light sprinkling of snow on their limbs. It was as magical as it always had been, but my God, what was I doing here, the place where I’d fallen in love, the place where I’d caused so much pain?
Light shone from the main lodge, and I started walking toward it but then stopped and turned toward the cabin where Archie and I used to stay. At first it had seemed vacant, but when I reached the front door, I could sense that someone was inside. Music played faintly, there was smoke from a freshly lit fire, and a light shone through the front windows from the back of the cabin.
I knocked on the door before I could talk myself out of it.
“Come on in.” It was definitely Archie’s voice—it made me catch my breath.
I placed my hand on the doorknob, and the door creaked open.
“I’m in the back, Eugene,” he called.
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out, so I walked to the back of the cabin, out to the porch, and saw that he was outside stoking the firepit. I followed through the door he’d left open and walked down the uneven brick pathway toward him. Then I stopped.
“Archie,” I said softly when he turned around. His mouth dropped open, as if he were about to say something, but he didn’t.
“I heard the news, about the stock market, about Louise. I had a hunch you’d be here. I had to see you before I leave. I have something to tell you.”
“Olive,” he said, shocked. I was probably the last person he wanted to see. “What are you doing here?”
“Please, let me tell you what I came here to say.”
He stared at me blankly, then nodded slightly.
“I owe you an explanation,” I went on. “What I did was a horrible, terrible, unforgivable thing.” It was cold and I shuddered involuntarily. “Can we sit down?” I glanced inside.
He nodded and led the way to the living room. We sat in the two worn leather armchairs in front of the fireplace.
“I have a daughter, her name is Addie—Adeline. I was nineteen and foolish. I didn’t know the father.” I looked down, ashamed to be speaking these words to the man I so admired. “He took advantage of me while I was on tour in California.” A wave of nausea came over me, but I forced myself to go on. “I gave her up for adoption. There was a complication during the birth and they told me I wouldn’t be able to have any more children.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I should have told you from the very beginning, I should have been honest with you, but I was terrified that I’d lose you. Then when you started talking about having a family of our own, I just couldn’t do that to you. I didn’t want you to be childless if you wanted to be a father, not after what you’d already been through. It was cowardly of me, I can see that now. I should have told you the truth. Instead I ran, because I didn’t want to disappoint you. I couldn’t bear it if you resented me for the rest of our lives. It was selfish and I was wrong to treat you that way, keeping you in the dark, not letting you make your own decisions, instead making them for you.” I finally allowed myself to look up at him, and I saw his eyes were filled with tears.“I’m sorry, Archie, I’m so very sorry.” And when I said those words that I’d been wanting to say ever since I had last seen him here in this very cabin, the tears ran down my cheeks. I wiped them away quickly.
“Almost a month ago, my aunt May died. She had taken me in when my family moved to New York. My mother arranged it, but no one else knew. I stayed with my aunt during my pregnancy, and when I went to the funeral, I discovered a secret. After I had the baby and left, she had taken in my daughter, too, as her own.”
His eyes widened.
“Oh Archie, I thought she was gone forever. I thought she’d been adopted by strangers, that I’d never see her again. I’ve thought about her every day for the last two years, but I tried to force myself not to. I was doing everything I could to tamp down my thoughts, and then I found out that my mother knew about Addie living with my aunt, and she kept it from me.”
“My God,” Archie said under his breath.
“She’s two years old. My parents have taken her to Brooklyn and they insist on raising her now. They say I’m unfit to be a mother.” The words made the tears come again, and the fact that they were planning to take her away, back to Minnesota, was unbearable. But I willed those thoughts away. “I’ve made so many mistakes. I’ve hurt so many people. But I need you to know, Archie, that I have always loved you and I always will. I’m so, so sorry.”
“I always loved you too,” he said. He held my gaze. I saw the love and kindness in his eyes that I’d always seen in him, and I fought a mounting desire to rush to him, to be held in his arms, but I couldn’t assume I would be welcome.
“Where are you going?” he asked quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“You said you had to see me before you left, where are you going?”
I nodded, forgetting for a moment that I was supposed to be leaving in just a few days. “I’m going to Europe to tour with Alberto, I don’t know for how long. The theaters and clubs are going dark in New York. I’m lucky to have this chance.” I wanted to tell him that I didn’t feel lucky, that I didn’t want to go, and now that I was by his side I didn’t want to leave.
“I’m going to save all the money I make, and I’m going to send it back to Addie. My father thinks he’s not going to have a job. I don’t know what else to do—I’m sleeping in the dressing room at the Three Hundred Club, I can’t take her there.”
