“When did you end it with her?”
“Do you remember the night you took my hand? In front of the Chelsea?”
Esther nodded her head.
“I wrote to Inez that night.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That I wanted to be the kind of man who followed through on his promises but that I had met a woman whom I knew I’d never be able to let go of.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about her?”
“I don’t know. Fear, probably.”
What bothered Esther the most, when she really thought about it, was not that Joseph had loved someone else but that he hadn’t trusted her with the information. Had he thought her so fragile? Their relationship so flimsy?
“All this time, you’ve been working with Anna to get Inez and Paul to the U.S, and I’ve been left to wonder why she matters. Instead of sitting around like a dingbat, I would have appreciated being given the chance to rise to the occasion.”
Joseph sat down on Anna’s bed, placed his hands on his knees. It took him several long seconds to find his voice.
“I’ve always regretted the way I treated Inez.”
“You wish you’d married her?”
Joseph looked at her as if she were deranged. “No, I just wish I’d been honest with her.”
“You were.”
“I think I knew, long before I met you, that I wouldn’t marry her. I should have told her sooner.”
“You were young.”
“It’s no excuse.”
“So, this is your penance?” Esther waved her arms at Anna’s dresser, her bed. “Bringing her daughter to the United States?”
“I should have done it a long time ago.”
“Brought her to the U.S.?”
“Both of them. After the war. It would have been easier then.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Esther let out a short laugh that sounded angrier than she’d intended. She was so tired. Had that little blue letter really arrived a year ago? She put the stack of papers back in the drawer and moved her hands to her face, rubbing her eye sockets with the tips of her fingers. Inez could have asked for anything from Joseph, and he would have said yes because he was a decent man. Of that, Esther was sure.
“There’s something else, Esther.”
She watched her husband run his hands up and down the length of his thighs. “What?”
“We got another denial letter from the U.S. consulate.”
“The affidavit is no good?”
“It’s more than that. The consul wants to see hard-and-fast proof that Inez and Paul will be able to support themselves when they arrive in the U.S.”
