Full Circle (28 page)

“I felt the same. I nearly went crazy trying to understand what was happening to me. I went to see a therapist and he told me that from time to time these things happen, although they don’t like to admit it. I wanted to tell you that day at the cove, but chickened out.”

They looked out over the city where they met and fell in love. They both felt a quiet contentment, as if a final piece of a jigsaw puzzle was finally inserted into the puzzle and now the picture was complete. Neither one of them had any other relationships to extricate themselves from and they were based in the same city. It would be smooth sailing ahead. Becky thought of telling Rachel and Emma and smiled. That would be fun.

Rebecca sat in her parents’ cozy kitchen across from her mom. Her mother looked thoughtful as she cradled a mug of coffee in her hands. Becky had just told her the story of Lily and Nick.

“
Mom, why didn’t you ever tell me about them? And why did you tell me your mother’s name was Maggie?”

“
There seemed no point. You know more about them than I ever did. My mother never told me that David wasn’t my father. She wanted me to be happy and on the same footing as my brothers. As far as the name goes, I knew her legal name was Lillian, but she called herself Maggie once she moved to New York. She wanted a new life and used her middle name Margaret. Hold on a minute, I want to show you something.” She went upstairs and came back with an old-fashioned cookie tin. She put it on the table and motioned for Rebecca to open it.

“
We had been very close. We had such a bond. She was more like a friend to me than a mother. She died a year before you were born and it took me two months to finally bring myself to clean out her apartment. Imagine my surprise when I came across this. She told me that my birth certificate had been lost in England.”

The cookie tin was dented and some of the pictures had been rubbed off, but Becky recognized it as the one Lily kept on her dresser. Rebecca opened the box carefully, peering inside. There were several black and white pictures and a few papers, as well as a small, black velvet box.

Becky took out the pictures first. The first showed a smiling young couple, who could only be Lily and Nick, on their wedding day. It was amazing to finally see them as they were. Rebecca stared at the picture for a long time. They looked exactly as they had in her dreams, young, beautiful and full of life. There was also a small snapshot of a young man who greatly resembled Nick. On the back “Ian 1939” was scribbled in pencil. There was another picture of Lily holding a baby in her lap and Nick standing behind her chair, smiling into the camera. The baby looked to be about one. Their last picture. Rebecca wiped away a tear and took out the papers. There was a marriage license, a birth certificate for Olivia Jane McGuire and an old telegram, which Becky did not bother to open. She already knew what it was.

She took out the box last. Nestled in faded black velvet was a sapphire ring, encircled with diamonds and a thin wedding band. Rebecca gently touched the sapphire. It sparkled in the light, released from years of darkness and she slipped in on her finger without thinking. It was hers, after all.

“
I was so angry Becky. I raged at her, even though she was gone. My mother, my best friend, had withheld so much of herself from me. She told me close to nothing of her life before she came to New York. It’s as if she blocked it out. I had a right to know about my father.”

“
So, did you ever find out what happened?” asked Becky.

“
Once I got over the initial shock I went to see my godmother, Alice. Alice had been my mother’s closest friend since their school days in Cornwall. I showed her the box and Alice just started to cry. Mom made her promise not to tell me, but I felt I was entitled to know the truth.”

“
Did she tell you what happened after Nick died?”

“
Yes. She said that Lily was in a terrible state after she got the news. Now they would call it a clinical depression, back then they just called it a broken heart. She spent the rest of the war just getting from day to day. She went to the local hospital to visit some patients and she took care of me. She seemed as if all the life went out of her. Her brother, Edward died a few weeks before the end of the war and that was another horrible blow.

After the war finally ended and things started to get back to some kind of normalcy, her parents sent her to New York to visit Alice in the hopes that seeing her old friend would lift her spirits. Alice was shocked to see the sad, broken woman who claimed to be Lily and was determined to keep Lily in the States. Her and her sister-in-law, Hannah, cooked up a plan. Hannah held a dinner party and invited her husband’s friend David Stern. She was sure David would break through Lily’s misery. He was one of those people who was always the life of the party. He was a music teacher at Brooklyn College. He was almost forty, never married and he was smitten with Lily from the minute he saw her. David was known for his great sense of humor and he slowly managed to bring Lily back to life. Lily had extended her stay and after two months they got married.

Your Grandpa David was the only father I ever knew. He legally adopted me after they married and Lily had changed her name to Margaret when she became a citizen. She said that the Lily she had been no longer existed and she wanted to be a new person. So, she became Maggie Stern.”

“
But, didn’t you know you had been born in England during the war?” inquired Becky.

“
Yes, I did. She told me that she had met David while he was stationed in England and got pregnant. We came to New York after the war and they got married. She thought of everything.”

“
I can’t believe she never told you about Nick.”

“
Alice said that mom was never the same after Nick died. She couldn’t bear to speak of him. She needed to lock him in her heart in order to get on with her life. I guess she did what she had to do.”

“
Was she happy with Grandpa? Did she love him?”

“
They seemed like any other old, married couple. They laughed, they argued, they made up. She must have loved him. She died shortly after he did. I don’t think she ever felt the kind of passion for him that she felt for Nick, but who is to say that their love was less real? He was a good father to me. I loved him very much.”

“
What happened to the Kaplans?”

“
Alice died a few years after my mother and Jacob is in a nursing home in Manhattan Beach. Their son Clive is a hot shot plastic surgeon in Hollywood. He is a great guy. Very funny. Married some starlet. Their daughter, Dana, lives on a Kibbutz in the Galilee. I hear she has three children from three different fathers. Maybe that’s what killed Alice.”

“
I wonder what happened to all those children who lived at the Rectory. And Lucy.”

“
I don’t know. I suppose they got on with their lives regardless of whether their parents ever came back. They had to,” answered Olivia. “Lucy kept in touch with Mom. She became a teacher at an all girls’ school. She never married and never had children of her own. I believe she is still alive.”

“
What about Lily’s parents? They were your grandparents after all.”

“
Edward had enlisted about six months before the war ended and was killed a few weeks before Germany surrendered. He was eighteen,” answered Olivia sadly. “My grandfather had a heart attack shortly after Lily left for the States and my grandmother spent the rest of her life nursing him. Mom kept meaning to go visit them, but gave birth to Uncle Matthew and then Uncle Rob and couldn’t leave the boys to go to Cornwall. They never saw each other again.”

“
What about Aunt Gwen and Uncle William?” asked Becky already knowing the answer.

“
I never even knew they existed. Whatever happened to them, they are probably either very old or gone by now. They had no children of their own, so there is no one to look up.”

Rebecca left her parents’ house feeling very melancholy. She hadn’t dreamed of Lily since she got back from London and she missed the dreams more than she thought possible. She suspected that she wouldn’t dream of her again. Her story was finished and Rebecca’s was just beginning. She felt very sad for her grandmother for losing the love of her life. She didn’t believe that she married David for love. She wanted a home, stability and a father for her child. It was an added bonus that they got along well and had more kids. Lily deserved whatever happiness she could manage to get for herself. She thought of Grandpa David and smiled. She had never met him since he died before she was born, but she heard stories about what a wonderful man he had been. The one thing people always said about him is that he could make anyone laugh. Becky hoped that Lily laughed a lot.

Rebecca headed for home. It was time to concentrate on her own life. She would put Lily out of her mind forever. Jamie would be back on Saturday and she couldn’t wait to see him. There was a huge bouquet of peach roses on her table that was delivered shortly after she got home from the airport. Rebecca smiled as she got into her car.

Epilogue

August 2007

The garden of the Brandon’s country house was bathed in summer sunshine and puffy white clouds floated lazily overhead as the string quartet started Pachelbel’s “Canon”. The two maids of honor were already at the front looking back to where Rebecca stood with her father. They looked like fairy princesses in their peach colored gowns and flowers in their hair. Olivia sat in the front row with Jamie’s parents and Rebecca spotted Jonathan in the third row looking at Emma with tenderness. No one except her and Rachel knew the news yet, but a tiny belly could be visible beneath the peach dress Emma was wearing. Jack was discreetly admiring Rachel and Rebecca thought she saw a possibility of a romance there. All the quests rose as Rebecca and her father took their places at the end of the aisle.

Rebecca floated down the aisle on the arm of her father towards the flower-decorated arch under which stood the Justice of the Peace. Jamie stood next to Jack and watched Becky with open adoration as she came towards him. As the music came to an end and Becky’s father handed her over to her future husband, he leaned over and whispered in her ear so that no one else could hear him.

“
This time, it’s forever, Lil.”

His bride looked up at him, her face glowing with love. “I love you, Nick.”

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