“When did she die?” he asked.
“In spring. May the fifth.”
“I so hoped to see her again.”
“We buried her in a little church overlooking the sea. She should have been buried here, but she said she didn’t want that. I think she felt it inappropriate. Tactless, perhaps, considering Daddy.”
“She always put her family first.”
“She did. But she left me the scrapbook, not in her will, but in a letter of wishes. She had hidden it in the house, beneath a loose floorboard.”
“So it was you who put the book in the cottage?”
“Yes. I read it all. I understood why she never told me about you. What good would have come of it? I love Phillip as my father, and he will always be my father. Think how lucky I am to have two.”
“She never told you?”
“No. Maybe she felt guilty for not telling us both. Perhaps she couldn’t speak of it to anyone, not even to me. But dying people always want to tie up loose ends and I suppose it is my right to know who made me. I decided to put the scrapbook in here so that if you returned you would find it and know that she had never stopped loving you. I didn’t know where to find you and I didn’t want to ask my father. At that stage I didn’t even know whether I wanted to find you. It’s not an easy thing to learn that the man you believe is your father is not.”
“Does Phillip know?”
“Goodness, no. And he never will. It would be wrong of me to tell him. Besides, my mother gave her life to him. Maybe she would have left had he not fallen ill. He needed her. Who knows?”
“Why did you come today?”
“Because I feel the time is right. It’s what Mummy would have wanted. You both longed for a child so badly, it’s only right that you should know.” She smiled again and Jean-Paul saw his own face mirrored in hers. He felt his stomach lurch at the sight of it. She blushed. “I was also captivated by the scrapbook and the romance of my mother’s secret love affair. She never stopped loving you, or hoping that you would one day be reunited. When Miranda telephoned, I knew it was my chance.”
“Why didn’t she tell me she was dying?”
“I’ve wondered about that, too. I can only imagine, knowing my mother as I do, that she wouldn’t have wanted you to see her like that. Her hair fell out. She aged terribly. She was very sick. I would imagine she wanted you to remember her the way she was.”
“But she knew I loved her.”
Peach’s eyes filled with tears. Once again she could smell the scent of orange blossom. It crept around her like a familiar blanket and invaded her senses, demanding to be noticed. She looked at Jean-Paul. He lifted his chin, aware of it, too.
“Yes, she did,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “You can smell her, too?” Jean-Paul closed his eyes. How often he had dismissed her perfume as wishful dreaming.
The room filled with sunshine. It was bright and twinkling as it caught the little specks of dust and lit them up like fireflies. Father and daughter opened their eyes to see that the clouds had parted to let the sun shine through. Jean-Paul stood up hastily. “Come,” he said, taking her hand. Peach followed him outside, into the rain. There, in a dazzling arc above them, stood a magnificent rainbow.
“It’s beautiful,” she said in wonder. “Un arc-en-ciel.”
“Un arc-en-ciel,” he repeated, knowing that Ava was up there somewhere in the midst of all those colors. Then he laughed, for there, between green and blue, was the most splendid color of all.
“Can you see pink?” He pointed to the vibrating light, the color of a perfect summer rose.
“I see it!” she said, her face wet with tears. “I see it! The elusive pink.”
“She’s there,” said Jean-Paul, squeezing her hand. “She’s there. I know she is.”
XXXVIII
The day of Henrietta and Jeremy’s wedding could not have been more beautiful. The sky dazzled with sunshine, a cold breeze whipped in off the sea, swirling through the red and gold leaves, breathing autumn on the final remains of summer, and yet the sun was warm. Birdsong rang out from the treetops and squirrels paused their nut collecting to watch the baffling human world below them. But love is an instinct understood by all creation and it was as if the whole of nature conspired to make their day magnificent.
Troy sat in the front pew with Henrietta’s mother and sister. He had put the bride’s hair up in a glossy bun encircled with purple roses and wiped her tears away himself when she had seen how beautiful she looked. On the other side of the aisle Jeremy waited nervously, his large hands trembling as he fidgeted with the service sheet, exchanging looks with David, whom he had asked to be best man. He took a deep breath, barely daring to acknowledge his incredible fortune, in case he jinxed it and Henrietta did not appear.