What happened to their family in 1984 should have made Rachel love her son even more, but it didn’t. It was like she’d lost her ability to love—until Jacob was born. By then, she and Rob had developed a relationship that was perfectly nice, but it was like that dreadful carob chocolate. As soon as you tasted it, you knew that it was just a wrong, sad imitation. So Rob had every right to take Jacob away from her. She deserved it for not loving him enough. This was her penance. Two hundred Hail Marys and your grandson goes to New York. There was always a price, and Rachel always had to pay it in full. No discounts. Just like she’d paid for her mistake in 1984.
Rob was making Jacob giggle now. Wrestling with him, probably, hanging him upside down by his ankles, the same way Ed used to wrestle with him.
“Here comes the . . . TICKLE MONSTER!” cried Rob.
Peal after peal of Jacob’s laughter floated into the room like streams of bubbles, and Rachel and Lauren both laughed together. It was irresistible, like they were being tickled themselves. Their eyes met across the table, and at that instant, Rachel’s laughter turned into a sob.
“Oh, Rachel.” Lauren half rose from her seat and reached out a perfectly manicured hand. (She had a manicure, a pedicure and a massage every third Saturday. She called it “Lauren time.” Rob brought Jacob over to Rachel’s place whenever it was “Lauren time,” and they walked to the park on the corner and ate egg sandwiches.) “I’m so sorry. I know how much you’ll miss Jacob, but—”
Rachel took a deep, shaky breath and pulled herself together with all the strength that she had, as if she were heaving herself back up from a cliff edge.
“Don’t be silly,” she said so sharply that Lauren flinched and dropped back into her seat. “I’ll be fine. This is a wonderful opportunity for you all.”
She began stacking their dessert plates, roughly scraping leftover Sara Lee into a messy, unappealing pile of food.
“By the way,” she said, just before she left the room. “That child needs a haircut.”
FOUR
John-Paul? Are you there?”
Cecilia pressed the phone so hard to her ear that it hurt.
Finally he spoke. “Have you opened it?” His voice was thin and reedy, like a querulous old man in a nursing home.
“No,” said Cecilia. “You’re not dead, so I thought I’d better not.” She’d been trying for a flippant tone, but she sounded shrill, as if she were nagging him.
There was silence again. She heard someone with an American accent call out, “Sir! This way, sir!”
“Hello?” said Cecilia.
“Could you please not open it? Would you mind? I wrote it a long time ago, when Isabel was a baby, I think. It’s sort of embarrassing. I thought I’d lost it, actually. Where did you find it?”
He sounded self-conscious, as if he were talking to her in front of people he didn’t know that well.
“Are you with someone?” asked Cecilia.
“No. I’m just having breakfast here in the hotel restaurant.”
“I found it when I was in the attic, looking for my piece of the Berlin . . . Anyway, I knocked over one of your shoe boxes, and there it was.”
“I must have been doing my taxes around the same time I wrote it,” said John-Paul. “What an idiot. I remember I looked and looked for it. I thought I was losing my mind. I couldn’t believe I would lose . . .” His voice faded. “Well.”
He sounded so contrite, so full of what seemed like over-the-top remorse.