Private Entrance (The Butterfly Trilogy) (41 page)

     The jet taxied to a halt, the stairs unfolded to the ground. The Kaplans were the first to disembark.

     Norman and Rose Kaplan were in their late sixties, plump and gray-haired, Rose shorter than her husband, and when they approached, Abby offered her hand for a handshake. But instead Rose Kaplan placed her hands on Abby's cheeks and said, "My daughter's mother," with such tenderness that Abby wanted to cry. "We took good care of your baby. We loved her as our own. I am sorry she was taken from you. We did not know this. We were told she had come from a Jewish orphanage, that her mother was dead."

     They rode in a guest cart to Abby's bungalow, where Vanessa was waiting with refreshments.

     While Vanessa poured tea that no one touched, Abby offered a brief summary of her past and the subsequent search for her child, showing the Kaplans the private investigator's report. Mr. Kaplan wordlessly went through the papers, then set them down with a sigh. "Because we were told the baby's mother had died, we were never afraid she would show up some day."

     Ophelia stared at her parents. David sat at her side on the sofa, holding her hand. "Then it's
true?"
she said.

     Rose turned sorrowful eyes to her. "Your father and I were married five years and still no sign of a baby. I went to specialists. They said I couldn't
have children. We decided to adopt. But we wanted a Jewish child. Our lawyer said he knew of a man who handled special cases like ours. We were in the waiting room and I overheard him on the phone with a man he addressed as Mr. Bakersfelt. A week later he called to say a Jewish woman had died in childbirth. The baby was a healthy girl who had our coloring, our ancestry, he said." Mrs. Kaplan twisted her handkerchief. "But he said there were other couples ahead of us. And he hinted that there was a way to push us to the top of the list."

     "Money," Ophelia said.

     "He said it would be a donation to an orphanage. A worthy cause. Our ten thousand dollars would make everyone happy all around. So we paid it."

     "And then," Norman Kaplan interjected, "six months after you came to us, your mother discovered she was pregnant. That was your sister Janet. And after that came Susan and Benjamin. Like you hear about, adopted babies making women pregnant." He smiled sadly.

     Ophelia's face looked as if sculpted from white marble. "Why did you never tell me?"

     "We intended to. But each year, we said next year. We were afraid it would make you less of our own. As it was, my parents couldn't accept you."

     That day on her grandfather's lap. Ophelia realized now that her grandfather's words were at the root of her lifetime of competitiveness, to prove herself. "What does white narcissus signify?"

     "You remember that? You were so young. Your grandmother was sick in the hospital. People brought white narcissus, her favorite flower. When we brought you to visit, my father,
Zaydeh
Abraham, would not let you in the room. He had been opposed to the adoption and said he would never accept you. I didn't know you were aware of it."

     A heavy moment descended upon them, as each struggled with new thoughts, new emotions. "Mother," Ophelia said, going to sit at Rose Kaplan's side. "Mom, I have news. I'm pregnant."

     The older woman gasped, then pulled Ophelia into a embrace. "Praise God," she sobbed.

     Abby watched as they held onto each other, as Ophelia told Mrs. Kaplan about her fears, the possibility of Tay-Sachs, that it was why she had come
alone to The Grove, and Abby's heart went out to Rose Kaplan, weeping on Ophelia's shoulder, Ophelia also weeping, not wanting to let go of the woman she had known as mother.

     Finally Mrs. Kaplan drew back and dried her eyes with a handkerchief. She offered Abby a sad smile and said, "Such irony. We wanted a Jewish daughter, but now, thanks be to God, it is a good thing she isn't. The baby is safe."

     "You two have much to catch up on," she added as she composed herself.

     But Abby looked at Rose in horror. She had not intended for this to happen. "I have to go away," she said.

     "For how long?" Ophelia said in alarm.

     "Perhaps for a very long time. I had never planned to reveal myself to you. But with your pregnancy, you needed to know that your child was not in danger—" The words caught in her throat. "But I have to go. Today. You will probably never hear from me again." She couldn't drag her daughter, newly found, into what she planned next.

     When no one said anything and the moment grew tense, David rose and said, "I think we need to step back and absorb all of this."

     With relief, everyone agreed.

     "We tried so hard to make Ophelia ours," Mrs. Kaplan said to Abby as they went to the door. "We even changed her birthday. Isn't that silly?"

     "I beg your pardon?"

     Mrs. Kaplan reached into her purse and produced the original birth certificate, the document that had accompanied the baby. "We decided to make the day she came to us as the day she was born. But you see?" She handed the faded paper to Abby. "Ophelia is really three days older."

     Abby stared in shock. The document was similar to the ones she had for Sissy and Coco, both born on May 17 in nearby Amarillo. But this one said May 14—
Boston, Massachusetts.

     Ophelia was not her child.

     An hour later she was seeing the four of them off on The Grove's private jet back to Los Angeles. Although Abby had offered them all the services the resort had to offer, Ophelia was anxious to be back among her family. The idea of being adopted was going to need some getting used to. But in
the end, the Kaplans were her people. And if they had been lied to about the baby's origins, that perhaps she had not come from a Jewish mother, it didn't matter. "I might not have been born Jewish, but I am Jewish all the same."

     Such an emotional shock: the accidental pregnancy and then discovering she was adopted. It was too much. She needed to stand back and sort it all out in a clinical fashion. But, for the first time, David stepped in and instead of making a subtle suggestion that usually ended with, "Do what you think is right," he said, "No. Don't step back from your emotions. Go with them. For once, stop being a scientist and just be a feeling human being."

     Dear David. How she loved him. "I was so opinionated and arrogant. How could you stand that?"

     He smiled. "Because you are also smart and brave and act on your principles. You don't just pay lip service like so many people do."

     She had also learned a lesson. Someone had once said to her, outside an abortion clinic that Ophelia was picketing, about walking in someone else's shoes. Now Ophelia
had
walked in another's shoes and she understood something for the first time. Not all women entering a clinic had the same stories, one could never know what they were going through, what had driven them to walk through those fateful doors. We on the outside cannot judge, Ophelia understood now, it was between those women and God.

     The memory of what her grandfather said also explained much. Ophelia had never gotten around to the genetic testing. Everyone asked her why, and even she couldn't explain it. David had said it was because she didn't want to be told she had a defect. Ophelia had to be successful and perfect in everything. But now she realized that buried deep inside her was the memory of her grandfather saying "She isn't one of us." Subconsciously, she knew the genetic test would have confirmed it.

     She also wondered now if her passionate study of prehistoric humans also had its roots in her grandfather's rejection of her. What he said at the time wouldn't have made much of a conscious impact on a five-year-old, but the seed was planted, it settled in and grew in her subconscious, the fact that she had no history. And so she had gravitated to the study of people without history—because she related to them, and was searching for herself among them.

     With a promise to come back, and the prayer that Abby found her daughter, Ophelia said good-bye. They watched the plane lift into the air, Abby silently wishing Ophelia and David all happiness, then Vanessa said to her friend, "What are you going to do now? Are you leaving The Grove?"

     Abby wordlessly shook her head. She couldn't leave. The disappointment that none of the three women turned out to be her daughter was crushing. But she would not be deterred. Her child was still out there, and Abby was determined more than ever to find her.

     "I don't understand," she said as the drone of the jet engines faded in the sapphire sky. "Did the private investigator miss something?" She recalled what he had said about Spencer Boudreaux, a wino living from bottle to bottle. How accurate could his memory be after all these years? And the nursemaid, in her seventies, who admitted to having been on many baby runs across many states. And then something occurred to Abby. "Vanessa, are you sure my baby was a girl? Did you actually
see
?"

     Vanessa turned to her friend, wishing she could ease her pain, herself crushed with disappointment, and said, "I had never attended a birth before. There was a lot of blood. I got faint. I had to sit down, so I never actually saw the baby being born. The warden washed it and wrapped it in a blanket and handed it to me. No, I didn't see for myself, but I could have sworn I heard the warden refer to the baby as 'she.'" Vanessa massaged the back of her neck. She had spent the night with Zeb and had gotten little sleep. "But now...I couldn't swear to it. Abby, the baby
might
have been a boy."

     Abby knew one thing: she was not going to spend the next thirty-three years searching for a
son.
Boudreaux and the others were no longer alive, but there was one man, she knew, who had the answer.

     A dangerous man, the private investigator had warned, who made people disappear. But Abby had no choice. All the leads the investigator had followed—Boudreaux, the nursemaid, the warden, and others—were deceased. That left only one man who had connections to the ring that kidnapped her child.

     Gangster or no, Abby was going to confront Michael Fallon.

M
R
. F
ALLON," THE CLIMATOLOGIST SAID
. "W
HAT YOU ARE
proposing simply cannot be done. This is the desert and we—"

     "Fuck the desert," Michael said. They were riding in the back of his stretch limo, blueprints spread out between them. "If you can't deliver, I'll find someone who will."

     "Very well, Mr. Fallon," the man said, backing down. "I will get to work on it right away."

     The car stopped and the architect got out.

     Fallon's plan for a vast outdoor rainforest had failed once before. The water costs were sky-high and the plants did not thrive. The climate and soil of the desert simply could not support such a scheme. It made him hate the desert even more. But he was determined to have his way. The rain forest would be the Atlantis's "traffic stopper," something every super casino required. The Luxor had its sphinx and Treasure Island its pirate ships. The Atlantis had to do better. It had been on the cover of
Time
and featured in
National Geographic.
Michael Fallon made the cover of
People
, and
Forbes
placed him on its annual list of the four hundred richest Americans, his worth estimated at $200 million. He was unofficially recognized as the most powerful casino owner on the Strip.

     Which was why he was in a dark mood this Friday morning. The Vandenbergs. They should be
honored
that his daughter was marrying their son. Instead, they were showing their disapproval in a hundred little ways—not inviting Fallon to a cocktail reception for the engaged couple, a party which all of Nevada society attended. Mrs. Vandenberg dropping hints that the pair should take more time to think about their commitment. "Take separate vacations," the bitch had said. And Stephen Senior, chairman of a charity golf tournament to which pros and celebrities had been invited, slighting Michael Fallon by pointedly leaving him off the guest list.

     You would think their precious son was the Second Coming, the way they treated him. But thirty-three-year-old Stephen was nothing remarkable in Fallon's book. He had selected the boy for his pedigree and because he looked like he could take orders. Michael Fallon intended to have a hand in the running of Francesca's marriage, whether the Vandenbergs liked it or not. And he was going to see that the wedding went ahead, despite Mrs. Vandenberg's subtle campaign to sabotage the plan.

     Michael Fallon had insurance. He had discovered the Vandenbergs' nasty little well-kept secret about their only child.

     The limousine pulled to the curb and stopped. Fallon was on his way to Confession but he had a quick appointment first.

     Dr. Rachel Friedman's office was on the fourth floor. There was no receptionist. The therapist herself opened the door.

     "Mr. Fallon," she said, extending her hand.

     "Thanks for taking the time to see me, doctor, I know you're a busy woman." He gripped her hand and looked into her eyes. Nice looking woman, classy and mature. As they shook hands, he felt the quick, reflexive grasp of her fingers that he always felt when a woman connected with him, and when he saw the pulse throb at her throat, he thought he would love to get this lady into bed.