The Jewels of Tessa Kent (21 page)

“Oh, Luke, Luke, there are some things even you can’t protect me from,” Tessa said. “What you can do is deal with the hospital administrator and call Father Vincent at their church—it’s St. Charles of the Holy Savior in Santa Monica—and start making the … arrangements, while I go and talk to Maggie. I think it would confuse her to meet you for the first time at this moment. I won’t be alone—Mimi’s still waiting downstairs in the car. You were an angel to know that I’d need her and to get her here so quickly. Then we’ll all come back to the hotel with Maggie. Fiona should be there by then.”

“Your aunts are waiting to hear, I can take care of that too.”

“Oh, would you, darling? They know you and I’m not sure when I can get to a phone.”

“Right. Just tell me something before you leave, is Maggie … just how emotional and sensitive is she?”

I’m not sure, Tessa thought, I don’t truly know her that well.

“I refuse to believe this,” Mimi said as they sat side by side in the limo, the window raised between them and the driver. “A bride and an orphan in six days. No wonder you look so … I can’t find any word but ‘blank.’ ”

“I’m not letting myself feel any more emotion than I can help, not until I’ve told Maggie. At least my mother and I managed to say we loved each other before she died. We did, you know, in a strange and difficult way, I realize that now, Mimi, when it’s too late. Naturally that’s always the case, isn’t it? Funny, I was always convinced that my father loved me. In his own severe, upright, old-fashioned way, I could tell somehow that he cared for me but he just couldn’t talk about it, not really ever. But with a father, my father anyway, you don’t expect much … you get so you don’t mind. The only thing that helps is that they knew they didn’t have to worry about me anymore … especially my mother …”

“Was she able to say anything else?” Mimi asked hesitantly.

“Oh yes, she managed to make herself very plain. With her last words. She was an amazing woman, Mimi. So strong.”

“What does that mean … or shouldn’t I even ask? I have no idea how I’m supposed to behave now.”

“You’re supposed to be Mimi and nothing but Mimi and you’re the only person in the world who can ask that question and get an answer. She told me never to tell Luke about Maggie, never to tell
anyone
about Maggie, never to, I guess she meant ‘destroy,’ or something like that, her pride, her life’s work, never to ruin—she only said ‘ruin’ but obviously she meant the entire story, the whole edifice she’d built up with her family, her sisters, the way she simply made everything happen, even starting me in my career. She kept herself alive to tell me that, I’m sure of it.”

“But—”

“What?”

“Well, I mean, you weren’t
planning
to tell for God’s sake, were you?”

“I don’t know what to do, Mimi, I just don’t know what’s the right thing to do. After all, she … Maggie … is my daughter.”

Tessa began to weep again, not merely tears over the loss of her parents, but tears of utter confusion. Her mother’s dying words resonated in her ears no less strongly than Luke’s when he’d told her, over and over, how deeply important it was to him that she was a virgin. And she’d tacitly confirmed that lie each time he’d said it. Over and over. There had been exactly one perfect chance, one ideal moment to tell him about Maggie, on their first evening together, and she’d rejected the opportunity instantly, with every bit of intuition and instinct and reason she possessed. If she made herself tell him the truth now, he’d never believe in her again, never trust her again. She would have made him into a fool. She’d allowed, no, she’d encouraged him to believe she was a virgin. He’d know her to be a deliberate, constant, confirmed liar, and perhaps his love would die. Or if not die, certainly change. Consciously or not, she’d used her technical virginity every minute she was with him. It
illuminated
their love. But Maggie had a mother of her own, even if that person was on her way to tell her that her mother and father had gone to heaven.

“Tessa! Stop it right now!” Mimi handed her a wad of Kleenex. “You don’t have time to cry! Now listen to me. Maggie has only known one mother in her life, not two. You’re her big sister, the one she’s damn lucky to have, the sister who can make sure that she spends the rest of her life being happy and taken care of. If you’re thinking of some damn stupid moment of truth, some need to bring up the past, stamp on it!”

Tessa blew her nose and listened to Mimi, whose admonishments had so often shown her the way—
although, she reminded herself, not necessarily the right way.

“Remember your mother’s last words, Tessa. You simply can’t go against them! The truth Maggie knows is that her parents and your parents are the same people and they’re dead. What on earth would you have to gain by stepping forward and claiming Maggie now? What a media orgy that would be if it ever got out, and how wouldn’t it? Give me a break! ‘The Secret of Tessa Kent’s Bastard Child!’ Please! She’s yours anyway, no one can take her away from you, you’re her next of kin.”

“I know.”

“Then where’s the problem? You must have a major self-destructive streak if you ever
dream
of telling him. Shape up, girl! You’re thinking crazy. Luke doesn’t know and doesn’t ever need to know, your mother would die all over again if you told anybody … or she’d come back and kill you herself … and as far as I’m concerned, it was a virgin birth and I can swear to that.”

“Don’t remind me. Oh Lord have mercy on me, we’re here.”

“I don’t see why a little girl should go to a funeral,” Mimi said. “It’s bad enough without seeing the whole thing.”

Tessa, Luke, Mimi, and Fiona were having a room-service lunch while Maggie took her nap in the bedroom next to the sitting room. She hadn’t burst into tears when Tessa had told her. She’d sighed deeply, asked one question, and then silently, stoically, and solemnly thrust her thumb into her mouth and sat passively in Tessa’s arms, refusing to snuggle or talk or ask any more questions. Later she’d refused anything more than a glass of milk at lunch, although they’d all taken turns at trying to tempt her to eat. Tessa wondered how much Maggie had been able to take in of the facts she’d been
told. She had no idea how a five-year-old thought about death, she realized, trying to remember details of her forgotten catechism classes. Even though Maggie hadn’t started them yet, she’d been going to Sunday mass for years; she’d certainly absorbed the basics.

“I don’t agree,” Tessa said to Mimi. “I think there needs to be a feeling of finality, a visual punctuation mark, a ceremony she can watch and talk about with us and remember afterward, so that Maggie understands that her parents haven’t merely disappeared for a while. When I told her about the accident she asked, ‘Like on the five-o’clock news?’ Those were the only words she uttered. She didn’t even ask what was going to happen to her now—that’s an enormous amount of denial. I don’t know what to do except let her see the funeral.”

“I think you’re right,” Luke agreed. “We can make the mass as easy as possible for her, but I don’t think she should go to the cemetery and see the caskets lowered into the ground. That’s too much reality. I remember my grandfather’s funeral, and the burial part scared me for years. I still have nightmares about it.”

“That’s where I could come in,” Fiona volunteered. “The mass is scheduled for late morning. After it’s over I’ll have lunch with Maggie here and then we’ll watch television or play or she can take a nap, whatever she wants to do, until you get back from the cemetery.”

“I’ve talked to Father Vincent,” Luke continued, “and we’ve agreed that the closed caskets will be placed at the altar of St. Charles of the Holy Savior before anyone comes in. He tells me that in any case a Requiem Mass is short. I’ve left instructions that somebody should take the black ribbons off the flowers people send … silly, I suppose, but it seems less ominous for a little girl. There’ll be the organ music, of course, and I’ve asked for as large a choir as possible—I hope she’ll be more interested in that than in the mass. Tessa and I won’t take communion at the end because it would mean leaving her with people she doesn’t know.”

“You’ve thought of everything,” Fiona said, “except for the wake.”

“Wrong, the wake was easy. One phone call to the manager. It’ll be right here, at the Bel-Air. Thank God for wakes,” Luke said, taking Tessa’s hand. “People will come straight here from the cemetery. By that time, if I remember correctly, they’re all starving and dying for a drink, not necessarily in that order.”

“Amen,” said Mimi. “Will we see all the wedding guests again?”

“Except for my cousins and their kids,” Tessa said. “However, lots of the people I’ve worked with will probably come, and Luke’s employees who live nearby, Maggie’s godparents of course, and my parents’ other friends, my father’s pupils, his fellow teachers—Lord knows who’ll show up.”

“Tyler is on his way from New York,” Luke added. “He’ll be here in time for the funeral.”

Tessa raised her eyebrows in surprise. She wouldn’t have expected Tyler Webster, that elegant gent who had talked horses to her in Monaco, to come all this way for the funeral of people he’d just met and barely knew. Still, Luke was Tyler’s stepbrother even if they rarely saw each other. It was thoughtful of him, but then he’d seemed to be a particularly sweet man.

Had they turned into angels already, Maggie wondered, listening to the sound of the grown-ups’ voices in the next room, as she lay curled into as tight a ball as possible, clutching her favorite doll, one of the armload of toys the blond lady named Mimi had hastily gathered up to bring with her, along with some of her clothes. How long did it take to get out of Purgatory? In church, they never said the number of hours or days or weeks, but she knew that when Tessa said her mommy and daddy were in Heaven, Tessa didn’t understand about Purgatory. Nobody ever told you anything about what Purgatory looked like. The priests talked about Hell and
Heaven, but Purgatory was a big nothing. A big fat nothing.

Anyway, they’d be in Heaven soon, she was sure of that, because if you were good that’s where you went when you died even if you had to go to Purgatory first. Died. That was the right word. Her best friend, Susan, said that people “passed away,” but it said in the Bible that Jesus died on the cross, not that he’d passed away on the cross. They’d have big white wings and wear long white dresses like her mother’s nightgowns and sit at the foot of God. When the angels flew around in heaven, did they ever have accidents, did they ever bump into each other, could they ever die again like in a taxi accident? The priests on Sunday said that Heaven was a place of perfect happiness that lasted forever, but how could her parents be happy when she was all alone down here? How could they be happy when they missed her? They’d said they’d miss her when they went away for the wedding but they’d promised her that they’d be back in a week, and now Tessa said they weren’t coming back, not ever, because of the taxi accident. So they’d miss her unless she went to heaven too, but she didn’t want to die, not even to sit at the foot of God and fly around on wings and be happy forever.

It was all mixed up, Maggie thought, tears rolling down her face, and nobody, not even the grown-ups, not even the priests, could explain it right, or maybe they really did know but they kept it a secret from little kids and that wasn’t fair. She wished Susan was with her so they could talk about it, even if Susan said “passed away” and not “died.”

T
he wake had been in full swing for several hours when Mimi took Tessa aside. “Do you think you could split for a few minutes?” Mimi whispered in her ear. “I’ve got to get some fresh air.”

Out of the corner of her eye Tessa saw. Patsy, her least favorite aunt, bearing down on her. Hastily she turned, put her arm around Mimi’s waist, and headed for the doorway.

“What a brilliant idea,” Tessa breathed in relief. “I shouldn’t stay away long, but this wake is getting to me. And I’m afraid to have a drink because I have to remember so many names.”

They walked down the stone pathways of the Hotel Bel-Air, inhaling the rich scents of the flowering bushes and fragrant annuals that were planted in thick borders everywhere, until they came to a quiet courtyard with a central fountain and a wooden bench.

“Wow, your family can really drink up a storm,” Mimi said in amazement.

“You’re one to talk.”

“Maggie seemed to be having a better time than I would have expected.”

“That’s one of the things about wakes, people pay a lot of attention to kids so they get distracted and forget why they’re there for a while.”

“She was so composed at the funeral it scared me,” Mimi said.

“I know, I noticed the same thing. More denial? Oh, Mimi, would you believe that I can’t even think straight about my parents, all I can think about is what to do with Maggie?”

“I can’t tell you what the answer to that is, but I do know the one thing you can’t do, not ever, and that’s raise her, you and Luke.”

“But that’s the natural—”

“It would be, if she were your sister, no matter how complicated it got, but in the circumstances, no, Tessa, just plain no. Find another way.”