"You're the only one who has those, Hilary. The others have nothing. Alexandra remembers you, and Megan knows nothing at all. All you have now is each other. What happened to your parents is no longer important. Just the three of you ... you can't turn your back on that now."

"That old b.a.s.t.a.r.d destroyed us. Why should I let him soothe his conscience by getting us back together now? My life won't change if I don't see them. That's all over. They're gone. Just ... like my parents ... like the past."

"Your parents are gone forever ... but your sisters aren't. They're real and alive, and they want to know you. Even if you go and you hate them; at least you can tell yourself you tried." But she shook her head slowly and stood up again, her eyes shooting emerald fire at him.

"I won't do it. Tell Patterson how much I hate him ... no ... you couldn't even imagine how much I hate him."

"Why? I know he didn't keep the three of you together, but was there more?" He had wanted to ask her that since he first read her file.

"It doesn't matter anymore. He knows what he did to us. Let him live with it. For me ... it's over ... I have my life ... my work ... I don't need more than that."

"It's a h.e.l.l of an empty life, Hilary. I know, because that's all I have. Who do you talk to at night in the silence? Who holds your hand when you're sick or tired or scared? I have an ex-wife and my parents and two brothers. Who do you have? Can you afford to turn your back on those two women?"

"Get out of my office." She walked to the door and pulled it open. She had heard enough, and she couldn't take any more. But he took a piece of paper out of his pocket. On it were the instructions of how to get to Arthur's place in Connecticut on the first of September, the phone number, the address, and he looked into her eyes as he laid it on her desk and then walked to the door.

"I've lived your life, Hilary Walker, for months now. I've cried for you. I've been to Charlestown, to Jacksonville, I've talked to the neighbor who found you near death on her doorstep, I've been to your foster homes. I know how badly he hurt you ... I know what a rotten deal you got," and there were tears in his eyes as he looked down at her and spoke, "but please G.o.d, please don't do this ... don't turn your back on them now. They need you, and you need them ... Hilary ... please ... go to the meeting. I'll be there to help you. I'll do anything I can." She was looking up at him in amazement, wondering how he had known all that. "Just be there ... please ..." And with that he squeezed her arm gently, and left her office, as she stood there, staring after him, all the old pain of the past revived in her, along with a new confusion. She didn't want to go and see them ... she didn't want to remember Axie's bright red curls and Megan's little cries in the night. They were gone now. Gone forever. And she couldn't go back anymore. Not even for John Chapman.

Chapter 29.

"You're really going?" Henri stood looking at her across their bedroom. In Cap-Ferrat they shared one bedroom, or they had, until Alexandra had confessed everything to him. He had moved into the guest room that night. And the gesture needed no explanation.

"I am." She looked serious and firm. The girls were dressed and ready. Their bags were downstairs, and Margaret was meeting them at the airport in Nice. They had managed to book a direct flight to New York without going back to Paris.

"You won't reconsider?"

She shook her head slowly. "I'm sorry, darling, I can't." She walked toward him in the hope that he would let her touch him, but when she reached his side, he took a step back from her, and it cut her to the quick when he did it.

"Please don't," he said quietly. "Have a good trip then."

"I'll be back no later than the tenth." He nodded. "And I'll be at the Pierre in New York, if you need me. I'll call you."

"That won't be necessary. I'll be very busy." He turned away and walked out onto the terrace, and with a last look at his back, she left and went downstairs. She didn't see him watching her as they drove away, or the tears in his eyes as he stared out at the sea and thought about her. He knew he loved her a great deal and now he felt as though he had lost her. It was incredible to him ... all that had happened ... he just didn't understand it. How they could have let it happen ... in a way, he realized, she was as much the victim of circ.u.mstance as he. But to him it was so much more important, and now she was off on this wild-goose chase to meet two unknown sisters. He only wished he could have stopped her, but it was obvious that he couldn't.

Margaret had insisted they take first cla.s.s on the flight, and the girls were enchanted as they ordered Shirley Temples, and blew at each other through the little red straws.

"Girls, please!" Alexandra admonished, still thinking of her husband, and Margaret told her to let them have some fun. And then as the two little girls walked down the aisles to see if they could find any children to play with, Margaret asked her how Henri had taken the news. Alexandra had told her only briefly several days before that she had told him the entire truth before leaving.

"He didn't say so in so many words," Alexandra said solemnly to her mother, "but I think it's over. I'm sure I'll come home to find he's contacted his attorneys."

"But you didn't have to tell him, either. You could have just told him I was dragging you to New York."

"He knew it was something else, Maman. I had to tell him something, so I told him the truth." And despite the price to pay, she didn't regret it. At least she had a clear conscience.

"I think that was a great mistake." And she didn't tell Alexandra, but she suspected that her daughter's suspicions were right. Henri would almost surely ask for a divorce. Not even ask for it, demand it, and Alexandra would never put up a fight. Margaret just prayed he left her the children. None of it was pleasant to think about, and it distracted her when Axelle and Marie-Louise came back to announce that in spite of the fact that every seat was sold, and packed, there was "no one" on the flight.

"In other words, there are no children?" Margaret inquired with a grin, and they laughed. "Then you'll just have to put up with us." She played Old Maid and Fish and War and taught them gin rummy, and they watched the movie, as Alexandra sat lost in her own thoughts. She had a great deal to think about ... her parents ... her sisters ... and her husband, if she still had one when she went back to France. But she was still sure she had made the right decision, and the next morning, after a good night's sleep at the Pierre, she called the concierge and made an appointment. She went only a few blocks away to Bergdorf's, and she was very pleased with the results. When she met her mother and the girls for lunch, they were stunned. She had had the blond rinse stripped off her hair, and she was once more a redhead.

"Maman, you look just like me!" Axelle squealed in delight and Margaret laughed as Marie-Louise clapped her hands.

"What on earth brought that on?" Margaret inquired over the girls' heads.

"I've wanted to do it for a long time. Maybe it's that I am who I am now, for better or worse. But I'm not hiding anymore." And it felt good to her, as Margaret watched her.

"I love you," Margaret whispered as she touched her daughter's hand.

They had lunch at "21," and stopped at Schwarz's for a "little gift" from Grandma. As usual, she spoiled both the girls. And as planned, at four o'clock, Alexandra's limousine was waiting. She had explained to the girls that she was spending the weekend with some old friends in Connecticut, and they were staying in the city with their grandmother.

"I'll call you tonight." She promised as she got into the car with one small suitcase, wearing a very chic black linen dress from Chanel.

"We're going to the movies with Grandma!" Axelle shouted.

She held her mother tight, hugged the girls, and then blew kisses to all three of them, and her eyes held her mother's for a long moment as they drove away. She was sure she could see tears on her mother's cheeks while she was waving, and tears stung Alexandra's eyes as well. It was frightening to be going back into the past, and ahead into the future, all at the same time. But it was also very exciting.

Chapter 30.

The drive to Stonington on the Connecticut sh.o.r.e took slightly less than two hours, and Alexandra sat in the backseat, thinking of the people she had left behind her. Margaret, and the love she had lavished on her for thirty years, Axelle and Marie-Louise, so infinitely precious to her, perhaps even more so now ... and Henri, so angry at her seeming betrayal of him. She had thought of calling him that morning, before she left, but she couldn't think of what to say. In fact, there seemed to be nothing left to say at all. She knew how he felt about her trip to the States. He had forbidden her to go, and for the first time in their married life, she had disobeyed him. And suddenly, as she drove along in the back of the hired limousine, she felt oddly free, and different than she had in a long time ... almost the way she used to feel when she was a little girl, running with her father in the fields near their country house, with the wind in her hair, totally sure of herself, and completely happy. She felt as though he were with her now, as she took the journey back into the past that she felt so compelled to take. And without thinking, she ran a hand through her hair and smiled to herself. She was Alexandra de Borne again ... Alexandra Walker, she whispered in the silent car. And for the first time in fourteen years, she was once more a redhead.

There was an electronic gate when they arrived, and they were buzzed in by an unknown voice, but other than that bit of security the property looked simple and unimpressive. There was a long winding drive up a hill, and after a sharp turn, there was a pretty Victorian with a wide porch and widow's walk. It looked like someone's grandmother's house, or that of a great-aunt. There was a lot of wicker furniture on the porch, and an old barn behind the house. It looked cozy and inviting, and Alexandra stepped out of the limousine carefully, looking around, thinking how pretty it was, and how much her children would like it. And then she saw a familiar face watching her from the porch, and she smiled as he hurried toward her.

"h.e.l.lo! ... how was your trip?" It was John Chapman, in khaki slacks and an open blue shirt. He looked totally at ease and his eyes were warm and friendly as he shook her hand and then took her valise from the chauffeur.

"It was fine, thank you very much. What a nice place this is."

"It is, isn't it? I've been poking around all afternoon. There are some wonderful old things in the barn, I guess Mr. Patterson has owned this place for years. Come on in, you'll love the house." And he walked her slowly toward it, silently admiring the shining red hair that was so different from the quiet blonde she'd been before. And then finally he decided to go ahead and say it. "Your hair looks wonderful, if it isn't rude to say it."

But she only laughed and shook her head. She was pleased that he liked it. "I decided to go back to my natural color in honor of this trip. It's going to be hard enough for us to recognize each other without complicating things any further." She smiled and their eyes met, and she finally got up the courage to ask him what she most wanted to know. "Have the others arrived yet?"

He knit his brows and glanced at her, trying to look unconcerned, but he was still worried about Hilary. She had given no indication that she would come, and he was desperately afraid that she wouldn't. "Not yet. Megan said she'd get here around six o'clock. And Hilary ..." His voice drifted off and Alexandra looked at him long and hard and then nodded. She understood, and it saddened her. But it wasn't really surprising.

"She hasn't agreed to come, has she?"

"Not in so many words. But I told her how badly you wanted her to. I thought it was fair to say that." She nodded in answer and silently prayed that her sister would have the courage to face them. She knew that the past was deeply painful for her, more so than for the others, and she might just decide not to do it. But Alexandra hoped that she would. Deep within, a small forgotten child desperately needed to see her. "We'll keep our fingers crossed," Chapman added as they walked into the front hall. There was a small sitting room on the right, and a large parlor on the left, with a cozy fireplace, and well-kept Victorian furniture. She wondered where Arthur Patterson was, their benefactor who had brought them back together, and she asked John as much in a whisper.

"He's upstairs, resting." He had brought two nurses with him, and when John saw him that morning, he realized that it was a miracle the man was still alive at all. It was as though he had hung on, just for this, and couldn't possibly hang on much longer. He had aged twenty years in the past four months, and it was obvious that he was in great pain all the time now. But he was coherent and alert, and anxious to see the three women he'd finally brought back together.

"Are you sure they'll come?" He'd pressed John, and Chapman had a.s.sured him, praying that Hilary wouldn't let them down. But as much as she hated Patterson, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing after all if she didn't come. Chapman wasn't sure how well the old man would weather that kind of confrontation. And after lunch, his nurses had put him to bed, and urged John to let him rest until dinner. He was determined to come downstairs that night and dine with his guests. And the plan was for John to leave after dinner. By then the women would have settled in, he would have introduced them all to each other and the rest was up to them ... and to Arthur.

Alexandra was peeking around the living room, and from there, wandered into the dining room with the long English table.

"It looks as though he spent a lot of time here," Alexandra observed, "the place looks well loved." He smiled at her choice of words, and said he wasn't sure how much time Arthur had spent in Connecticut, and he didn't add that Arthur had told him he wanted to die there.

"Would you like to go upstairs?"

"Thank you." She smiled up at him, wondering how old he was. He seemed so boyish in some ways, and yet so mature. He was serious and yet fun ... a world away from Henri, and yet he looked childish to her compared to her husband. She was so accustomed to Henri's forceful ways, his habits of command, his way of striding into a room and taking charge, with his stern face and his powerful shoulders, and it was odd how suddenly she missed it. He made other men seem weak, and too young, and as though somehow, no matter how nice they were, they lacked something. And she couldn't help wondering if things would ever be the same again, if he'd even take her back when she returned to France ... maybe she'd be forced to live with her mother again, or find her own house. For the time being, everything was uncertain.

John showed her to a sunny room at the corner of the house; it was still hot from the afternoon sun, and the bedspread was sparkling white with lace trim, with a cozy rocking chair next to it, and the same Victorian furniture that seemed to fill the house. There was a love seat and a porcelain washstand, and someone had put flowers in the room, and for some reason the room made her feel young again, as though she were a young girl coming home. And there were tears in her eyes when she turned to John and thanked him.

"It's so odd being here," she tried to explain but she couldn't find the words, "it's like being very young and very old ... visiting the past ... it's all very confusing."

"I understand." He left her to freshen up, and she came downstairs in a little while in a beige linen suit, her makeup fresh, her beige shoes with the familiar black toe of Chanel, and her red hair bringing it all to life. She looked elegant and in control, and she turned as she heard a stir of voices on the stairs behind her. It was Arthur coming downstairs with the a.s.sistance of the two nurses. He was bent over and frail, and he groaned with every step, but suddenly as he saw her, he stopped, and gave a startled sound, and then tears began to roll down his cheeks, as Alexandra walked halfway up the stairs to meet him.

"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Patterson." she said, quietly, and as he trembled, she bent down and kissed his cheek. "Thank you for bringing me here." But he was trembling so violently, he couldn't speak. He only took her hand and squeezed it hard, with the last of his strength, and then allowed her to a.s.sist him downstairs with the help of one nurse, and when they had settled him in a comfortable chair in the large sitting room, he stared up at her and spoke at last in a voice hoa.r.s.e from his illness.

"My G.o.d, you look so much like her. Are you Alexandra or Megan?" He still remembered little Hilary's jet-black hair, exactly like her father's.

"I am Alexandra, sir." She looked serious and deeply touched and he began to cry again as she spoke.

"You even have the same accent. Through all those years, she always had that lilt of French ..." He shook his head, stunned by the resemblance between Alexandra and her mother. And it was an odd feeling for Alexandra, to be so like someone she had never known, and yet who was her mother.

"Were you very fond of her?" It was something to talk about as they waited for the others. John had appeared again and he offered her a gla.s.s of wine, which she declined. She wanted to concentrate on Arthur Patterson and wait for her sisters. She was growing more tense and excited with each pa.s.sing moment.

But he nodded his head now, thinking of Alexandra's questions. "Yes, I was very fond of her ... she was such a lovely girl ... so beautiful, so proud ... so strong ... with so much life in her ..." With a faded smile, he told Alexandra of the first time he and Sam had seen her in Paris. "I thought she was going to call the M.P.'s on us, and she would have ... except that your father was so d.a.m.n handsome and charming." He smiled, thinking back to Sam. What good friends they had been, and what good times they had had in the war years. "He was a wonderful actor too." He told her about some of his plays, as she listened quietly, and then suddenly there was the sound of a car outside, and John disappeared, and a moment later they heard voices.

Arthur seemed to be listening too, and unconsciously, he reached out and took Alexandra's hand and held it firmly in his own, just as the front door opened. And from where he was sitting, he could see her as she entered. She looked around, just as Alexandra had done, and then saw them watching her, and like a shy child, she walked into the room, looking suddenly like a younger double of Alexandra.

Alexandra rose slowly to her feet and instinctively walked to her with outstretched arms. It was like finding a piece of the past and looking in the mirror all at the same time. The only difference was that Alexandra's eyes were blue and Megan's were green, like Solange's. But otherwise, it was obvious that they were sisters. "Megan?" she asked in a cautious voice, but it was obvious who she was. The younger girl nodded, and they went into each other's arms, with tears in their eyes, even though they had both promised themselves that they were going to control their emotions. And as Alexandra held her close, she felt for a moment as though she remembered.

"You look so much like me!" Megan laughed through her tears and hugged her again, and then pulled away to observe her with a wry smile. "Except you don't dress as well." She was still wearing the jeans and hiking boots and T-shirt she had worn at the hospital until she'd left that afternoon. But it was what she usually wore in any case, just like Rebecca. "My G.o.d, you're beautiful." She laughed, and shyly stepped back as Alexandra took her hand, and then took it upon herself to introduce her to Arthur.

"How do you do, Mr. Patterson," Megan greeted him politely, almost like a young girl, and he stared at her with satisfaction. She was almost as pretty as Solange, but not quite, and she didn't have Alexandra's sophistication, but she had something of her own that stood out, a kind of purity and intelligence that were clearly etched on her face. She looked like a lovely young woman.

"So you're the doctor, are you?"

"Yes, sir. Just about. I'm finishing my residency right now. I'll be all through by Christmas."

He nodded again, looking from one woman to the other. There was no bitterness there, no anger, they had led good lives and it showed. He had chosen well for them ... but not for poor Hilary. After Chapman's warning, he was afraid of what she would say to him if she came, but nonetheless he wanted to see her.

They waited until almost eight o'clock, alternately silent and then speaking all at once, nervous and uncomfortable and strange, with Arthur telling them stories of the past, and Megan and Alexandra trying to share their lives with him and each other. Alexandra had brought photographs of the girls, and Henri, and her parents. Megan had done the same, bringing photographs of Rebecca and David, the house in Tiburon, and the hospital where she worked in Kentucky. It was as though they wanted to bring each other up to date as quickly as possible. They had thirty years to account for. And it was obvious how different their lives were. The hospital in Kentucky stood out next to the photographs of the girls in front of the villa in Cap-Ferrat. And Henri looked every inch the seigneur in front of his chateau in Dordogne, as the photographs of Margaret and Rebecca stood side by side for a moment, the one in jeans with a flower in her hair, the other in an evening dress going to a ball in Monte Carlo the year before. And Megan mentioned it with a shy smile as they walked in to dinner with Arthur walking slowly behind them with John's a.s.sistance.

"It's funny how different our lives have been, isn't it? And yet we're still sisters ... we still look alike ... we still come from the same parents, and probably have similar likes and dislikes and habits we've inherited without even knowing it. And yet look at us, you grew up in all that pomp and circ.u.mstance in France, and I spent half my childhood living with friends, while my parents went to jail for causes they believed in." And yet she didn't sound unhappy. She sounded proud of them, and she was. It was all amazing to think about, and it silenced both of them as they took their seats on either side of Arthur. John's place was next to Megan, and there was an empty chair next to Alexandra, and it was becoming obvious now that Hilary was not going to join them. Alexandra felt her heart sink, and made idle chitchat for a while, as Arthur seemed to doze, and then suddenly there was the sound of a car outside. John left the table quietly. There were angry voices outside, and then suddenly the front door flew open, as the two women watched, mesmerized, and Arthur woke up, as though he sensed that someone else was coming to see him.

"Did something happen?" He asked Alexandra, confused for an instant as he woke up and she patted his hand, never taking her eyes from the door, and then she saw her. Tall and thin and lanky as their father had been, with a long stride, and jet-black hair, and green eyes that she suddenly turned on them. She was wearing a wrinkled navy linen business suit. She had had every intention of not coming, and then suddenly after work she had decided to rent a car and come up and tell Arthur once and for all what she thought of him. And then maybe she would be free of him for the rest of her life. She didn't even care if she saw the others. They were strangers to her now. It was Arthur who interested her as she strode into the room and stood facing him, but it was impossible to ignore the two women with red hair who flanked him, and her eyes were drawn first to Megan, and then to Alexandra, as John stood carefully just behind her. He could sense the tension in the room, the anguish of the woman who stood so close to him. He wanted to put his arms around her but she looked as though she might explode, and then suddenly she stopped, as her eyes met Alexandra's, and Alexandra came slowly to her feet and crossed the room like a sleepwalker and the words escaped her without rhyme or reason.

"H ... Hillie ..." She could see the face of a little girl with long black hair, and yet here was this woman ... with the same black hair ... the same green eyes ... without knowing why, she started to cry, and without wanting to, Hilary's arms went around her.

"Axie ... little Axie ..." It was the first time she'd held her since the day they'd torn her from her, and left her alone with Eileen and Jack in Charlestown, crying for the sisters she had so dearly loved, and she could barely stand the pain now of remembering it, as she held the tall, perfumed, beautifully coiffed woman from Paris ... except all she saw there was the face of the child she had once loved, and she whispered the same words over and over again as she cried ... "I love you, Axie ..." They held each other like that for a long time, as Megan watched silently, and then suddenly Arthur began to cough, and John hurried to give him a gla.s.s of water. The housekeeper who was serving them dinner brought the pills the nurse had given her, and Megan checked the dose and gave them to John, as Hilary slowly turned toward them. "You must be Megan." She smiled through her tears, and held Alexandra's hand as they pulled apart from their embrace. "You've changed quite a bit since the last time I saw you." The three women laughed, but Hilary's eyes clouded as she saw the old man, and she held tight to Alexandra's hand as she spoke to him. "I said I wouldn't come, and I meant it, Arthur." He nodded, meeting her eyes with fear and pain, and he saw everything there that he had dreaded seeing. She hated him, and one could see it there like black poison. But he also knew he deserved it. He knew better than anyone. "I never wanted to see you again."

"I'm glad you did come, Hillie," Alexandra said in her gentle voice. "I wanted so much to see you ... both," she added, smiling at Megan, but Hilary wasn't smiling now, and she dropped her sister's hand as she advanced on Arthur.

"Why did you do this to us? Bring us here after all these years, to taunt us with what we didn't have, what we missed, who we might have been if we'd stayed together?"

He choked on his own words, and clutched the table with both hands as he faced her. "I felt I owed it to you to make up to you for what I'd done." He could barely breathe as he spoke to her, but it didn't faze her.

"And do you think you can make it up?" She laughed bitterly and they all ached for her, but John was frightened of what she would do now. She had waited thirty years for this, and he had always sensed the full measure of her hatred for Arthur. "Do you really think you can wipe out thirty years of loneliness and pain with one dinner?"

"Your sisters have been luckier than you, Hilary." He spoke honestly. "And they don't hate me as much as you do."

"They don't know as much as I do ... do they, Arthur ... do they do they?" She shouted into the silent room, the words echoing off the walls as he trembled.

"That's all in the past, Hilary." It was a conversation between only the two of them. Only they knew of what they were speaking, as the others wondered.

"Is it? How about you? Have you been able to live with yourself for all these years, after killing my parents?" Her green eyes blazed and Alexandra advanced to gently touch her arm, but Hilary shook her off.

"Hillie, don't ... it doesn't matter now ..."

"Doesn't it?" She wheeled on her sister. "How do you know that? How could you possibly know, living the good life in France, while I sat on my a.s.s in juvenile hall, after getting raped, trying to figure out how to find you. And that son of a b.i.t.c.h didn't even know where you were, he didn't know where any of us were. He didn't even care enough to keep track of us after he ripped you out of my arms that day, crying and sobbing ... you don't remember that now, but I do. I've remembered it ... I've remembered both of you ..." She looked from Alexandra to Megan, "... every day of my life and I've cried for you because I never found you. And now you tell me it doesn't matter? That I shouldn't hate him for killing our parents? How can you say that?" The tears were pouring down her cheeks unashamedly.

"But he didn't kill them." Alexandra spoke for herself and Megan. "His only failing was in not keeping us together, or keeping track of us over the years, but perhaps he couldn't help it." She looked benevolently at the old man, and Megan silently nodded, unable to understand why Hilary hated him so much. He had failed them, but he had not betrayed them the way Hilary said. But she was shaking her head and laughing at them through her tears.

"You don't know anything. You were babies. I was standing there the night Mama died ... the night Daddy killed her ... I was listening ... I heard what they said ..." She began to sob and John stood nearby, ready to help her if she collapsed or needed him. He was near her, as he had been for months, although she didn't know it. "I heard her screams ..." Hilary went on, "when he hit her and hit her and hit her, and then strangled her into silence until she died. ..." She was gulping down the sobs and she stood right in front of Arthur now. "And do you know why he did that?" Her eyes never left Arthur's face, she had waited a lifetime for this. "He did it because she was having an affair with him him, and she told father so...." She was listening to the voices of the past as she spoke, and she almost looked as though she were in another world, remembering back to the night her father had killed her mother. "He had been cheating on her, she said, with lots of different women for years ... all his leading ladies, she said ... and he said it wasn't true ... he said she was crazy ... and she said she had proof ... she knew who he'd just taken to California ... who he'd been with the night before ... and she said it didn't make any difference to her anymore ... that she had someone of her own, and that if he wasn't careful, she'd leave him and take us with her. And he said he'd kill her if she did, and she laughed ... she kept laughing at him ... and he said she could never take away his baby girls ... and she laughed ... and then she told him who it was...." She was crying so hard she could hardly speak, but she went on, as Arthur shook more and more violently in his seat and she stood inches from him, shouting down at him and crying. "She told him, didn't she, Arthur ... didn't she?" Hilary shouted. And then she looked at her sisters, and told them what she had always known, and they hadn't. "She was having an affair with Arthur, Daddy's best friend ... and he said he would kill her for it, and she only laughed, and when he told her she couldn't take us away, she told him that only two of us were his anyway...." There was a stunned silence in the room, and Arthur sat back in his chair as though he'd been struck by lightning. And Hilary's voice was quiet when she spoke this time. She had done what she had come for. "She told him that Megan was Arthur's child," she said in a dull voice, staring down at him with contempt. "And then Daddy killed her." She sank into the chair next to him, crying softly, as Alexandra put an arm around her shoulders and the old man whimpered softly in his chair.

"I never knew ... she never told me..." He looked at Megan pathetically. "You must believe me. ... I never knew ... I always thought you were his, like the others...." He was crying openly, and Megan looked even more shocked than she had at the rest of the recital. And Arthur seemed to be making his excuses to the room in general. "If I had known. ..." But Hilary only looked at him and shook her head.

"What would you have done differently? Kept her with you, and left the rest of us to rot? You wouldn't have done anything. You didn't stand by my mother, or your own child, you betrayed your best friend, and what you did killed them both. You have their blood on your hands ... and ours, without you, our lives would have been very different. How could you live with yourself all these years, knowing what you'd done? How could you defend him after betraying him?"

"He begged me to, Hilary. ... I didn't want to. I begged him to let me find him another attorney. But he didn't want me to. And in truth, he didn't want to live after your mother died." His voice dropped down to a whisper. "Neither did I. It ended both our lives ... I loved her deeply from the first moment I saw her." The tears rolled down his cheeks as Megan stared at him. He was no longer just a family friend. This was her father.

And Hilary stared at him emptily, as though seeing him for the first time. He was an old, dying man, and there was no undoing what he had done. For him, it was all over, no matter whose blood was on his hands. The blood was long since dry ... the people all but forgotten. She stood up then, and looked down at him. "I came here to tell you how much I hated you. And do you know something strange, Arthur, after all these years, I'm not really sure it still matters." She felt Alexandra's hand on her shoulder and turned to look into her eyes. She was exhausted from the emotions of the evening and turned to look at both the girls. "I loved you both a great deal a long time ago ... but maybe that's too far in the past too ..." She felt drained, spent, she had nothing left to give or take, but Alexandra wouldn't let her go, and Megan was watching her too. She was the one to speak first.

"It's a long time ago for all of us, but we still came. I didn't remember any of you. And I didn't know Mr. Patterson was my father. We came to honor the past, but also to go on from here. We all have other parents now, other lives, other people we care about. We haven't lived in a void for thirty years, none of us, not even you with your anger and your hatred." It was a quiet reproach but it was powerful and it struck home. "You can't just come here and drop a bomb like this in our laps, and then go. You owe it to us to repair the wounds, just as we owe it to you to do the same. And that's why we all came here." There were tears slowly running down her cheeks, as she looked at Hilary, and John Chapman silently wanted to cheer her. It would ruin everything if Hilary left now. It would destroy her life once and for all. She had to stay, in spite of Arthur, and face them.

Hilary looked at Alexandra, as though seeking confirmation and she nodded and spoke in her quiet voice. "Please stay Hillie ... I've waited so long for this." They had all taken such risks, paid such a high price. She had defied Henri, possibly at great expense, all for the pleasure of seeing her sisters. "It took a lot of courage to come here. For all of us. My husband forbade me to come here ... I don't even know if he will take me back now. And my mother ... the woman I know as my mother has come with me, and she is very frightened of what all this will mean. She is afraid that after all this time she will lose me." There were tears in her eyes as she spoke to Hilary, and Megan was nodding with tears in her own eyes. Rebecca was terrified of what seeing her sisters would mean to her. They had talked for an hour on the phone the night before, and she had promised she would call as soon as possible to rea.s.sure her. "You have lost more than any of us, Hilary ... but you are not alone ... we love you, even now. You cannot turn your back on us." And then putting her arms around her again, she cried softly. "I won't let you." Hilary stood tall and straight for a long moment, and then her arms went around Alexandra ... how could she know what her life had been like? But it wasn't her fault ... or Megan's ... or maybe even Arthur's. She hated to admit that now, but it was possible. He had been a fool and he had paid a high price for it. He looked at Hilary sorrowfully over Alexandra's shoulder.

"Can you ever forgive me, all of you?" But he was looking at the oldest of the three and she took a long time to answer.

"I don't know ... I don't know what I feel...." But she held tight to Alexandra and her eyes reached out to Megan.

"I'm glad you came anyway. The three of you had a right to be together. And if I had been a different kind of man, I would have defied my wife and kept you all myself. I wanted to, but she had such strong feelings about it that I didn't dare go against her. I'm sorry now, but it's too late to make any difference." He looked mournfully at Hilary, and then at the child he had turned away, who was his own daughter. "I made a terrible mistake. But I've paid for it. I've been a lonely man all my life ... ever since your mother died...." He couldn't go on. He only shook his head and then stood up shakily, as John Chapman and one of the nurses came to help him. "I'm going upstairs now. We all have a lot to think about." Hilary's revelation had shocked them all, particularly Megan and Arthur. In a strange way, she now wondered if she was responsible for her mother's death ... if she hadn't been born, would Sam have killed her? But it was too late to think about that, too late to cry over what had happened thirty years before. It was time to move on, as best they could. And he turned to them again before he left the room. "I want you all to stay for as long as you can ... for as long as you want to. This will be your home one day; I am leaving it to all of you, so you have a place to come, a home together finally, and a place to bring your families and your children. I'll stay out of your way while you're here, but I want you to stay here and get to know each other." Alexandra and Megan thanked him quietly, and Megan rose quickly to help him upstairs, as Hilary watched, saying nothing. And when he was gone, she turned to Alexandra and shook her head.

"I don't know if I'll ever stop hating him, Axie." It was still so easy to call her that, even after all these years, and the younger of the two smiled.

"You will. You have to. There's nothing left to hate anymore. He's almost gone." Hilary nodded. It was clear that the man wouldn't live much longer. "I'm only grateful that he brought us together in time. That he still cared enough to do that." They walked slowly upstairs arm in arm, and Hilary walked into Alexandra's bedroom, thinking suddenly of the room they had shared in Jack and Eileen's house, the three of them in one bed, as she tried to keep the baby from crying so Eileen wouldn't beat them.

"What are your children like?" She sat down in the rocking chair. It was a comfortable room, but she hadn't decided yet to spend the night. She just wanted to sit and talk for a while with Axie.

Alexandra smiled at the question. "Marie-Louise looks a lot like you. She has your eyes ... and Axelle looks a lot like photographs of me as a little girl. She's six ... and Marie-Louise is twelve. I lost a little boy in between them." And with a slice of pain, Hilary remembered her own abortion for the first time in years. She had been so careful after that to avoid any contact with children, and now she suddenly had two nieces. "Do you still remember your French?"