Genuine Lies

“She’s awake. I saw the light.”
    “No matter. She needs her rest.” Travers gave the belt of her terry-cloth robe a quick and audible snap. “She’s not feeling well tonight.”
    “I know. I’ve spoken with Julia.”
    Like a fighter daring a punch, Travers stuck out her chin. “She left Eve in a terrible state. That girl had no right to say such things, shouting and breaking china.”
    “That girl,” Paul said mildly, “had a hell of a shock. You knew, didn’t you?”
    “What I know is my own business.” Lips folded tight on secrets, she jerked her head toward the top of the stairs. “Just like seeing to her’s my business. Whatever you have to say can wait till tomorrow. She’s had enough grief for one night.”
    “Travers.” Eve came out of the shadows, down two steps. She was wearing a long, sleek silk robe in ripe red. Her face was an ivory oval above it. “It’s all right. I’d like to speak to Paul.”
    “You told me you’d go to sleep.”
    Eve flashed her quick smile. “I lied. Good night, Travers.” She turned away, knowing Paul would follow.
    Because he respected loyalty, he spared the housekeeper a last look. “I’ll see that she goes to bed soon.”
    “I’ll hold you to it.” With a final glance up the stairs, she walked away, terry cloth swishing, rubber flapping.
    Eve waited for him in the sitting room adjoining the bedroom, with its plump cushions and low, inviting chairs. It held the evening’s disorder—discarded magazines, a champagne glass with a few drops going flat and stale, tennis shoes carelessly kicked off, a slash of purple and scarlet that was the robe she’d tossed aside after her bath. Everything bright and vivid and alive. Paul looked at her, sitting in the midst of it all, and realized fully for the first time how much she was aging.
    It showed in the hands that suddenly seemed too frail and thin for the rest of her body, in the fine lines that had crept stealthily back around her eyes since her last bout with the surgeon’s knife. It showed in the weariness that coated her face like a thin, transparent mask.
    She looked up, saw everything she needed to know on his face, and looked away again. “How is she?”
    “Sleeping now.” He took the chair across from her. It wasn’t the first time he had come in here late at night to talk. The cushions were different, the pillows, the curtains. Eve was always changing things.
    But much was the same. The scents that he had grown to love during childhood. Powders and perfumes and flowers— all the things that shouted this was a woman’s room, and men were allowed only by invitation.
    “How are you, gorgeous?”
    The simple concern in his voice threatened to bring the tears back again, and she’d told herself she was through with them. “Angry with myself for doing such a poor job of it. I’m glad you were there for her.”
    “So am I.” He said nothing more, knowing she would speak when she was ready, and without his prompting. And because his presence gave her comfort, she talked to him as she would have with few others.
    “I’ve carried this inside of me for nearly thirty years, the same way I carried Julia for nine months.” Her fingers were drumming on the arm of her chair. As if even that whispering sound disturbed her, she stopped, letting them lay quiet. “In secret, in pain, and with a kind of despair no man could comprehend. I always thought as I grew older—hell, when I got old—that the memories would fade. The way my body changed, those movements inside my womb. The terrifying excitement of pushing her out of me and into the world. They don’t.” She shut her eyes. “God, they don’t.”
    She took a cigarette from the Lalique holder on the table, then ran it through her fingers twice before lighting it. “I won’t deny that I lived fully, richly, happily without her. I won’t pretend that I grieved and mourned every day of my life for a child I held only an hour. And I never regretted doing what I did, but neither did I forget.”
    Her tone dared accusations, her eyes flared up at his, waiting for them. He only touched a hand to her cheek. “Why did you bring her here, Eve? Why did you tell her?”
    Her fragile composure threatened to shred. She clutched at it, then at his hand. Then she released him, and continued. “I brought her here because there were loose ends in my life I wanted to … knot. It appealed to my sense of irony— maybe my vanity—that my daughter be