People were teary-eyed. Some actually were crying. In one voice, they all cried, “Hear, hear!” Daddy smiled at me. I could see it in his face. There, I have done my part. Now remember to do yours.
Liam and I kissed to the cheers of our guests, and the wedding reception really got under way.
The band Liam had wanted played well into the starry night. Mrs. Wakefield claimed she had never seen them twinkle so and reminded us that we were looking at the same night sky our forefathers saw. A few hundred years for us was nothing compared with the time it took that light to reach the earth. Liam and I did the traditional first dance, and then Daddy stepped in, and my mother danced with Liam.
“You’re more beautiful than I had ever anticipated,” Daddy told me. “You really are fulfilling your own destiny, Lorelei. It shows.” I was about to thank him when he added, “Your daughter can’t possibly be any less beautiful or wonderful.”
I felt myself weaken, but he transferred his strength into me.
“Be brave,” he whispered. “Remember, you are always potent, Lorelei. You don’t have to wait, and I don’t expect you will. The sooner you get pregnant, the easier it will be for you to have the future you want. Don’t disappoint me,” he added just as the song ended.
He kissed me on the cheek and held out my hand for Liam to take.
“Be good to her, Liam. She’s very precious.”
“I will, sir,” he said.
My father smiled, nodded at my mother, and walked off the dance floor.
Later, we celebrated more with Julia and Clifford, who had decided that their wedding would be exactly a year from ours. They thought it would be fun to have the exact same day for an anniversary.
My most moving moment came when Ken Dolan asked me for a final dance as the evening was winding down.
“You are truly very, very beautiful, Lorelei,” he began. “I must confess that when you came to me for the interview that first day, I was thinking ahead. Don’t ask me why, but I looked at you and thought, This girl will win Liam’s heart, but more important, she will turn him into a man. And you have,” he said. “You have. Welcome to our family.”
Was I crying? He was wiping away tears from my cheeks, tears I didn’t know were there. Was I crying because of the wonderful things he was saying and the happiness I felt, or was I crying because deep in my heart, I believed that I had deceived them all and would most likely betray my husband very soon? I had agreed to do just that, hadn’t I?
By the time the reception was drawing to a close, I felt drained. Liam also looked as if he was ready to give up. Daddy approached us with my mother to say his farewell.
“Enjoy your honeymoon,” he told Liam. “I understand you were there when you were very little.”
“Not old enough to really appreciate it,” Liam said.
“Yes. I’ve been to Capri many times, and I agree with what you’ve been told about it. It’s a magical place, for lovers especially.”
“Thank you, sir,” Liam said.
“Oh, please call me Dad,” Daddy told him. He looked at me and kissed me, stroked my hair, and whispered, “Little Lorelei, go forth and multiply.”
We watched them walk away.
“Well,” Liam said. “Now I know where you get so many of your great qualities. What a guy.”
“Yes, what a guy,” I parroted without feeling.
He was too foggy to notice. He tightened his grip on my hand and led me off. We were to be driven to Boston to fly out early in the morning. We’d sleep on the plane. All of our things were packed and ready. We said good-bye to everyone else. At the car, Julia hugged me.
“Make it good, marriage test pilot,” she joked. “Sisters,” she added.
“Yes, sisters,” I said.
I was willing to trade all of those I had for her, but she had no idea what that meant.
Someday soon, I thought, I will stop hoarding secrets. I live for that day.
We got into the limousine and were driven away. I gazed out the window as we went down the long driveway and saw Ava standing near a fountain on the front lawn. She was caught in the moonlight. Her skin looked like gold, her eyes like bloodred rubies.
No matter what she says, I thought, she is full of envy. She wishes in her heart that she were me, and that wish will haunt her for the rest of her very long life. That thought comforted me. I was ready to cuddle up in Liam’s arms and forget what waited in the darkness ahead.
In fact, I didn’t think about any of it until we were in Capri. That was partly because of our journey. We did fall asleep on the plane. After that, we were constantly moving. There was a car waiting for us at the Naples airport. The driver took us and our luggage to the Molo Beverello port, where we boarded a hydrofoil. It was a magnificent cloudless day with the sea relatively calm. We sat outside on the deck and laughed at the spray created by the boat speeding through the water, welcoming the wet coolness on our cheeks. We waved to people on other boats and watched in awe as the isle of Capri seemed to rise before us, its magnificent palisades inviting us to the awe-inspiring views we were soon to enjoy. At the port, we were greeted by hotel bellhops who took our luggage. We spent a few minutes looking at the restaurants and shops located right there and then hired a convertible taxi to take us up the hill to the square. From there, we had to walk to our hotel, because there were no cars on the narrow, picturesque streets with restaurants and elegant shops on both sides.
Despite our travel fatigue, we were both too excited to think of resting. We wanted to go at everything like two little children set free in a candy store. Finally, we decided to catch our breath and paused at the Grand Hotel Quisisana, where we sat on the large patio and had two cappuccinos while we watched an endless stream of tourists speaking different languages parade by, everyone excited, happy, and curious. Most of the time, Liam held my hand as if he were afraid he was really in a dream that would end or that I would disappear.
“I can’t believe we’re really here,” he said. “It seems like a storybook. I hope this never ends.”
“It doesn’t end, but it takes rests occasionally,” I joked. He liked that and sealed it with a kiss. Somehow, holding and kissing each other in the middle of all this didn’t seem odd. Anyone who saw us smiled, as if it was expected that everyone would hold hands and kiss there. Daddy was right, I thought. This was a magical place for lovers. Was he ever wrong?
After we settled in at our hotel, we went for a swim in the pool and then, finally, crawled into bed beside each other to consummate our marriage.
The first time you make love with the man you love has to be something extra special. Julia’s warnings about building up your husband or him building you up so high that you can never truly be satisfied rang in my ears. But my lovemaking was much more involved and much more complicated than a traditional newly married woman’s lovemaking. Of course, I recalled the first time I had been with Buddy, how my body had reacted, hardening to the point where he had noticed, and then how I suddenly was filled with an overwhelming hunger and passion that turned me into the aggressor. He joked about it afterward, but I knew I had crossed a line, stirring his curiosity. We were careful, of course. It was protected sex, but that didn’t diminish the intensity of our lovemaking, or, more correctly, mine. I had practically ravished him.
I didn’t want it to be like that with Liam. I called on all of my strength to hold back, to move slowly.
“You’re so tense,” he said. “Relax. I love you. I really love you, Lorelei.”
Yes, you do, I thought. And I really love you, but I could lose you so quickly. All of this could become some distant memory in seconds. And he would never know why.
My hesitation might have looked like the hesitation of someone who wasn’t confident in her sexuality or someone who wasn’t experienced enough, but I knew it came from a different fear, the fear that I would become pregnant and that my child, a girl, would be taken from us. Liam would suffer so much. I would, too, but I would suffer withou
t hope. He would pray that she would be found and be returned. I would still have to pretend, pray along with him, hope along with him, and, just like him, refuse to be disappointed or pessimistic, at least on the surface.
But what could I do now? Daddy knew more about me than I knew about myself, and he had told me that I was more fertile than any other young woman my age from the world Liam knew. He seemed confident that my first child would be a girl, the girl he demanded. I considered holding off on having children when Liam had brought it up. He wanted a family as quickly as possible. He believed that having our children young meant we would still be relatively young when they were our age, and we would enjoy them and our grandchildren to come far more.
What reason could I offer for us to wait? Unlike other young couples, we did not have to worry about income, housing, providing for them in any way. I could easily have a nanny if I wanted. For that matter, Mrs. Wakefield could help for a while, at least. I wasn’t pursuing a career, and I wasn’t one of those narcissistic women who worried about losing their figures. Liam would never marry such a woman.
No, I had no choice, and rather than fight whatever fate awaited, I decided in those first passionate moments to let myself go, to be the lover Liam wanted and the lover I wanted to be with him. Every day of our honeymoon, we made love the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night.
Even though Daddy had said good-bye, I couldn’t help but think that he or one of his surrogates was there with us, watching. Maybe he thought I might back out of it all, my marriage, and therefore our agreement. One night, while we were making love, I saw what looked like Daddy silhouetted in the window. The curtains were drawn, but there was a full moon, and for those moments, I felt as if he were looking over our lovemaking, blessing it to result in what he wanted. The shadow left, but the feeling never did. I was just good at putting it aside.
There were days when we did nothing more than get up late, make love, have breakfast through room service, take our time getting dressed, and walk to the shopping areas. Almost anything I looked at twice was a purchase for Liam. Some days we had pizza and talked for hours at a restaurant, and some days we went to fancier restaurants.
One day, we hired a boat with a local man who took us to swim in the Blue Grotto, a sea cave on the coast of Capri. The sunlight shining through the seawater created a blue reflection that illuminated the cavern. It was fun swimming in it, and afterward, we were taken to a wonderful lunch on the side of the palisades. Our boat was too big, so a small boat had to come get us, a sea taxi run by a man who looked close to a hundred. He was delightful and as full of predictions as a gypsy fortune teller about our wonderful lives together. Everyone who met us seemed to know immediately that we were newlyweds.
The nights were the best, walking to a restaurant, stopping to talk to other people, going to art galleries, or just sitting on a bench holding hands and watching other couples. No one seemed as happy as we were. Liam told me a great deal about his boyhood, now being even more revealing about just how different he always felt, not having his mother.
“Mrs. Wakefield was as concerned and considerate as could be. I never doubted that she came to love us both, but . . .”
“She wasn’t your mother. I know how that is.”
“Yes. We have so much in common, and yet there is so much different about us. I think,” he quickly added, “that the differences are good. Who wants to marry a clone?”
He didn’t mind that I didn’t talk very much about my own youth. I didn’t want to keep inventing a life, but I certainly didn’t want to talk about what mine was really like.
“Let’s both just look to the future,” I said. “Let’s think only of who we are now and what we will have together.”
He liked that. We talked again about building a house and having a family. Then he revealed a surprise, his father’s wedding present to us.
“Dad’s signed over a good portion of our property to me and given us the down payment to build our own home.”
“I thought he wanted us to live in the mansion.”
“He wants us to have something that’s ours from the start. He came to that decision just before the wedding.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I wanted it to be a surprise. We also talked about you still working for him. Until you are pregnant, that is. He’s used to that. Remember, that’s how you got the job . . . Michele Levy.”
“Yes. That’s fine with me. I enjoy the work and want to keep busy.”
“Good. It’s a family business, and you’re part of it now, Lorelei. You’re part of it all.”
We made all sorts of pledges and predictions for ourselves that week. When it came time to leave, we felt as if we were stepping out of a fantasy storybook and reentering the real world. We sat together at the rear of the hydrofoil, holding hands and watching Capri drift back and onto the shelf holding our most precious lifelong memories. Both of us were almost in tears.
When we returned to Quincy, Julia wanted to hear about every moment, demanding details. I did enjoy telling her, because it was like being there again. Although Liam and I were younger than Clifford and Julia, it was as if we had become the ones they should measure themselves and their love against. They even decided that they, too, would go to Capri for their honeymoon. It made me nervous to see how much of herself she was molding in my image. In fact, every loving thing she or Clifford, my father-in-law, and now my great-aunt Amelia said or did for us made me feel sicker and weaker inside. This can’t come to any good, I feared. There’ll be a day when they will hate me.
I lost myself in work to avoid thinking too much about any of it. Liam brought home some plans for our own home, and he, his father, and I began going over them. With dinners, social affairs, boating trips, and our work, the days and weeks passed quickly into months.
And then, one morning, I awoke, and even before the physical symptoms began, I realized that I was pregnant. As if somehow he knew it was coming, Daddy had called the day before to ask how everything was going. He had called me at work. My hand had trembled when I held the receiver.
“You’re managing well, Lorelei,” he had said, as though he had been watching me daily. I knew he didn’t have to do that to know. I felt confident, however, that Ava wasn’t spying on me anymore. She probably couldn’t stand it.
We hadn’t had a long conversation, but everything he said had stayed with me the remainder of the day and that night. When I had the realization in the morning, I could swear his face flashed before me. Two days later, I confided in Julia, and she recommended the doctor she thought was the best obstetrician, a woman, Dr. Steffen. Liam was elated, practically floating with joy. The first question I asked the doctor with Liam present was when we could know the baby’s sex.
“Oh, we don’t want to know that,” he said. “Let’s keep it a surprise.”
Dr. Steffen laughed. “Most young couples want to know these days.”
“We’re different,” he said firmly. “Right?”
I nodded and smiled, but in my heart, I hated the thought of having this on my mind for so long. Besides, I didn’t think Daddy would stand for it. The first time I went to see Dr. Steffen without Liam, I asked her again.
“I need to know,” I told her. “My husband doesn’t have to know. I know you can do a chorionic villus sampling, and a baby’s sex can be determined as early as ten weeks. I’m into week twelve.”
She widened her eyes. “Is there something in your family history you haven’t told me, Lorelei, some chromosome abnormality? Because a CVS is usually done to determine if there have been inherited abnormalities. Are you afraid your child will have Down syndrome, for example?”
“No,” I said quickly, but then I thought for a moment. Why couldn’t our child have some abnormality? “Yes,” I said. “I didn’t want my husband to know about it.”
“This is not something I like to keep from a prospective father. I must insist that he know and understand wha
t we’re doing. Won’t you discuss it with him first, please?”
If I did, I’d have to lie again to the man I married, the man I loved. When will that end? Maybe never. And what would I do if we went ahead with the test and she told me it was a girl? I had been thinking and thinking about it, considering an abortion. But then what would that do? It would only anger Daddy, and he would take back his agreement, and it would devastate Liam. I could go on for weeks, months, and do what Liam wanted and not discover our baby’s sex, but that would mean nights and days of anxiety.
No, I had made the agreement. It was better that I knew in advance so I could find a way to prepare myself.
“Okay,” I told my doctor. “I’ll talk to my husband and bring him in when you do the testing and when you have the results.”
So all of it came down to this, I thought when I left the doctor’s office. From the moment I had decided to get up from the table in that restaurant and hitch a ride with Moses in that tractor-trailer until now, all that I had done to start a new life, my love affair and marriage to Liam, my finding a new family, all of it now depended on one of two words, “boy” or “girl.” Somewhere not far away, Daddy was waiting to swoop in when it was time to do so and claim his prize. What would he do with her? How would he bring her up? Would he do all that he had done with me? And when she was old enough to understand, what would he do with her then?
Maybe he would find a way to use her the way he used his own daughters, at least until she had grown too old for it. Maybe she would become some sort of a servant, working beside Mrs. Fennel. Maybe Daddy would have a child with her to see what that child would be like. She would never know me or her father or any of this family. They’d probably tell her she was an orphan, too.
I left the doctor’s office, and even though it was a bright, sunny day with cotton dab clouds scattered over a mellow blue sky, I felt as if I should have an umbrella. The rain would fall, only instead of drops of water, there would be drops of blood.