when she finished her story that he was holding her hand. He patted it then and released it, looking deeply into her eyes.
“You had forgotten completely about Charlotte?” It was hard to believe.
“Completely.” Vanessa nodded. “It all came back to me at once.” He shook his head as though feeling her pain.
“How terrible for you.”
And then Vanessa couldn't help asking the question. “Does she know about me?”
He smiled. “Yes. She knows all about you.” He sighed then. “All that I knew to tell her. Your uncle didn't wish any contact, and the American court had discouraged it. Of course.” He looked troubled. “I can understand … it was a terrible time.” This time there were tears in his eyes. “Vanessa, my brother was a very strange, very sick man.” Vanessa said nothing. Part of her didn't want to hear about him, and another part of her did. It was all part of why she had come. “He was not really evil, but so wrong in his pursuits, his ideas. It was as though he had taken a bad turn in his youth.” He sighed again. “We never really got along. And he was always in trouble … women … drugs … terrible things. His wife before your mother committed suicide.” He stopped abruptly, looking at Vanessa, afraid to go on. “And then of course there was the tragedy that happened in the States.”
“Does Charlotte know?” It was odd asking this stranger questions, and yet she knew that she could, that she had to.
He looked at her quietly. “That her father killed her mother?” He said it so bluntly that Vanessa was shocked. “Yes, she knows. She knows the good about him, and she knows the bad. And she knows everything I knew to tell her about your mother. I wanted her to know it all. She has the right. She has the right to try to understand in her own way. I think she accepts it. It is horrible, and it hurts her, but she never knew either one of them. To her they are only people in a story.” He said it sadly. “It is not as if someone told her that I had killed someone. That would be different, that would tear her apart, but Vasili … your mother … they are only names to her.” He spoke very softly.
Vanessa looked at him and nodded. “Did she have a woman to bring her up?”
He shook his head. “My wife passed away when Charlotte was two. She doesn't remember her. She had my daughters, who are like big sisters to her, and she has had me.” Something sad crossed his face then, but Vanessa couldn't read it. “And you? Did your uncle marry when you were young?” He was looking at her so intently, as though to drink in her face, as though to see something that Vanessa herself didn't know was there. It seemed strange to her at first but she got used to it after a few minutes. There was something extraordinarily compelling about the man.
“No, my uncle only married last year. We were alone while I was growing up.”
“Did you mind?” He seemed curious and she shrugged, thinking over her answers.
“I don't think so. Teddy was like a mother and father rolled into one. I missed my mother, but that was different.”
He spoke very gently. “I think that Charlotte has always been very curious about you. She talked often as a child of her American sister, she used to play games with you, using her imagination, once she wrote you a letter. I still have it somewhere. I used to wonder if you would come back.”
“Have I been here before?” She looked momentarily startled and he nodded.
“A few times with Vasili and your mother. We used to play checkers, you and I.…” His voice drifted off and it was as though she could see something in the distance. She closed her eyes and she began to remember. She could see him, and his wife and his children.… When she opened her eyes, they were filled with tears.
“I remember.”
“You were a wonderful little girl.” And then his face clouded. “I remember when Charlotte was born, I came to London.…”He shook his head and looked at Vanessa squarely. “You went through a great deal. Your mother should never have married Vasili.”
Vanessa nodded agreement, thinking of how strange their lives had been, interwoven, and then broken apart, and then back again.