He confessed it this spring.” His voice was short and curt. He obviously didn’t like talking about any of this.
As the truth washed over me, I felt just as quickly like I was drowning in it. “But she—I thought—didn’t they—”
Slowly, I melted, head into my hands, like a candle whose core was sinking in on itself. All my misconceptions revisited at once. Terror at being alone and pregnant and nineteen. Walking down the aisle with Calvin, seeing potential murder in my grandmother’s eyes rather than the disappointed truth. Peppe, dead in Florence, and all the fear I had carried with me since.
“Oh, God,” I whispered into my hands. “What…did…I…do?”
“Did you—is that why you married Calvin?” Jane asked in a kind, quiet voice. “Because you were afraid of what might happen if Celeste found out that you were pregnant?”
I looked up. “You knew?”
Jane shrugged. “I wondered. I can do math. Olivia was pretty early, and Calvin has never said a thing that indicates he has ever spent an hour in Italy, much less the month or two you claim he did.” She turned to Eric. “Last week I asked him if Marcus’s Negronis measured up to the ones he had in Florence. He said he didn’t drink Greek beverages there.”
Eric snorted. My mouth felt dry. Matthew had stilled completely, his only movement the meditative swirl of his brandy snifter as he watched the revelations unfold.
“So, Grandmother didn’t…the family didn’t…they weren’t responsible for Penny’s death?” I finally managed.
Eric swallowed, then scooted forward in his seat. “Look. I’m not going to pretend our family is full of saints, because it’s not. Our grandmother in particular was a conniving, power-hungry, narcissistic old bat. But she wasn’t a murderer. And in her fucked-up way, I think she tried to make amends for her disapproval of Penny by bringing Jane and me back together.”
I frowned. “Eric, she blackmailed you into getting married. You and the rest of the family would have been disinherited otherwise, isn’t that right?”
But Eric, to my surprise, just laughed. “Nina, I had already disinherited myself. Do you really think I gave a good goddamn about the family fortune? I had my own business. I was doing fine. And I never once believed she would have followed through on the other half of that threat.”
“Then—well, then why?”
“The truth is, I would never have said yes if it wasn’t going to get me what I really wanted in the first place. She knew she was going to die, and in the end, Jane and I think she just wanted to see the family together and me happy.” He reached behind him for his wife’s hand and squeezed it, then ran his knuckle up the inside of her arm. “As much as I hate to admit it, I think she pressured me to get married because she knew exactly who I’d choose.”
He gave Jane a look that squeezed my own heart in response, then raised her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles.
I ruminated on these revelations in silence for several minutes. Perhaps he was right. Grandmother had been the definition of manipulative when it came to doing what she thought was right for her family. She had also made no secret that while Eric thought he was a “free man” here in Boston, she had been keeping track of his whereabouts the entire time. Eric and Jane had met in law school and burned out there too. Undoubtedly, she was aware. Perhaps he was right, that at the end of her life, her ambitions for him were more altruistic than she let on. Perhaps her dying wish, then, was only to bring Eric back into the family and help him find happiness at last.
But then another question remained.
Celeste de Vries had two grandchildren. So why hadn’t she done the same for me?
“The best thing I ever did was leave, though.” Eric broke through my thoughts. “It showed me I could be my own man.”
“It’s good you were able to do that.” I couldn’t quite keep the resentment from my voice. It was difficult, when I considered how much I had needed him myself.
“But, Nina?”
I looked up and was surprised for once to find myself a target of Eric’s penetrating gaze. This kind openness was something I had caught directed at his wife several times, but never anyone else in the family. And that included me.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “Not for leaving. I can’t—I can’t be sorry for that, considering everything it’s given