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“We bonded because she felt out of her element, she had moved from France a few years before, followed a man to America, and married him. But the first time she showed up to work with bruises…I could just tell she needed someone to confide in. And honestly, with your father, I did too. He was so secretive, so hard to love. It was as if we both needed permission to love them and found it in the other. As wrong as it was, we were both victims of our foolish hearts. We became great friends.”
She swallows and pulls another cigarette from her package.
“She was the only one who knew?”
Mom nods, taking the glass from me.
“That night…the night of the fire Roman and I had a huge fight about…you. He didn’t want me to keep you, and I refused to let him strong-arm me into aborting.”
“So, he never wanted me. Big surprise.”
“Not in the way you think. It had little to do with him not wanting to be a father.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Cecelia, you came for an explanation. One you deserve. Let me talk.”
“Fine.”
“We fell hard. We were very much in love when you were conceived. So much so I thought…I thought him proposing was a real possibility. But it happened so fast. So fast. One minute I was his distraction, the next, he made me feel like his obsession. And it was the best I’ve ever felt in my life aside from the day the doctor put you in my arms.”
She flicks her ashes as I soak in the still water of the lake.
“Back then at the plant, there were a few labs, with specific and strict safety guidelines—and newly trained—I just wasn’t thinking. That fight we had was horrible. I thought your father a monster that night, questioned all my reasons for loving him. I couldn’t believe just how multifaced he was,” she swallows, and her eyes water. “Anyway, I was distracted. Di
straught, so much so I just wasn’t aware of anything or anyone around me. I was tormented about the idea that he wouldn’t have me if I kept you. I was so in love with him, I considered it, it was only a split second, Cecelia, but I did. And I hated him for it.”
I keep my silence though her words sting.
“Love will make you a complete idiot, and I’m no less guilty of being a slave to it than any other woman.” She takes another sip of wine. “So, I was working that night with a few other technicians who were on break. I just wasn’t…I wasn’t all there. So, when I messed up, I tried to contain it, in the event of a fire, you’re supposed to evacuate, and lock the door. That sets a chain of events in motion that isolate the threat. I followed protocol, not realizing I wasn’t alone in the lab. So when…” she turns to me. “I didn’t see them. I thought I was alone. The minute they appeared at the door, there was an explosion. I didn’t know…by the time I was made aware they were there—it was too late. I can still see them screaming, pounding on the door a split second before the blast. I can still hear their panicked cries. I watched it happen.”
I close my eyes, the image of Tobias and Dominic’s parents pleading for their lives as my mother stood panicked on the other side of the door.
“I called your father first, and Roman was upstairs, he was the first there and sent me away immediately, he refused to let me take the blame. I was almost three months along.”
“But it was an accident, why couldn’t you come forward?”
“At first, I thought it was a knee-jerk reaction to protect me, but it was for a different reason altogether. He took care of it—all of it. And refused to give me the details or his reasoning. He was so…adamant about it. And he’s a man you don’t question. For months I wondered what in the hell he was thinking…until after you were born.”
She takes a long drag of her cigarette. “After the funeral, I quit the plant at Roman’s insistence. But I swore the day I saw Delphine on the opposite side of those caskets, she just knew. She looked at me in a way I knew she knew. She was outraged, she wasn’t privy to the details of the investigation and stopped talking to me when I clammed up when she questioned me. I feigned ignorance. Roman and I tried to move on, but it was the beginning of the end. He moved me into an apartment, away from my mother. I thought it was so we could have the freedom to be together, but shortly after, he slowly started to freeze me out. We were never the same after that night. But it was you that kept us glued together. Sometimes he would look at me—at my belly—and I could see so clearly he wanted to be more, to mean more to the both of us. Sometimes, I could see a hint of us again, but other than an occasional visit, he’d all but ended our relationship.”
“He felt guilty?”
“I know he did. He bore the brunt of it. This secret had the ability to bring all he worked for crumbling down around him.”
“But if you had just admitted to it—”
“He didn’t want to take the chance.”
“I don’t understand why.”
“Because he didn’t want anyone to know about us.”
“So, you were his dirty little secret?”
“No, my love, you and I were his biggest fear. I knew he was a cold man. I knew he was ambitious in his business dealings, but I didn’t know he had others keeping close tabs on him. He’d made enemies with old business partners, and he didn’t want anyone knowing.”
“So, you fought because you were pregnant?”
