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At least, I hoped that was what she was thinking.
"Are things really that bad for Maurice?" I asked.
Janette sighed and look another long drink of her water. "Goodness," she said as she glanced behind her. "Will they ever return with the wine?" Then she looked back to find me watching her frankly.
"Yes," she replied. "The answer to your question is yes. He...well..." She shook her head, clearly having a difficult time getting the words out. Then she blinked at me. "He was extradited last week."
At that I genuinely gasped, holding my hand to my face. Whatever shit Maurice had gotten himself into in France must have been truly bad if the French government had negotiated for extradition. Brandon had called him a shark and compared him to Bernie Madoff, but I had thought it was an exaggeration. Apparently not.
"What about Annabelle and Christoph?" I asked immediately. "Are they staying..."
"With my family in New York," Janette confirmed. "As am I."
My heart sank a little at the thought of those kids living on the Upper East Side. I had never met kids more in need of normalcy and affection in my life––two things they were sure not to receive with the Chambers family.
"You could come visit them there..." Janette trailed off as she caught my disbelief.
I had been the Chambers family's dirty little secret since I was born. None of the members of Janette's parochial Upper East Side family had ever wanted to meet me or talk to me. I had gone through the normal stages of rebellion as a preteen, shirking my father and Bubbe in the occasional attempt to crash the Chambers' large apartment up Lexington. But each time I'd been told by the Dominican doorman that I was not welcome, and they had eventually thrown money at my father (who generally took it to the track) and later into a trust fund to pay for my education in exchange for me maintaining my distance.
That had been close to fifteen years ago, just after Janette and Dad had also broken up for the last time.
"Where will they go to school?" I asked, turning the conversation back to Janette's children.
"Well..." Janette trailed off. "I thought...I remembered that Brandon mentioned a boarding school near Boston. Andover, wasn't it?"
I quirked an eyebrow, but didn't respond.
"Maurice didn't like the idea, but I think it's splendid," she rushed on. "And if you want to see them as much as you say you do...well, I thought it might be a good mea culpa, as it were. My way of making this mess up to you."
I blinked, somewhat flabbergasted. Only Janette, the world's most self-absorbed person, would think that asking someone else to watch over her children was a way of making an apology.
And yet.
"And you'll stay away," I said. "For good. You won't try to weasel your way back into my life? Brandon's life?"
Janette shook her head solemnly. "I may not be a very good mother," she said, as plainly as Janette could ever say. "But you are an excellent sister. Anyone could see that. I believe...no, I know, that they would receive far more love from you than they ever could with me or my family."
"Can I get that in writing?"
It sounded like a joke, but it wasn't. I wasn't willing to do this unless she would sign something in the way of formal custody, but also that she wasn't going to harass me or Brandon again.
"Anything you like," Janette said. "As long as you promise to take care of the children. It will be a win-win, really. You'll be able to see them as you like, and I'll be free to leave Mother's house. I'm positively dying for a fresh start, and I simply can't last a moment longer with that old gargoyle."
I looked at my mother curiously. I knew she didn't enjoy her mother much, but I wasn't aware of that level of bitterness. Then again, I hardly knew Janette, and had never actually met my maternal grandmother.
"Is that what attracted you to Dad?" I suddenly wondered. "Was it just that he made your mother so angry?"
Janette twirled her bright diamond ring around her elegant finger. At first I thought she wasn't going to respond. It wasn't until I was about to stand up to leave that she started to speak.
"For a long time I wouldn't have anything to do with him," she admitted.
Her doll-like face had taken on a dreamy quality as she looked back to the Commons. For a moment, a few strands of her hair fell across her cheeks in the breeze, and I could imagine what she must have looked like to Dad: beautiful, childlike, with a deadly combination of entitlement and naiveté.
"Back then we were so young, and your dad...oh, Skylar, he was so talented. He still is, of course, but then he was writing all of his own music, so young, so vibrant. He would be up on that stage, and he would sing and play, and you just couldn't take your eyes off him. He absolutely transformed."
She closed her eyes, as if she could hear the lilting melodies from way back when. I could imagine them too; his music was the soundtrack of my childhood. And she was right––Dad really did transform on stage, from a homely, mustachioed garbage collector into something magical.
Janette's green eyes popped open, sudden the color of ripe apples as she recalled one particular memory.
