“I have to talk to her.”

I stand up and he doesn’t try to stop me. Had they planned this together? Noah would come tell me what her choice was? I’d have to deal? She’s obviously forgotten what I’m willing to do to have her. I drop a twenty on the bar and walk out.

Chapter Thirty-One

One week before my baby came into this world, I received a call from Olivia’s office. Not Olivia. Just her secretary. It was a new secretary, thank God. The one she had when she first started at Bernie’s firm was a psycho. The new girl’s name was Nancy, and in her clipped, professional voice, she informed me that Ms. Kaspen had asked her to make the call. Three weeks ago — she said — a woman named Anfisa Lisov contacted Olivia, claiming to have seen an American news story on CNN in Russian. She said she was the mother to the woman in the picture with Olivia, Johanna Smith. I almost dropped the phone.

She wanted contact with the woman she suspected was her daughter. I collapsed into a chair and listened to Nancy talk. No one knew Leah was adopted. We kept it out of the press; we were careful — so careful not to let that information be released. It would have jeopardized Leah’s testimony, or at least that’s what the partners said. I think it would have jeopardized her mental health. And nothing had changed. Courtney was in an assisted living facility, a vegetable. Her mother was an alcoholic. Leah was balancing a fine line of sanity. And she was having my baby. Whoever this woman was, I couldn’t let her near my wife.

“She said she gave up her baby while working as a prostitute in Kiev when she was sixteen.”

Fuck f**k fuck.

“She is flying to America to meet Johanna,” Nancy said. “Ms. Kaspen tried to deter her, but she was insistent. She wanted me to call and warn you.”

Fuck. Why hadn’t she told me sooner?

“All right. Give me all the contact information you have for her.”

Nancy gave me the hotel and flight times and wished me good luck before hanging up.

Anfisa was flying into New York first and catching a flight a day later to Miami. No doubt she was who she said she was. Who else knew Leah’s real mother was a sixteen-year-old prostitute in Kiev? Her parents certainly wouldn’t have told anyone. When I tried sending an email to Anfisa using the address Nancy gave me, it came back saying the email had a faulty address. The phone number had been disconnected. I Googled Anfisa’s name and the search came back with a picture of a striking woman with short, red hair, cut no longer than my own. She had written and published three books in Russia. I put the titles into Google translator and they came back as: My Scarlet Life, The Blood Soaked Baby and Finding Mother Russia. She hadn’t published a book in four years. I booked a trip to New York right then and there. I would fly out to meet this woman, send her away, and be back in time for my baby’s birth. I had no idea what she wanted to gain out of this reunion, but the fact that Leah came from a wealthy family was at the forefront of my thoughts. She wanted a new story to tell. Reuniting with her daughter would either give her plenty of money to take a writing hiatus or it would give her the story she was looking for. There was no way Leah would want to meet this woman — mother or not. I needed her to focus on being a mother, not have a mental breakdown about her own. I’d take care of it. I’d give her money if I had to. But, then Estella came early.

I’d told Leah that I had a business trip. She was upset, but I arranged for her mother to come for the days I would be away. I didn’t want to leave Estella, but what choice did I have? If I didn’t stop this woman from boarding a plane to Miami, she’d be knocking on our door in a few days.

I packed a small bag, kissed my wife and daughter goodbye and flew to New York to meet Anfisa Lisov, Leah’s birth mother. I could barely sit still on the plane ride. I’d asked Leah on our honeymoon — just a few days after she told me she was adopted — if she’d ever want to meet her birth mother. Before the last word was out of my mouth, she was already shaking her head.

“No way. Not interested.”

“Why not? Aren’t you curious?”

“She was a prostitute. My father was a disgusting pig. What is there to be curious about? To see if I look like her? I don’t want to look like a prostitute.”

Well then…

We hadn’t spoken about it again. Now here I was, doing damage control. I probably drank too much on the plane. When I got off, I booked into my hotel and caught a cab to hers. She was staying at a Hilton close to the airport. Nancy hadn’t known which room she was in. I asked the front desk to call her and tell her that her son-in-law was there to see her. Then I sat in one of the lounge chairs near a fireplace and waited. She came down ten minutes later. I knew it was her by the picture I’d seen of her on the Internet. She was older than in the picture, more worn around the eyes and mouth. Her hair was dyed, no longer naturally red, still spiky and short. I eyed her face, looking for traces of Leah. It might have been my imagination, but when she spoke, I saw my wife in her expressions. I stood up to greet her, and she stared up in my face with complete calm. My little surprise trip hadn’t rattled her at all.

“You are Johanna’s husband? Yes?”

“Yes,” I said, waiting for her to take a seat. “Caleb.”

“Caleb,” she repeated. “I saw you on television. During the trial.” Then-”How did you know I was here?” Her accent was thick, but she spoke English well. She was sitting ramrod straight, her back not touching the chair. She looked more like Russian military than former Russian prostitute.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

She smiled. “We are going to have to answer each other’s questions if we want to get anywhere, no?”

“Her attorney’s office called me,” I said, leaning back in my chair.

“Ah, yes. Ms. Olivia Kaspen.”

God. Her name even sounded good with a Russian accent.

I didn’t acknowledge or deny.

“Should we go to the bar? Order a drink,” she said.

I nodded, tight lipped. I followed her into the hotel bar, where she sat at a table near the front. Only after the bartender brought her vodka and my scotch, did she answer my question.

“I’ve come to meet my daughter.”

“She doesn’t want to meet you,” I said.

She narrowed her eyes and I saw Leah.

“Why not?”

“You gave her up a long time ago. She has a family.”

Anfisa scoffed. “Those people? I didn’t like them when they took her. The man didn’t even like children, I could tell right away.”

“That doesn’t speak very highly of you, giving your baby to people you didn’t even like.”

“I was sixteen years old and I slept with men to survive. I didn’t have much choice.”

“You had a choice to give her to people you liked.”

She looked away. “They offered me the most money.”

I sat my glass down harder than I intended. “She doesn’t want to see you,” I said firmly.

My statement seemed to jar her a little. She slouched some and her eyes darted around the empty bar like she couldn’t hold it together anymore. I wondered if this whole stiff-backed thing was an act.

“I need money. Just enough to write my next book. And I want to write it here.”

That’s what I thought. I took out my checkbook.

“You never come to Florida,” I said. “And you never try to contact her.”

She downed the rest of her vodka like a true Russian.

“I want a hundred thousand dollars.”

“How long will it take you to write the book?” I scrawled her name onto the check and paused to look up at her. She stared at that check with hunger in her eyes.

“A year,” she said, without looking at me. I held my pen above the amount line.

“I’ll divide it by twelve then. I’ll put money in an account every month. You contact her or leave New York, you don’t get your deposit.”

She eyed me with something I didn’t recognize. It could have been contempt. Hate for a situation that left her dependent on me. Annoyance that her blackmail wasn’t working as well as she wanted it to.

“What if I say no?”

I saw Leah in her defiance too.

“She won’t give you money. She will slam the door in your face. Then you’ll get nothing.”

“Well then, son-in-law. Sign my check and be done with it.”

And so I got done with it.

I changed my flight. Went home early. I didn’t ever hear much from Anfisa. I sent her money even after Leah and I separated and got divorced. I didn’t want her presence to hurt Estella, even if she wasn’t mine. When her year was up, she went back to Russia. I ran an Internet search for her once and saw that her book was a huge seller. Leah might hear from her eventually, but I was done with her.

Chapter Thirty-Two

I go straight to her condo. If she’s not home already, I’ll be waiting there when she arrives.

She is home. When she opens the door, it’s as if she was expecting me. Her eyes and her lips are swollen. When Olivia cries, her lips double in size and turn bright red. It’s the most beautifully fragile and feminine thing about her.

She stands to the side to let me in, and I walk past her into the living room. She closes the door softly and follows me.

She wraps her arms around her body and stares out at the ocean.

“When you left and went to Texas, after we…” I break to let her catch up to what I’m saying. “I came after you. It took me a few months to get past my initial wounded pride, and to find you, of course. Cammie didn’t want to tell me you were there, so I just showed up on her doorstep.”

I tell her about how I waited at the side of the house when I saw the car coming, and how I heard the exchange between her and Cammie. About how I knocked on the door when she went upstairs to shower. I tell her all of it and I can’t tell if she can hear me, because her face is unmoving, her eyes unblinking. Her chest doesn’t even rise and fall with breath.

“I was on my way up the stairs, Duchess, when Cammie stopped me. She told me that you got pregnant after our night together. She told me about the abortion.”

Finally, the statue springs to life. Her fierce eyes turn on me. Blue fire — the hottest kind.

“Abortion?” The word tumbles out of her mouth. “She told you that I got an abortion?”

Now … now, her chest is rising and falling. Her br**sts straining against the fabric of her shirt.

“She inferred it. Why didn’t you tell me?”

She opens her mouth, runs her tongue along her bottom lip. I don’t know why I’m doing this to her now. Maybe I think that if I remind her of how much history we have, it’ll stir her to choose me.

“I didn’t have an abortion, Caleb,” she says. “I had a miscarriage. A goddamn miscarriage!”

She swims in and out of focus as I grasp her words.

“Why wouldn’t Cammie tell me?”

“I don’t know! To keep you away from me? She was right to! We are bad for each other!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it hurt! I tried to pretend it never happened.”

I don’t know what to do with myself. It’s like the whole world is determined to keep us apart. Even f**king Cammie who’d had a front row seat to our relationship for all these years. How could she? Olivia is struggling not to cry. Her lips move as she tries to form words.

“Look at me, Duchess.”

She can’t.

“What are you going to tell me?”

“You know…” she says softly.

“Don’t do this,” I say. “This is our last chance. You and I were made for each other.”

“I choose him, Caleb.”

Her words ignite anger — so much anger. I can barely look at her. I breathe through my nose, her announcement reverberating across my brain, burning my tear ducts and landing somewhere in my chest, causing such incredible heartache, I can’t see straight.

Through my crash, I lift my head to look at her. She’s pale; her eyes wide and panicked.

I nod … slowly. I’m still nodding ten seconds later. I’m calculating the rest of my life without her. I am contemplating strangling her. I am wondering if I did everything I could … if I could have tried harder.

There is one last thing I have to say. Something I said before and was so terribly wrong about.

“Olivia, I once told you that I would love again, and that you would hurt forever. Do you remember?”

She nods. It’s a painful memory for both of us.

“It was a lie. I knew it was a lie, even as I said it. I’ve never loved anyone after you. I never will.”

I walk out.

Walk away.

No more fighting — not for her, or with her, or with myself.

I am so sad.

How many times can a heart be broken before it is beyond mend? How many times can I wish to not be alive? How can one human being cause such a crack in my existence? I alternate between periods of numbness and inconceivable pain all in the span of — an hour? An hour feels like a day, a day feels like a week. I want to live, and then I want to die. I want to cry, and then I want to scream.

I want, I want, I want…

Olivia.

But, I don’t. I want her to suffer. I want her to be happy. I want to stop thinking altogether and be locked in a room without thoughts. Possibly for a year.

I run. I run so much that if the zombie apocalypse were to happen, they’d never be able to catch me. When I run I don’t feel anything but the burning in my lungs. I like the burn; it lets me know I can still feel when I’m having a numb day. When I am having a day of pain, I drink.