He takes off his helmet and gives me the high sign.
‘Ridge McCall, are you showing off again?’ Arms folded, I give him ‘that look’ I do when we kid each other. It never fails to get a big grin from him.
‘Is that any way to greet your knight in shining armor?’ He holds up a brown paper bag. ‘Especially a guy bringing sesame bagels.’
I grab two mugs of hot coffee and stack the bagels on Maman’s fancy Limoges dishes, then we sit down on the comfy apple-red, plaid cushion on the bay window box and talk. Like we always do. No holds barred. Today is no different.
‘Maman lied to me, Ridge. We do – I do – have family in France.’
‘That’s great news.’ He takes a bite from a bagel.
‘No, it’s complicated. All my life I believed my mother’s family died in the war. I know now her mother didn’t. My grand-mère. I found an old photo of her from 1949. The strange thing is, I’m wondering if everything else she told me was a lie. About my father, how she came to America.’
I can’t believe it’s my voice I hear filled with excited jabbering and run-on sentences, sighs and sniffles. Bringing up my whole life history overwhelms me. To most people, talking about my roots may seem a strange way to deal with the grief of losing my mother, but I’ve never let it out till now, never shared my lack of a family tree with anyone. I’ve kept it inside, pretended it didn’t matter until it did.
In 1983 my mother met my father, Dr Paul Warrick, a distinguished art history professor, when he came to the small convent where she lived outside Paris. The existence of a little-known artifact at Ville Canfort-Terre attracted my father’s attention while he was researching a medieval manuscript nearly lost during the First World War when the Germans marched through and destroyed a monastery. Afterward, the manuscript was entrusted to the nuns for safekeeping and all but forgotten till my father started asking questions. He began a correspondence with the convent historian in charge of translating it… Madeleine Chastain, my mother.
I stop, take a breath, remembering how Maman told me she fell in love with the American professor through his letters before he arrived in France. Maman had spent years helping translate the manuscript – she was fluent in English – and the two of them spent several months together, huddling over the ancient tome… and enjoying each other’s company.
Then, I tell Ridge with more emotion than I expected, Maman was shocked when Paul returned to the States, his work done. Did he love her, or was he flattering a lonely spinster? She was nearly forty and had followed a quiet, semi-religious life up to that time. I don’t think my mother wanted to answer that question, but when she discovered she was having his baby, she wrote to him, informing him.
‘That must have been a difficult time for your mother, Juliana,’ Ridge says, his voice low and husky. ‘And your father. I’m not making any judgment, but from what you’ve told me, he provided for you growing up.’
I notice he chooses his words carefully. I made my peace with my father years ago when we spoke before he died.
‘The letters I read indicate my father did love my mother,’ I’m quick to tell him, ‘but he was under consideration for an important position at the Claremont Colleges in California and couldn’t return to France.’
‘So your mother came here to California. Why the upheaval? Why didn’t she stay where she had a home, security?’
‘Maman never said so, but I got the feeling she couldn’t face the shame of her indiscretion being found out in her village, so she followed him here. Paul Warrick was a widower with two grown daughters who, according to my mother, were aghast at the news. They harassed her with numerous threats and letters, telling her how their father couldn’t afford a scandal when his tenure was in question, so Maman went to him and told him she’d make it on her own. To his credit, my father insisted on helping her with expenses for the baby and found her a position in the French department at a nearby women’s college where she taught for years.’
‘Did you see your father often?’ Ridge asks, curious.
‘I met with him a few times,’ I say, sipping my coffee, ‘but he always seemed distant and his daughters treated me like the fairy tale heroine but without the glass slipper.’ I exhale, punch down the ache that still lingers in my heart from their snooty looks and bullying me as a teen. ‘In the end, I had my mom and that was enough for me.’
‘Your mother never married?’
‘Yes, she tried not to show it, but Maman nursed a broken heart for years, never giving up hope her professor would marry her. When he died, she went into a deep depression and took early retirement from the college. I insisted she move to LA to be close to me, but it took persuading on my part. My mother never approved of me going into show business. She always clammed up when I probed her why she was so against it. After I convinced her to come live with me, we became closer than ever, having several long, lovely conversations about my mother growing up in the convent – both in French and English. I remember how she told me she made her decision to go to America under the sweeping willow tree in the garden. She’d always stop there… never spoke about her life in the convent before she met my father… never spoke about how she got there… or the woman who must have left her there… my grandmother. And it hurts, Ridge… why couldn’t she share the truth with me? Why?’
‘I have no doubt your mother was trying to protect you—’
‘Protect me from what? My grandmother? That’s absurd.’ I raise my voice. I didn’t realize how much I was hurting inside till I put it into words.
I show him the photo dated 1949 and he lets out a low whistle.
‘She’s stunning, Juliana. By the quality and texture of the photo paper and the photographer’s style, I’d say this was taken at the start of the war… around 1940.’ He snaps pictures of the photo from various angles on his phone.
‘It sounds crazy,’ I say, ‘but could the woman in this glamor shot – my grandmother – be an actress?
‘Whoever she is, I’m sure she’s as wonderful as her granddaughter.’
‘Can you identify her?’
‘Can Superman fly?’ He grins. ‘I’ve got connections I can check with and software I can run the photo through. If this gorgeous blonde was ever in the French film business, I’ll find her.’
I settle in at my drawing board after Ridge leaves. I continue working on the sketches for the new show, my pencil moving along in clean, striking lines. I feel refreshed… and mentally exhausted. I let go of the deep pain and self-inflicted anguish I’ve tormented myself with, that I didn’t do enough for my mother. I know now I did. And it’s time for me to move on… not completely let go, but enough so I don’t get so wrapped in that grey world of living in the past and filling it with shades of regret that I miss living in the here and now.
It's late afternoon when my phone chimes. A text.
Ridge.
I do a quick read and my heart skips a beat. Then two. Oh, my God, he’s identified the woman in the photo… ma grand-mère.
Yes, he has located the blonde in the photo, yes, she was a French film cinema star.
Then a short text. Very short.
Call me ASAP. Important.
Then, for some reason