There was a certain sadness around her lately. Her father was ill. He had a lung disease and everyone hoped he would last the year, but as the days passed, that seemed unlikely. He didn’t wish to see anyone, only the nurse who cared for him. Lydia found herself thinking that this woman, Marie, had been his mistress even when her mother was alive, for Madame Cassin Rodrigues had disliked her and at the end had begged for another caretaker. Now this Marie had moved into his house in Passy, where she took care of Lydia’s father with extreme tenderness. She spoke with familiarity. Once, when Monsieur Rodrigues had balked at taking his medicine, Lydia had overheard Marie say, But, Aaron, you must, with an authority more suited to a wife than a nurse.
Lydia’s father had said something the last time she’d visited with the children that had unsettled her. He was in a chair by the window overlooking the garden. He’d been a tall man, but now he was stooped. He had a long face that had once been so handsome few women had been able to look away. He was concentrating on the outside world. In his view, there were still a few stray poppies in bloom despite the season. Shades of orange and red. Plumes of tall grass grew untended. She’d brought him tea and was crouched beside his chair so she might add sugar to his cup with a pair of tongs.
He gazed at her so deeply she was flustered. “I wish you hadn’t had your mother’s silver eyes,” he said. “They remind me of her every day.”
Startled, she acted as if he hadn’t said something so odd. She asked him if he wanted cream as well as sugar, and he’d shook his head. Her mother’s eyes were blue, as were her father’s and her own, though hers were, indeed, paler, and on cloudy days, they turned a fragile gray. She had a strange flicker in the pit of her stomach. There was a light inside she sometimes felt, a sharp, stinging brightness.
Her father was becoming more and more distraught, revealing a depth of feeling she hadn’t thought him capable of.
“I betrayed her,” he said mournfully. “What sort of man acts like that?”
“I’ll get you a blanket,” Lydia said, for he was shivering.
“I should have left you where you belonged,” he said to her then. “I shouldn’t have been your father.”
She went to get the blanket and realized there were tears running down her face. Her father had always been somewhat distant, but now his words felt like an attack. Was he saying he had never loved her? What she had done to deserve this, she had no idea. Perhaps it was his illness speaking, nothing more.
She passed a gilded mirror in the hall and stared at her reflection. In this mirror her eyes did indeed look as silver as the glass.
She’d been disturbed ever since. And there was something else: a boy had been following her. It had been going on for some time. A tall boy who was almost a man. At first she thought she was imagining it. She was at the park with her three daughters and they were playing in the leaves when she noticed a shadow falling over them. She had dreams of shadows, of people who came to her to tell her secrets, but this was daylight in the park. She wore a silky woolen cape that was the color of wine along with a pretty gray dress and high-laced boots. She gazed up and the shadow darted away. She hurried the children from the park, past the green wooden benches, along the gravel paths, home to safety. She locked the doors, drew the curtains, put the children to bed. Later, when she glanced out at the street, she thought she saw him again, a tall, thin boy in an overcoat, boots, a black cap, who rubbed his hands together, as if he were freezing even though it was only October, that smoky, beautiful month when the leaves on the plane trees turned brown before slowly curling up into brittle ash.
In bed with her husband she whispered that her father was dying and that she’d felt he’d never loved her.
“It doesn’t matter,” Henri said. “I do.”
She didn’t tell him about the boy on the street or the comment about the silver eyes.
They went to Friday night services with the children, and often had dinner with Henri’s parents, who treated Lydia as if she were a daughter. The Cohens had only sons, Henri and his two younger brothers, and they were delighted with Lydia’s charm. She had a slight accent, which they teased her about, and a longing for spice in her tea, which they thought unusual and amusing. They were a jolly family, different from her own. Her mother had been moody and, although loving, not socially inclined. She didn’t care to go out, and the few friends she had came to visit her for tea or drinks as if she were an invalid, which she was not. Her father, rarely at home, was distant, more so since he’d been unwell. She wondered where he’d been all those nights when he failed to appear for dinner. Perhaps he’d been a ladies’ man all along.