As it often was, traffic along Embassy Row headed toward downtown Washington, DC was snarled. Carrie normally needed to feel in control—and preferred to drive herself for that reason—but today she was grateful that one of the Pinkerton security guards was behind the wheel of the black Suburban. She sat in the back seat with Alexandra, fidgeting and nervous.
Another black SUV—the guard had referred to it as a
chase car—
drove closely behind them. Carrie kept looking down at the invitation. Cream paper with gold and black lettering.
You and your guest are invited to dine with
His Highness, Prince George-Phillip
at the Embassy of the United Kingdom,
4 pm on the Fifth of May, 2014.
His Highness
, Prince George-Phillip, was apparently her father. And this invitation felt all too formal to her. Too distant. On the other hand, what else could he have done? Called her up and said, “Hey, this is your birth father. Want to get together?”
Obviously that made no sense. And even though part of her wanted to meet George-Phillip and learn just what had happened between him and her mother—another part just wanted to turn her back. She had nothing to lose by walking away—right now she didn’t have a father at all. Not meeting George-Phillip wouldn’t change that.
On the other hand, meeting him—that held another kind of risk. A risk of getting hurt again. She’d lost her husband and her father. She didn’t want to lose anything else.
But then her eyes fell on her sister. Alexandra. The middle child. She’d never been sure of herself, never had the confidence that Carrie and Julia had, never had that spark of brilliance that Sarah and Jessica had. But one thing she had was strength and loyalty. She wouldn’t shy away from any risk. She’d
chosen
that risk, she’d chosen to love a man who was broken by war and trauma. And despite the pain that came with that, she was richer for it.
Carrie closed her eyes. She’d also chosen. Ray had been dead now longer than she’d even known him. Nine short months from the day they met to the day he died. They were the hardest, most difficult and yet the best months of her life. She wouldn’t go back and change them. She wouldn’t give back
one ounce
of grief and loss if it meant losing even the slightest memory of Ray.
Ray—ever courageous, ever honorable, would have chuckled and pushed her to go on.
So, instead of panicking, or withdrawing into herself, Carrie did the only thing she could, the thing she was fated to do, the thing that defined who she was. She reached out and took Alexandra’s hand and squeezed it gently, reassuringly. “Dylan’s going to be fine,” Carrie said.
“Thanks,” Alexandra whispered. “I know. I know he will.”
Carrie sat back in her seat and stared into space. Everything was upside down and confused. She thought of the phone call earlier, as she’d been trying to make some order out of the chaos of the condominium. It was the house phone that rang, and she’d rushed to it, not recognizing the 604 area code.
“Hello?” she’d said.
“Carrie, it’s your mother.”
“Mom?” she had nearly screeched. “What’s happening? I saw the news—you’re in Canada? Is Jessica okay? What happened to her?”
“Slow down, Carrie,” her mother had said, even as the other sisters crowded around Carrie. Then Mother began to speak, but Carrie missed the first few words, because something was
different
about her mother. She sounded—not strained, or panicked. She didn’t know what she sounded like.
“… so for now we’re just outside of Vancouver, and I think we’ll be here for some time. Jessica’s in intensive care.”
“What happened? Did she get shot? I heard there was some kind of shootout?”
Her mother had sighed. “No. Your sister is very sick, Carrie. She—she got into using meth somehow. She’s addicted.”
Carrie winced and almost doubled over, involuntarily clutching her stomach with one hand. Julia, alarmed, put her hand on Carrie’s shoulder. Carrie waved Julia off, then said, “Mother, how—when— I don’t understand.”
“It happened this winter, when your father was locked up in his office.”
Carrie had gone cold. “He’s not my father.”
Silence for a moment. Carrie’s sisters, Julia, Alexandra, and Sarah, blanched. They all expected the same thing Carrie did—a hysterical rage response.
Instead, her mother had simply said, “No, he’s not. Your father is Prince George-Phillip.”
Carrie had put her hand to her mouth and sobbed. Then she had whispered, “Why did you lie to us?”
Her mother gave the strangest answer, an answer that made no sense, an answer that she couldn’t understand. Her mother had answered, “To save your lives.”
Now, hours later, she still didn’t understand. And she didn’t know if she ever would.
Carrie unconsciously slid down into her seat a little when she saw the two news vans parked in front of the British Embassy, and the crowd of reporters and cameras arrayed along the sidewalk. She knew they couldn’t see into the SUV—the tinted windows were so dark you had to press your nose into the glass in order to make out anything. But all the same, the sight of cameras, of reporters—it took her right back.
The driver swung the car into the driveway of the Embassy, making no concessions to the reporters who had to scramble out of the way.
“Jesus Christ,” Alexandra muttered, unconsciously echoing Dylan.
The clamor outside the car was crazy. The guard cracked the window, rolling it down just a few inches. He spoke with the Royal Marine who guarded the gate, then a moment later, the gate opened. The SUV and chase car entered the Embassy compound, pulling to a stop in front of a three-story red brick building. Half a dozen Royal Marines in uniform were at the front of the building. Two of them approached the car, one opening the door almost immediately as it came to a stop.
“Doctor Sherman? Mrs. Paris? Come this way, please. Quickly, we’re still in sight of the reporters.”
Alexandra got out on her side, and Carrie slid across and followed her out. Quickly, they followed the Marine up the steps. Almost one hundred feet behind them, at the fence, she could hear shouting. The reporters called her name.
She hustled inside, entering a well-appointed, air-conditioned room. The anteroom had highly polished marble floors, the center covered with a beautiful Persian carpet. Across the room from her stood Prince George-Phillip, holding the hand of a precociously tall six or eight-year-old with raven hair and blue green eyes. An older version of that girl—Carrie’s sister Andrea—stood a few feet away.
Alexandra didn’t wait for introductions. She launched herself at Dylan, who gasped as he touched her, his face the expression of a drowning man who’d just gripped a life preserver.
“I missed you,” Alexandra sobbed. “God, I missed you.”
At the same time, Andrea ran to Carrie and the two women embraced. Carrie gripped Andrea tightly, as if she could somehow know by touch whether or not Andrea was well.
George-Phillip gave Alexandra and Dylan a brief, kind smile. Immediately Carrie liked him better. Then he looked back at Carrie.
“Carrie,” he said, tentatively. “I’m George-Phillip.”
Carrie’s eyes darted to the little girl, then to Andrea.
“You’re my father,” Carrie said.
He nodded slowly. “I am. I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you before.”
She walked closer, as if to study him. “We shook hands the day of my graduation from Columbia.”
“We did,” he said. “It was one of the proudest days of my life.”
Carrie felt as if she were swimming in uncontrollable currents. She’d once thought she was closer to her father than her mother. But so many things made no sense. His remote behavior. His long absences, both traveling and locked up in his office.
She remembered discussing Ray’s trial with her mother, and her father saying,
Perhaps we can find a more suitable topic for discussion. I find this entire subject distressful on the day my daughter got married.
She remembered when she found out her father had hired detectives to run background checks on Dylan and his mother. So much never made sense.
Abruptly she said, “I don’t know if I’m prepared for any more terrible revelations. It’s been a tough week.”
He held out a hand. “I understand, Carrie, and I’d like to—I don’t even know where to begin.”
Carrie took his hand. His hand was warm, and dotted with age spots. His eyes were tired, but they were her eyes. She smiled at him, trying to reassure, and said, “Why don’t we start with a drink, then, and we can talk.”
Gratitude flashed openly in his eyes. She glanced over her shoulder at Alexandra and Dylan. They’d sunk into a couch, whispering to each other, oblivious to everyone else in the room. Carrie turned back to Andrea and pulled her sister into another embrace.
“I’m so glad you’re safe,” she whispered. “We were so afraid for you.”
Andrea shook in her arms.
After a moment, they broke apart, and she said, “And who is this?”
She knelt down in front of the little girl.
“I’m Jane,” the little girl said. She wore a blue dress and patent leather shoes, too formal for a child this young.
Jane,
Carrie repeated in her mind.
“I like your dress, Jane. I’m Carrie.”
“Daddy says we’re sisters. You and me and Andea.” She stumbled over Andrea’s name. “I never had a sister before.”
“Well,” Carrie said, suddenly stifling a sob. She couldn’t force her eyes to stop watering though. She tried. Every time she cried, she thought she’d run out of tears. But there were always more. “Now you’ve got a lot of sisters. Now and forever, if—if our father says it’s okay.”
“I want nothing more in this world,” George-Phillip said, his voice low.
“Can I pick you up?” Carrie asked Jane.
Jane nodded, and Carrie stood. She reached out and lifted Jane up and slid her onto her hip. She said, “I’ve got a little girl too. Though she’s a
lot
smaller than you are.”
“Smaller? I like that. I’m always the smallest,” she said, her voice sounding sad. “What’s her name?”
“Rachel,” Carrie answered.
George-Phillip smiled and led them into a sunroom. As they walked in, he said to Dylan, “We’ll be in here, whenever you two want to join us.”
Dylan looked up and said, “Thank you, sir.” His voice was rough.
Jane asked, “Is Rachel a sister?”
Carrie smiled and sat down on a wicker couch, keeping the little girl in her lap. “No, she doesn’t have any sisters yet. I’m her mommy.”
Jane said, “My mommy’s in heaven now.”
George-Phillip looked stricken, his eyes bleak. He whispered, “Pancreatic cancer.”
“I’m so sorry,” Carrie said. She looked back at Jane and whispered, “Sometimes sisters can be like mommies too.”
Andrea slid in next to her and said to Jane, “It’s true. Sometimes they can take you to the zoo. Or give you Band-Aids when you’re hurt. Or get you ice cream, and give you hugs, and take care of you when you cry. Sometimes big sisters do things like that.”
Andrea gave her a meaningful look, as if to say,
I remember.
Then she said, “Carrie was like that for me when I was little, just like you.”
Goddamn it,
Carrie thought, stifling more tears.
“You know, I never thought I would see you—the three of you—in the same room. If only your mother were here,” he said.
Carrie looked up at George-Phillip. “Can you tell me about her?”
George-Phillip tilted his head. “What do you mean?”
Carrie took Andrea’s hand in hers without even thinking. “What I mean is … what we know is a mother who was … erratic. Mentally ill. Sometimes the rage got so bad she would completely lose it. She’d scream at us, and … rarely … would hit us. I want to know why. Why did you fall in love with her? Who was she before … before all that happened?”
George-Phillip’s face took on the bleakest expression she’d ever seen on a man’s face. Jane stirred in Carrie’s lap and said, “Da, may I go play?”
“Of course, Jane. Let’s go find Miss Adriana.” He stood, and said, “Excuse me just a moment.”
As he walked out of the room, Andrea said, “I’m not sure I care what she was like.”
Carrie sighed. “I’m not sure what I want anymore. Except the truth. I want to know the truth. All of it.”
“Do you think he’ll tell us?”
Carrie shrugged. “As much as anyone else in the world will.” Her eyes shifted to the glass and the grounds outside. “So … please tell me … how you ended up here anyway.”
Andrea shrugged. “Alexandra told Dylan to Google George-Phillip. We did—and so we drove over here. Dylan crashed his car into the gate to distract the guards and I climbed over the back wall.”
“It’s a good thing you weren’t an assassin,” Carrie said.
Andrea said, “They caught me before I got to him. But I screamed loud enough he came looking for me.”
The door opened, and George-Phillip walked back in. He smiled and said, “Young Dylan and his wife are still sitting on the couch. They love each other very much, don’t they?”
Carrie smiled. “They do.”
He sat and said, “She reminds me a little bit of her mother too. Though Alexandra does have a look of her father about her.”
Carrie glanced at Andrea, then back at George-Phillip. “He raped her, you know. When he found out I wasn’t his daughter. He beat her nearly to death, and raped her.”
George-Phillip flinched. “I’d have done anything to prevent it,” he said. “I didn’t know until much later. She named her Alexandra as kind of a poke in the eye. Your mother’s a courageous woman, but she’s also been trapped in a prison for many years. I tried to persuade her to leave, but she was always convinced Richard would harm one of you, or her brother.”
“Luis?” Andrea said.
George-Phillip nodded. “I don’t know if it was a real fear or not. But it was enough to keep her entrapped.”
“You understand,” Carrie said, “how difficult this is? Everything we’ve ever believed is upside down.”
He nodded. “I’ll try to give you everything I possibly can. I can’t even imagine the difficulty you face.”
“When did you meet her?”
He smiled. “We met in February of 1984, just a few weeks after your mother arrived in Washington, DC. I was on assignment here at the Embassy then. Though I didn’t live in such luxurious quarters.” He said the last with a wry smile. “My office was next to the boiler in the basement back then.”