“She planned to run away with him,” Nadia persisted. “So she sent him a message, telling him to meet her at the Luzhnetsky bridge.”
“She didn’t care that she’d be leaving us!” Rashel cried, her eyes bright with tears. “She didn’t care that she’d be leaving me!”
“Why didn’t he come?” Nadia asked.
However, even as she asked the question, she realized the answer.
“Because you never gave him the message,” Nadia guessed.
Rashel took a long, shuddering breath.
The guilt of thirty-five years was brimming over.
“Papa locked Samara in her room,” she whispered. “He put guards on the door. But he let me go talk to her. Samara trusted me. She gave me the egg and a letter. She told me to ride on my bicycle to the Markov’s house and knock on the door. I brought Zavier the egg, just as she asked. But I threw away the letter. I told him that Samara was going away to Paris, to marry Petya. I told him that she had sent the egg as a farewell gift.”
“And then what happened?” Nadia asked.
“That night, she climbed out her bedroom window. I was sleeping on the floor of her bed, and I followed after her. She had no coat or boots, because those were downstairs in the hallway closet. So, she went in just her nightgown and a sweater, and her slippers. It was snowing so heavily we could hardly ride our bicycles. When we got to the bridge, she stood in the middle of it, watching for Zavier.”
Rashel took another long, shuddering sigh.
“We stood there for hours. It was so cold, and only getting colder by the minute. We were shivering and shaking. But she wouldn’t leave. She kept saying, ‘He’ll come, I know he will.’ A hundred times I almost confessed to her that I hadn’t given him the letter—he had no idea she was waiting for him. But every time she asked me, ‘Did he promise to come?’ I just nodded and said, ‘Yes, he promised.’ Eventually, I thought we were both going to die, or at the very least lose all of our toes. I think Samara would have kept waiting until she froze, but she finally noticed my teeth chattering. The hope went out of her, and she said, ‘We better get you home.’”
“And that was it?” Nadia asked, so breathless she could hardly speak. “She thought he abandoned her?”
“That’s right. The next morning, she told Papa that she would marry Petya Turgenev.”
“And did you ever tell her the truth?” Nadia asked.
“Yes,” Rashel said, her lips white and stiff. “I admitted it to her, ten years later. But by then, you had been born, and Zavier Markov had also married and had a son. So, she knew there was nothing to be done. But she never spoke to me again after that. Even when she brought you here to visit Mama and Papa, she just looked through me like I was a ghost.”
Nadia wanted to shout at Rashel that she deserved it, that she’d broken Samara’s heart. She’d let her believe that the boy she loved had deserted her.
And she’d let Zavier Markov believe it as well. He had never found the note inside the egg. He never knew about the letter.
He must have thought it was sweet revenge to make use of Samara’s daughter, the way he’d been used and abandoned.
However, Nadia was keenly aware that if Rashel hadn’t lied to Samara, Nadia herself would never have been born. And neither would Nikolai. Their very existence was the result of their parents’ tragedy.
It seemed hypocritical to rage at her aunt for something that she could not truly wish undone.
So she only sighed, and said, “I wish I’d known this while my mother was still alive.”
She wondered if it would have made Samara happy, seeing Nadia and Nikolai together. Righting the wrongs of the past.
But, of course, they weren’t actually together anymore.
Because of a mistake.
Because of a misunderstanding.
Nadia twisted the ruby engagement ring on the third finger of her left hand. Even in her anger, she hadn’t stripped it from her hand.
“Excuse me,” she said abruptly to Aunt Rashel.
She ran back to her mother’s old room, throwing the egg onto the bed. Then she slipped on some shoes and snatched up her purse.
She dashed down the stairs, planning to call a cab and drive to Nikolai’s house.
