Three days later, Roger was standing in the living room of his apartment on Central Park West, gazing in the distance, beyond the trees, at the buildings rising on Fifth Avenue. He could almost see his wife's apartment from his vantage point.

He sighed and went to his mini-bar, pouring himself a scotch and loosening his tie. He had made absolutely no progress in convincing his wife to give him a divorce. Each time he tried to discuss it; she either burst into tears, yelled or threw things at him (preferably costly items). If he insisted on leaving her, she said, her lawyers would suck him dry. That meant losing control of BlueHorizon, his life work, and she knew that he would never agree to it, if only for the sake of his employees.

She has me by the balls and she knows it, Roger thought before draining his drink. What was worse, she had smelled the existence of another woman as soon as he came to see her three nights ago, which had made her even more furious and bitter. Now Roger's frustration was growing with each passing day, and he was starting to wonder if he was ever going to be able to extricate himself from this joke of a marriage.

He crossed over to the hall to call Holly on the phone, but was interrupted by the doorbell. He looked at his watch, frowning; it was almost midnight. Probably my dear wife, ready to fight some more, he assumed as he answered the door. He was therefore very surprised to find Holly, standing haggardly on the other side.

"Holly! What are you doing here? Are you ok?" he said, taking her bag and leading her to the living room.

"I came straight from the airport, I hope I'm not intruding," she replied, sounding exhausted.

"Of course not, in fact I was about to call you when you came in." He looked at her more closely and lifted her chin. "You don't look so good."

She sat down in an armchair while Roger fixed her a drink. "I haven't been sleeping that well in the last few days."

Roger turned around, concerned. "Because of me?"

"Well, yes, sort of." She swallowed hard and glanced at him, looking slightly panicked.

He crossed the room to hand her the drink and sat beside her. "You're beginning to scare me now. What's going on?"

"There's something that I have to tell you; something that I should have told you the other day."

Roger laughed nervously. "What? You're married too?"

She tried to laugh in return, but a strangled sob came out instead. "There was another reason, besides my dad, why I stayed so long in Switzerland."

"What reason? It's okay, you can tell me anything."

"I was pregnant."


It took Roger a couple of seconds to find his voice back. "With whose baby?" he said hoarsely.

A lone tear streamed down Holly's face. "Yours."

Roger leaned heavily back on the couch, feeling the blood draining form his face. "You got an abortion?"

"No. I gave it up."

"To who?"

"I don't know," she said, miserable.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" he suddenly yelled.

"I know that you're mad, but please just…"

"Mad? Mad doesn't begin to cover it! How could you not tell me about this?"

"I tried to tell you later, but I couldn't find you."

"Well, you should have tried harder," Roger shouted, almost suffocating with anger. Holly got up, wiping her tears away. "I can't talk to you if you're going to be this way, Roger. I better go."

"Oh, no! You don't get to leave now!"

She turned around abruptly, poking her finger in his chest. "I can do whatever I damn well please, and I won't stay here to be yelled at. You don't know anything about the situation. You have no idea what I went through," she said, also raising her voice.

Her outburst seemed to deflate his own rage somewhat, and he took a few steps back. "You're right. Please sit down, and tell me," he said, trying to control himself.

She looked at him warily and finally decided to sit back down on the couch, while he poured himself another scotch and went to sit by the window overlooking the park. Holly took a deep breath, clutch at her glass and began her story.

"When I found out that I was pregnant the fall after I left you, I was devastated. I thought you didn't care about me, and I was scared of raising a child by myself. I did considered getting an abortion, but before I could make up my mind, one of the maids realized that I was pregnant and told my dad. He was absolutely against me getting an abortion. Maybe he thought that being pregnant would prevent me from running back to you; I wouldn't put anything past him now. He decided that I should give it up, and made all the arrangements with an adoption agency."

She paused to take a sip of drink, and glanced at Roger, who kept staring resolutely out the window.

"A week before I was due, he sent me to this private clinic in St-Moritz. I was completely alone. I think that at some point, my mom suspected something when we talked on the phone, but he wouldn't let me tell her either. There was only one person that I could trust; it was a nurse from the clinic, Sarah. She was about my age and she took pity on me I suppose. I told her everything and when I decided that I would keep the baby anyway, she said that she would help me get out of there."

"You wanted to keep it?" Roger asked, still looking outside at the city lights.

"Yes, when it came down to it, I couldn't give it away, even if I thought that you'd want nothing to do with it. But I went into labor early, and the doctor gave me a sedative. I barely remember giving birth; they wouldn't even let me hold her before they took her away."

"Her?" Roger said in a trembling voice.

"Yes, it was a girl," Holly replied softly. "And I never saw her again. For weeks, I begged my father to tell me where she was, but he said that the agency had already found her a family and that she was gone for good. I never cried like I cried then, Roger. I was heartbroken. It took me months before I even considered going back to school, but what else could I do? There was nowhere else to go. There was nothing and no one waiting for be back home, or so I thought. So, little by little, I started living again and I tried to put it behind me. After a while, my dad started to cut me some slack, and that's when I first considered getting in touch with you. I thought that you deserved to know. I soon found out, however, that you were engaged to Peggy. Oh yes, I knew all about it!" she exclaimed bitterly.

"I convinced myself that it was better to leave you alone. I thought it would only cause trouble between you two, and for what? Our baby was gone. I guess you could say that there was my mistake, and maybe you would be right, but at the time, I really thought that it was for the best. So I dropped it, finished college and came back to Springfield. You had moved to New York by then, and I met and married Ed. Then life just went on and it all just faded into the background; I had Ethan and I started working at the journal. When my father died, though, it reopened all the old wounds, and I tried to find her again, and I tried to find you too, but it was as if you had both vanished into thin air."

"When was this?" Roger said, finally turning to face her.

"It must have been in 1983."

"I was with the Agency, that's why you couldn't find me."

They both stayed silent for a while; not a sound could be heard except the faint honking of the cars down below. "I'm not trying to excuse what I did, Roger. I cheated you out of a life with your child, and for that, I will always be sorry. I did try to find you, but I just couldn't. I hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive me someday," Holly concluded, getting up.

She was almost at the door when Roger called her back.

"Don't go yet. I'm still mad, it's true, but I'm more mad at the situation, and Stanley, than I am at you."

A sigh of relief escaped her lips. "For years, I felt guilty and ashamed by my lack of courage. But telling you this, tonight, I realized how young and alone I was. I never stood a chance against Dad."

"No, I don't think you did."

"So, what now?" Holly asked, unsure if she should stay or go.

Roger went to his desk and pulled a pen and a notepad out of a drawer. "Now, you will tell me everything that you know about our daughter. Anything that could help us find her."

She looked up, not daring to hope that it was a possibility. "You think that there might me a chance? We have nothing to go on."

"Well, we won't know unless we try, right? And with my contacts at the Agency, I stand a much better chance than you ever did alone. So, go ahead, tell me what you do know."

"I gave birth to her on May 31, 1971. What was the name of the clinic again? Damn! It was a French name. Clinique prénatale de St-Moritz, that's it. It was in the mountains, very upscale, very private."

"What about the nurse that befriended you? What was her last name?"

"Sarah Goncourt. I never saw her again either, because my father had me rushed out of the clinic while I was still half out of it, and then I couldn't trace her when I tried. She might know something thought."

"Yes, I'm going to start with her. Hopefully she'll remember you."

Holly stared absently at the window, and Roger could tell her mind had gone back twenty-three years ago to that clinic. "If you find her," she finally said, "Tell her that I was the redhead who wanted to name her daughter Christina."