There was champagne at the dinner table the night after Lili was born. They had each been to see her that afternoon, except Angus, who said he preferred to wait to meet her until she was old enough to drink champagne with him. After a careful inspection of every inch of her, including her fingers and toes, Augusta pronounced her “very pretty” and added “surprisingly,” given who her father was. She said she was relieved to see that she didn’t look Italian. The baby was very fair like her mother. Gwyneth could see that the baby was going to be a towhead like both of her own daughters. And Gwyneth liked to say that Sybil looked related to them, and Caroline was just as fair. Bert finally relented when he saw his oldest daughter holding his first grandchild. Bettina suddenly seemed older and more mature as she held her daughter. She kept staring down at the tiny, perfectly formed features, as though wondering who she was and wanting to get to know her. She was responsible for another person now, and it had subtly changed her, even overnight. She thought about what it would have been like if Tony were alive, if he would have been happy, or disappointed it wasn’t a boy. Bettina was happy the baby was a girl, it would be easier for her.
When Sybil came to visit her, Bettina wanted to get up and walk around the room. She felt stiff in the bed after the rigors of the night before, but the nurse wouldn’t let her get up, much to Sybil’s surprise. They all insisted that mother and infant stay in bed and keep warm. There was a roaring fire in the grate, and Bettina looked restless. She was healthy and young, and felt better than she had for all nine months of her pregnancy, which had been miserable. The one thing she knew was that she never wanted to go through it again. Even the agony of childbirth had been worth it to get the baby out of her, and be free of her at last. It had been a time of unhappiness and deep grief for her, with her family’s stern disapproval and Tony’s death.
The next day, Bettina wrote a letter to Tony’s family, telling them that the baby had been born, and that it was a girl, and asking if they would like to see her. It was a respect she felt she owed the man she had married, however briefly the marriage had lasted and how slightly they knew each other. She had been carried along on the wave of girlish emotions and romantic illusions, and she saw now that there was no reality to them. She had married a man she barely knew, and borne a child after one night with him. He felt like a stranger to her now, in spite of Lili, although she was sad that he had died. She wondered if they would have loved each other, after they knew each other, had he lived, or if their families would have prevailed and pulled them apart. Fate had done it for them, and now she had his child.
She felt no bond to the baby yet, and had confessed it to her mother, who said she would in time. She said that the pain of childbirth often made for a slow start, but Bettina’s memory of it wasn’t that it had been terrible. It had been worse than she’d expected, but she already felt better, and what shocked her was that she and Lili were bound to each other for life. It was an awesome responsibility, for a stranger’s child. She wondered who Lili would be when she grew up, who she would look like, what sort of person she would become. Augusta had said that she looked like a Butterfield, and Bertrand agreed.
Bettina had Phillips drop her letter off at the Salvatores’ restaurant. She had written it to his father, Enrico, as the head of the family, essentially asking if they wished to see the child, since she was their son’s daughter. His response came by mail several days later and was harsh. His granddaughter’s arrival didn’t change his feelings toward her, Bettina, or the Butterfields, and he said he wanted nothing to do with any of them. He was still furious over Bert calling Tony and his family unsuitable, and the elder Salvatore would never forgive them for it. And even the baby didn’t alter his decision.
He told Bettina in his response that his son hadn’t been good enough for them when he was alive, and now she and her daughter weren’t good enough for them. He told her there would be no money, which she hadn’t asked for, and not to contact them again. He said that he had four grandsons and no interest in a granddaughter. Bert’s rejection had cut deep and now Tony’s father was retaliating in kind with angry words. It made Bettina glad that she had decided not to give the baby their name. She owed them nothing more. He had rejected her and Lili in every possible way, beyond any doubt. It gave Lili a lonely start in life, with no link to her father, but in the end it was easier that way. Bettina could leave any sense of obligation to them and the past behind. The letter was ugly, but also a relief. She had written to them out of a sense of duty, wanting to do the right thing. The Salvatores had been expunged from her life now, and her daughter’s. Bert was relieved too when she showed him the letter, which only confirmed to him how vulgar they were.
“It’s better this way,” Bettina said to Sybil when she told her about the letter from Tony’s father. “I don’t want to see them again either. I only wrote to him to be fair to Tony. I thought he would want me to do that. Lili doesn’t need them. She has us. And they’re not nice people.” He had been almost as clear about it when she went to see them and told them she was pregnant. They had made it obvious that they didn’t care. And Enrico had spoken for Tony’s mother too. She had never reached out to Bettina after Tony’s death, almost as though they blamed her for stealing him from them, instead of destiny.
Sybil was sorry for her. It was a sad thing to bear a child without a father, and the future wouldn’t be easy. Lili would always wonder about her father’s family and why they didn’t want to see her. Bettina would have to come up with some excuse or explanation. At dinner, Sybil told Blake that the Salvatores had rejected Bettina and their grandchild, and he thought it was simpler too.
“I was afraid they might be a problem, or want money,” Blake told her honestly.
“They were afraid of the same thing,” she said with a sigh.
“She never should have done it,” Bert said, looking stern again, thinking about it, when he mentioned it to Blake.