The Imperfects Read online

  From the bestselling author of The Bookshop of Yesterdays comes a captivating new novel about a priceless inheritance that leads one family on a life-altering pursuit of the truth.

  The Millers are far from perfect. Estranged siblings Beck, Ashley and Jake find themselves under one roof for the first time in years, forced to confront old resentments and betrayals, when their mysterious, eccentric matriarch, Helen, passes away. But their lives are about to change when they find a secret inheritance hidden among her possessions—the Florentine Diamond, a 137-carat yellow gemstone that went missing from the Austrian Empire a century ago.

  Desperate to learn how one of the world’s most elusive diamonds ended up in Helen’s bedroom, they begin investigating her past only to realize how little they know about their brave, resilient grandmother. As the Millers race to determine whether they are the rightful heirs to the diamond and the fortune it promises, they uncover a past more tragic and powerful than they ever could have imagined, forever changing their connection to their heritage and each other.

  Inspired by the true story of the real, still-missing Florentine Diamond, The Imperfects illuminates the sacrifices we make for family and how sometimes discovering the truth of the past is the only way to better the future.

  Advance Praise for The Imperfects

  “Exquisitely researched... A wonderfully structured multigenerational family drama woven with international intrigue, The Imperfects is a truly beautiful and truly American story full of unspoken history, loss, and hope. Absolutely winning.”

  —J. Ryan Stradal, New York Times bestselling author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest

  “A captivating story about a hilariously dysfunctional family... Part expertly plotted historical mystery, part tender family drama, and part juicy international caper, The Imperfects is an absolute pleasure to read, guaranteed to have readers turning the pages late into the night.”

  —Angie Kim, bestselling author of Miracle Creek

  “Amy Meyerson’s second novel, The Imperfects, is a book that shines as brightly as the jewel at the center of its tale and will leave readers wondering what mysteries might be hidden in their own pasts, waiting to be revealed.”

  —Meghan MacLean Weir, author of The Book of Essie

  “An addictive and beautifully written novel about siblings, family secrets and the unraveling of the real historical mystery of the Florentine Diamond.... I absolutely devoured this novel—a riveting family saga with the pace of a thriller.”

  —Jillian Cantor, bestselling author of The Lost Letter and In Another Time

  “An imperfect family inherits the perfect diamond in this clever tale of secrets, family dynamics, and resilience.”

  —Cynthia Swanson, New York Times bestselling author of The Bookseller

  Also by Amy Meyerson

  The Bookshop of Yesterdays

  Amy Meyerson is the bestselling author of The Bookshop of Yesterdays, which has been translated into eleven languages. She has been published in numerous literary magazines and teaches in the writing department at the University of Southern California, where she completed her graduate work in creative writing. Originally from Philadelphia, she currently lives in Los Angeles.

  AmyMeyerson.com

  The Imperfects

  Amy Meyerson

  For my son, I promise to tell you all the stories I know and to help you discover the ones I don’t.

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Vienna, 1918

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Part Two

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Part Three

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  “O Diamond! Diamond! Thou little knowest

  the mischief done!”

  —Sir Isaac Newton

  Vienna, 1918

  She keeps a journal to forget as much as to remember. She writes to remember the taste of Istvan’s mouth, the rumble of his laughter. To memorialize the vows they made to each other, which were real even if they were not before God. She writes to forget how it ended in violence. To banish the memory of escaping with the children, leaving him alone to fight a surging mob.

  Her words are fast and jumbled. They aren’t meant to be reread, to document the end of an era, the fall of an empire, the collapse of a romance. They are for her, right now, in these early-morning hours when everyone else in the palace is asleep, so her thoughts drift to Istvan and the child inside her.

  She stumbles midsentence at the sound of footsteps approaching her chamber. Her first thought is that the men with guns are back. Heart pounding, she clutches the journal to her chest. Light trickles in from the hall as the toe of a boot inches into her bedroom. She clings to the journal as though her memories of Istvan will protect her. This is it, she thinks. The men with guns will get her this time.

  A slender figure enters her room, his face backlit by the pale light from the hall, shadowing his features. As he approaches, he motions for her to stay quiet.

  “We must go.” His German is eloquent. Aristocratic. Familiar. “We must leave now.”

  He steps closer and she sees the outline of his ears, the way they stick out like a child’s.

  “Your Imperial Majesty?” Her body relaxes, then tightens with a new discomfort. He’s a gentle man, this emperor. Faithful to the crown and his wife. Still, he shouldn’t be in her bedroom.

  She rests her journal on the bed and stands too quickly, having to sit back down. By now, she should be used to the swell of her stomach, the way abrupt movements spark pains in her pelvis, but every morning she experiences it anew, the secret that she won’t be able to hide much longer.

  The emperor’s face always surprises her. His sad eyes. The thick mustache he looks too young to grow. He looks impossibly young now as he rests his hand on her shoulder. The contact startles her, and he pulls away like he might catch something. He knows. Of course he knows. The empress must have told him. Just yesterday, she’d stood when the empress appeared in the nursery, and her skirt caught the contour of her round stomach. She watched as the truth landed on the empress’s face. The look of horror that she was with child and unwed. Of betrayal.

  “The car is waiting. We must leave now.” He motions for her to hurry.

  After she follows him into the hall, she realizes she’s only wearing a nightgown and has left her journal on the bed.

  She turns back toward the room. “I need a coat.”

  “Take mine.” He lifts the black jacket from his shoulders and wraps it around her, the wool thick and heavy. He signals for her to walk ahead of him down the dimly lit hall.

  “The children,” she says as they pass the nursery.

  He nudges her to keep walking. Fear animates her limbs, propelling her forward.

  The halls of the palace are eerily silent. They have been this way since she arrived. The sentries have returned to Hungary, the palace gendarmes have dispersed in Vienna. The Life Guards, despite the lifelong oaths of lo
yalty they took, have abandoned their posts. The footmen, the chambermaids, the doorkeepers, all gone. Cadets have taken their place, fewer than there were before and younger. Two of these young men wait at the door to the courtyard. Another four stand at the bottom of the stairs where the emperor’s personal car is waiting. She’s never ridden in it before.

  The sky is brightening with dawn, blanketed in mist that makes the gray stone courtyard look like a painting, slightly blurred, romantic. The emperor descends the stairs, and she follows as though sleepwalking.

  A cadet opens the car door, ready to assist her into the backseat. The driver stares ahead like he is as mechanical as the engine. She walks up to the car, but the emperor stops a few paces back. She looks at him and realizes that she’s expected to leave alone.

  “Please, no,” she begs. It’s becoming clear. The family does not need to leave, not yet. Only her. She pleads, refusing the cadet’s hand. Please, don’t make her leave. The children, she loves them. They need her.

  The cadet looks uncertainly at the emperor, who shakes his head, indicating that he shouldn’t force her into the car.

  These days, she fatigues easily. Chasing the children around the nursery or strolling beneath the pergolas of the Privy Gardens leaves her body too tired for sleep. Her refusal to get into the car ends quickly. She reaches for the cadet’s hand. He stares at her, this fresh-faced boy, and she knows what he’s thinking. What will become of her? To this she adds, what will become of the child inside her?

  Once she’s seated, the cadet shuts the door and steps away. Before the driver turns over the engine, the emperor approaches the open-air car. Only the damp, cool morning separates her from the emperor. He hesitates, and she remembers she is still wearing his coat. She begins to take it off.

  “Keep it,” he says.

  She wraps it tightly around herself.

  “Do you have somewhere to go?”

  “I have a cousin.” She has not seen her cousin in five years, not since she got the job at the palace. He is her only family, this cousin. He will take her in because she will not give him a choice.

  In the time they’ve been outside, the sky has lightened to peach along the horizon. It has that promise of a new day, but she is not hopeful for this day or the one that follows. She knows she will not see the children again. They will assume she abandoned them like everyone else did. She stares at the emperor’s conflicted face and knows he will not reconsider. After all, this was not his decision. It was the empress’s. He may rule the crumbling empire, but in this task, he is just the messenger.

  With rushed movements, he reaches into his right pocket and lurches toward her, clutching something bulky.

  “Take this,” he says, leaning into the car and burrowing his hand into the pocket of his coat that she still wears.

  She does not see what he gives her, only feels its weight. It’s heavy. Metal. Cumbersome against her thigh. He steps back, and the driver starts the engine. The car bounces down the gravel road to the eastern gate. She glances back. The trees lining the drive create a tunnel with the emperor at the end, waiting in front of his sprawling yellow palace. He does not wave. He does not turn away. She watches him until the palace disappears from sight. Only then does she reach into the pocket to discover what he’s given her.

  Part One

  One

  The email hits the Millers’ in-box at 4:07 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, with news that Helen Auerbach has died. Ashley, the eldest of Helen’s three grandchildren, is shuttling her kids between school and extracurricular activities—soccer for her nine-year-old son, ballet for her eleven-year-old daughter. She hates how gendered their hobbies are. Why can’t Tyler dance? Lydia kick balls? When she poses such questions, both children look slightly embarrassed for her, like she has mustard on the tip of her nose. Between school drop-offs and pickups, team practices and music lessons, her husband Ryan’s dry cleaning, grocery shopping, and volunteering at the animal shelter, Ashley eats one to two meals a day in her car. Mustard on her nose is always a possibility.

  Minutes before the email arrives, Ashley is daydreaming about that restorative hour where she will have the house to herself, her children ensconced in their predictable hobbies, her husband still at work in Manhattan, the dinner she’s bought at the farmers’ market, but will tell her family she’s cooked, wrapped in tin foil on the kitchen counter. She’ll pour a glass of wine and draw a bath. Ashley has never been the type of person who’s needed alone time. In fact, she’s always been somewhat afraid of it. She’s never been a worrier, either. Lately, a bath here or a walk there has become a necessary escape from constantly having to pretend that everything is fine. During that peaceful, reprieving hour, she’ll breathe, reminding herself that it’s still too early to know what will happen to her husband.

  From the backseat of her SUV, Ashley hears her daughter shriek and looks up in time to spot her son’s fist let go of a tuft of Lydia’s hair. Then another scream, this time from her son, followed by, “Mom! Lydia punched me.” Ashley would never admit it, but she admires how Tyler always starts it yet always manages to position himself as the injured party. It’s a quality he shares with his father. Ashley thinks it will suit him well in life until she remembers her husband’s current situation.

  “Tyler, leave your sister alone,” she snaps, making eye contact with her dejected son through the rearview mirror before immediately feeling guilty. She isn’t a yeller, at least not with her children. As she starts to apologize, her cell phone chimes. Her eyes drift toward the console where her phone rests in the cup holder. She squints to read the notification through the cracks cobwebbing her screen thanks to a drop months before.

  Helen is dead.

  That can’t be right. She lifts the phone and there it is, the subject of a new email, announcing her grandmother’s death.

  “Mom!” Tyler’s voice echoes with urgency. Ashley looks up from her phone as her SUV glides toward the sedan still idling at the red light. She slams the breaks, but not before her bumper crunches into the car ahead of hers.

  * * *

  Deborah Miller—not Debbie or Deb or Debra but a trisyllabic Deb-or-ah—is being pricked by dozens of needles minutes before she learns that her mother has passed. Chester, her acupuncturist-recently-turned-lover, pulls each needle out with a flourish that sends chills to every part of Deborah’s body. She waits for him to take her on the table from behind, but the whole session has been dishearteningly professional, and she starts to wonder if she invented their romance. Deborah ran into Chester while she was on a blind date with a recent divorcé that hadn’t been going well. Quickly falling into the maternal role, she asked the divorcé about his new bachelor pad, his new beard, his new sports car, tuning out his answers as she swore to herself she would never in a million years be set up again. As her date rambled about his morning running routine—another new—Deborah spotted a man seated alone at the bar. His ponytail cascaded down the back of his suede sports coat. Desiring a glimpse of his face, she peered into the mirror behind the bar. She’d never seen Chester without his white acupuncturist coat. Suddenly, it hit her just how beautiful he was. He looked up and held her gaze through the mirror, as if he was finally seeing her, too. She mouthed, Help me, and he smiled devilishly before walking over to her table.

  That night they hadn’t even made it out of the parking lot, so strong was their desire for each other. Now, three weeks and several romantic encounters later, he leaves her naked on the acupuncture table, not even a wandering finger as he reports that he’ll see her in the reception area. When she emerges, fully clothed, he tells her it will be seventy-five dollars. Deborah hesitates, causing him to say the full price again. Seventy-five dollars. He smiles while he waits for her to pay, no devilishness about it. Deborah hands over her credit card, stunned, bruised, and hoping beyond all hope that her card won’t be maxed out. As Chester turns away to run her card, her phone buz
zes. Helen is dead.

  Helen is dead?

  Almost every day of her sixty-five years, Deborah has dreaded her mother’s death. As a child, when it was just Helen and Deborah, she woke each morning in a panic—What if mom is dead?—until she heard her mother rummaging in the kitchen downstairs. As Deborah grew older and Helen’s body never suffered the smallest of scares—not a benign lump, a broken bone, a treatable form of cancer—Deborah feared it would catch up to her mother all at once. One day, Helen would be dead. But she hadn’t expected that day to be today, not while she is fretting about her credit limit and Chester’s indifference toward her. Before she knows it, she’s crying. Chester eyes her, annoyed, and she wants to shout, Get over yourself. This has nothing to do with you. Only it does have something to do with him because she wants him to hold her and instead he’s holding a receipt for her to sign, his irritation palpable. This makes her cry harder, over her mother who should not have died today, over the loss of the best lay she’s had in years, over the fact that on top of everything else, she’s going to have to find a new acupuncturist.

  * * *

  Jake, the middle Miller child, receives the email a few minutes after he is supposed to be back from his lunch break. He eats the same thing during every shift: a carne asada burrito from the taco stand across the street from the Trader Joe’s where he works. Rico, who works the register, always charges Jake for a taco instead of burrito, provided Jake shares his joint with him. Jake is happy to comply. As often as he indulges, Jake never smokes alone. It’s a line he’s drawn that he believes keeps him on the right side of having a problem. Recently, he’s traded the joint for a cannabis-oil vape pen. His girlfriend, Kristi, was insistent. If he wants to continue smoking daily—more like hourly, not that he corrects her—he has to give up the fresh bud for something easier on his lungs. At least she hasn’t tried to make him quit.